MISMATCHED

Chapter 9: Determined

Author's notes: Yes, this is a real and entirely new chapter! Just as I promised in the old author's note that was a placeholder for chapter 9, this story will continue! My personal life is still a hot bleeding mess, and as a result I'm still busier than the proverbial one-armed paperhanger, but at least I managed to find time to finish this chapter, and the next one is thoroughly outlined with a couple of scenes written already. I can't promise regular monthly updates again, not yet, but I will be updating all my ATLA stories in rotation once more.

Also, check out my FFNet profile to find the links for some lovely fanart for this story! (Yes, the fanart my wonderful readers send to me can inspire me to write faster!)

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From what Mai could see of it, the Earth Kingdom countryside looked boring.

Just as the rest of their long trip to Omashu had been boring, so far as she was concerned. Walk aboard a ship, spend days cramped inside a cabin, walk ashore, get into an even more cramped coach, and then ride, ride and ride some more at what had to be the slowest pace it was possible for a pair of dragon-moose to set. At this pace, Mai wondered if they were going to reach their destination any time before the next Solstice.

"Mai! Close that curtain, young lady, and I don't want to have to tell you again!" her mother scolded, looking up from cuddling and playing with Tom-Tom just long enough to berate her again. "In the first place, we do not gawk like peasants, and in the second place, think of what that sun will do to your fair skin! We're not firebenders, Mai; you could get sunburned—or end up tanned, looking as common as a farm girl!"

"Oh, Agni forbid I look like a common farm girl," Mai said sarcastically as she nonetheless dropped the curtain she'd been holding to one side and let the boring view of the landscape be replaced by the far more boring view of the coach interior.

Mai was so incredibly bored she wanted to scream, or skewer something a dozen times with her blades. But she knew better than to do either; screaming would only start her bratty little brother wailing, and pulling out even one blade for sharpening would start her mother shouting instead, about having sharp objects anywhere near the baby.

She was left with absolutely nothing to do while they traveled except read scrolls that she had already read a few dozen times since they started traveling. And not even any good scrolls with detailed descriptions of fierce battles; just boring blather about clothes and behavior that her mother thought was appropriate reading material for young ladies. Yesterday out of sheer desperation she'd grabbed and started reading a scroll from the stack that her father kept reviewing while they traveled, but those weren't any better; just a bunch of facts and figures about the recently conquered city of Omashu, except for the scroll that outlined what Fire Lord Ozai expected his newly appointed governor to do with the Fire Nation's newest colony.

That scroll made it plain that quarterly reports were expected on colony production, annual reviews would be conducted by inspectors from the home islands, and governorship appointments typically lasted for eight years at a time. Which meant that she was sentenced to stay with her family in Omashu for the next eight years or until she got married off to some other nobleman, whichever came first. Mai hated her life.

There was only one possible bright spot to this whole ordeal; now that she was outside the Fire Nation borders, there was a slim chance that Mai could see Zuko again. He couldn't set foot on Fire Nation soil without being sentenced to death on the spot, but he could visit the colonies. Of course, he'd have to have a valid reason for visiting Omashu, like a sighting of the Avatar there or nearby, but Mai didn't have a problem with that. If the Avatar came through and started wreaking havoc on the colony in vengeance for the city having been conquered or whatever, well, at least it wouldn't be boring.

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Thousands of miles from Omashu, in Shu Jing province of the Fire Nation:

When Lord Piandao gave the nod, his butler Fat rang the bell for assembly in the village square, while the lieutenant and one of the two corporals who had arrived that morning stood by.

The drills Piandao had ordered conducted on a regular basis paid off; within fifteen minutes they had over a hundred villagers gathered in the square, curious to find out why they had been summoned. And at the same time, the second corporal that had arrived with the lieutenant returned to the square, with the local Fire cleric and the Chao family in tow. At the sight of the military men and the white armbands they were wearing, several villagers gave quietly resigned sighs; they knew what was coming, since it had happened so many times before.

Once the military men and the Chao family were in place, Piandao announced, "We gather here today to pay our respects to one of the fallen, one who gave his life for the Fire Nation." And then he stepped aside with a nod, to let the lieutenant take over; a callow youth who couldn't be older than twenty summers, but the resigned set to his features and the practiced ease with which he spoke and performed the ritual said that he too had done this many times before.

A small crate containing the ashes of Hūn was handed over to his family, with another crate containing his few personal effects, while the captain read from a scroll just where and when Hūn had died. The Fire Cleric stepped up, gave Agni's blessing to Hūn's ashes, and then stepped back while Hūn's parents blinked back tears, doing their best to remain properly stoic in public. After the Fire Cleric had done his ritual, the villagers started to disperse; they knew the village criers would announce to everyone later when the full memorial service would be, after the family had some time to grieve privately.

But then the lieutenant called out, "Attention to honors!" That stopped everyone in their tracks, and they spun around in amazement. Posthumous honors, an award ceremony, for that poor witless boy Hūn?

One corporal held up a fancy scroll, while the other held up a small bronze statuette on a red silk cloth. The lieutenant grabbed the scroll, opened it and read aloud, "Posthumous presentation of Fleet Honors. Honoree: Hūn, son of Chao and Mikiko, of Shu Jing province. Rank of Honor bestowed: Order of the Tiger-Dillo.

"On the sixteenth day of the eleventh month in the year of the Ram, Hūn was on watch aboard a river steamer during a mission on the Gwan River in Senlin Province of the Earth Kingdom. An orphaned child was aboard the steamer, having been rescued by a member of the crew from certain death two days earlier, and was awaiting transport to the ship at the end of the mission; in the meantime, the members of the mission crew were taking turns minding the child. The river steamer had been beached and the engine stopped while most of the team was away on the mission; Hūn and only one other crewman were aboard with the child when a crew of river pirates stormed the boat, with clear intentions to seize it and kill everyone aboard.

"Leaving his shipmate inside the cabin to guard the child, Hūn stepped out to do battle with the entire crew of pirates. Despite the overwhelming odds, armed with only a spear and Agni's own radiant courage, Hūn managed to hold all fourteen pirates off long enough for reinforcements to arrive and save both the vessel and the child aboard. Hūn was mortally wounded in combat and died soon afterwards, but for his honor, compassion for the innocent, bravery and battle prowess he has been posthumously awarded the Order of the Tiger-Dillo." Then he rolled the scroll back up and handed it over to Hūn's clearly stunned family, along with the small commemorative tiger-dillo statue that had the characters of Hūn's name cast into the base.

The Order of the Tiger-Dillo! The third-highest honor that could possibly be bestowed on any enlisted man; one that everyone had heard of but nobody present had ever witnessed being awarded before (except Piandao, who had one in his study back at the castle, presented to him over thirty years ago after the Battle of Wantai.) And this honor was being posthumously awarded to Hūn, the village idiot?

The local tanner, who'd inhaled enough chemical fumes over the years to lose most of his inhibitions among other mental functions, said aloud what many other people were clearly thinking: "Are you sure you have the right Hūn?"

"How dare you?!" Piandao snapped at his subject before the lieutenant could say anything. "You doubt that Hūn could ever have been a hero? Do you not recall how often he would help others by pulling stuck carts out of the mud, or broken carts into the carpenter's shop? Hūn never refused to help when asked! Yes, the poor boy often made mistakes, he was not a quick learner, but it doesn't take a sharp wit or sharper tongue to make a hero; it takes courage and compassion, and Hūn had those in full measure!"

Duly chastened, the tanner bowed and mumbled his apologies to Hūn's parents, who were now openly weeping with both grief and pride in their son. Piandao dismissed the formal assembly so the villagers could privately express their sympathies (or amazement) to the family, while he thanked the honor guard for their service and courteously offered them refreshments at his castle before they returned to their base.

As he led the komodo-rhino procession back to his home, Piandao wondered again about the honors. He knew well who captained the Wani as well as who was on board as an adviser to the captain, and the bestowal of this rare honor seemed too much to be a coincidence. Had the honors ceremony also contained a coded message for him from the Grandmaster of the White Lotus? If it did, Piandao was privately embarrassed to admit that he had no idea what the message could be. He'd have to send another coded message to Iroh, to ask for clarification…

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Meanwhile, aboard the Wani:

It was already a good day for Prince Zuko, but it was shaping up to be a really good day.

His adopted son Teiji had behaved beautifully all morning, eating his breakfast without making a mess and staying in his clothes instead of wriggling out of them as soon as Zuko's back was turned. During their pre-breakfast playtime/exercise time in the cabin, Teiji had put all the stacking rings on his new toy in the right order on only the second try, clearly proving his intelligence. And as the baby had been riding on his back while Zuko did his daily pushups, the prince would have sworn on a holy scroll that Teiji had been saying "Up-down, up-down!" right along with him; his little boy was increasing his vocabulary almost by the hour!

Just after breakfast, they'd received a hawk-message from Colonel Shinu of Pohuai Stronghold, passing along news of another Avatar sighting! The sighting hadn't been north along the Avatar's projected course, but backtracking south instead. It didn't fit the established pattern, but Uncle Iroh had pointed out that being temporarily captured at Pohuai Stronghold last week must have scared the Avatar so much that he'd decided to spend a while on evasive maneuvers, confusing his trail to throw off his trackers, much like he had two months ago before they'd finally found him on Kyoshi Island. So now the ship was steaming south at a rapid clip, due to reach the location of the sighting by noon tomorrow. Everyone's spirits were high, halfway between hoping and certain that this time they'd capture the Avatar and keep him caught.

Teiji had behaved himself at lunchtime, too, except for grabbing a few times at the spoon Zuko had been using to feed him. But all the men in the mess hall had said that was actually a good sign, that Teiji wanted to learn how to feed himself! So Zuko had decided that at dinnertime that night he would hand Teiji the baby-sized spoon that Taro was already busily carving for him, and let his son work on yet another milestone in his development.

All the replacements and repairs done at Pohuai were holding well, the engines were running fine, the weather was clear and looked to stay that way for days, and the new telescope they'd bought at Pohuai to replace the one lost in the storm actually saw farther than the old one. The only thing that would make it better would be having the Avatar captured and ready in the holding cell for transport back to the Fire Nation, and Zuko had hopes that he'd be in there before another day had passed. So he was in a good mood indeed right after lunch, as he gave Teiji a final hug before handing him over to Joben in the nursery, so he could go up on deck and get in some long-overdue firebending sparring.

He'd been exercising his muscles with nonbending workouts every day, but it seemed like it had been weeks since Zuko had done any serious firebending beyond lighting and meditating with the candles in his cabin. Unless he counted that one fireball he'd tossed at the Avatar to shoo him off instead of recapturing him after the fiasco at Pohuai, but that had been such a small burst that it hardly counted at all.

But finally, finally, everything was right for sparring. There were no major projects on the day's schedule, the weather was perfect, Zhao was many miles away, and the crew was fully cooperating with their captain instead of threatening to mutiny or reveal more hidden earthbenders or whatever. In just a few minutes he'd be trading fireballs and spear-flames with Lieutenant Jee and Corporal Akio while his uncle supervised the match, getting in a good workout and honing his reflexes to razor sharpness before engaging the Avatar in combat tomorrow.

