This keeps happening to me...this was supposed to be the first half of a chapter, but it got so darn long I ended up cutting it off. At this rate the story is going to be fifty billion ch's long X_X blargh. Ok, less griping more story!
Traceless.
It was the iron ship all over again, except with much less space and despair and seasickness, and a lot more rattling around like glass beads in a kaleidoscope. It took about fifteen seconds after starting for Mai to decide she hated the tank.
"This thing sure is loud!" Ty Lee shouted cheerfully from the front seat. The instant she'd glimpsed the tank driver, Lieutenant Tazh, she had volunteered to sit up front, letting the princess and Mai take the slightly (very slightly) larger benches in the back. The two had been jabbering away nonstop for the entire trip so far, which couldn't have been more than five minutes but felt like five hours. Mai had mentally nicknamed the driver Blabbermouth already, and the eelhound handler she had christened Blockhead for similarly obvious reasons. At least he was riding out the journey back in the second cargo trailer with his smelly charges, rather than taking up even more of the rather scant room in the tank with his smelly bulk.
"Yup!" Blabbermouth yelled back over the roar of the engines. "This is a Centipede Class tanker, series 650! She may be loud, but she can outrun any eelhound and can go at full speed for twelve hours without stopping!"
"Wow, that's amazing!" Ty Lee smiled prettily at him, making the man grin back at her with one eyebrow cocked.
"I know. They can be a bit rough to handle, but I'm one of the best drivers in the Army."
Mai rolled her eyes. Blabbermouth reminded her of one of the young men her father had tried to match her with, a cocky teen whose nasal voice had irritated her and whose name she'd forgotten. What Ty Lee seemed to see in him, she wasn't sure.
"Yeah, you ladies are in good hands. The traitors don't stand a chance outrunning us in this."
"Silence, Lieutenant!" snapped Azula. The princess was in scheming mode, a rolled-up almanac of the area around Omashu crammed into the small space left over on the metal bench beside her and all of the last month's military reports from the entire region heaped in her lap. "Mai, hold up this map so I can see it."
"Yes, Princess Azula," Mai sighed, taking the corners of the creased parchment as indicated. How Azula planned to read the thing in the dim reddish light, Mai had no idea. Would it have killed them to put a window in this clunker a little bigger than the narrow viewing slit?
"You can tell me more about the tank thingy later," Ty Lee told Blabbermouth in the closest thing to a coy whisper that could be audibly managed in the cacophony of clanking and rattling and growling.
"Our first priority is the Avatar," Azula said, somehow able to cut through the noise without noticeably raising her voice. "The traitors can wait—they have nowhere to hide for long, not with the price on their heads. The Avatar, on the other hand, has allies who will give him safe harbor. It will be best to catch him in transit, rather than letting him get as far as Ba Sing Se or one of the other more fortified Earth Kingdom cities and having to dig him out.
"Obviously the flying bison gives him an edge. They won't be leaving tracks that we can follow. But they can't possibly carry supplies for more than a few days in addition to all their weight. They'll have to stop, often, for food and whatever else they need.
"That's how we're going to track them. We'll go undercover in the towns and villages, follow the gossip." Azula frowned to herself a little, squinting closer at the map. "After all, they're hardly inconspicuous. They seem to kick up a storm wherever they go. And if he's not bothering to disguise his identity among the locals, we may hear the news without even having to ask. It's a wonder even Dum-Dum couldn't catch him, he's probably so easy to follow."
"Undercover? Does that mean we get to play dress-up?" Ty Lee asked, looping her arm over the back of her seat and trying to peer at the map. Mai sighed silently to herself. Dress-up?
"There is Earth Kingdom clothing in the cargo trailer that I had the soldiers confiscate in New Ozai," Azula confirmed absently, eyes narrowing as she reached up to tap some spot Mai couldn't see on the parchment. "We'll start here, at Ling Do village," she decided, making a sour face at the taste of the Earth Kingdom name in her mouth. "It's the largest settlement in the area."
-o-
The one positive thing Mai could say for the Earth Kingdom peasant clothing was that it was warmer than it looked, which was a good thing when camping. (Camping. Ugh!) Giving voice to the positive wasn't really her thing, though, so she didn't say it.
"I don't see how anyone can run in skirts like this," Mai muttered around the comb clamped in her teeth, reaching out to wet her free hand in the pail Blockhead was holding up for her. Shaking the excess water off her fingers, she coiled part of her hair into a second knot and started pinning it in place.
"We shouldn't be doing any running. We're undercover. We're just listening and asking questions," Azula snarled. "When's that tea going to be ready!" she barked at Blabbermouth, who was cowering by the campfire cooking 'breakfast'.
