Disclaimer: Clearly, I own nothing of Avatar, or of any characters from that series. But I own my ideas! Yay creativity!

Warning: NO warning this time. OMG.

Chapter 10: The Game Changer

"Set down, set down, said the moon to the sun,
"So that I, so that I, can float overhung,
"And can watch, and can watch, all my little ones,
"As they sleep, as they sleep, with water in their bones,
"For the Moon loves her children,
"The children of the ice and sea,
"Oh, the Moon loves her children,
"The children like you and me…"

Tenzin could hear Katara sing quietly as she went about the camp. It had been nearly four weeks, over a month, since she had been with them. Their plans had been set in motion long ago, the Fire Lord had received their gift, he was sure. Intelligence had said there had been increased patrols throughout the Fire Nation, probably trying to discreetly look for him and his men. He smirked. They would never find them—not until Tenzin wanted them to. He stole another look at Katara.

She had healed beautifully. In only a week after their move, she had been able to walk on her own through the small meadow directly outside of her tent on sunny afternoons. In two weeks, she was staying up late with the men, laughing and joking with them during their after-dinner ritual. In three, she was practicing her waterbending, slowly but surely building up her strength again, making sure she didn't strain her back. Now, she was fully recovered, so she said, and was ready to take the men up on their offer for some sparring matches between them, even scheduled a date and time for the bloodbending archery contest, which was to take place later today. She was becoming a part of the camp, involved with the men's lives, helping them with their wives and girlfriends, and even acting as a healer for the minor incidents around camp. On sunny, warm days, her voice floated through the camp with childish nursery rhymes, sometimes even a reel. But sometimes, Tenzin caught her staring at the setting sun sadly, and heard her humming the mournful, haunting songs of the Water Tribe ghost stories.

But she was a part of the group, now, despite the fact that she vehemently denied belief in Tenzin's cause.

"You haven't even told me what the real 'cause' is," she told him once when he, once again, asked why.

"What do you mean? We're making the family pay for the hundred years and more of strife!" She just gave him a look over the pot of water she was bending for one of the wives. She was the quickest purifier they had, even though she said that the water in the river really didn't need purifying.

"That's not the real reason."

Tenzin watched her. He hated it when she saw through his cracks, into his crooked mind. And yet, he loved that someone was able to.

Instead of answering her, he changed the subject. "I once heard about this waterbender who travelled with the Avatar, dedicated to ending the Hundred Years War. The story was, she was fierce as an Armidillo Lion, and that she could even control people. Surely you've heard of her?"

Katara gave him a look, then turned back to her work. He let a relieved breath through his nostrils.

Zuko breathed heavily, slowly. He was trying not to let his frustrations end in him yelling, again. But he could feel his eyebrow begin to twitch, which was never a good sign. He opened his eyes and tried to tune in to what his generals were saying. Pakku and Hakoda, seated beside him, he could tell, were also having trouble controlling themselves. Ping was standing behind him, taking notes. The general standing in front of him was saying something about canvassing areas for information. The general gist, he felt, was that their information was insufficient, and they still had not found Katara. This, he felt, was some information that should've been related with more of foreboding or guilt at insufficiency in his voice. Apparently, Hakoda agreed with him, because he launched to his feet, fists clenched at his sides.

"Are you saying," he growled through clenched teeth, "that even after a month of searching, you still have not found my daughter?"

The general narrowed his eyes and shot a glance at Zuko on his dais, veiled in flame. But Zuko remained still, fully supporting Hakoda's point. The general sighed.

"No, sir," he said, "we haven't."

"That is UNACCEPTABLE!" Hakoda roared. He turned to Zuko. "Now, Zuko, your armies and scouts have tried, and failed, to find my daughter. Now, oh great Fire Lord, I am taking matters into my own hands." He turned to face the room. "My warriors will be traveling everywhere. We will find her," he again turned to Zuko, "with or without your permission."

The general tightened his fists in anger. "You can't do that! The Fire Lord has supreme authority—no parties may travel his land without his explicit permission. If you travel in his lands, I will instruct my men to arrest you!"

"No, you won't" Zuko said quietly, attracting the attention of everyone in the room. He faced Hakoda, still sitting on his dais. "Hakoda, I would be honored if your warriors searched on my land. However, I feel that our time has come to an end. We need to rescue Katara. Yesterday." He stood. "So, while Hakoda and Pakku's warriors search openly, I will go out and find her. Discreetly."

Zuko walked away from the group, Pakku and Hakoda now debating the best way to search for the beloved Katara, his generals open-mouthed. Ping followed him hurriedly.

"Sir," he called, still several feet behind him, "if you are going to search for Master Katara, what do you want me to tell the populace, or even your advisors?"