He stopped by his cabin just long enough to change into sparring clothes, and did a Ty Lee-style flip through the last hatch onto the deck just because he was in such a great mood. He looked around and realized that he was the first one out and ready, but that was fine; he'd just have more time to warm up before the match.

He ran through some easy stretches, then faced the starboard railing as he fell into horse stance and the first form for firebending. He'd send a few blasts out to starboard, alternating and four from each fist before he switched to fire-kicks. He focused, and punched—

And instead of a burst of flame the size of his head shooting out towards the horizon, all he got was a tiny puff of flame that dissipated before going less than a meter.

What?!

He focused and tried again… and the second attempt wasn't much better, no bigger than the tiny fireball he'd tossed at the Avatar last week.

What the hells had happened to his firebending?! He could produce bigger flames than that when he sneezed!

Maybe he was just out of practice, after going so long without any serious bending. He took a deep breath, focused on the fire inside him, and bent with all his might—

And the third attempt was even worse.

NO!

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Lieutenant Jee came out on deck in his sparring gear, to find Prince Zuko already out there and warming up. The prince was facing away from him and out to sea, like any sensible bender would to be sure his fire wouldn't accidentally burn someone. And the burst of fire from his hands were hardly better than candle-flames; Jee smiled at the sight, remembering how he'd practiced his bending the same way back at home when they had small children underfoot. That was probably how the prince had been practicing in his cabin for the last few weeks, and now it had become such a habit that he was doing it that way even when Teiji was nowhere near. Well, soon enough the match would begin and the prince would be able to really cut loose-

Jee's thoughts were interrupted and the prince jerked his head up when they both heard the screech of a messenger hawk approaching the tower. The hawksman on duty received the bird up on the bridge, and seconds later Jiro leaned out far over their heads to shout excitedly down to them, "Your Highness! It's a black ribbon!"

A scroll wrapped in a black ribbon was an imperial message, either coming straight from the palace or going straight to a royal family member—or both! Everyone knew that Prince Zuko and General Iroh had been waiting for weeks to find out how the Fire Lord would respond to Prince Zuko's stated intention to adopt little Teiji as his ward. Prince Zuko headed for the ladder to the bridge, but a moment later their hawksman Teru appeared at the hatch far above them, grabbed the ladder sides with his hands still in the hawking gloves, and slid down over forty feet to the main deck with the scroll tucked under his chin.

Bright Agni Above! Jee waited until the damn overexcited idiot had reached the deck and handed the scroll to their wide-eyed prince, before grabbing Teru and pulling him to one side to start chewing his ears off. "Private, are we under attack right now? No? Then does every second count in delivering a message when we're not under attack? No again, right? Then why the hells did you pull such a damnfool stunt that could have ended in you breaking both legs?!"

"B-but it's a message for the prince, from the palace!" Teru protested, his face bright red with embarrassment.

"So you thought you'd save him a few seconds in reading the message now—and never mind all the time it might have taken him later to fill out your casualty report? And what would he have to put in the 'cause of incident' section, eh? 'My crewman thought I wanted him to risk his fool neck in just delivering a message'? Ohh, wouldn't that make the prince look good to the rest of the fleet…"

"Sorry, sir. I won't do it again, I swear," Teru mumbled, finally getting it.

"I'm going to hold you to that," Jee warned him, before turning to where Prince Zuko was reading the scroll—

Just before he dropped it, his face gone slack with shock.

The scroll fluttered out of his hands and down to the deck, but just before it actually touched the metal plates the prince snapped out of his shock enough to swoop down and grab it, clutching it to his chest. "The match is cancelled," was all he said tersely as Jee approached him, before running for the nearest hatch and disappearing inside.

After a few moments of staring after him, Jee whipped around to confront Teru again. "You will return to your post and you will keep your mouth shut about this, understand?!" And without waiting for a response he went straight for the ladder to the bridge, to give the same instructions to Jiro and anyone else who was up there right now. No one else was to know about the prince having received a black-ribboned scroll until the prince himself decided to talk about it.

...No one, that is, except for one other man...

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Some time later, Zuko came back to himself to realize that he was in the nursery, Teiji was squirming in his grip-he was holding on too tight, he should know better-and Joben was saying for what was probably not the first time, "Your highness, what has happened?"

"Nothing has happened! Everything's fine!" he snapped, before bowing his head to inhale one last whiff of Teiji's baby scent before setting him down again. Then he left the nursery, ignoring Joben's clearly unconvinced and worried stare, and went straight to his quarters. The black-ribboned scroll he'd tucked inside his clothes felt like it was burning against his skin.

Once inside his cabin, he plucked out the scroll and threw it onto the floor like it had been some offending vermin that had dared to touch him. He wanted to burn it to ashes, but his bending was gone, so he stomped on it instead. But stomping on it didn't destroy it; stomping on it did nothing to change his father's orders to him.

What was he going to do?

Stupid question. He already knew what he was going to do; it was obvious. Obvious, even though he flinched from the thought. It was an appalling fate...

But this was why Agni had taken his bending from him, just moments before he'd read that scroll. To make it even more obvious that he had to do this; there was no other option.

Well... the first thing to do was to pack. He looked around him, considering, then picked up the dragon incense-burner that had become Teiji's first toy, and then the little stuffed panda that the baby snuggled with while taking naps in his room. Not too many toys, he had to pack lightly...

But his ponderings on what to pack were interrupted when the door of his cabin was abruptly thrown open, to reveal his uncle standing in the doorway, eyes wide with alarm.

Uncle Iroh didn't say anything, just looked at him and then quickly around the cabin until he saw the scroll lying on the floor, before swooping in and down to pick up the scroll before Zuko could stop him. "Don't-!" Zuko protested, but it fell on deaf ears; his uncle opened the scroll and read it.

When he was finished reading, his uncle looked at him with his eyebrows drawn together in a thunderous frown. "Prince Zuko, what do you intend to do about this?"

"Isn't it obvious? I'm going to take Teiji and leave," Zuko said quietly. "Go deep into the Earth Kingdom, so far ahead of the front lines that nobody will ever recognize me as the banished prince, and then settle there to raise Teiji. I have to do this, Uncle," he said with a firmness that he hoped hid his misery as he reached for his dao blades where they were mounted on the wall. Even without his bending, Zuko vowed he would never be helpless; not when his son was at stake!

"I won't stop you, if that is truly what you wish to do," Iroh said firmly as he rolled the scroll up again, before brandishing it in Zuko's direction. "But I will point out that you have another option; one that you likely haven't considered yet."

"And what option would that be?" Zuko asked almost warily, as he took the dual-bladed sword down and gave the blades a quick check to be sure they were properly oiled, before clapping them together and reaching for the sheath.

"I'll tell you soon enough," Iroh said as he tucked the black-ribboned scroll inside his clothes, hiding it from sight. "First, though, I'm going to brew a pot of tea; we're going to need it. It's finally time that you and I had a long talk..."

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Meanwhile and much further north, at Makapu Village:

Having saved the village yesterday from being destroyed by an erupting volcano, the Avatar and his companions said goodbye to Aunt Wu and the rest of the villagers. But before they did, Aang swallowed hard and handed back the item that they'd been unsuccessful in discretely sneaking back into its usual spot. He admitted sheepishly to the fortuneteller, "By the way, we kind of borrowed your book."

Aunt Wu gave him a stern and piercing look. "So you messed with the clouds, did you!?"

Aang and Katara both cringed guiltily, while Sokka just gleefully pointed to his sister to indicate that she'd been in on it too (the stinker!)

But to their relief, Aunt Wu began to laugh instead of shout. "Very clever!"

But before they could leave, Sokka just had to try one more time; he turned to one of the villagers and said with a rather condescending air, "No offense, but I hope this taught everyone a lesson about not relying too much on fortunetelling."

But his attitude just slid off the villager like water from a duck-deer's back as he responded with a calm smile, "But Aunt Wu predicted the village wouldn't be destroyed, and it wasn't. She was right, after all."

Not quite as calmly, Sokka announced, "I hate you."

Katara took her brother by the shoulders before he could start really ranting, and began to steer him towards the waiting sky bison as she said soothingly, "It's ok, Sokka. Everything's going to be all right."

It would be all right, indeed... Katara couldn't help smiling to herself as she remembered Aunt Wu's assurance that she would marry a powerful bender, and Sokka's comment just last night that Aang was a powerful bender. Aang was already a good friend, he wouldn't be a kid forever, and he was the most powerful bender in the world. And as she urged her brother over to Appa, she overheard Aang saying something to Aunt Wu, something about finding love in his fortune...

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At noon the next day, the Fire Nation ship Wani docked at the Earth Kingdom's relatively neutral port town of Jiú Guǎn. Two of the older enlisted men had been to the port before, back when they'd been stationed on the scout ship Maos, and they pointed Prince Zuko to the tavern where any information could be had at the right price.

A few gold coins later, Prince Zuko had the name of the inn that the Avatar had been staying in for the past week, having graciously accepted free lodging from the innkeeper and his wife. He ordered the Wani's boarding ramp lowered, and thirty minutes later a formidable-looking force of firebenders mounted on komodo-rhinos surrounded the inn and demanded that the Avatar surrender to them, now, or face the consequences.

As their smoldering fists raised, everyone heard muffled voices from inside the inn; first a woman's voice, sounding frightened... then a man's voice, also sounding frightened... then the woman's voice, sounding enraged... And then abruptly a shuttered window on the second floor was flung open and a man wearing Air Nomad robes was flung out of it, shrieking in panic, while a woman shouted through the opening, "Here's your Avatar!"

For someone wearing airbender clothing, he was having a bad day at airbending; he fell almost straight down, to end up belly-flopped into the middle of a muddy puddle outside the inn. But the height of the fall hadn't been far enough to be fatal, just enough to knock the wind out of him. A fact which Prince Zuko took full advantage of as he leaped off his komodo-rhino and swooped in, to grab him by the collar while he was still stunned...

And then, after a good look at him, dropped him back into the mud with a disgusted sneer and a splat. "An impersonator! You're at least ten years too old to be the Avatar I've dealt with before. And you didn't even get the forehead arrow right!" The prince shook his head in disgust as he scoffed, "Impersonating an enemy of the Fire Nation, just for attention and free food? You're just too stupid to live."

"Shall we kill him now, sir?" Kunio asked, just a little too eagerly.

Zuko gave him a startled look. "What? No, I didn't mean it literally!"

The Aang impersonator got up on his elbows, his face imploring. "P-please, sir, I-"

Just then a winged staff came flying out the inn's window, to land blunt end first right between the impersonator's shoulder blades, driving him face-first into the muck again.

Prince Zuko shook his head again, then picked up the staff and looked it over critically. "The wings don't retract either. And you're obviously not an airbender; how the hells did you fool anybody this long?"