Neither of the two girls was in a particularly good mood. Mai had barely slept the night before, kept awake by the unyielding lumpy hardness of the ground through the thin sleeping mat and the rippling, warping sounds of the night breeze against the tent—not to mention the cold and the breathing of the other occupants of the tent and the rustling and squeaking and creaking of the wildlife beyond the thin fabric walls. When Azula had been traveling with her full convoy, she'd told Mai, she'd never had to put up with such crude conditions; though she was willing (grudgingly) to make the sacrifice for the sake of the mission, which was much more important than down mattresses. Mai didn't have quite the same enthusiasm. She could barely wrap her head around the fact that she'd just dressed in a dark cargo trailer, without a mirror, and was now trying to do her hair while sitting on a rock under the cloudy sky.
It was barbaric.
While he and Blockhead had been setting up the campsite the previous evening, Blabbermouth had had the audacity to suggest it was a pretty luxurious setup, compared to army camps. Too much flirting with Ty Lee had apparently damaged his sense of what liberties were and were not tolerable around royalty. Azula had not appreciated the comment any more than Mai had, and now he knew better than to share his unwanted, uneducated opinion.
"Isn't this wonderful? The sound of birds woke me up this morning. I love traveling! This is just like camping with the BrightTop troop! I feel so in balance with nature!" Ty Lee was twirling and cavorting the camp as though she still had to rehearse for a circus performance. "Tazh, that tea smells fantastic!"
Mai sighed disgustedly.
"Alright, listen up," Azula said, visibly more collected once she had a cup of hot tea in her hand. They'd all gathered around the campfire, expectantly waiting to hear the plan of attack. "You men will stay here. Pack up the camp and get everything ready to go. I want you to be prepared to move out at a moment's notice. Girls, we're going into…'town'. If anyone asks, we're cousins taking a pleasure trip from Ban Pheng to Gaoling to visit our Uncle Lee for a few months. Our parents run a weapons shop and forge together. Our uncle is a merchant. We're stopping in town because Uncle Lee likes some kind of peasant craft made in the area—I'll tip you off when we get a look at what's available in the market." Azula's lip curled slightly. "Got it?"
"Cousins, Ban Pheng, weapons shop, visiting Uncle Lee in Gaoling," Mai repeated back boredly.
"Got it!" chirped Ty Lee.
"Good. Everybody get to it, then!"
-o-
Mai had never done this before.
Not gone on a manhunt, of course, and not camping, but even this—walking through a public market, unaccompanied by at least one guard. Her parents would never have allowed it. Canvas-covered stands piled high with produce and hand-made crafts crowded together between the shopfronts, the occasional cart and emu-horse clattering by on the rough dirt road. Dust rose from the ground, kicked up by the light foot traffic, the musty smell mingling with the scents of dung and frying oil and roasting meat. People in coarse clothing haggled and loafed and talked and laughed in small clusters, sometimes jostling right up against the three girls. A woman with braided hair passed them, a child about Heizin's age balanced on her hip. Pursing her lips, Mai looked impassively the other way.
Ty Lee was obviously loving it, bouncing along with her arm linked in Mai's and fluttering her lashes at every male who looked their way (the first time, Mai had thought she'd gotten dust in her eye or something). The whole place seemed like a filthy mess to Mai, though. She fought down her revulsion by glowering coldly at the men who leered back at them in the wake left by Ty Lee's flirty smiles.
They all lost interest very quickly.
Azula, however, was a woman on a mission. Forging on ahead of them and brazenly unaware of the men looking Ty Lee's way, she examined the stands on either side of the street, scoping them out and occasionally throwing out the occasional comment ("Look, girls, what charming…whatever those are") in an apparent attempt to sound natural.
"Isn't this exciting, Mai?"
"Thrilling," Mai said flatly.
Ty Lee just giggled at her lackluster response. "I love markets. Sometimes at BrightTop we did teaser shows for market squares like this in between big performances. Oh, it was so much fun…."
Glancing sidelong at her friend through her fringe, Mai caught her looking wistfully at the low wooden platform on the other side of the small village square. Before she could open her mouth to reply, though, Ty Lee let out an ear-splitting squeal and gripped her arm so hard she nearly yanked it out of its socket.
"Look! They have fried ginger dumplings! Oh, we have to get some—"
Azula pivoted to look in the direction Ty Lee was pointing. "Good idea, Ty Lee. We must engage with the natives. Come on."
