A/N: And you all thought I forgot to update today! Nope, I'll just scrape by on the skin of my teeth to get this update out. I was utterly exhausted today - got up at 5 - and only just now finished all I was suppose to accomplish. Sleep is beckoning to this weary soul.

The second segment has two quote excerpts because I couldn't settle on just one of them.

In the Avatar Universe we don't much know the last names of the characters - I believe the only one we know of is Toph because her family is supposed to be part of the Upper Class where she's from. So, I made up a last name for Suki. Her name, mentioned in this chapter, is (Ms.) Suki Eltsina. Now you won't be confused :)

This chapter is long, again.

Disclaimer: No, I do not own or have any connection to Avatar: The Last Airbender or it's apparent franchise beyond being a fan/viewer. This is purely my own opinion expressed through writings.

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Tell all the truth but tell it slant,

Success in circuit lies,

Too bright for our infirm delight

The truth's superb surprise;

As lightning to the children eased

With explanation kind,

The truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind.

~'Tell All the Truth' poem, by Emily Dickinson


Pacing down the length of his office, Zuko shook his head. "And you're telling me about this now? In the middle of an important party!" He glared at the Colonel, the nervous messenger and then his Uncle who was the only one to sit still and calm. Iroh was always calm in stressful situations. Zuko was partly envious of it.

"Your Highness, we did not expect the problem to escalate so much! We are moving troops there now and Ambassador Maalai has been dispatched to arrive within the day." Colonel Jaipal wiped his brow with a handkerchief.

"This is our own nation!" Zuko snapped. "Tell Ambassador Maalai that she is not needed and she can remain here, in the capital, with her family until next assignment." He stopped by the window, looking out over the brown rooftops stretching miles into the distance. The Palace sat high on a hill, over looking much of the town. "We need to find a peace-keeper for this. One of our own. But we must not send someone like an Ambassador. God help us, that will only make this worse." He sighed, suddenly feeling tired. Zuko's lips shaped into a stern line as he contemplated all of his options.

The messenger, a boy by the name of Hyun-Shik, raised his hand tentively. Iroh gestured for him to speak. "Um, sir- I mean Highness, um, there's always the option of, uh..."

Zuko turned and narrowed his eyes. "Just spit it out."

"We could always bring one of Azula's recognizable conspirators to ease the people that you have unifyed the nation." He spoke quickly in one breath.

Iroh took this moment to speak up. "The Avatar and that lovely lady, Miss Eltsina, have mentioned maintaining contact with Ty Lee. As I recall, she was very valuable against Azula's attacks." He pointed out. The messenger looked over gratefully at the other man for tying together what he had stuttered to say.

Zuko turned back to the window, hands clasped behind his back, to think for a minute. No one in the room dared speak. He was glad.

He didn't want this rebellion led by those good-for-nothing zealots to get out of hand - and definitely not be known publicly. Word was already spreading quickly enough but it was still only gossiped about in some slum streets. Nothing of a concern - for now. Zuko recognized that his plate was very full - getting the nation and all of it's assets, people and positions back on track kept him busy enough. Trying to keep the peace right now was fragile. Most of the people in his country were still wary, having seen generations of their families get pulled off to war. Half of them hated him on some level. They didn't know him, but they knew he was the Fire Lord. Two generations before Zuko of the Fire Lord title led to a disasterous reputation. He was surprised his nation had stayed intact this long - even as pulled apart as it is between people and government.

Zuko inaudibly sighed.

He needed someone to mediate - who was easy to like, part of the recent history, and therefore still in their minds; and most importantly, one of them. Firebending was the highest level a person could be - the highest gift they could have. The citizens still agreed on that, at least. Zuko remembered that Ty Lee had joined that group Suki had been part of - the Kyoshi warriors. That wasn't controversial, though, and tended to draw more sympathetic minds than hostile ones. Defenders of a lonely island all but cut off from their nation's capital under seige? And the defending warriors all female? Jackpot for sympathy.