When the impersonator looked up again, he saw the staff become a brightly-burning torch in the prince's grip, before being reduced to ashes that flew away on the breeze. "You'd better start running," the prince advised him almost pleasantly. "Before all the people you've been tricking out of their food and money realize what a liar you are, and come after you. A year in one of our prisons would be downright merciful, compared to what an angry mob can do to you."

The impersonator didn't argue, didn't say another word; he just scrambled to his feet and started running east and inland, casting fearful glances behind him.

Zuko shook his head a final time as he got back in the saddle and tugged on the reins of his mount, sighing in mingled exasperation and resignation, "Let's get back to the ship."

"Yes, sir," everyone chorused glumly as they nudged their mounts into motion and formation. Another opportunity to capture the Avatar, gone up in smoke...

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Back in his cabin, Zuko faced his uncle over two steaming cups of tea as he related the details of the latest 'Avatar encounter'. "So, it's back to the first plan," he finished glumly.

"You may be right," Iroh said with a disappointed frown. "Though I still think... well, it doesn't matter now. Drink your tea, while I think of some ideas on how we're going to do this without raising suspicions too quickly."

Zuko picked up his cup to take a sip—and a sudden shock of impact reverberated throughout the ship, splashing the cup's contents all over his face. Growling under his breath as he wiped the tea off and swept his phoenix plume back in place, he got up and stomped out, to find out what the hells had just hit his ship!

Uncle Iroh hurried after him and they arrived on deck together, to find a huge and hideous eyeless monster climbing aboard their ship, with a whip-wielding woman on his back. The woman called out, "Get back! We're after a stowaway."

All the crew members around him were fearfully backing up or falling into defensive stances, but Zuko refused to be intimidated by the monstrous beast; he stood his ground as he informed her, "There are no stowaways on my ship!"

But then the beast, snuffling at the deckplates, abruptly bit into the metal—and ripped a section of it out! A section that they'd had repaired after that hellish storm had damaged the ship; either the shipyard crew back at Pouhai City had used substandard materials, or that beast was even stronger than it looked. The cargo hold was right below them; the beast stuck its head into the hold and began sniffing around, while Zuko cursed his lost bending and look frantically around for the other firebenders on his crew, men he could order to attack. Yes, it was a hideous and hideously strong monster, but if they didn't drive it off fast that beast would start gobbling their food stores!

Then he stepped back in surprise when a strange Earth Kingdom peasant popped up out of the hole and began running away from the beast. A stowaway? But how had she known, when even Zuko hadn't known the man was aboard?

The stowaway's desperate dash for freedom came to an abrupt end when the beast opened its mouth and an insanely long tongue lashed out, tagging the fleeing man on the back of his neck. The man abruptly collapsed right in his tracks, to lie on the deck utterly unmoving.

Zuko stared in dismay at the man who'd just been turned into a corpse right in front of him—no wait, not a corpse; he was still breathing! But though the peasant's expression was clearly terrified, he wasn't moving at all… "He's paralyzed!"

The black-haired woman with the whip commented as she slid out of the beast's saddle, "Only temporarily. The toxins will wear off in about an hour." She hoisted the paralyzed man up by his collar, smirking as she finished, "But by then he'll be in jail and I'll have my money."

After having identified herself as a bounty hunter with that speech, the woman loaded her prey onto the back of her beast's saddle while Zuko asked, "But how did you find him on my ship?"

The bounty hunter stroked the monster's fur and climbed into the saddle as she replied, "My shirshu can smell a rat a continent away."

Uncle Iroh commented, "Well, I'm impressed." The woman cracked her whip, and her shirshu leaped off the ship and onto the dock. Hunter and mount galloped away as his uncle mused with that tone to his voice, "Very impressed."

Despite everything else going on inside his head at the moment, Zuko couldn't help rolling his eyes at his elder's comment. He loved his uncle, really, but there were times when he'd swear that the old man went out of his way to be a lecher, acting like he was obsessed with sex as well as tea. Although the teen admitted that he hadn't much room for complaining about other people's obsessions, given his own obsession with capturing the Avatar and—

Zuko stopped his inner tirade as a thought struck him, and then stared alongside his uncle at the bounty hunter disappearing between the buildings lining the dock. He had an idea…

An hour later, while he was meeting with Lieutenant Jee to explain his plan, his uncle stopped by with the baby in his sling and the satchel of 'Teiji supplies' slung over his shoulder, stuffed to bursting with diapers and whatnot. "Where are you going, Uncle?" he asked.

"I've just discovered that my old friend General Hong is living nearby!" Iroh said cheerfully. "You remember my telling you about him, nephew; he fell madly in love with and married an Earth Kingdom woman, and after his retirement he left the home islands. I had thought he'd settled in the colony of Yu Dao, but I've just heard that he's living in this neutral port instead! So I'm going to go catch up on old times with him, while showing off my first grandchild!"

"Are you taking an escort, sir?" Lieutenant Jee asked with concern.

"Oh, no need; I'll be riding my favorite komodo-rhino! Flower Petal looks fierce enough to deter your average bandit, and she's swift enough to outrun anyone who's not deterred. I expect we'll be staying overnight at my old friend's house, returning by lunchtime tomorrow," Iroh added as Zuko came over to give Teiji a quick tickle and kiss on the forehead, and a quiet admonishment to behave for his grandfather. Then the elder and child left, while Zuko continued to explain his plan.

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It had been a good day for Jun the bounty hunter, and it was shaping up to be a good night too. It had taken far less time than she'd thought to track down her latest bounty; the Earth Kingdom official who'd hired her had passed along the rumor that he'd been heading north and planning to lose himself in a Fire Nation colony, but instead Nyla had found him in a ship docked at Jiú Guǎn, Jun's own stomping grounds! The fool must have stowed away on a ship that he'd thought was headed in a different direction.

She'd turned him in and collected the bounty without any quibbling on the Earth Kingdom official's part, and headed with the money first to her favorite butcher shop to get Nyla's dinner, and then to her favorite tavern. And right after her second drink, just to top off the evening, in had walked another muscle-bound cretin who'd thought that he could beat her at arm-wrestling just because he had a dick between his legs, instead of years of tough training and combat experience under his belt.

She beat him without breaking a sweat, collected her winnings from the match and announced to the house, "Drinks are on me!" The bar patrons roared their approval, while the bartender grinned and brought over a cup of her favorite firewhiskey.

She grinned and hoisted the brew, but even while drinking she kept her ears open; a habit acquired from all the bar fights she'd been in over the years. So she heard when somebody near the front door started asking for a "bounty hunter that I was told comes here often; one who can track people by their scent?"

"Hey Jun, got another customer!" Kuong the bouncer hollered to her, and she waved her drink as a signal to send him over. She gave the newcomer a quick once-over; nondescript brown clothes, no visible jewelry, probably no money and he wanted her to take a commission and find somebody purely out of the goodness of her heart. Which she generally answered with derisive laughter; nobody had ever done anything for her out of the goodness of their hearts, and noble deeds didn't pay for Nyla's steaks.

But what the hell, she hadn't laughed right in anybody's face for days; might as well make the night complete. So she kicked back in her chair as the newcomer approached, and said without preamble, "Whatcha got for me?"

"You're the bounty hunter?" the man asked in surprise. And before she could start scowling at the sexist cowpig, he added, "Wow, they said you were a really tough lady but they didn't say you were gorgeous!" And then he looked embarrassed and mumbled sheepishly, "Sorry; you probably get that a lot."

Awww, such a sweet-talker. Jun smiled as she said, "Often enough," though not often enough that she got tired of hearing it. But sweet talking didn't buy Nyla's steaks either, so she repeated, "So, whatcha got for me?"

"My master sent me to find you, and ask you to meet with him and talk about finding someone for him," Sweet-Talker said as he reached into his belt pouch, and pulled out a gold coin. "He said to give you this, just if you agree to come with me to meet him instead of him coming here," as he proffered the coin with an earnest expression.

So there was money involved after all; probably a decent amount of it, if someone was willing to pay her a gold coin just for coming to listen to him. Jun drained her cup, beckoned the bartender over, and gave him half her winnings to pay for the round she'd bought the house. "Okay, Sweet-Talker, let's go see your boss. He lives nearby?" she said as she grabbed the gold coin and gestured for him to come outside with her.

"Not real close, but I have a mount at the stables nearby," Sweet-Talker said as he walked with her outside. "You can ride with me, or ride your… um, pardon me, what is that incredible mount of yours called? I saw a beast that I'd never seen before outside the stables on my way over, and it looked dangerous enough that I figured it must be yours."

"Yeah, that's my girl; she's a shirshu. They're rare, just as dangerous as they look, and usually impossible to tame," Jun informed him. "But my family has always considered 'impossible' as just a challenge," she added modestly.

But as they walked across the street to the stables, Jun's combat sense kicked in when four guys who'd been loitering outside the tavern started following them. It got worse when she noticed how many people were just standing near the stables, forming a wide ring around the tree she'd left Nyla tied to… including a group of four that stepped away from the rest to walk towards her. No, to march towards her, shit, this was definitely trouble…

She filled her lungs to whistle for Nyla, but paused when the oldest man in the quartet coming towards her, one with a graying mustache and muttonchops, snapped, "Whistle or shout, and that mount of yours is flash-fried!" as he flicked a flame into existence above his fingers. Double shit, firebenders, and they had the drop on her! There were too many of them for Nyla to paralyze before they set her on fire.

Surrounded by enemies, she stopped in her tracks and said flatly, "What do you want."

The man in the lead pushed back the hood of his nondescript brown cloak, to reveal the same scarred but youthful face and bizarre hairdo she'd seen earlier that day aboard a ship at the docks. Baldy-boy looked at Sweet-Talker first, saying with a nod, "Good job, Tadao, on extracting her without raising a fuss or suspicions."

"Thank you, sir!" Tadao the foxweasel said as he saluted before stepping back into ranks with the others.

"As for what I want," Baldy-boy said as he addressed Jun, "What do you think I'm here for? Since I'm sure you remember when we met earlier, aboard my ship…"

Jun would be damned straight through all the hells before she cringed or showed servility to any man, no matter how many minions he had. She sneered, "I'm guessing you want me to apologize for scratching the paint on your little beauty."

Everyone present bristled with indignation and anger, and Muttonchops growled at her, "You are addressing His Royal Highness Prince Zuko, firstborn son of Fire Lord Ozai! People have died for speaking to a royal with such disrespect! And you should be aware that an attack on any vessel the prince is on, is treated the same as an attack on the prince himself!"

Son of the Fire Lord?! She didn't know much about Fire Nation royalty, but she knew enough to be sure they were speaking the truth; nobody impersonated a royal family member unless they were willing to risk the same punishment that came from attacking one: Death, by slow torture. Jun's heart sunk as she realized that she was utterly screwed.

…Or maybe not. If they really wanted her heart on a platter in payment for the insult, they would have charged right into the tavern after her, or set fire to the building while she was still inside it. Instead, they'd brought her out here without any real violence yet, which meant they wanted something else. "So what do you want, money for fixing the deckplates?" She gave them a disdainful look as she offered, "Send me an invoice, and I'll pay it out of my next bounty."