The vendor claimed they were extra-hot spicy dumplings. Mai thought they earned the name 'street' food: they did, indeed, taste like they had been scraped up out of the dust of the street. Earth Kingdom food. Sigh. She nibbled reluctantly at the bland dough, keeping an eye on the people flowing by while Azula and Ty Lee chatted with the vendor. It was rather remarkable, that the princess of the Fire Nation herself and her two closest companions could simply walk around and eat street food in enemy territory, with no other disguise than some green robes. No wonder the Fire Nation kept conquering the other peoples.
In the end, their little field trip proved useless.
"They never came through here," Azula stated as the three of them got out of sight of the village.
"Ok!" said Ty Lee. "Where to next?"
"How can you be sure?" Mai asked, frowning slightly. "Maybe they're undercover after all. Nobody noticed us."
"The Avatar's not trying to hide," Azula said dismissively. "And the entire world knows he's back and traveling through the Earth Kingdom. Rumors have traveled everywhere he hasn't. He's an icon. They're excitable peasants. If anyone looking even remotely like him or his companions had come through this village, the entire place would be buzzing like a stirred antwasp nest."
"Mm."
"Alright, back in the tank, ladies. Let's get on to the next flea-ridden village."
-o-
The next stop yielded no more information about the Avatar's whereabouts, nor the next, nor the next. In one town they get a false alarm; the market was boiling over with gossip, claiming the Avatar had been seen in town that very day. Just as Azula predicted might happen, though, it turned out to merely be a short bald Earth Kingdom man (who was quite crabby about his unwanted moment of fame).
One night, lying awake in the wind-buffeted tent, it occurred to Mai randomly that somehow they had ended up with the same fruitless task that Zuko had been saddled with all those years ago: hunting the Avatar.
Fate sure had an odd sense of humor.
-o-
After eight days, they were all going a little crazy. The close quarters and long hours getting jolted around in the smoky tank grated all of their nerves. Azula kept them going at a merciless pace, driving long into the night and getting going early in the morning, sometimes even before light, stopping only to poke around dingy towns to seek out signs of the Avatar. Little sleep, tank-battered muscles, and no sign of their prey took its toll on everyone. Azula dealt with it by nastily sniping at anyone who disturbed her plotting and map-staring, Ty Lee and Blabbermouth dealt with it by flirting even more outrageously with each other, Blockhead dealt with it by talking even less and sticking with the eelhounds whenever he wasn't following specific orders to the contrary.
Mai didn't really deal with it at all. She sat in the tank with her feet curled up on the bench and responded whenever Azula demanded a response. She picked up the skill of doing her hair without a mirror and sometimes caught a few hours of sleep despite the cold and hard ground and wind. She trailed after the princess through squalid village markets and even the dining rooms of peasant inns and taverns. She sharpened her knives.
After all, boredom was nothing new, even if it was slightly disappointing.
On a particularly stuffy afternoon in the hot iron tank, Azula decided she'd had enough.
"I can't think in this tin can!" the princess exploded, snapping down Li's Atlas of the Southern Earth Kingdom so abruptly the scroll almost ripped and making Blabbermouth halt right in the middle of the inane story he'd been telling Ty Lee. "Lieutenant, change course to six points south-southwest. The town of Daku Kan has been under Fire Nation control for nearly a year now, and there's a military outpost there. We need to restock our supplies. Don't sit there gaping, Lieutenant, steer this tank!"
"Ah—yes, Princess, immediately," stammered the talkative driver, wrenching the steering levers so hard that the whole tank jolted and clanked in protest, making Ty Lee squeal with laughter and several of Azula's scrolls and papers go flying to the floor.
Mai blinked slowly, then resumed staring at the ceiling.
-o-
It was clearer that night than it had been for the last few days. Usually Mai wouldn't have cared one way or another, but in the arid climate of the Southern Earth Kingdom, night and no cloud cover meant shivering cold despite the warmth of the day. Silently cursing the Earth Kingdom and its insane weather patterns, Mai sat as close to the campfire as she could without singeing herself and sharpened her spare knives. Hopefully when they reached Daku Kan they'd be able to sleep in a building. With, you know, walls and a ceiling and beds.
At least it was mostly quiet. Blockhead was off again feeding the eelhounds or whatever it was he actually did, and Ty Lee and Tazh had wandered into the darkness, saying something about exploring the craggy rock formation they'd set up camp beneath. Occasionally Mai caught a scrap of their conversation or laughter and rolled her eyes.
Azula, on the other hand, was completely engrossed in her maps. Again. Or still. Both, Mai supposed. A handful of unflickering blue flame cupped in one hand, the princess propped her chin on her fist and glared down at the parchment scrolls as though trying to frighten them into telling her the whereabouts of the Avatar.