"Tell them a lie," he said. Zuko's mind was preoccupied, thinking of the morbid 'gift' he had received three weeks ago, sent by messenger hawk, detailing Katara's abduction and nothing else. Nothing. "Any lie."

"But sir!" Ping called. Zuko rushed ahead of him, paying him no mind. Ping groaned and ran, cutting off his Fire Lord. "Sir. If the Fire Lord disappears for an unknowable amount of time, the populace will more than likely revolt. And, if your advisors have no idea where you are, they will think you incompetent for running off. What do you want me to tell them? That you've run away for some romantic tryst? What do you think that's going to do your credibility as a leader?"

Zuko stopped everything. His heart and mind were racing, trying to think of ways to find, and save, Katara, but now he realized that Ping was right. What was he going to tell everyone? He shot a look at the man, then pulled him into the doorway that lead to his suite, which he had successfully made it to in the short period after he left the meeting. As he and Ping entered the outer rooms to his suite, he began hurriedly pacing back and forth, trying to formulate two plans in his mind at once.

"What do you suggest?" he said to Ping, his hand worrying his lip.

Ping swallowed, a little nervous about advising someone who was, arguably, the most powerful person in the Fire Nation.

"A diplomatic mission," he said, finally, as Zuko continued to pace. "We will tell the people that you have gone on a diplomatic mission to the Water Tribe, and your advisors will be told all work must be sent through someone whom you trust." Zuko stopped pacing. It seemed like a good plan.

"What reason will we give for going to the Water Tribe?" he asked. All the bases needed to be covered.

"The Water Tribe was arguably the nation most put at odds during the war, and ties there need to be solidified before we begin any rebuilding of a shipping empire, which will need to happen if the economy is to be rebuilt."

Zuko nodded. "Good. That's perfect. And while we say I go to the Water Tribes, we will explain an exchange of warriors to strengthen our army. And I will go to Kyoshi Island."

"Kyoshi Island, sir?" Ping asked.

"Yes." Zuko nodded, an idea about how he was to do this formulating in his mind. Suddenly, he looked up at Ping. "Get the Avatar here. He will act in my stead. And he must not know what happened to Katara," he said, getting up close to Ping. "Do you understand?"

Ping swallowed. "Yes, sir. I'll go now. Everything will be ready in three days."

"Three days is too long. Make it two. Now, go."

Katara had not thought this would be so difficult.

She was sweating, beads of salty water forming on her brow, reminding her of the time she and Toph had broken out of Fire Nation prison with only sweat.

For about forty minutes, Katara had been practicing shooting an arrow with her Bloodbending, but as she soon had discovered, it was much more difficult to aim an arrow than it was to deflect a shot, as she had usually been doing. It was not the act of notching or the pulling of the bowstring that was the problem, she found, but the actual aiming in itself. Sighting down an arrow was easy. Sighting down an arrow that you weren't actually holding was much more difficult.

"Ugh!" she groaned, throwing up her hands and releasing her hold on one of the men who had volunteered to help her practice. "This is impossible!"

The man was rubbing his arms and wrists, as if trying to make sure he was really the one in control of them. "That was the strangest sensation of my life," he said.

"Sorry," Katara apologized, again. She had already said it about twenty times, one for every guy who decided they wanted to know what bloodbending felt like. It was this guy's first go at it.

"Oh, no, it's alright. I volunteered." Katara smiled painfully. This was annoying; she was not used to not winning at something she was so good at. Absentmindedly, she bended some water into the palm of her hand, letting it coat her fingers, freezing it, melting it, and watching it as it started to glow with healing power. In that moment, she suddenly thought back to Jet, when he showed up in Ba Sing Se, and revealed to them all that had been concealed from everyone, even him. She had used her healing to access his hidden memories. Perhaps she could do the same here.

"I've just had a wonderful idea!" she exclaimed, looking at the group of volunteers gathered around her. "Could someone help me?" Some of the men looked away sheepishly, ashamed of their rational fear and embarrassed about her complete control. One, the one who had last been under her control, stepped forward.

"What could it hurt, one more time?" he said, grabbing his bow and standing in front of the target. Katara smiled gently, then took him under her control, guiding him as she notched the arrow, raised the bow, and began to take aim. When his body was in the position she wished, Katara carefully held him in place with one hand, and bended water into her other, letting her healing powers wash over it. Then she carefully extended a tendril over to the man and let the water touch his forehead, falling over his temples and allowing her access into his mind. Gently, trying not to pry to deep into his thoughts, Katara probed his mind until she saw the part she wanted: sight. She accessed it, then sighted down the arrow. It was surreal; she could see the man from where she was standing in one eye, sweat beading on his forehead—probably nervous about what she was doing—and from the other, she was standing directly in front of the target, aiming an arrow. Quickly, hoping to spend the smallest amount of time invading the man's head, she aimed and let fly. As soon as she let go of the string, Katara withdrew from the man and watched from her own body as the arrow made a satisfying thump and burrowed itself into the center of the target. She released her hold on the man and let her arms fall, pondering what she had just done. She glanced up at his quiet groan, watching as he rubbed his forehead with both his hands.