"I'm after more than that," Prince Baldy-Boy informed her grimly. "I could have you thrown in jail to avenge the insult, and you shirshu sold to the highest bidder to recoup the money… but I'll accept a service from you instead."

"What service would that be?" she asked warily. The hells she was going to give him the sort of service he could get from the painted ladies that frequented the docks; she'd take her chances in a firefight first.

Prince Baldy-Boy held up a hand, and a woman's necklace dangled from his grip. "I want you to find someone."

Okay, now she was back in familiar territory; negotiating a bounty. She looked at the necklace without touching it, and then looked over it at his face. "What happened? Your girlfriend run off on you?"

Most of the men bristled again, but the prince calmed them with a mere gesture as he said, "It's not the girl I'm after, it's the bald monk she's traveling with. If you find them, I'll consider the insult and the damage to my ship repaid. And I'll even throw in an extra forty gold coins on top of that, for travel expenses, because you're going to take me with you while you hunt them down."

That… was actually a decent deal, all things considered. A better deal than she likely would have gotten if she'd damaged the Earth King's personal yacht. But because she was Jun the Shirshu Tamer, the toughest bounty hunter in any nation, she still dared to hold her hand out and demand, "Half now, and the rest when they're captured and brought back here."

"Ten now, and the other thirty upon mission completion," Prince Baldy-boy countered her with a frown. "That's more incentive for you to do the job to my satisfaction. You already have funds for starting the hunt; the gold coin we gave Tadao to lure you out here, and the money from the bounty you just collected."

Jun frowned, but agreed. She'd started bounty hunting years ago with a lot less in her pocket, and this royal had just agreed to give her the remaining gold upon return to his ship in front of a lot of witnesses.

"Do you swear to abide by this bounty contract, on your honor as a hunter? And on the life of your shirshu?" the prince persisted; he was probably concerned about her slitting his throat in his sleep or something.

Jun scowled. "Don't insult my professionalism, kid. Yes, I swear to the contract: I will hunt down the girl that necklace belongs to and the boy with her, and transport them and you safely back to your ship in exchange for forty gold coins, ten now and thirty upon our return."

The prince nodded, pulled out a pouch and counted out ten gold coins, handing them over to Jun, before handing the pouch over to Muttonchops. "Lieutenant, I entrust this to you, as well as temporary command of my ship. When my uncle returns tomorrow, inform him of what's happened. Oh, and if you haven't heard back from me within ten days, at least a hawk-message with my personal seal and code phrase on it, you are to let my uncle decide what retribution will be taken against Jun, or if she's not present, against this entire town."

Prince Baldy-Boy turned to face her again, with a downright nasty smile on his scarred features. "You have heard of my uncle, right? The Dragon of the West?"

Jun swallowed hard as she nodded, almost against her will. Oh yeah, she'd heard of the Dragon of the West…

"Good. Now let's go," as he gestured to another one of his men, who produced a full pack of supplies and a pair of loaded saddlebags. The saddlebags were probably made for a komodo-rhino, but Jun strapped them onto the back of Nyla's saddle easily enough, before letting her get a good sniff of that necklace.

"Good hunting, Your Highness," the lieutenant said as he and all the other men present saluted the prince once he was in the saddle.

"Thank you, Lieutenant," Jun heard the prince say directly behind her. And she heard him swallow—a nervous or emotional type of swallow?—before adding, "Good fortune to you as well. I know my ship and crew are in safe hands with you."

She'd heard more than enough sentiment from Fire folks; Jun cracked the whip, and Nyla bounded down the street with an eager growl, tracking the scent she'd been given.

But as soon as they were outside the town and heading north along the coast, less than ten minutes into the hunt, the prince suddenly ordered her, "Stop! Stop here! I have a new scent marker for your beast to follow."

"What the hells?" Jun muttered, but she tugged on Nyla's reins anyway. Once the shirshu had stopped, she reached a hand back over her shoulder. "Okay, let's have the new scent marker."

The prince put something in her hand, and she drew it forward-and found herself staring at a little and well-used stuffed panda.

She stared for exactly one second, and then she reached behind herself again to grab the prince by whatever she could reach. The instant that she had a firm grip she heaved him forward over her shoulder, yelping in shock, to slam him down face-up across Nyla's back. She kept her iron grip on him as she snarled down at his stunned face, "I don't care how royal you are; you'd better have a really fucking good reason as to why you want me to hunt down a child!"

"H-he's my son!" Prince Baldy-Boy gasped as he tried to catch his breath from being slammed around. "My son by adoption; we don't look alike, but when we find them he'll call me 'Daddy,' you'll see! And we're finding him first because we have to bring him with us!"

"You want to bring a baby on a bounty hunt?!" Jun stared down at him incredulously. "Does that scar go clear through to your brains?"

"No, listen! I never once lied to you, but I had to lie to my crew! And if you complete the real mission, there's two hundred gold pieces waiting for you! Just listen…"

And then the prince told her the most incredible story she'd heard all year, and that included the evening she'd spent drinking in a bar in Omashu and listening to stories of their crazy king's antics… But the most incredible thing was, she at least halfway believed him.

So she gave Nyla the new scent marker, and moments later they were heading east-by-southeast instead, deep inland. After half an hour of hard riding, they found a small campsite with a fat old man sitting down and cradling a baby in his arms, while a komodo-rhino foraged in the shrubs along a stream several yards away. The oldster didn't even blink at their approach, just put a finger to his lips to indicate the need for quiet; the baby was sleeping.

When they got close to the camp, the komodo-rhino snorted and came charging right at them, but one flick of Nyla's tongue put a stop to that. As soon as Noble Idiot leaped down from the saddle and took the baby with soft murmurs and cuddles, the oldster walked over to where the komodo-rhino lay paralyzed and patted its horned head with a quietly mournful, "I'm sorry, Flower Petal, but I'm sure you'll be fine in an hour or so. Thank you for your loyal service; may you find a new and caring owner soon."

Still in the saddle, Jun stared down at the old man, whom she'd barely taken note of when she'd seen him earlier aboard the ship; given his fat gut, slow way of walking and casual robes, she would have instantly dubbed him 'Uncle Lazy' if they'd met again under other circumstances. "…Are you really the Dragon of the West?"

"I was, once," the old man said calmly but with regret clouding his features. "Much about me has changed since those days."

To that, Jun could only respond, "No kidding."

"If you refuse to take me as a passenger aboard your magnificent mount, I understand," the old man said quietly. "All I ask is that you save my nephew and grandson."

"No, we have to bring him, too!" Noble Idiot insisted.

After another few seconds, Jun sighed loudly and told Noble Idiot, "Your craziness must be catching." She held her hand out with a gruff, "All right, Grandpappy, get up here, assuming you can even get that bulk of yours off the ground."

Grandpappy grinned happily. "I shall do my best, dear lady! You are as gracious as you are beautiful," as he climbed up with a lot more nimbleness than his looks implied.

"Stow the sweet talking; I've had enough of that lately," Jun told him sourly as she slid down from the saddle, while Noble Idiot was carrying both the baby and another set of saddlebags over to Nyla.

She grabbed the saddlebags and tossed them over her shoulder, and then told Noble Idiot, "Now that you've got a hand free, give me some light to see by." Noble Idiot tensed, but obediently turned his palm up and cradled a small flame in it, while Jun looked at the baby's face. She lightly tickled and rubbed his chin, a little like the way she petted her 'Snuffly-Wuffly' when no clients or criminals were around, while cooing, "Wakey wakey, kiddo; let's see those famous eyes…"

Kiddo blinked and yawned awake, giving Jun a good look at his mismatched eyes; one brown, one blue. "I swear to you on my honor as a prince that he is not a witch-child; there is no magic power or evil in him," Noble Idiot whispered fervently.

"Don't get your underwear in a twist, boy; I just wanted to see," Jun said dismissively as she took the saddlebags over to Nyla. She tied them in place with the rest of the luggage while Noble Idiot handed the baby up to his uncle and climbed back into the saddle, and then waved the original scent marker, the girl's necklace, under Nyla's nose again. Seconds later they were off again, heading north-by-northwest under the gleaming stars.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

One very long shirshu ride / One happy Water Tribe reunion, guilty confession and angry parting later:

Sokka decided that if this wasn't proof that the universe just had it in for them, then he didn't know what else would do. He and Katara had left Bato to travel solo to the rendezvous point and see their dad again, because they knew the Avatar would need them more, but they were only halfway back to the abbey and Aang when suddenly they were facing a monster out of somebody's nightmare!

They tried to outrun it, but in no time at all they were cornered by the monster; huge, hideous, eyeless, snarling to show jaws full of carnivorous teeth, and practically slavering as it seemed to focus on Katara. And the monster had people riding on its back—including Prince Zuko!

Zuko twisted in the saddle to hand a large bundle back to the elderly man Katara had said was his uncle, while a scary(sexy)-looking lady with a whip in one hand and the monster's reins in the other commented, "So this is your girl, eh? She's even younger than you are."

Zuko apparently ignored the scary-sexy lady as he slid down from the saddle to take two steps toward them, demanding, "Where is he? Where's the Avatar?"

Sokka would have spit at him, except his mouth was suddenly too dry to spare the saliva. But he still had enough to say defiantly, "We split up! He's long gone."

Zuko scowled at him and snarled, "How stupid do you think I am?"

Every warrior ancestor Sokka had ever been told about would have approved of his answer in the face of certain doom; an almost nonchalant, "Pretty stupid." Then he grabbed Katara and shouted, "Run!"

Unfortunately, they only got about three steps before something sharp slapped across the back of his neck—and just like that, he and Katara were both face-down in the dirt, unable to move. They heard Zuko protest behind them, "I didn't tell you to do that!"

The scary-sexy lady's voice had a matter-of-fact tone to it. "Nyla knows paralysis is standard procedure if the quarry tries to make a break for it; it saves on trouble during capture and transporting. Relax; they'll be fine in an hour, remember?"

"But I didn't—oh, forget it! What are we supposed to do now? We need the Avatar!"

The beast's horrible snuffling grew louder, and the scary-sexy lady commented, "She's seeking a different scent; perhaps something that the Avatar held."

A few minutes later, Sokka and Katara were face-down across the saddle behind the Fire Nation people, and jouncing helplessly as the 'shirshu' bounded down the trail, heading straight for the abbey. Sokka tried hard to hold onto the contents of his stomach, before he spewed his breakfast all over the saddle; he was sure he didn't want to get on the scary-sexy lady's bad side. But that was all he was sure of, his mind still reeling from what Prince Zuko had shown them and said to him and Katara before loading them onto the saddle…

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Having been warned by the abbess, Aang was ready for a fight with Zuko and whatever 'horrible monster' the prince had working for the Fire Nation. He spiraled down over the monster with all the people in the saddle, noting how the beast seemed to be tracking him in the spiral, then pulled up just as the beast reared up on its hind legs and tried to snag him with a super-long tongue. The tongue missed while, just as Aang had hoped, the monster overbalanced and fell backwards as everybody fell out of the saddle to the hard paving stones below.