"We should have heard something by now," Azula muttered. Whether or not she was talking to herself or to Mai was unclear. "Even a sky bison couldn't possibly move so fast that they wouldn't have had to stop somewhere we have. The only logical explanation is that they didn't travel in this direction."
"…That does make sense," Mai answered, when it became clear that some response was expected.
"Well, they should have," Azula said irritably, glowering at the map as though it were at fault for this apparent discrepancy in her predictions.
Opting for silence, she sighted along her dagger in the flickering red light to see if she'd gotten the miniscule nick out of it. Getting caught in an argument between reality and Azula's expectations of it did not seem like the healthiest idea.
"He must have some plan or purpose in mind," Azula reasoned, clicking her pointed nails against the map. "He's the Avatar, an airbender. We know he went to the North Pole to become a waterbender. It makes the most sense that he's in the Earth Kingdom now looking for an instructor in earthbending. He goes to Omashu for this purpose, finds it conquered. He must look elsewhere. The next logical place—really, the first logical place to have gone is Ba Sing Se. Therefore he should have headed northeast. Clearly he hasn't. So where, if not Ba Sing Se?"
Mai had no clue, so she settled for an easy answer. "Wherever he's gone, he can't hide forever."
"No," Azula agreed, her voice hardening. "He can't."
They subsided into silence again, Mai polishing the newly-sharpened blade and Azula staring unblinkingly into the flames. Plotting, probably, gears turning as infallibly and rapidly as the cogs and cranks and gears in the tank. Well, if anyone could catch the Avatar, Mai reflected, it was Princess Azula. If all else failed she'd probably burn down the whole world until she smoked out her prey.
"I will not fail this mission, Mai," Azula said suddenly. Mai glanced up through her fringe in slight surprise. The princess sounded almost defiant, something she had never seen in her friend's voice before. The Firelord's heir did not need to defy anyone; she told them what was what, and that was that. Her cold amber eyes were still fixed on heart of the fire, the oranges and golds almost giving her eyes the illusion of something other than ice.
"I know," Mai said, raising a brow quizzically. Since when had there been any doubt?
"I will not fail where my idiot brother has failed. I will not let Father down," the princess reiterated harshly.
"I know."
Azula laughed a little, sitting back and beginning to roll up her maps. "I've missed having you around, Mai. You don't always pay very good attention but you're always so honest. And you always agree with me. It's a good combination."
"…Thanks."
"It's really not the same, dealing with all these idiotic old fuddy-duddy generals and officials. It was wise of me to put together this smaller force. Even though the auxiliary help is inappropriately…" she grimaced off in the direction Blabbermouth and Ty Lee had vanished, "…egalitarian."
Mai couldn't help but scoff disgustedly at that.
"Yes, men do seem to gravitate toward her, don't they?" Azula scowled disapprovingly into the darkness. "Still, I can imagine scenarios where it might become useful, if necessary…." And suddenly her amber gaze landed consideringly on Mai. "In fact, I can expect certain tactics may become useful once we've captured the Avatar and can return our focus to my loser uncle and Dum-Dum…."
"If you say so," Mai said neutrally, bending down to rummage through her bag for a finer-woven polishing cloth to cover for the sudden nasty taste in her mouth. Was Azula actually suggesting Mai might be able to seduce Zuko?
Had she really wanted Mai to come along for her knife skills, or had she had that in mind all along?
With any luck, it wouldn't come to that, Mai thought crossly, pulling out the cloth she was looking for. Not that she seemed to have that in spades.
"I'm glad I can count on you girls," Azula said, and she sounded so thoughtful and tiredly sincere, Mai didn't know if she should be angry or not. So instead she continued polishing the knife.
-o-
As it turned out, Azula's frustration probably saved them from useless months of pointless searching in all the wrong places.
Back in burgundy and in marginally less of a foul mood after spending the night on one of the best military-issue cots Daku Kan had to offer instead of the ground, it took less coaxing than usual for Ty Lee to convince Mai to come out with her to poke around the town. Azula looked up for less than an instant from the pile of maps she was hunched over, waving them off with a cross statement to the effect that she was busy. Mai got the distinct impression she hadn't slept at all; they'd left her in more or less the same position the night before after she'd debriefed and interrogated the Daku Kan post commander.
"That's ok, we can take a break and just have some fun!" Ty Lee told Mai, pulling her along by the sleeve. "Boy, I sure am glad to be able to wear pink again! Say, I saw some really cute scarves on our way in yesterday, Mai, we should go try some on—"
"Oh joy, sounds great," Mai sighed, allowing herself to be pulled.
