TOPH
"Alright, let's see what we've got!"
Sokka dumps his uninspiring catch of river goop, more river goop, some more river goop—oh look, an actual fish! — and some more river goop out of his net. The fish flops feebly around on the ground, straining its gills in a last gulp of waterless air, then expires sadly at his feet. It wouldn't suffice for more than a couple mouthfuls.
"Uh, Sokka, I don't think you're going to catch much of anything in this river," Aang says, squirming at the fish's dying struggles. "Everything you've pulled up the last two times was either mud or dead already."
"Nonsense! You know what they say: if at first you don't succeed…"
"Try a different river, maybe?" Toph suggests wryly.
"But it has to be this river! Master Piandao told me so: Jang Hui River is famed for its freshwater oysters, the most prolific in the world. People would come from all over just for their huge, luminous pearls. Anyways, I've got to get one for Katara; that'll cheer her right up." He sends a significant glance over to the grassy hill beyond the riverbank, where Katara and Zuko are sitting several feet apart against the wall of Appa's belly without much appetite for words.
"Right, because a shiny rock from the heart of an oyster will make her forget everything that's happened the past few days."
"No, of course not! But at least it might take her mind off things for a bit, right? Girls like pretty things, case in point." He lifts Toph's arm to display the smooth band of space earth resting around her upper arm. "Besides, it's poetic."
Toph yanks her arm back from him. "How is it poetic?"
"Beauty from adversity," Aang says, his eyes brightening a little at the connection. "A grain of sand works its way into the oyster's shell, forcing it to build up walls of mineral around it to protect itself. Over the years, the mineral layers grow large enough to become a pearl."
"Thank you, Aang, that was very nicely put."
"That just sounds like a poor innocent creature, much like myself, trying to defend itself from an irritating speck. Beauty from being annoyed to death, perhaps," Toph says, ever long-suffering.
"You can pooh-pooh all you like, Toph, just wait until I actually find one." Sokka puts his net down and sighs. "There's nothing for it. I'll just have to go in myself."
Aang gazes disbelievingly after him as he wades into the river. Even in the shallows that reach no higher than his knees, the water is already murky with cloudy precipitate.
"That's disgusting," Toph declares, verbalizing what Aang hadn't wanted to say. "But since he wants to roll around in the muck, let's let him. We can ask the people in the village where to dive to find the best pearls. Otherwise Sokka will spend all of next week trawling the river bottom fruitlessly. Katara!" she calls. "Time for a field trip!"
TTT
"I'm not good with words. I wish I knew what to say to her," Sokka says as Katara leaves the circle of their campfire early to go to sleep. Zuko and Aang are already off on their own, inseparable since the confrontation with Hama the night before. That incident had left an indelible mark on all of them, but Zuko and Katara most of all, having explicitly trusted the waterbending master of the Southern Water Tribe, only for her to turn on them so wildly.
"What was all that time you spent wordsmithing with Master Piandao instead of sword fighting for?" Toph asks.
"That doesn't help, though, because the heart isn't rational. I could say to her, 'It wasn't your fault. You couldn't have done anything to change Hama, she was already gone down that dark path.' But Katara, being Katara, would still feel like she should have noticed something, done or said something to Hama before things got that extreme. She'd still feel like she could have saved her master somehow. Just like she thinks she could have saved our mother from being killed, years ago. And now…"
"Hama's done for," Toph says shortly. She'd made sure of it herself, as Zuko and Katara were in no state to wrap up the fiasco of Hama's scheme. The old master was led away in chains to the very prison she'd once used to sequester and torture innocents with bloodbending. Bereft of water in any form, she would be harmless. "Katara needs something else to focus on, someplace else where she can make a difference."
They brood over it for as long as it takes for the ground beneath Toph's feet to grow cool as the campfire extinguishes itself. Finally, Sokka raises his head and smiles. "I've got just the place in mind."
"Piandao said what now?" Zuko asks, frowning at Aang. Katara and Toph have just set off for the village, leaving Aang to recount Sokka's outlandish plan for a massive pearl bounty.
"He told Sokka that Jang Hui has the best oyster beds and divers in the world."
"That's weird. It might have been that way long ago, but even when I was a child, that factory was already here, polluting the river and its oyster yield," Zuko recalls. "Piandao would know better than to send Sokka on a wild-goose chase here."