Aang was feeling pretty pleased with his cleverness in that maneuver, until he heard three things all at once. Prince Zuko screaming in a voice raw with terror, "Teiji!" Katara screaming "The baby!" and a baby, just screaming at the top of its lungs.

Heart pounding in his ears, he whipped back around instead of heading for high ground, and landed next to where everyone had been dumped from the saddle. Zuko had scrambled to his knees next to the elder he'd called his uncle, and was hyperventilating in clear panic as he held a squirming, wailing bundle to his chest; the elder was groaning while slowly attempting to sit up. Katara and Sokka were both flopped onto their stomachs nearby, but raising their heads to stare worriedly at Zuko and the baby in his arms. Katara said anxiously, "Is he okay?"

-thwop-

And suddenly Aang was seeing nothing but paving stones. What had hit the side of his neck—and how come he couldn't move anymore?!

His head lolled to one side, just enough for him to see the woman who'd been holding the reins of the monster get to her feet as she said dryly, "Well, we got your Avatar … How's the kid?" as she looked to her right.

"Ssshhh, sshhh, brave soldier boy… I-I think he just got scared and a little bruised by the fall; I don't feel anything broken," Zuko said, his voice still shaky as he rubbed the screaming baby's back. "Thank you for shielding him, Uncle… Are you all right?"

"I will be fine," his uncle groaned as he slowly and painfully sat up all the way, rubbing his shoulder. "And I could do no less for my grandson."

Just then Appa gave a furious bellow as he slammed down hard somewhere nearby in the courtyard; he'd probably seen Aang go down, and he wanted to protect his friend and hurt whoever had done that to him. The eyeless monster that was outside Aang's field of vision snarled in response, and within seconds the air was filled with a cacophony of growls, snarls, roars and earth-shaking crashes as the two beasts started fighting.

Zuko quickly handed the baby back to his uncle and snarled as he jumped to his feet, "We have to break up the beasts' fighting, before they hurt Teiji or wreck the place!"

"Help me up; Appa will listen to us!" Katara said urgently to Zuko, ignoring Sokka's indignant squawk and Aang's half-voiced protest—if they were all paralyzed and helpless, did they really want Appa to stop fighting for them?

Zuko hurried over to Katara and hauled her to her feet, standing right behind her with his hands around her to brace her upright as she shouted, "Appa! Appa, stop fighting; we're okay! Appa, stop, please!"

Somewhere outside Aang's still limited field of vision, the lady with the whip cracked it a couple times as she shouted, "Nyla, down! No fighting! Down!"

The fighting didn't stop right away, but Katara and whip-lady kept shouting and eventually both Appa and the other creature settled down to just growling at each other. Aang felt a gust of hot breath sweep over him, figured out that Appa was right above him and said reassuringly, "I'm okay, buddy. Well, I can't move and I don't know what the heck's going on, but other than that I'm okay…"

Zuko glanced over his shoulder at Aang, and if Aang hadn't known better, he would have thought the look was apologetic (but the sun would rise in the West before Prince Zuko would apologize for anything). "The shirshu venom that paralyzed you is supposed to wear off in an hour or so. Or so Jun said; she's the bounty hunter and the shirshu's owner," Zuko finished as he carefully lay Katara back down on the ground, rolling her to her side so she was facing in Aang's direction. He murmured something to her that Aang couldn't quite hear, and in response Katara… sort-of-smiled at the prince who'd been chasing them for so long. It was a really wry expression, more of a grimace, but she didn't seem mad at him; why wasn't she mad at Zuko for capturing them?

After letting go of Katara, Zuko went over to where his uncle was sitting with the baby, who was still crying and fussing a lot. But the elderly man shook his head when Zuko reached for the baby, saying just loud enough for Aang to hear, "He'll be fine soon; we can wait long enough for you to do what you need to do."

Zuko gave a jerky nod to his uncle, and then squared his shoulders, stood up and marched over to where Aang was lying. Still hovering protectively over him, Appa gave a threatening rumble that could be felt in the paving stones, and Zuko stopped in his tracks. Then the prince took a deep breath, and cautiously held his left hand out towards Appa, the fingers loosely curled under; the classic 'go ahead, take a sniff, I mean no harm' gesture. The growl increased in volume—this was Zuko, the Angry Guy Who Throws Fireballs, offering his hand for a sniff—but the prince stood his ground, even as his shoulders stiffened when the baby started wailing louder.

Katara narrowed her eyes while gazing at a spot over Aang's head and opened her mouth, but this time Sokka beat her to it: "Appa, just hush up and go lie down, okay? The baby's scared, and he's not going to stop crying while you're all looming and growling like that. Come on, you want him to think you eat babies?"

Appa's snort of doubt and suspicion gusted over Aang's back, but the growls diminished and a few moments later he felt the sky bison back off. Zuko stepped up to him, crouched down and somewhat brusquely rolled Aang over so he could see more of what was going on all around him. But right that moment, Aang was only concerned with what was going on right in front of him; still crouched down, Zuko held Aang's gaze as he declared with an a downright grim look, "Last time we saw each other, you told me you had a friend in the Fire Nation a hundred years ago. How well did you know him?"

"Um… pretty well; not as well as I knew Bumi, but Kuzon and I had a lot of fun together. I knew what his favorite food was, what games he liked best, and what he wanted to be when he grew up; stuff like that." Aang wondered what this was leading to. Maybe…

"You knew him enough to have learned at least a few of our customs. So you should know what this means," Zuko said, his face even more grim than before as he went from crouching to a formal seated position, his heels tucked under his butt. He drew a deep breath, and then drew a pearl-handled knife from his belt. A gleaming steel dagger, and Aang's heart started pounding in fear as Zuko raised the knife high—

And reached back, to slice through his own ponytail right at the base. The prince's hands trembled slightly as he lowered the knife, but held the ponytail out for a second as if asking the universe to bear witness, before letting it fall at his feet as he sheathed the blade.

"…Huh?"

"I'm with Aang; huh?" Sokka asked from where he was lying. "Not that I disagree with the haircut; you just don't have the style or clear ruggedness to handle a warrior's wolf-tail. But what's so important about doing it now?"

Zuko's uncle rumbled from where he was sitting while rubbing the baby's back, "To sever one's phoenix plume or topknot, is to sever all ties to your family, clan and traditions. Prince Zuko has just declared to the world that he will no longer follow the commands of his father, Fire Lord Ozai."

"I'm not here to capture you, Avatar," Zuko said solemnly. "Instead, my uncle and I are prepared to ally ourselves with you to defeat Fire Lord Ozai; to dethrone him and end the war. I no longer consider him my liege lord—and no longer my father. I owe him no loyalty at all… not after he ordered me to kill my son."

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

After Appa stopped fighting with the shirshu, the Earth Kingdom nuns came hesitantly into the courtyard, and asked if they could be of assistance. They helped Prince Zuko and his uncle prop Aang and his friends up in chairs arranged in a semicircle, so they could all see each other in conversation. One of the nuns brought out a bottle of very potent perfume that she said had occasional restorative properties; after the bottle was waved under their noses, both Katara and Sokka were fully restored, and Aang could at least feel his arms and legs again.

After Katara said she was back to normal, Prince Zuko fished something out of his belt pouch and held it out to her, and she gave a sharp gasp before snatching it from his hand, to bring it up to her throat. "Hey, that's your necklace!" Sokka said, peering at it in surprise as Katara tied it back in place around her neck. "I thought you lost that way back on the prison barge… How'd you guys get hold of it?"

"Zuko discovered it when we visited the barge to refuel our coal supply, and search for clues as to the Avatar's next destination," Iroh said as he and Zuko took their seats in chairs facing them. "We're pleased to be able to return it to you at last," he added cheerfully as he put the baby down on the ground in front of his chair, and whipped a cute little stuffed panda out of his sleeve for the baby to play with. Zuko hunched his shoulders a little while his uncle was talking, like he was feeling guilty about something, but kept his eyes focused on the baby instead of saying anything.

One of the abbey nuns brought out a chair for Jun the bounty hunter, too, but she declined, saying she'd rather be on her way. "After you tell me where my 'finder's fee' is, of course," she said with a meaningful look at Zuko.

Zuko nodded curtly. "I put all the gold I promised you in a small chest and threw it overboard from the aft starboard side of my ship, with a long rope tied tying two pieces of driftwood together to act as a floating marker. You'll have to wait until my ship actually pulls out of port, but once they do, look for two pieces of driftwood tied together, that aren't drifting in to shore."

Jun frowned, clearly displeased by the news. "And how long can I expect to wait for that to happen? You told your crew that you might be gone for up to ten days; they're obviously going to be waiting for you there at least that long!"

"I know," the prince said, looking really guilty now, and really sad too. "And they didn't know that Uncle and my son would be gone for more than overnight; by now they're probably searching the countryside, trying to find an old friend of my uncle that doesn't actually exist, and worrying that something horrible has happened to them. And they won't have any idea what really happened, until one of them is bold enough to go into my cabin and sees the scroll I left lying on my bed, addressed to my lieutenant. I hated lying to them, and making them worry… but I couldn't risk any of them finding out what my fa—what Fire Lord Ozai wants done, and one of them being either loyal enough or heartless enough to actually do it."

Jun gave a slow nod of acknowledgment, her frown turning thoughtful. "I can understand that. Well, I can find bounty work elsewhere for a few weeks until the coast is clear." She took a few packs saddlebags off her shirshu's back and tossed them down at Zuko's feet, then swung into the saddle without another word; Jun evidently wasn't one for big goodbyes.

As the shirshu galloped away, Sokka pointed at the small pile of sacks and asked suspiciously, "What's in those?"

"All the possessions that my nephew and I have left in this changed world," the old man Iroh said sadly. "And most of it is clothes and supplies for little Teiji. We had to pack lightly, to avoid arousing suspicions among our crew… but you are still suspicious of us, it seems," as he gave Sokka a searching look.

"Of course I am," Sokka said, as if surprised that anyone would think otherwise. "You're Fire Nation, and you've been chasing us trying to capture Aang since we left the South Pole! The only reason I haven't already thrown Aang and my sister into Appa's saddle and left you far behind is that kid right there," as he pointed at Teiji. "This may still be some crazy long-reaching plot to capture the Avatar-"

"You can actually say that, while watching us let our transportation and greatest combat advantage go without a word?!" Zuko interrupted incredulously, while jerking his thumb at the departing bounty hunter and shirshu, still visible in the distance.

"I said 'crazy long-reaching plot', and how do I know you don't have your ship steaming up the coast towards us right now?" Sokka shot back, pointing towards the ocean only a few hundred yards away. "But from everything Katara saw and told us about back during that mess with the pirates, I'm sure about one thing; you're not going to start a fight while the baby's around, and risk him getting hurt."

"I'm so glad you think we have at least some sense," Zuko rasped, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

"His suspicion is quite reasonable, nephew," Iroh said in soothing tones. "Trust is hard to earn from former enemies; this alliance will take both time and care to fully forge, if we can."