Besides, these rebellers - even their insane anarchist leaders - knew Ty Lee and her family well. The harming of her wasn't much a concern because it was very unlikely to happen. If anything, they'd harm the messenger - which they always had precausions against anyway.

Looking back at them, he nodded to Iroh in silent thanks. Zuko shifted his eyes to address the other two. "I want you to contact Ty Lee - wherever she may be - immediately and provide travel for her to come the capital. I want to brief her myself before sending her off to that isolated region. Get my staff to set up an official meeting with her - I don't want to be interrupted. Go." The messenger hurried out of the room.

He then turned to address Colonel Jaipal. "Continue sending troops - I want no less than four thousand in the area. But don't camp them on the streets of the towns; especially not those of Natsuno or Rhange. Stay in the hills and mountains with a few select and non-threatening groups - small ones - in the towns. They wear normal clothes; blend. Spies.

"I don't want them to think we're invading or even considering invading. Just that we're making our presence known." Jaipal nodded. "Announce that Ty Lee will be visiting them under the pre-text of donating to their local region's orphanage. Her true purpose will be evolved later. Lastly, start contacting and branching out our spies. If they even contemplate taking those towns hostage or making a move against any of the troops, I want to hear about and know everything from the person, the place, the time, what group and how many. Dismissed."

The Colonel walked out and shut the door. Zuko sunk into his chair and put his head in his hands. He muttered to himself for several long minutes, wondering how he was going to deal with his first crisis - and an in-house one too.

Hearing a throat clearing, Zuko looked up and straightened only to realize that his Uncle was still in the room. He'd completely forgotten about Iroh. It was easier than most would think - he could sense his Uncle's presence and, at the same time, forget it easily. They were together for so many years, it became instinct in a way.

"I need to speak with you, my boy." Iroh said low and solemly. Zuko nodded lazily for him to continue. His nerves, however, were on high alert. Only a few times had his Uncle called him 'my boy' and one of those was during Ursa's being announced a traitor by his father and again when Iroh took him under his wing once banished. The troubled feelings those two simple words brought back stirred in his stomach.

Iroh folded his hands on his lap and stayed still as a statue. "There are some things you don't know about your mother. I know about your... investigation into her location. You, of course, told me. What I haven't told you before now is that I have had my own on the side. For years."

He didn't waver when his nephew went from shocked to reeling to simmering, the clenched jaw included. Zuko jerked his head at the older man and Iroh continued to speak. It was several minutes, however, before the Fire Lord even moved.

Iroh explained about the history and knowledge he had of Ursa and her marriage to his brother - and what happened before she left. The full version. Iroh also went to great care to explain his own investigation which he'd had going at an absent-minded pace for years until just recently. His main lead was tracking her finances - even that was not a straight trail. The newest development he had was in direct corolation to Zuko's own search.

He finally finished and paushed as his nephew looked over across the room. Zuko was more open with his emotions around Iroh but he still was curt and closed them off fast. The same as he was doing now. Iroh cleared his throat and the young man's attention snapped back to him. "She's your mother and I am sharing this with you because you have a right to know. And, because there's a solid lead here. It was never my place to intrude and shoulder you with this knowledge. But now... What do you want to do?"

Zuko calmed himself by looking towards to window once more. There was only one in the room but it was long and rectangular, flanking the wall left of his desk. The moon was rising higher now, level with the window. He was pissed off at his Uncle but nothing else could be said of it. A part of him - a small part - understood. Zuko remembered how set he was on recovering his father's good graces that he had put no more thought to his mother doing those years of banishment than he had his meals. Considering there was always a servant for that... well, the point is obvious.

His anger was slowly diminishing as he processed this new information. So much he didn't know... so much he thought to be a finished puzzle piece was actually incomplete. Missing a side, an angle, that changed the whole interpretation. Zuko turned back to his Uncle. "I'm going to put my best, most discrete, people on this. And we're going to follow it - together. I have no doubt you have more contacts than I. If you have been following it this long, you should be there with me. You deserve to know, too.

"If there's anything else you know then tell me now while I understand why you kept it from me."

Iroh nodded at Zuko's carefully chosen words and opened his mouth to begin a lengthy conversation once more.