"I'm pretty sure it's Sokka sending himself on a wild-oyster chase," Aang says drily. "He's even recruited Toph to help him find the best spots, so he can get a pearl for Katara."
"For Katara? Why?"
"I seem to recall that people like it when they get nice gifts," Aang says with an impish smile, drawing closer to his adorable beloved, tracing a line down the side of his face with one finger to rest at his mouth. The skin beneath his finger flushes gently as it passes.
"I do know something about that," Zuko agrees. He puckers his lips slightly to press a light kiss against the tip of Aang's finger. Just then, Sokka drags himself back to camp, dripping river slime everywhere.
"Oh, stop that, you're giving me the oogies," he exclaims, dramatically shielding his eyes from their display.
"…what are oogies?"
"Oogies, you know! General ickiness and gross stuff, ugh, no, not for me." He shakes his head emphatically.
"You're the prime example of oogies," Aang shoots back, the epitome of maturity. "Seeing as you seem to have brought half the river up with you—did you find any pearls to make it worth it?"
"Don't start," Sokka holds up a finger to stop him. "I tried my hardest, and that's what counts."
Aang laughs as Sokka stomps away to try and clean himself off, while Zuko considers what his old master could possibly have meant by overselling the sad state of Jang Hui's pearl economy.
TTT
Toph clings tightly to Katara's arm as they make their way through the narrow docks and bridges of Jang Hui. It really speaks to her newfound friendship and trust in Sokka that she'd agreed to let him bring them a village on stilts in the middle of the river. It's a dismal place, with the thatching falling off rooftops, children sitting quietly in doorways instead of playing, the water below an ever-present reminder of the doom that has settled over them all. Katara looks over the river at the source: the factory a mile upstream that spews its waste directly into the water, flooding everything downstream with toxins and foul pollutants.
"Pearls? Don't make Old Xu laugh! That's the funniest thing I've heard since my brother Dock lost a tooth biting into one of the last pearls we found here ten years ago."
"…didn't you say your name was Dock?" Katara asks suspiciously. He did, after all, introduce himself as such when rowing them in from the shore.
The wild-eyed shopkeeper laughs a little hysterically. "No, no, he's my brother! He works on the docks, that's why they call him Dock. I'm Xu; see, we've got different hats!"
"Okay…"
"So, there aren't any pearls at all in the river?" Toph tries to bring the conversation back on track.
"We don't even have enough oysters for food, let alone shiny pearls. There's still some fish in the river, but the Fire Nation soldiers get the best pickings of our fishermen's catch, and we get the mangy remains." He gestures at the trays on display in his shop, filled with slim, unhealthy-looking fish and clams.
"The water's toxic from the factory's runoff. But what else have we got to drink? Boiling it only does so much. There's no way to survive like this," he laments. "If only the Painted Lady would return to the river and save us all."
"The who?"
"Oh, the Painted Lady, my brother Bushi can tell you all about her!" Right on cue, Xu ducks behind the counter to switch his hat and reemerges as Bushi, expert historian on the local lore of the Painted Lady spirit. According to his very enthusiastic storytelling, she was once a human with deep spiritual understanding who ascended to the spirit world as the river's protector hundreds of years ago. "She was the best thing to ever happen to this place, and now she's gone forever," Bushi sobs historically, foisting a miniature statuette of the Painted Lady on Katara.
She takes the statuette with some confusion. "I'm so sorry to hear that," she says, her mood now even more downcast than before. Well, it's got to get worse before it gets better, Toph reasons.
"I wish we could help them," Katara says wistfully as they walk away. "The river was their way of life, and now it's all but destroyed."
"Well, don't look at me," Toph says, raising her hands in surrender. "I can't do anything standing in midair like this without any earth to ground me. Personally, I'd like to get out of here as soon as possible."
"Hm." Katara casts a thoughtful glance back at the village. "I suppose you're right. There's not much we can do. I guess it's best if we move on."
ZUKO
"There's a slight problem," Aang reports as they prepare to leave the next morning. "Appa's acting really sick. Like, really, really sick. I've never seen him like this before."
Appa is indeed looking out of sorts, lolling his tongue out and shaking his head in a besotted sort of way, as if unseen flies are tormenting him. He's standing a little slanted, seemingly unsure of how to distribute his ten tons of weight.