Sokka sat back and stared hard at the Fire Nation guys for a few seconds more, rubbing his chin in thought. "So you really want to leave your ship and all your Fire Nation-y stuff behind to make an alliance with us?"

"If the Avatar agrees to our terms," the prince said bluntly.

"Terms?" Katara echoed, with a sharply raised eyebrow, just as Aang said the same thing.

Iroh's expression turned grave. "You must understand, Avatar and companions, that there are conditions placed on our alliance with you. My nephew and I talked this over a great deal before deciding to seek you out and propose joining forces."

"If you agree to the terms, you'll have a firebending teacher whenever you're ready for training, and critical intelligence on the Fire Nation; everything from the strength of our forces in each region to the layout of the royal palace and the bunker beneath it," Zuko put in, looking grim. "But if you don't, then we part ways here, and you'll have no help from us at all."

"Help that would likely prove crucial, for a small group-forgive me for being blunt, but a small group of children attempting to depose the most powerful man in the world and end a war that's been going on for a hundred years," Iroh finished.

Aang said glumly, "You don't have to tell me; I know I need all the help I can get." He had trouble facing the Fire Lord even in his nightmares; he was all too sure that facing the real thing would be a hundred times worse.

"But we also know some help comes at too high a price," Sokka said pointedly, frowning hard. "So what are your terms?"

"First, that if we succeed in ending Ozai's reign of conquest, you use the Avatar's influence with the other world leaders to prevent the Water Tribes and Earth Kingdom from counter-attacking our home islands and colonies out of revenge. We agree that there should be trials for war-crimes, for those who ordered atrocities committed, but let no revenge be taken on innocent Fire Nation citizens, or on troops who had no choice but to follow the orders they were given."

"That's pretty reasonable," Aang said as he tried again to nod-and was actually able to do it this time; the shirshu's venom was wearing off. "The monks had always said that revenge is a bad idea, because it only leads to more violence. So we can agree to that; right, guys?"

Sokka and Katara looked at each other with combined doubtful and resentful expressions, before turning back to the others. "It depends on what you consider 'atrocities'," Sokka said bluntly. "Do you consider the raids on the Southern Water Tribe to be atrocities? Because there's no way either we or our dad will agree to that condition, unless you agree that the leader of at least the last raid on our tribe will stand trial and be executed, for killing our mom in cold blood."

Iroh and Zuko traded startled glances before turning to the Water Tribe siblings. "In cold blood? You're certain?" Zuko demanded.

"She was murdered in our home, by the leader of that raid seven years ago!" Katara insisted with angry tears in her eyes. "I was the last one to see her alive, and she was standing in front of that monster completely unarmed! She didn't put up a fight, just told me to run get our dad, and I did, but by the time we got back he'd already killed her!"

"He'll stand trial," Zuko said instantly, a scowl on his features. "Murder of noncombatants is a war crime, especially when children are involved!" Iroh nodded agreement, his expression grave.

"Okay, so that's one condition we can live with," Aang said hastily, hoping to lighten the mood a little. "What's the next one?"

"Second, you agree that the colonies-" Zuko began.

"Nephew, before we delve into that one, let us discuss the third term," Iroh interrupted him. "The third term, is a far more immediate need."

Zuko gave his uncle a curt nod of agreement, then turned back to Aang. "I trust my uncle on spiritual matters, but the rest of the world will trust you more. I want your sworn statement as the Avatar, on a document that we can show to anyone, anywhere and anytime, that my son is not a witch-child. That you've spiritually examined him, and found no evil or spirit-powers in him whatsoever."

Aang blinked in surprise, and then said hesitantly, "Um… sure! As soon as I can figure out how to spiritually examine people. I'm really new to all this spirit-stuff."

Zuko gave a huff of frustration at Aang's honest response, just before Katara spoke up. "Would a signed document from a member of the Southern Water Tribe help? Sokka and I can testify that we're used to seeing eyes of different colors on polar-dogs, and none of them have ever exhibited special powers. And besides, how could anyone think an innocent little baby like this one," as she reached down towards the baby currently playing near her feet, "could be evil?"

Zuko gave a hard twitch as Katara reached down, but his uncle's heavy hand on his shoulder kept him in his seat. Katara picked up the baby, set him in her lap and cooed to him, "You're not evil at all, are you? And you're just as cute as any baby could be; yes, you are!" The baby babbled happily back at her, while Zuko slowly relaxed again.

"Here, let me take a look at him," Sokka said, leaning over to peer into the baby's face. "Huh, how about that; they really are mismatched. One brown, one blue. Wonder if that means he's part Water Tribe?" He glanced over at Zuko as he continued, "You told Katara you found him, right? Where'd you find him?"

"Hundreds of miles south of here; in a forest an hour's ride south of Senlin Village," Zuko told them, a scowl deepening on his face. "The village he and his mother had been driven out of, by superstitious fools who blamed an innocent baby for some spirit troubles they'd been having recently."

"Senlin Village?! But we were there, just before the Winter Solstice!" Aang blurted out in surprise. "They were being attacked by the Hei Bai spirit, because it was angry about its forest being destroyed by the Fire Nation. But—those were good people!"

"Good people except when it came to treating strangers who were different from them," Zuko growled, glaring at Aang like he was challenging him somehow—challenging him to learn the truth, maybe. "Their headman told me that Teiji and his mother had arrived only a few weeks before, and even before the spirit-troubles started, some people wanted them gone just because of Teiji's eyes!"

"Well, then why didn't they say anything to us about him when we were there?" Katara said with a raised eyebrow. "One of the first things we asked when the headman told us about the trouble they'd been having was if they knew why, but they said that they had no idea why the Hei Bai Spirit was attacking at all!"

"Not quite, sis," Sokka put in unexpectedly, his eyes narrowed as he fingered his chin in hard thought. "When we asked, the headman said 'we don't know'… but there was a pause right before he said it, like he was about to say something else."

"Perhaps he was about to say 'we believe a witch-child's presence angered the spirit, so we drove both babe and mother out into the wilds to die'," Iroh suggested, the corners of his mouth turned down and bushy eyebrows drawn together in a mild frown—that somehow looked a lot scarier than Zuko's scarfaced glare. "But if he told you that, and was proven wrong—as the villagers had already been proven wrong, when driving them away did not stop the attacks—then they would have been seen as not just superstitious, but cold and heartless by the very Avatar they were asking aid of."

"So they covered up their cruelty, and let you save their lying, ignorant skins," Zuko growled. "While Teiji's mother was slowly dying in the wilderness from internal injuries… she'd been dead for at least a day by the time I found him, still clinging to her skirts."

Still holding the baby in her lap, Katara gave a shudder before scooping him up into a hug, her eyes filled with tears. "Oh, you poor thing! Poor, sweet little boy!" His own face filled with sympathetic misery, Sokka bit his quivering lower lip while reaching over to awkwardly pat the baby's back.

"That's really horrible," Aang said with feeling. "It's a good thing that you did find him in time! I don't know how to examine for spirit-powers yet, but I'll be happy to write up a paper saying that I don't sense any evil in him."

Zuko turned to his uncle with a thoughtful frown as he asked, "Uncle, is that something you can teach the Avatar as well? How to see spirits, like the way you saw the kirin?"

Just then one of the nuns, approaching their group with a tray of refreshments, stopped in her tracks so abruptly that the cups threatened to topple over. "A kirin? You saw a kirin? Your pardon, please, I didn't meant to eavesdrop, but… the kirin still live, they're not extinct after all?" as her face filled with hope.

Iroh turned to the nun, and the other nuns drawing near after hearing her raised voice, with his wrinkle-lined face set in regretful sorrow. "I fear I cannot give you hope of that, dear lady. What I saw was the spirit of a kirin, not a living one. I can not say how long its ghost has lingered in our world; perhaps since even before Chin ordered their slaughter."

"What's a kirin? Or, what was a kirin?" Sokka asked curiously. "I've never heard of them before."

"Sacred creatures, of great spiritual power," the abbess answered, looking somber. "They were keepers of justice, protectors of the innocent; associated with righteous rule. In centuries past, the Earth Kings and the kings of city-states were not truly accepted by their people until a kirin came out of the wilderness of its own accord to bless the ruler and his reign. Which is why Chin the Conqueror ordered their slaughter, nearly 400 years ago."

"Chin the Conqueror?" Aang asked curiously. He'd never heard of the man, but he'd never really paid much attention when the monks were teaching Earth Kingdom history; it had been more fun to think up new airbending techniques like riding air-scooters.

"A cruel and rapacious man, who conquered over a third of the Earth Kingdom before meeting his end when he confronted the newly risen Avatar Kyoshi," the abbess informed him. "At first Chin tried to claim his conquest was righteous by keeping a kirin at his side, but none of them would come near him. He set squads of foresters and even small armies to hunt them down, and they managed to captured three of the sacred creatures, but two of the kirin died within hours of their capture, even though they'd been brought in unharmed. The third rampaged through his camp, killing dozens of soldiers, and nearly killed Chin himself before it was cut down. After that, Chin set a hideously high bounty on them, offering hundredweights of gold for each kirin's head, and the mercenary scum of the world began hunting them all." The abbess's head lowered as she finished somberly, "By the time of Chin's death, there were no kirin left alive, and our world is poorer for their loss."

"Like the dragons," Zuko murmured just barely loud enough for Aang to hear, his eyes also downcast.

The dragons? But there were plenty of dragons around, like the wild one that he and Kuzon had met in their last adventure, just before… Aang suddenly had a horrible thought; in the century he'd spent sleeping in ice, had something happened to the dragons too?

But before he could ask that, Iroh said in a musing tone, "Righteous rule… I had forgotten that aspect of the kirin. I wonder now, Prince Zuko, if the name we chose for Teiji is far more appropriate than we'd thought."

"Huh?" as Zuko blinked at him, drawn out of whatever depressing thoughts he'd been thinking.

"Teiji means 'righteous' or 'well-governed', remember. And the kirin-spirit that was staying near Teiji until you rescued him, did two things before returning to the Spirit World. It nuzzled the top of Teiji's head… and then it moved to stand very clearly next to you, nephew. The rightful heir to the Fire Nation throne."

Everyone's eyes went wide, as they stared at either Zuko, or at the baby still sitting in Katara's lap. "Wh-what are you saying, uncle?" Zuko said hesitantly. "I thought you agreed that he could only be my ward! I love Teiji as a son, but he's not of my blood, and wasn't even born on Fire Nation soil; our people would never accept him as my heir, in line for the throne!"

"There is more than one throne in the world, nephew… but no, I do not know what Teiji's destiny holds, whether he is meant to rule a nation when he is grown or merely his own household. I am sure of one thing, though; you will certainly be a more righteous ruler than the man currently holding the throne. Of that, I am very certain," Iroh said with a scowl as he reached for one of the saddlebags, opened it and pulled out a scroll, which he then tossed to Aang. "Young Avatar, my nephew sent his father a letter immediately after we rescued Teiji, telling him of his intention to adopt the orphan child and show the Fire Nation's more benevolent side. You have in your hands the response Fire Lord Ozai sent to his son."