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The night is only a sort of carbon paper,

Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars

Letting in the light, peephole after peephole -

A bonewhite light, like death, behind all things.

Under the eyes of the stars and the moon's rictus

He suffers his desert pillow, sleeplessness

Stretching its fine, irritating sand in all directions.

1st stanza, 'Insomniac', by Sylvia Plath


Wandering voices in the air

And murmurs in the world

Speak what I cannot declare,

Yet cannot all withhold.

When the shadow fell on the lake,

The whirlwind in ripples wrote

Air-bells of fortune that shine and break,

And omens above thought.

But the meanings cleave to the lake,

Cannot be carried in book or urn;

Go thy ways now, come later back,

On waves and hedges still they burn.

These the fates of men forecast,

Of better men than live to-day;

If who can read them comes at last

He will spell in the sculpture,'Stay.'

#13, 14, 15 and 16th stanza - 'My Garden', Ralph Waldo Emerson


The moon raised brightly, providing un-interrupted light in it's half cycle shine. The hot, humid air was only barely interrupted by the sublte cool breeze wafting from the South Pole. Katara walked lazily out into the spotty grass valley below and behind the palace walls. There was nothing built behind the Palace. This area is completely private; and she loved it for that. Her slippers had been abandoned in her room for precisely to purpose of being able to feel the grass on her feet.

It had been awhile since she'd done that; felt the soft grass bend and lie flat underneath her soles, feel the blades whisp all down her feet's spine. Katara had found this place shortly after they'd first arrived - seeing it from the balcony above the meditation room. Hardly ever did you see grass naturally in the Fire Nation - something that she had verifyed personally recently. That's not true, Katara thought. Grass doesn't grow much around towns. This land can be as lush as any of the others...

Sometimes her thoughts drifted on how weird it was to live - although temporarily - at the Fire Lord's palace.

She and Sokka had found Aang nearly two years ago. Ever since, her life had been led by the mission of protecting and helping Aang, so he could save the world from the permanent destruction of the Fire Nation. Katara had already hated them. They ripped her mother away with so much as a scorching burn and maniacal laugh. All because her mother said she was a waterbender - not a threat at all. So it wasn't hard for her to fight against them with a venom inside herself she hadn't known capable of posessing. Harboring it for her whole life. Innocence was taken away from her from nearly the beginning and she resented that, too.

The very monarch of the Fire Nation represented to heart of what she was protecting the young Avatar against - especially when she learned their prince was personally hunting them down. So many close calls and in all she had seen the look in his eyes that she saw in the other Fire Nation soldiers. A lifeless, robotic pursuit that controlled his every fiber. At first she hadn't known he was banished - that added a whole new slant and perspective to consider that she hadn't bothered to recognize for a long time.

Flying from city to city, region to region, nation to nation, in the pursuit of teaching Aang all the elements truly exhausted her. Katara felt it now, after it was over. And yet she recognized that the fight - the true fight of maintaining peace - was just beginning. It was one that would never truly be over but rather lying in the background like some sort of stalking animal, waiting for the perfect strike. Peace is a temporary thing. That she came to learn all too easily.

Katara heard the drying grass crunch long before the shadow fell over her face. She already knew who it was; her heart always seemed to stay calm when it was someone she knew. Tilting her head back, she saw Zuko standing above her, eyes flashing with too many emotions it was hard to decipher. He wasn't looking at her, directly, but not away, either. She patted beside her and he layed back, staring but not seeing the stars. Thinking. The same as she was doing. Katara cursed at times because of how her brain seemed to have the inability to turn off and enjoy.

Several long minutes passed with neither speaking but enjoying the company. Katara decided to speak her something that had been nagging at her, a thought that seemed to hang over any supposedly happy occasion - such as this evening. It came out in a harsh whisper. "This happiness I'm feeling - we're all feeling - won't last, will it?

"We all committed to bringing peace. Threw our lives away for it. I just... I guess I didn't realize the sacrifice that involved before. My whole life, I'll be fighting for it now. Won't I?"