"Did I hurt you?" Katara asked, worried.

"No," he said, groaning again. "It was just…a strange sensation. What did you do?"

Katara looked down at her hands in wonderment. Sometimes, her bending still surprised her. "I had a friend, once. In Ba Sing Se. He had been brainwashed by the leader of the Dai Li, like many of the other citizens. But he knew something was wrong with him. He asked me to help heal him, and I did. By entering his mind and unblocking the memories of what they did to him. I did almost the same thing to you, but I didn't touch your memories."

The man looked at her with a wrinkle of concern on his face. "Not at all?"

She shook her head. "Not that I could help. Glances of things, maybe, but nothing that made any sense to me." He nodded. She turned to go, to get her dinner before tonight's contest.

"What happened to your friend?" he called.

Katara stopped, thinking. Thinking of how Jet had sacrificed himself for them, of how she had saved him from the Dai Li, only to watch him die. "He died a short time later. Helping me escape."

Tenzin watched with calculating eyes from the shadows.

Zuko was on a ship, on his way to Kyoshi Island. Despite the fact that he was on the move—and happy about it—he couldn't get over his impatience. He was leaving two days after he had made the decisions about what was happening, and he still thought that it was too long a time.

I shouldn't have waited so long to make this decision, he thought. But it couldn't be helped, and now he was on his way. On a Water Tribe ship, powered by benders and the best seamen in the world—not only was it the perfect way to keep his cover, but the fastest way to Kyoshi Island. In fact, the island was straight ahead, and they were speeding towards it.

"Fire Lord Zuko." He turned when the captain called his name. "We're in sight of Kyoshi Island, and will be making port in about fifteen minutes."

"Really?" he asked. "That fast?"

The man nodded. "We have orders from Pakku and Hakoda to work as quickly as possible." He smiled, a little smug. "They personally picked this ship and crew because we are the best."

"Well, then, I've no need to worry about getting back in a timely manner?"

"No, Fire Lord. In fact, depending on how long you take on land, we can be back by tonight."

Zuko silently thanked the spirits for his good fortune, and the geography that meant Kyoshi Island was actually quite close to the Fire Nation proper. They could start their search as soon as they landed. He looked out to the rapidly approaching island and smiled for the first time in days.

When they landed, he wasted no time. He didn't even wait for the plank to be lowered, just jumped and raced until he got to the complex reserved for Kyoshi warriors. Slightly out of breath, he walked in cautiously, hoping not to meet Sokka. He didn't know how much Hakoda had told Sokka, and Zuko certainly did not want to be the one to break the news to the man that his only kid sister had been captured. While under Zuko's protection. Hopefully, if he did meet anyone, it would be Suki. She would know how to handle her man.

Zuko winced at the thought, slightly repulsed. But then his mind returned to the task at hand, and began to look for the girl he needed. There was a group of women practicing in the main floor, in full on Kyoshi attire and makeup. Zuko sighed—it was hard to pick out his target when all the girls looked so similar. Carefully, he circumvented the room, seeing no signs of Sokka or Suki. The women noticed him, but none even gave him a second glance. Zuko knew better, though. They weren't watching him, but they were keeping him under observance—if he made any move that seemed violent or with ill intent, they would be on him in a second. Even with his swords and his firebending, he doubted he could take them all. Finally, he spotted the girl he was looking for in the middle of the room, running the practice even as she participated in it. Zuko smiled. She had come a long way in only a few months.

"Ty Lee," he called.

It was time for their competition. Tenzin stood still in the late afternoon sunlight, letting his skin bake to a degree that was unfashionable in the Fire Nation. He smiled cynically. What did he care about the fashions of the Fire Nation?

He turned at the sound of movement behind. His eyes widened, taking in the sight before him. Katara approached, surrounded by many of the members of the camp—all waiting to see what would happen. She was radiant in her traditional Water Tribe robes in the late afternoon light, resting around her in a kind of luminous halo. As she approached, she caught him looking.

"What?" she asked, quite perplexed about his staring.

"I've never seen you in your Water Tribe clothes before," he said.

"Oh." She cast a glance down across her body, as if to find something remarkable about her clothing. "Well, my other robes really needed a good washing. It's a good thing you didn't capture me in them, though, 'cause I'd have a huge hole in the back, huh?" She smiled sweetly.