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His stomach roiling, Zuko watched the Avatar unroll the letter and begin reading it aloud, presumably for his companions' benefit. There was no need to read it aloud for Zuko's own benefit; the words had long since burned themselves into his brain, as searing as Fath—as Ozai's hand had been, over two years ago…

"From His Imperial Majesty, the Chosen of Agni, the August Ruler of all the blah blah blah, lots of silly titles…"

…okay, those words hadn't been burned into his brain before. Zuko could hardly believe his ears; in all his life, no one had ever referred to anything about Fire Lord Ozai as 'silly'.

"…Okay, here's where the real letter starts." The Avatar cleared his throat and began reading in a ridiculously pompous voice, "The Fire Nation palace is not a playground for Earth Kingdom peasants. You have disgraced yourself and the royal line with your actions, far worse than your shameful behavior in the Agni Kai arena. In order to redeem yourself, and to prove that you are strong enough and ruthless enough to be fit for the Fire Throne, you must kill the child with your bare hands'—what?! Guys, it really says this, 'your bare hands. You will immediately send back proof that you have done this, in the form of the child's… the child's head pickled in a barrel!" The last words were said in strangled tones, as the Avatar's expression turned from shock to sickened. "Pickled in a... that's so… I'm never going to eat pickled anything ever again!"

"Let me see that," the Water Tribe boy demanded, snatching the scroll from the Avatar's nerveless grip to read it himself. For her part, the peasant girl clutched Teiji tighter to her chest and shrank away from the scroll, as if fearing it was contaminated by disease.

Looking at them, Zuko once more fought down the impulse to snatch his son back from her grip, and cuddle Teiji close again. His uncle has stressed repeatedly while they'd been discussing what they would do in this first meeting, that he would have to trust the Water Tribe people to treat Teiji properly; to do otherwise would be seen as an insult, and they could not afford to insult the people they were hoping to make allies. But he wanted his son back in his arms, dammit! It was the only time he felt certain that Teiji was safe from hate and harm.

He silently willed Teiji to start fussing in the stranger's grip, or at least to turn and reach out for him; Uncle had said it would be okay to take him back then. But Teiji was too busy staring at the Water Tribe girl's necklace, babbling baby talk and patting at it with his tiny fingers, to pay his own father any mind.

When he was finished reading the scroll for himself, the Water Tribe boy threw it on the ground, his face screwed up in disgust. "I knew the Fire Nation was evil, but that's completely sick!"

"We are not all evil," Uncle Iroh said firmly, before conceding, "but the Fire Lord himself surely is. We come from the same father, but it has been many years since I called him my brother... and decades more since he referred to me as his brother, if he ever did. There is no room for love and family left in his shriveled heart; the only thing he loves is power."

"And Azula," Zuko heard himself muttering the words before he could stop them. Fortunately, he'd been quiet enough that nobody seemed to notice, or not care enough to ask him what he meant by that.

Moments later, an unmistakable and embarrassing blart sounded from the vicinity of Teiji's nether regions. The Water Tribe girl holding him wrinkled her nose while the boys with her started leaning far away from her seat, comical expressions of disgust on their features. Normally Zuko would have been wrinkling his nose too, in anticipation of the usual nasty odor and mess that needed cleaning up immediately, but right then he had to push down a relieved smile instead. Finally, he had the excuse he needed!

He grabbed the carrysack of diapers and cleaning supplies from their meager luggage while the girl stood up with Teiji, gingerly holding him a little away from her body. When he approached, she held out her free hand with resignation written all over her features, evidently expecting him to pass her the bag. But instead he scooped Teiji out of her arms, turned around and asked a nun, "Where can I find some privacy for dealing with my son's personal hygiene?"

Her eyebrows were raised with surprise for some reason, but the nun pointed him over to the building on the right, a storehouse for their goods. "Let's get you cleaned up, little man," Zuko murmured to his son as he strode away, quietly relishing how Teiji was clinging to him as he walked.

00oo00oo00oo00oo00

Iroh couldn't help smiling and chuckling a little at the expressions on the faces of the Avatar and his companions as they watched Zuko stride away with Teiji. The Avatar was wide-eyed with surprise, but it was nothing compared to how utterly stunned the Water Tribe siblings looked; he doubted they could have been more astonished if his nephew had suddenly turned purple, sprouted fins and started swimming through the air instead.

"Is he really going to… and he's a prince?!" the girl murmured, more to herself than anyone else.

The boy named Sokka, on the other hand, directed his question straight to Iroh. "Is he really going to change the baby's diaper?!" Then he pointed sideways at his sister as he added, "Did he somehow miss noticing that Katara's a girl?"

That question made the girl lose her astonishment at Zuko's actions, in favor of outrage at her brother. "Excuse me?! No, excuse you and your blind prejudice about women! Do you need the Kyoshi Warriors to beat you into the practice mats again?!"

Iroh decided to deliberately misunderstand their astonishment and the reason behind it, to defuse the siblings' quarrel. "If you're concerned about my nephew Prince Zuko being inexperienced with diaper-changing, I can assure you your concern is unfounded. It's true that I and others had to show him how to do it at first, but in the past month he has become quite the expert at it, and in truth he is now far quicker and neater at diaper-changing than I am. Because my nephew has a kind and caring heart as well as great attention to detail, particularly when it comes to Teiji's well-being."

And when inspiration hit him while he was talking, he grabbed the idea and happily implemented it to make the perfect opportunity to garner more sympathy from the children for their former enemy. "Why, when we found the baby he had a terrible rash on his nethers, but that's entirely cleared up now, and largely thanks to Zuko's tender ministrations! He takes such gentle care of his son's skin; far better than he would let me take care of his own skin, after his father burned him so horribly."

Perfect. The three children all gasped in unison, as much on cue as if he had given them a script to read from. "Y-you mean… the scar on his face?" the Avatar asked, wide-eyed.

"I do indeed. You see-"

"Uncle!" Zuko interrupted, sticking his head out of the warehouse to show a truly distressed expression. "Don't tell them about my-"

"About your supposed shame and dishonor?" Iroh rode right over his protests like a komodo-rhino heading for the food trough. "It is long past time you accepted the truth, nephew; that you did nothing to be ashamed of, that your actions were honorable if foolhardy, and it is your father who is completely honorless!"

And with that he told the children the same story that he'd told the men aboard the Wani, though not in quite the same fashion. He no longer had any concerns about being reported by Ozai's hidden spies for sedition, so he no longer bothered to choose his words carefully or censor his recollections. And he had to pause in a few places to explain aspects of Fire Nation culture to them, such as the Agni Kai.

While explaining the reasons for and rituals of the Agni Kai, he emphasized to them, "Normally a full and properly witnessed Agni Kai is fought only by adults! Both participants must be at least sixteen years old, the legal age for signing their own documents and enlisting in the military. But in rare circumstances, youths younger than that age are allowed to fight for their honor or their family's honor; usually only if the youth's parents are off the island or crippled, completely unable to fight, and a neutral third party can testify that the youth has had enough training in firebending and combat to give him or her a fighting chance. Such honor duels are only allowed by special decree of the local authority… and there is no authority higher than the Fire Lord."

He glanced over at Zuko, who had returned to their circle with Teiji by then but was keeping his head down, determinedly focusing on his son rather than on their audience. "You thought that you'd be fighting General Bujing... and that your father was honoring you, declaring you were an excellent firebender after all, by decreeing you could duel in an Agni Kai; am I right?"

His cheeks burning nearly as red as his scar, Zuko gave only one curt nod in response.

Iroh turned back to his audience and grimly informed them, "But that is not what happened. Zuko had been right to denounce the general's plan, but he had done so in the Fire Lord's war room. And though he did not know it, this was not the first time General Bujing had proposed such a plan, sacrificing large numbers of untrained or ill-equipped troops in order to draw out the more experienced or more powerful opponents… and had his plans approved by Ozai."

That got Zuko twisting in his seat to look at him wide-eyed, as he blurted out, "They were approved?! You… you never told me that before!"

Iroh gazed back at him sadly. "Before now, would you have listened?"

After a brief pause, Zuko lowered his eyes in pained concession and went back to keeping his son quietly occupied, while Iroh continued the story. "Ozai was angry that his own son had made it clear that such tactics, tactics that he had approved of before, were a betrayal of our own people. That now the generals knew that Prince Zuko had more honor and compassion, important qualities for a leader of men, than Ozai himself had ever had or ever would. So the Fire Lord declared that Zuko's outburst had been an act of disrespect, which it had been against General Bujing. But then he used the ancient customs governing hosts and their guests—and Zuko had not qualified as a guest, because he had not been invited to the war planning session—to declare himself as the insulted party and the Agni Kai opponent. A fact that he ordered to be deliberately kept from his son for the next day and a half, throughout all the preparations for the Agni Kai, until it was too late."

All the agonized frustration Iroh had undergone back then came out in his voice as he said through gritted teeth, "I tried three times to get through to Zuko and let him know what his father had done and planned to do, but I could never get him alone; there were always witnesses in the room with us! And disobeying Ozai's direct order would have had me charged with treason, and still not stopped the Agni Kai. I tried to contact the High Fire Sage as well, to have him declare the match invalid and disallowed, but Ozai must have gotten to the Sages first; my every attempt was blocked. I did not see the High Fire Sage until he was standing in his accustomed spot at the Agni Kai arena, while I was in the audience.

"Helpless to do anything else, I watched Zuko walk proudly out to the proper spot on the grand arena, garbed in the traditional clothing for an Agni Kai; from head to toe, he was a young warrior ready and willing to duel another for not just his honor, but the lives and honor of our nation's soldiers. I watched him stop and take the traditional waiting pose, turned away from where his opponent would be and down on one knee to pray to Agni while awaiting the High Fire Sage's signal to proceed.

"And while Zuko's back was turned, I saw Fire Lord Ozai walk out to the opposing side of the arena, take his place there and nod to the High Fire Sage. The gong sounded, and both opponents stood up and turned around… and Zuko got his first look at his true opponent. And everyone there could see that he'd had no idea before then; his surprise at first, and then his dismay and increasing fear were visible even to the audience! In less than five seconds, he-"

"Enough!" Zuko abruptly shouted, looking anguished and frankly a little green. "You don't have to say any more, Uncle; they get the idea!" He lifted his head to face them, his teeth bared in challenge even while tears welled up in his eyes. "I ended up like this, okay?!" as his hand flashed upwards to gesture at his scar.

"Ah, ah, uwaahhh!" Teiji started wailing, catching his father's distress. The Avatar and both the Water Tribe children shifted uneasily in their seats, the girl Katara getting halfway up with her arms outstretched towards father and son before sitting down again, her face showing her combined dismay, sympathy and indecision.

"Nephew, why don't you take your son for a walk to calm him down," Iroh suggested. "I will call to you when we are finished."