Zuko looked over and brought his hand along her jaw to look her in the eye. "I think we both will. And maybe even all of us who were involved in this."

She nodded in understanding before looking back at the stars. He removed his hand from her face when she shifted. "Amazing, isn't it? How much change we can see; and cause." Katara smiled even with the tears of both sadness and happiness welling with a distinct shallowness in her eyes. "Ugh, I can't seem to stop tearing up lately. Stupid water ducts." She held a hand over her eyes for a moment and when she lifted it, the tears were gone.

"I never got a chance to compliment you tonight. You looked stunning."

Katara blushed but it was hardly visible in the darkness. "As much as that's nice to hear, I have to wonder why you're saying that now. Is there something... Nevermind. Why did you and Iroh leave the room so abruptly before?" She sat up and looked down at him, waiting for a response.

Being subjected to a scrutinizing and waiting gaze wasn't new to Zuko but he sure didn't like it. Especially not from so close a friend. Feeling uncomfortable, he stood up and walked over to one of the few trees thriving on the retention bank. "It was nothing. More secrets."

She sighed before standing too but didn't move a foot. "What secrets, Zuko? You know you can confide in me."

He didn't respond, opting to lean on the tree. Katara heard him mutter something just as she was about to stand. "What?"

"He didn't tell me for years. So much could have been changed if he had just told me once." Zuko clenched his fists by his side, looking away. After Iroh told him the full story of all that he knew and all that he had been involved in, tracking Ursa, Zuko began to think of the 'what if's'. It was a dangerous thing to dwell on but he couldn't seem to stop.

"Who didn't tell you what?"

"Iroh. He kept information from me about my mother - acting as if I couldn't handle it!" The words burst out of his mouth, the loud pitch interrupting the calm night. "I understand, kind of, why he did it but... Damnit, he should of just told me. I had a right to know - have a right."

"Ursa?" Katara asked, confused. What does this have to do with his mother? She stood and walked over to him. She stopped five steps short. Giving him space was best.

"He knew every detail on why she left, how she left, what she took which would make it easy to track her, that he has been tracking her since my banishment and yet he didn't bother to tell me this when I told him a month ago that I was starting a search for her. He didn't tell me when I was banished. Would of come in a little helpful, don't you think?" Zuko shifted away from the tree and looked over at her, his face all but hidden in the shadows. The only side visible was his left. His red scar was stark in the moonlight.

"I can't imagine that anything involving that... situation, would be... comfortable to talk about... much less listen. I'm sure he was just trying to protect you."

"Protecting me?" Zuko turned fully to face her, anger clear on his face. "He could of protected me so many times during my banishment! How different would it have been if he told me, hm? I could have broken with my father sooner. I could have looked for her right away - found my Mother and known if she were still alive or not.

"And then there's all the other things he could of done, this new information aside. If he wanted to protect me then he should of taken the Fire Lord throne when I offered it to him instead of sending me in blind! If he wanted to protect me then he should of thrown his pathetic life to the wall to keep my father from doing this to my face! If he wanted to protect me, then he should of protected my Mot-" Slap. He stopped his rant with the contact of skin on skin, shocked, immediately feeling the blood heat his cheek.

Katara set her hands on his shoulders, turning his attention back to her when she spoke. He clenched his jaw. "Iroh's not my uncle and I've only known him briefly until this past month but don't you dare bash his name anymore. He is not to blame and you know it. I don't know what the hell you just found out but if you want to talk about it - I'm here. But I'm not here for you to lash out and blame someone else when you're frustrated." Katara warned, her voice quavering.

Zuko stared at her, eyes raking up and down her face, before answering. The anger drained from him in an instant, taking the flush of his skin along with it. He looked pale in the dancing shadows. "I'm sorry. You just... reminded me of what I came out here trying to forget."

"And what were you trying to forget?" Concern shown in her eyes even as half her face was hidden. Untouched by the moon's faint glow.

"Uncle found a lead. A real and solid lead on my mother." A vein in Zuko's forehead spasmed against the skin. "And it explains why I never found anything. Why I almost considered declaring..."