Tenzin continued to stare. He shook his head and tried to take stock of the rumblings rolling around in his mind.

You finally want to spend time with someone, a voice in his head said. It made Tenzin think back to a time, a long, long time ago.

"I just don't understand why he won't associate with any of the other kids!" he father said, throwing up his hands in frustration.

"It's just a phase. He'll grow out of it, I'm sure. I did the same thing at his age," his mother insisted calmly. Tenzin liked to watch his mother. She was always calm, serene. Almost nothing phased her, and her beautiful face almost never turned angry. She was pale, as was fashionable in the Fire Nation, with long, glossy black hair she liked to wear down with a braid to keep it out of her eyes. Her gray eyes were rare, but not uncommon in this area of the Fire Nation, where the Air Nomad temples had once been situated on an island not far away. She had long, delicate fingers, and was always graceful, and her voice was always soothing. Sometimes, he would just follow along behind her, doing his best to stay invisible, and just listen to her voice.

"I don't know what to do, Kaiya. If he doesn't start playing with the other boys soon, I'm afraid for what will happen to him. He already has those eyes—your eyes. I already worry about losing you—I couldn't survive if I lost Tenzin, too."

"I'll talk to him. You won't lose either of us." Tenzin heard the quiet sounds of his parents exchanging a quick kiss, then the imperceptible swish of his mother's robes on the floor. He got up from his hiding space and silently rushed back to his room. When his mother came in, he was hiding under the covers, playing with some of his figurines—hand-carved toys from his father: a horse, a soldier, a minister, a pig, a woman, and a child.

"Tenzin," she said, lifting the covers off his head and sitting down beside him. "I know you were listening." She smoothed down his hair. "Why don't you want to play with the other children?"

Tenzin continued playing with his toys for a moment before looking up at his mother. Tenzin had his mother's eyes, big, clear, calm gray pools with flecks of silver and blue. Rare, in this region. It was not uncommon to have hazel or gray eyes, but eyes so offensively silver and gray were a worry.

"They make fun of my eyes," the little boy said, the eyes in question pooling with tears. Tenzin's mother pulled him into her lap. She was sad, he could tell.

"You have to ignore that and make friends. Do you understand? It's very important that you make friends."

"Will they take me away if I don't?"

Tenzin's mother held him tighter. "They might, my son. They might."

Tenzin shook the old memories out of his head as he aimed for the shot. He had done what he was told—he had made friends. His mother had made friends, too. And his mother had still been taken away—he had still been taken away. And his father did nothing to help them. But he had grown strong in the concentration camp, and then he had escaped.

The arrow sang as it flew to sink into the dead center of the target. He turned to Katara.

"All right. I've taken my shot. Now," he bowed gracefully. "I am your mere puppet." He caught the glint of a wicked smile on the waterbender's face before he felt his body seize up. Involuntarily he fought the strange sensation.

"It's less of a discomfort if you don't fight it," he heard her say, and he tried desperately to let his body go slack in her hands. "Good." It was like an out of body experience—he could almost see himself being controlled: taking hold of the bow, the arrow, notching and raising the pair, ready to aim. In his mind, he could tell that he was off, not lined up correctly. But he could do nothing to correct it.

It was then that he felt the cool touch of water on his forehead. He had known this was Katara's plan, but the sensation of someone else in his mind, sifting through his thought processes and memories was not an awareness he was expecting. He tried to push against her as she shifted through things he didn't want her to see: thoughts, memories, his real plan. The tipping edge between insanity and reality he balanced on.

Stop it. He heard her voice. He wondered if she had spoken out loud, but his quick glance around confirmed it had been in his head. Stop fighting me. It's making it harder for me to find your sight. He wondered if she knew he could hear her. He focused on what he was seeing, making it easier for her to find it. He felt the sensation of her latching onto it, the disturbing feeling of the searching tendrils withdrawing to the consciousness attached to his sight. Relief flooded him, and Katara quickly lined up her shot and let the arrow fly. As soon as the arrow left the bow, he felt her withdraw and let his body go. Involuntarily, he slumped, limp. He put his hand to his head, and turned astonished eyes to Katara.

"Do you know?" he whispered desperately. She was less than ten feet from him, she must have heard him, but she only watched him quietly until the crowd around them surged to her, showering her with questions and praise. Her gaze stayed on him a little longer, before she turned her attention to the crowd around her.

Tenzin swallowed hollowly.

A/N: I mean, it doesn't seem long for a two week hiatus (why have you not written consistently and made it twice as long as one update then?) but it's over four thousand words, and I usually try to keep it around 3,000. Any longer, and it'd be a real chore to read, or at least that's what I think.

Leave me anything you want. questions, comments, grammar corrections (it's been two weeks, and I don't have a set writing schedule. this could clearly end badly)