"Oh, no. Can he fly like this? He looks really ill!" Katara echoes worriedly, hurrying to the bison's side. Appa tilts drunkenly towards her.
"I'm not sure," Aang says. "Maybe I'll try… Appa, yip-yip!"
The ground rumbles beneath them as Appa lifts off for a brief second, then comes crashing back down, uncoordinated, after a height of only about five feet.
"Yeah, I think that's a no," Sokka remarks. "He looks intoxicated; maybe he ate something poisonous?" He sounds much less concerned than warranted. "Katara, Zuko, do you think you can heal him?"
Zuko looks at Katara, who's steadfastly avoiding his eyes. "We can try, but neither of us know much about bison anatomy, so I'm not sure how much we can do. He seems to be shaking his head a lot, so maybe he's got a migraine?"
The two of them each take one side of Appa's head, and Zuko mimics Katara's moves, bringing water up to moisten the poor bison's presumably inflamed nerves, but to no avail. Appa bats them aside, grunting unhappily before finally collapsing to his knees and lying still.
"I don't think that helped," Sokka says, quite unnecessary.
"I'm sorry, Aang," Katara says. "Maybe he did eat something that's causing this, but I don't know what it could be. He doesn't look like he's in danger, though. He'll probably eliminate whatever it is in a couple days, and then he'll be okay to fly, I think."
"It's alright, Katara." Aang looks over at Zuko, who's still standing by Appa's head, frowning at him in concentrated thought. "Zuko, what's up? What's wrong?"
He looks up. "It's nothing. I guess we'll just have to stay for a while longer and see what happens."
"Right, then it's back to pearl diving for me!" Sokka exclaims in excitement. "I'm not letting this second chance get away from me!"
"Oh boy," Toph sighs. Zuko looks over at her, too; she hasn't given any indication that she's noticed anything amiss, but that might not mean anything either. Well, at least now he has time to ponder this mystery.
ZZZ
Since Sokka is single-mindedly occupied with his wild pearl chase, Zuko and Katara take the time to practice waterbending over the next few days. She teaches him to walk on water, and indeed to run over it, skate on its turbid surface, revel in it and the freedom it confers from land. They tend not to linger too long in the murky river, though; that's more Sokka's purview. When they practice waterbending, Katara takes river water and bends it through a piece of muslin cloth. The fine mesh traps coarser particles of silt and rot, and after boiling the remainder, it's almost clear enough to see through.
Much of what they do actually consists of inventing, combining, and refining new forms. Zuko finds that waterbending is much more fluid than his native art, allowing every offense to be seamlessly translated into a defensive maneuver and then a counterattack. There are the basics of pushing and pulling the water, changing its phase, and such, but beyond that, they roam free as their imaginations permit.
"Guys, guess what we heard in the village today!" Aang says excitedly as he and Toph return to camp, where Katara and Zuko are settling in for the evening. Sokka is nowhere to be seen, likely still drawing in his nets in the shallow stretches of the river and grumbling about his lack of returns.
"You figured out the mystery of Dock and Xu and Bushi?" Katara ventures.
"No, actually. Dock's like that because of poisoning from the river water; some of the other villagers told me," Toph says more dourly. "It made him go insane. Before, he was just Dock, no random other brothers."
They all absorb that grimly as Appa snuffles in the background, the reality of the village's plight too large for words. "Well, what we heard today was that last night, the Painted Lady returned to Jang Hui and healed many of their sick," Aang says in a bracing attempt at restoring the mood.
"Interestingly, this is the first time she's appeared throughout the entirety of the village's struggles. I wonder where she's been or why she chose now specifically to appear." Toph sits down next to Zuko and pokes him vigorously in the side. "Hey, Mr. Great Bridge, maybe you should ask her what's up with that, huh?"
"You know, I really would like to meet the Painted Lady and find out more about how she uses her spirit-y magic to heal people," Zuko says, squirming away from her. "I wonder if it's anything like waterbending. What do you think, Katara?"
"I don't know," Katara says from behind a stiff poker face. "I'd have to meet her to be sure. Speculating without all the facts won't tell us much." She ducks back to attend to the boiling pot of water for soup, decisively removing herself from the conversation. Zuko favors the back of her head with a knowing glance. Everyone has secrets, but some, they are entitled to keep.