"Which is..." She inquired, her voice growing soft.

He sighed. "Uncle let her steal almost five thousand worth in a specially printed coin that - apparently - was only made for the royal family."

Katara's eyes widened as she gasped loudly. He took the stunned reaction as a silent push to continue.

"The coins made it easy enough to track - no one who had received them had ever seem anything like it before, so, naturally, they boasted about the mysterious lady-stranger and most kept them, too. For the first two years, she left a path traveling more northeast, just shy of the ports. Smart. She knew that the Fire Nation often stations the military all along the ports when they're ready for deployment.

"This one town - Fuschen - still had some of the older citizens talking. It's a port town. My mother tried to board a ship to the Earth Kingdom - that would land just outside Ba Sing Se, if you can believe it - but even at that isolated and hardly known town they weren't traveling to the Earth Kingdom. Only recently, within the last two years, was citizen travel the Earth Kingdom accepted again. Let alone allowed. From the buzz some of Iroh's contacts collected, she lived there for a year afterwards. Lived alone. Didn't cause any trouble. Basically, kept to herself and hardly anybody remembered her because of it.

"It was only when she started volunteering at the orphanage did some suspicion raise. Rumor had it that the children were anti-Fire Lord Ozai and rebelling against the soldiers that came to the town once a month on leave." Zuko didn't bother to hide his smirk. "Yetm the donations for the orphanage increased each month. Naturally, some members of the Fire Nation's rich got very... interested so they sent their own trusted officials to visit the town. Find out why. Look at the books, and hunt the donators down.

"By the next morning, I guess when they arrived, every trace of my mother disappeared. The people knew, Iroh guessed. While no one knew where she went - and they were honest about that - they never speculated about it either. Never divulged anything she might have said on where she was going. Where my Mother thought of going. Maybe they just didn't remember...

"The last town Iroh tracked her to was this one called Jarro. It's in the side of a small mountain. Secluded. He only found it because of a merchant from the area using some of those coins to buy a large shipping boat." Zuko paused and gulped. His voice lowered with thick emotion. "We think she's still there. No other spottings of the coins or of her description have come up. Iroh thinks it would be unlike her to spend it all in just ten years. I have to agree, from what I have heard. And remember. Can't question the people there without raising alarm but... It makes sense."

Katara nodded in agreement. She thought about all he had told and felt for him. Finding his Mother has been hard - all the disappointments and false hopes she had seen him weather in just this past month and a half - but discovering this... when he could of used it all along... Rough doesn't even begin to sum it up. She looked pensive a moment before brightening. "Now was that really worth getting pissed at your Uncle for?" She teased light-heartedly when she found her voice again.

He flushed, embarrassed. Zuko's golden eyes flickered away from her face, off into the shrubbery. "Sorry. I... I don't realize when my temper gets the better of me."

"Hm, really? Never noticed."

He smiled, briefly, before frowning. "I wish I could go check out the lead! Instead I'm going to be tied up in meetings for who-knows how long..."

"And the rest of us will be off around the world, busy with our own issues." She finished his thought, frowning too.

"Right. There's no way I'm going to interrupt Iroh at his tea shop, either." Zuko rolled his eyes as he looked back at her.

Katara couldn't help but giggle at both his comment and how blind he was to the humor of it.

"What should I do?" Zuko sincerely asked, throwing her for a loop. His golden eyes bored down into hers.

"Uh...I...me? You're asking me for advise?"

Zuko rolled his eyes and almost scoffed. "Now show me how you really feel."

She slapped his arm, this time playfully. Her hands slid down from where they had been resting on his shoulder. They hit his elbow and she disengaged. Katara searched for the right words as she searched his face. "You know what I mean... You've just... you have never asked me for actual advise before... Especially as Fire Lord."

"I'm not asking you as Fire Lord. I'm asking you as a friend." Katara felt a lump in her throat as she stared into his gold eyes. "I'm completely sincere."

"I believe you." She softly said before sighing and glancing up at the sky. It was hard to know what to tell him. On one hand, she wanted to give him the advice on what she would do which is throw everything to the wind and find her. There's no telling when Ursa may become paranoid again or if something happens and she disappears. Gone for the grasp for who-knows-how-long.