Zuko turned that same angry tearful glare on him, sputtering, "But I—you-"

"I am determined to inform our new allies of exactly how cruel, devious and utterly merciless Ozai can be," Iroh said firmly. "They must know that before they face him in battle, if they are to have any hope of surviving even the first five seconds against him."

"Actually, I really think we get the idea already!" the Avatar said with a rather desperate wave of his hands.

"Yeah; normally I'd want to hear every detail of information on the enemy, but I think you can skip to the end this time," the boy Sokka said, looking both grim... and sympathetic towards Zuko's obvious anguish, which Iroh noted with secret satisfaction. "If he did that to his own son, then there's no doubt in my mind that he'd the definition of cruel, devious and utterly merciless. And that if we don't throw at him everything we can possibly use against him, then we and everyone we care about are dead."

"Very well, then," Iroh said with a somber nod, seeming to agree with reluctance when in fact he was secretly grateful that they'd begged him to stop. He knew how much Zuko had been anguished by just the recounting so far; he would rather have respected the prince's privacy and let him tell the story if he ever felt the need or desire to do so, but it was vital to change these children's collective impression of his nephew as soon as possible.

Zuko rocked and murmured Teiji to settle him down again as Iroh continued, "To skip to the end: when the Agni Kai was over, Zuko lay on the arena ground horribly burned, while Ozai strode off without even a backward glance. He was bedridden for a week, suffering a high fever from infection, as the palace healers did what they could to at least save his eye since they could not prevent scarring. And even before I was sure my nephew would live instead of dying in that sickbed, Fire Lord Ozai decreed that because of his conduct, Prince Zuko was banished from the Fire Nation. And his banishment would be lifted only under one condition: if he captured the Avatar. Only then would he be able to return home and restore his honor."

"So that's why you were so persistent in hunting us!" Katara said with a gasp, her eyes wide in realization.

"Correct. We have not seen the Fire Nation for over two and a half years; instead we have been to virtually every other corner of the world, searching through lands and among people who have been mostly hostile to our people and the prince's quest. Up until we received that letter a few days ago, Zuko's every waking moment was focused on hunting down and capturing the Avatar, in order to please his father; no matter the risk to his health, his ship, and even his very life."

"Two-and-a-half years of hunting the Avatar? But that's... I don't get it! Why?" the Avatar demanded of Zuko. "If he treated you that terribly, if he's that horrible a human being… if he's evil, then why would you have ever wanted to go back to him at all?!"

Zuko could not face the young airbender's eyes, his expression almost sick as he stared at the ground. "You don't understand… he was my father!"

Aang slowly shook his head, his expression disgusted. "When we first met, you said I knew nothing of fathers, since I was raised by monks. If being raised by a father means having to blindly obey and want to go back to anyone who did that to me, then I'm glad I never had one!"

The Avatar's emphatic statement caused Katara to look at him in startled dismay, but Iroh wasn't concerned by that; his primary goal had been accomplished. Even if they did not fully trust him yet, each person in the Avatar's group felt sympathy towards his nephew now, and that would go a long way towards their acceptance.

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After Zuko's uncle finished talking about what a monster the Fire Lord was, for treating his own son like dirty slush just because the guy wasn't a monster, they discussed what they were going to do next. It turned out that the firebenders hoped to hitch a ride with them for the next couple hundred miles, until they reached a secret camp of Fire Nation war deserters and rebels that Iroh knew about.

It was kind-of hard to believe that Iroh had secretly been rooting for the Avatar the whole time his nephew had been hunting for them, but Zuko kept swearing that he'd had no idea until after receiving that horrible letter and he and his uncle had a long, long talk right afterwards. And while Sokka still didn't entirely trust the prince, he really seemed to be one of those guys who was just slush at lying to people; his emotions were written all over his face. Anyway, when Iroh said there was a secret camp of Fire Nation deserters who would help them, that happened to be just a day's flight to the north, Sokka decided they could give them a lift that far; no fighting or capturing would be happening so long as they had the baby with them.

Anyway, that secret camp of Fire folks would become the Fire family's new home, while Sokka and his sister escorted Aang up to the North Pole to get his waterbending training. Then once the Avatar had mastered waterbending and earthbending, he'd know where to find his teachers for mastering firebending too.

But before they took off, there were a couple things to be done first. Zuko still wanted a letter signed by the Avatar stating that his son wasn't a witch-child, and the nuns at the abbey had a table and writing supplies they could use. So Aang went inside the abbey with them to figure out what the letter would say, how to phrase it so everyone would be reassured without making Aang outright lie on a document. Meanwhile Katara discussed an idea she'd had with Sokka, and they drew diagrams in the dirt until they agreed on what would work, before she asked another nun for the supplies they would need.

The nun was happy to help when she heard the reason behind the request, and brought out a couple of tanned leather hides while Katara dug her sewing kit out of her pack. Sokka got out his knife as well, and he had just finished cutting the last of the strips that Katara needed when Prince Zuko came wandering back out, without his boy and with a faintly troubled expression. "I think my uncle is using Teiji's cuteness to help him flirt with nuns… What are you doing?"

Katara had a couple of tough leatherworking pins in her mouth while she was sewing the strips together, so Sokka answered for her. "We're making a harness and tether for your kid, to put on him while we're flying, so you don't have to keep an iron grip on him every second that we're in the air."

"A what?!" The prince's surprise turned into outrage in no time flat. "You are not going to put a–a leash on my son, and treat him as no better than an animal! Think of his feelings! Think of his human dignity!"

Without even looking up from what he was doing, Sokka pointed upwards briefly as he said, "Think of him falling from a thousand feet straight up."

After a moment of silence, Prince Zuko picked up part of the harness that had already been finished, and tugged on it experimentally. "You think this is going to be strong enough?"

They got the leather harness made in less than an hour, and by the time they'd fitted it onto Teiji, Iroh had come up with a really official-sounding document about Teiji that Aang could sign without lying. Fifteen minutes later they had everyone and their packs in the saddle, Teiji had a fresh diaper on as well as the new harness, the other end of the tether was tied securely to the saddle, and Aang was saying "Appa, yip yip!"

The sky bison surged into the air, and Sokka got a close look at how well firebenders and babies fare when flying. The kid just loved it, clearly thought flying was the greatest thing since sea prunes; he was squealing and clapping his hands, which made Aang grin when he glanced back at them. Zuko looked a little nervous at first, but he got over it when he saw how relaxed Katara and Sokka were and how much Teiji was enjoying it.

Iroh, on the other hand… the elder was looking a little green around the gills, though he murmured that he'd be fine when Zuko started fussing over him, asking if they should ask the Avatar to fly slower. But it was reassuring, seeing how much Zuko cared about his elder as well as his kid; just the way any Water Tribe guy would be. Sokka found himself thinking that if that secret camp was really where Iroh had said it would be, if their most persistent enemies had really just become their allies, then the war was halfway won already!

But then he remembered, and he said aloud in his surprise, "We're putting the rudder ahead of the sail!"

"We're doing what?" Zuko said, giving him a wary look, as if he'd just started spouting nonsense.

"He means, we're doing something out of order and it might not work right as a result," Katara explained for the non-Water-Tribe people. "But what's out of order, Sokka?"

"We're bringing these guys along, treating them like allies already, when we haven't heard all their conditions for making an alliance! Zuko said there were three, but we only heard two of them before we got sidetracked by all that talk of kirin and how rotten the Fire Lord is and stuff."

Zuko looked startled, and then he facepalmed as he groaned, "I can't believe we forgot! It's so incredibly important…"

Sokka gestured impatiently at him. "So, what's the third condition?"

"That once the war is over, the longer-standing Fire Nation colonies are allowed to remain where they are, instead of dismantled and all their citizens sent back to the home islands," Zuko told them. "All the colonies that have been in existence for more than twenty-five years; long enough for people to not just be born there, but grow up and start raising their own children on the same soil."

Iroh added solemnly, "We realize that all those lands were taken unjustly from the Earth Kingdom, and we're agreed that the newer colonies should be dismantled and the land turned back over to the rightful owner. But the older colonies are full of families with innocent children who have done no wrong, and even whose fathers and mothers have never acted in aggression against the Earth Kingdom all their lives. Those families do not deserve to have their homes ripped from them in turn, to be punished for crimes their ancestors committed; that would not be justice."

Katara frowned at them both as she protested, "But that's supposed to be Earth Kingdom land! There should be earthbenders on it, not firebenders!"

"There are earthbenders living on it now, right alongside firebenders!" Zuko retorted. One of my crewmen, Sheng, is an earthbender from the colonies!"

"Say what?!" That got not only Sokka and Katara looking at him, that got Aang setting the reins down and floating back to the saddle and gape at Zuko. "Are you serious?"

"Of course I'm serious! Sheng is an earthbender, and a loyal Fire Nation citizen! He told me that his mother and little brother are firebenders, so yes, it's possible to have families with more than one bending type! Sheng used his bending once to save my son from deadly danger; I won't repay his courage and loyalty by letting his family be ripped apart or their home taken from them!"

"Families of more than one bending type," Katara repeated with an odd smile on her face, one that made Sokka feel suspicious for some reason. Then she lost the smile in favor of a more sober look. "You're right; it wouldn't be justice to pull families like that apart by splitting them between the two nations, or make them lose their homes either."

"It's wrong to punish people for stuff that they didn't do themselves. So we can agree to that condition too," was all Aang said at first, before getting to his feet to get back to the reins.

"Aang," Sokka felt obliged to warn him, "You're going to have a really hard time getting anyone in the Earth Kingdom to agree to that term for alliance. They're all going to insist on getting their land back; that everything goes back to the way it was before the war."

But Aang just got a really sad look in his eyes as he said quietly, "They'll just have to accept it… accept that there are some things that just can never go back to the way they were before."

He didn't have to say it; everyone knew he was talking about the Air Nomads. Even the Fire folks knew it; both of them were looking not just sad but a little guilty as well.

But then Zuko's kid babbled some cute baby nonsense at him and tossed his stuffed panda up into the air, and Aang had to dive for it before it went over the side, and the sad mood was broken. Zuko held onto the toy while Katara started digging into her pack for supplies to make another and even tinier harness, as their newly enlarged group headed northward to find even more allies.

.

TO BE CONTINUED

More Author's Notes: So, how many people just knew that something horrible was about to happen to Zuko as soon as they read that line about him having a really good day? ;-)

We saw Aang impersonators only one time in the series, among the refugees waiting to get into Ba Sing Se in the episode "The Serpent's Pass", but it stands to reason that impersonating had started sometime before then. The scene with Zuko meeting the impersonator that had triggered a false Avatar sighting, is my reasoning as to why Jun encountered his ship ship south of Pohuai stronghold and the ruins of Taku, instead of north of there. It was probably just an error on the episode writer's part, but I still decided to come up with a reason for the shirshu following Katara's scent to pass the herbalist's home along the way. (As to why Katara's scent was at the herbalists' home when she never saw the old lady in the pertinent episode, check out my drabble "Plum Blossoms for Flavoring" in the drabble collection "Avatar Drabbles: Missing Moments.")