AANG
More news trickles in the next day of the Painted Lady's heroic efforts to save the people of Jang Hui, though none of the villagers mention speaking to the spirit herself. She seems to just descend upon the village, bringing food and supplies and magical spirit healing powers to bless them, and departs in silence, as spirits do. After visiting with Dock/Xu/Bushi as is now his habit, Aang tracks down Zuko and Katara lying head to head, flat on their backs atop the highest cliff in the region. He stares down at them sternly.
"I thought you were supposed to be training, not watching clouds go by?"
"We did train, all morning, but it's a lovely afternoon for cloud watching. And rest is part of training too; we can't all be bouncing off the ground with energy all the time." From the sound of it, Zuko is accusing someone else of said bounciness. Aang thinks he hears a hint of Zuko as a child, precocious backtalk tolerated by his first, overindulgent firebending teacher.
"Scoot over, Aang; your head's blocking that elephant koi cloud," Katara says, clearly picking up Zuko's bad influence.
"…no respect for your elders," Aang makes sure to mutter audibly while moving out of her line of sight. He lies down next to Zuko. "Well, enlighten me."
"That one's a sea serpent." Zuko points to a long, spiraling wisp of cloud that does indeed appear to be a particularly sickly sea serpent. Maybe an earthworm? "And there's a platypus bear, see its funny beak? And that there is a seahorse, and there's a rabbiroo…"
Aang finds himself watching Zuko's hands rather than the clouds as they indicate the shapes in the sky. Eventually, he decides that Zuko only needs one hand to point them out, so he steals the other one for himself, and Zuko hardly even blinks or pauses for breath, reflexively wrapping his fingers around Aang's as he continues to explain how this cloud looks more like a manta ray than a bat-goose.
"That's its neck, not its tail," Katara argues; she's clearly in the bat-goose camp. "You're looking at it upside down. Don't you think so, Aang?"
Aang has long since lost track of the pros and cons of the argument in favor of tracing the ridges and valleys of Zuko's knuckles. "I don't have a strong opinion about it," he says honestly. "But I know something I bet the two of you didn't know: clouds are made of water."
They both pause to absorb this information.
"…that's wonderful," Katara says, her voice straining to sound enthusiastic and chipper instead of politely incredulous. Zuko doesn't bother, letting his other hand drop down to muffle his laughter.
"What did you think they were made of?" Zuko asks once he's done disrespecting his elder yet again. "Cotton candy?"
"No, although I did taste them to make sure. Anyways, my point is, since clouds are made of water, you could try bending them."
"That's a great idea, Aang," Zuko says, dead serious. "Then I'll be able to bend that cloud into a better-looking manta ray, and Katara will have to admit defeat."
"Not if I bend it into a definitive bat-goose first."
"It's already gone," Aang points out. The clouds are transient, unlike the buoyant joy he feels upon seeing Zuko's eyes crinkle with delight, the grave lines and furrows of late slowly washing away. "That's okay, though; cloud watching is overrated anyways. I mean, why would I watch clouds when I could spend my time watching the sunlight cast your eyes in different shades of gold?"
Another pause, which Aang doesn't realize is significant until Katara sits up. "Well, um… I'll just leave you two here to… watch whatever you want, and I'll go try out some cloudbending by myself, sound good?"
She doesn't wait for an answer, swiftly rising and making her departure.
"…you're blushing again," Aang notices belatedly. "Oh spirits, I said that bit out loud, didn't I?"
"Best if you don't say anything at all, really." Zuko enforces this by leaning over and kissing him, soft and then with more ardor, arms wrapping around his back, his entire world within their span. Aang lets their legs tangle together, leveraging himself to roll them over and on top of Zuko, the two of them as close as the sun is to the sky.
They have places to be, an ancient guru to meet, a world to redeem, but for now, Aang wills time to slow, prays that the clouds in the sky will slacken their steps for a moment or longer and let him, let them enjoy this bliss that they have had too little time for since meeting. He doesn't know why they are here in this place without hope, unless that is the very reason. Zuko gives him hope, and likewise the people of Jang Hui—there is hope for them as well.
ZUKO
"Going somewhere?"