On the other, Zuko had responsibilities now. He was Fire Lord and, like it or not, that controlled his life. Katara also knew how important it is that he stay grounded in that role and every decision he makes is closely watched. One false step - false by anyone's opinions - and the public opinion would completely turn on him. All of the other nations were weary now, it would be catastrophic if his own people started screaming, thinking he were selfish and throwing away his title. Katara returned her gaze to his. "Okay... If you really want my advise... then I think you should not worry about it until you're done meeting with everyone at the Earth Kingdom. And then... Then I want you to wait."

"Wait?" He asked incredously.

"Yes. Because I want to be able to go with you." She said with complete honesty. It was refreshing and she smiled. "You need a friend with you, Zuko, and with this more than anything." Katara didn't hesitate as she wrapped her arms around him and hugged. She almost pulled back when she started to but then Zuko wrapped his arms tightly around her waist. He pulled her against him and that meant taking the option away from her. Katara leaned back into him.

"Thank you." He whispered into her hair. "Thank you for caring, Katara."

"I always cared, Zuko. But you're pride got in the way of your eyes. And your mouth." She grinned and buried her head against his shoulder.

Chuckling, he said, "Sorry."

Katara pulled back a few inches to look at his face. Her hands came up against his neck. "Stop apologizing - you don't have to. I've made you apologize enough."

"S- Right." He smiled apologetically so he wouldn't say it.

A cold gust of air rushed down the valley again and Katara leaned back into his warmth, resting her head on his shoulder lazily this time. Zuko savored the closeness, never wanting to let go. He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the side of hers, listening to the slow heart beating - his or hers, he couldn't tell - and the occasional noise escaping her lips.

Several long minutes passed before either took notice. Katara raised her eyes and saw that the moon rose quite a bit higher than last time. Almost over the crown of the halfway mark. At least three in the morning, she guessed, calculating the amount of time since darkness descended on them. Sighing one last time, she pushed down the disappointed mood that rose with her words. "We should probably go inside... it's late."

Zuko nodded and she felt the movement next to her own head.

Reluctantly, she pulled back more. He followed her lead. Katara slid her hands down his arms, her too reluctant for the moment to end. She forced herself to take a step back but their heads were still close, not quite touching anymore. "Promise me you'll wait - like I said before?"

"Promise." Zuko vowed gently. They each dropped their arms and took a smaller step back; again. On impulse, Katara quickly kissed his cheek - the same one she'd slapped in what seemed days ago now.

What is wrong with me?, she thought. All in one night I push myself into the role of his confidant and even tag along on his quest to find his mother! And then I kiss him on the cheek like as if it's the most normal thing to do when months before I would of taken any opportunity to slug him on the same spot - and in the gut, and arms, and everywhere else I could. Ugh, do I even know what I want? No you do not, self, no you do not. Especially if my heart leaping in my chest right now is any indication, Katara thought. That could also just be the wine... But wine is supposed to make a person sleepy - that's what Iroh said.

She quickly gathered up her dress, not wanting it to drag on the grass, and said over her shoulder a quick, "Good-night", before heading towards the large palace gate. Katara slipped in and across the stone path to the building. She was in her bedroom in what seemed like a blink of an eye - to both of them.

Zuko kept his eyes closed from the sudden and shocking touch, not even sure if he responded to her sweet voice. He hoped he had acknowledged her parting words with polite ones of his own. Raising a hand, he threaded it through his hair. Of course I'll wait, he thought - repeating it internally - once he had aligned his wayward thoughts.

But what am I really waiting for?, he continued. Because it doesn't feel like I'm just waiting to go with her and look for my mother. Of course it would be nice if Katara came with me. She's my closest friend - the only one I feel I can connect with and understand completely, he admitted. So why does it feel like this night somehow changed things?

And why the hell is my hand trembling? Zuko thought that last part, frustrated, as he opened his eyes and stared down at his hand which just moments earlier had passed through his hair.

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