"Oh, are you ladies heading out into the town?" Lieutenant Blabbermouth hurried over to them as the two girls headed across the military outpost courtyard. He flashed a smile at Ty Lee so oily it made Mai nauseous. "Need a bodyguard? There are Army guards posted all over town but they're probably not as—"
"We can take care of ourselves, thank you," Mai said coolly just as Ty Lee was about to eagerly agree, this time pulling the other girl along behind her.
"Oh, come on, Mai, Tazh is really funny—"
"Let's go look at those scarves or whatever."
As soon as they were well into the town, Mai muttered to her friend, "What do you even see in him? He's just a commoner. Your parents would freak."
"I don't care what my parents think," Ty Lee laughed her off. "Besides, freak if I what? It's not like I'm out to marry him, Mai. He just likes me and he's fun. We're just talking."
Mai frowned. "Yeah, he's good at that." Not so good at shutting up though.
"What are you so charred about?" Ty Lee said a little defensively.
"Nothing."
"Oh, come on, Mai, don't be like that. We can't all date princes."
Her face set, dozens of forced dates with dozens of stranger suitors spinning through her head. Ty Lee hadn't stuck around long enough to give her parents the chance to put their daughter through all that. And anyway, the only prince around was not in a position to be dating anyone in the Fire Nation anytime soon. Unless Azula ordered someone to do it to lure him into a trap. Her heart contracted. "No. We can't," Mai replied curtly, looking away and examining the vendors they were passing with disinterest. Hm, fried peppers…she wondered if they were actually hot. Maybe some Fire Nation civilization was rubbing off on the locals.
She blinked, startled, when Ty Lee gave her arm an apologetic squeeze. "I'm sorry, Mai, I shouldn't have said that."
Relaxing slightly, Mai looked sidelong at her friend, who looked almost pathetically guilty. She really didn't need some mushy reaffirmation of their friendship, so she simply said lightly, "Said what?" then pointed ahead. "Is that the scarf stand you were talking about?"
"Ooh, yes! Aren't they pretty? They're so –what's the word, Mai? Like silky, whispery, wishy…"
"…Wispy?"
"Yes! Like spiderwasp silk! You always know what I mean. Look at that pink—" Ty Lee stopped and gasped so loud Mai automatically dropped a stiletto to one hand, glancing around for an attacker. "Zhang? Is that you?"
A dark, burly guy talking to several other men in front of the smithy turned, frowning. "Ty Lee?"
Two of his companions, a giant with a braided beard and a leaner man with archer's tattoos, also turned. "Ty Lee! What are you doing on this side of the world?"
"It is you! What are you doing here?" Bouncing with delight, Ty Lee dragged a reluctant Mai over to the strangers.
After an uncomfortable amount of hugging (what was it with Ty Lee and men?), she introduced Mai to her friends. "These are the Rough Rhino Singers, Mai—or half of them anyway! This is Zhang, Kachi, and Koju. They have the most amazing voices you've ever heard. You guys have to sing for her sometime. The Rough Rhinos and BrightTop were in Fire Fountain City at the same time last summer and we performed together at the Solstice Festival! And this is my best friend Mai, her father's the governor of Omashu."
"Lady," Kachi, the one with the long braided beard, said politely. They all exchanged bows.
"But what are you doing here?" Ty Lee laughed, one hand still on the archer's arm. Mai stifled a grimace. "Are you boys still singing?"
"Nope. The Rough Rhinos are all still together, but we're under contract with the Fire Nation army now," answered Zhang, leering at a passing Earth Kingdom civilian. The man flinched and hurried on his way.
"Better pay than singing," grunted Kachi, and the others nodded in agreement.
"Mongke's been assigned as a colonel. We get put on special assignment sometimes, but mostly we're disrupting trade routes and mopping up the little villages around here," Koju, the archer, explained.
"Yup. A thousand crowns for every village brought under the Firelord."
"That sounds great!" Ty Lee said enthusiastically.
"It's a pretty good deal," said Zhang, his grin showing off a glinting gold tooth. "At this rate, we may actually get to retire before we're dead after all." Ty Lee and the Rough Rhinos all laughed at what was apparently an old joke. "What about you? I haven't heard anything about the circus being in town. Didn't know BrightTop ever went overseas."
"Oh, no. I guess you could say we're on special assignment too," Ty Lee grinned at Mai, who did not return the smile. She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "We're here with the princess, hunting the Avatar!"
"The Avatar?"
The change in their mood was instantaneous. They all stood straighter, exchanging dark, significant glances with each other. "Well good luck with him. That twerp's no easy catch."
Mai arched a brow, tucking her hands into the opposite sleeves. "Personal experience?"