She stops short in the process of donning her wide-brimmed, veiled hat. Her form is already shrouded in a long purple cloak, and if she turns around, he will see the vibrant red paint adorning her face, the same patterns on the face of the Painted Lady figurine from Jang Hui.
"Zuko," she sighs, steadfastly facing away.
"It's funny; every night, I've tried to summon the Painted Lady to this river, but it turns out she was right in front of me all this time. And I'm guessing Appa's 'sickness' is your doing too?"
"He's not sick, unless you count the vertigo induced by having water pumped through his ears every night." Katara has the heart to sound a little remorseful at the measures she's taken to prevent their timely departure from Jang Hui.
"I see. Aang will be thrilled to hear about that."
"I have to do this, Zuko," she says, still resolute in not looking at him, as if this will absolve her of her deceptions. "These people need me. I've brought them the food and medicine they need; I've healed their sick; but that will only relieve their suffering for a time. I have to eliminate its cause: the factory."
"I know you do, and I won't stop you. In fact, if you'll have me… I'd like to help."
She turns then, and they see each other clearly under the waning moon, she in the garb of the river spirit, and he in Aang's long black cloak, the Blue Spirit mask clutched under one arm: the Painted Lady's distant cousin, perhaps.
Surprise registers on her face, shock and then delight. "You mean it? You'll help me?"
"Great Bridge, remember? Of course I'll help you."
She smiles brightly, the red marks dazzling across her cheeks. "The Painted Lady and the Blue Spirit together, then. We'll be unstoppable."
And so, they are.
ZZZ
The factory at this hour is silent as the grave, and they enter without hindrance. The place is rife with heavy-duty pipes, and huge vats of ore and water dangle overhead. The dark walls of metal gleam faintly in the fires still lit from the workday, giving everything a haunting glow. It's so vast and stalwart, Zuko can hardly imagine where to begin.
Katara doesn't hesitate, though. "Let's start by freezing the water in those pipes." She points to a few of the largest ones, spanning the entire width of the place. "They'll burst under the pressure eventually; we just need to give it some time."
"Got it." He follows her lead. Next, they tackle the dangling pulleys carrying tons of ore, rapidly snapping their chains in blocks of icy vengeance. They come crashing down with enough force to wake the nearby village, probably, and Zuko guesses it won't be long before they're discovered.
"Let the river reclaim its own." He looks to where Katara's pointing, the wide windows high above through which sunlight would pour were it daytime. But it is night, and water heeds the call of the moon. Together, they pull in a torrent, shattering the glass, cascading over their heads like a waterfall, filling the floor below them and sweeping away the machinery and refining apparatus occupying the entire lower level.
The roar of falling water is devastatingly triumphant in their ears; above them, pipes burst like firecrackers in glorious accolade, spilling their contents onto the already turbulent deluge. Foam brews and metal crashes like a symphony of destruction, and for a passing moment, Zuko thinks of one other time he watched a flood swarming down from the heights to eradicate everything below.
No, this is nothing like what Jet did. He didn't have a care for harming civilians as collateral damage, just like Hama. Zuko can empathize with the pain and trauma that drove them to what they became, but there is nothing that can excuse their actions, all the same.
The factory is in pieces below them, machines tumbled from their places and driftwood floating like corpses in pools of water left behind by the flood. They flee the premises as the roof itself begins to cave in under the pressure of the river's force coming down on it. Katara darts ahead of him, landing on the surface of the river as if it were solid ground, bending the water to bear her weight as she speeds back across towards the village.
Wait… "Katara, where are you going? Our camp's the other way."
She points in the direction of the village, and he hears the sound of motorboats and soldier's cries. "The soldiers stationed nearby have probably heard the explosion. They don't know it was us, so they'll target the village instead." She turns to face him, fierce with the fury of losing too many innocent lives senselessly. "We can't just stay behind and watch, like spirits uninvolved in the lives of humans. I'm going to help. Are you with me?"
He smiles, though she likely cannot see it under the waning moon, far out from any manmade light sources. This is Katara as her potential truly allows her to be: not the wandering, lost traveler he first met running from pirates, but a warrior with ice for nerves but not for a heart.
Yes.
A/N: Here's the notes: archiveofourown dot org /works/7019827/chapters/32745420
I found Sokka doing a lot of interesting things in this chapter that I did not expect :)