A/N: Okay, I finished up this chapter, finally, and am starting the next one, after, like, forever! Haha. Sorry, guys. But I am going to finish this fanfic even if it kills me! XD


Chapter XII

The full moon is too strong. Zuko cringes on the ground, his body stretching and contorting from feline to mostly human. Gasping, he lays sweaty and bare on the dirty ground, thankful that everybody else but Toph left in search of firewood for the night. The sun is still up, but the moon is already above the horizon, looming large and silvery white.

"Zuko?" Toph whispers as she ducks between the thick trees in search of him. "I think I heard your voice. Well, your non-meowing voice anyhow. Are you okay?"

"Not really," Zuko rasps, and forces himself to sit up. Toph brings a blanket and drapes it over him. She can't see him naked, but she knows he doesn't like being exposed. "The fuller the moon, the more it aches. It's like it's sucking my firebending away, and making me change more violently."

Toph whistles lowly. "Damn, that's some curse! And you said that Sokka's old girlfriend did this to you?"

"More or less," he amends, running one hand through his hair and over his silky black ears. The ears hang back on his head in irritation. "She meant well, and the pain it causes is well-deserved. But I can't say it doesn't bug me just a little."

Toph nods, and sits down next to the exiled prince. "Yeah, I suppose…" She sighs. "How long are you going to keep this up? You know you should tell everyone else about you."

Zuko adverts his gaze. "I know," he grumbles, "But I want to put it off for as long as I can. I'm… scared, Toph."

"Scared of what?" She retorts flippantly. "You've got nothing to worry about! If this is about Twinkle-toes, then you can take my word for it: the guy's a softie. If you tell him how you feel –"

Zuko clamps his hand over her mouth, his eyebrow twitching. "Not. What. I Meant."

"Oh, sorry," Toph mumbles behind his fingers. She removes the digits and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. "Then what did you mean?"

"The Water Tribe siblings," he answers quietly. "After I betrayed Katara and my uncle at Ba Sing Se, they'll hate me. I'm afraid to face her, afraid to face him, and I know that Sokka just generally doesn't like me. So what am I going to do? To break this curse, I have to get the one I love to love me back. And earning someone's love requires the approval of their friends."

The earthbender winces. "Yeah. Ouch. I forgot about that little rule," she says, sighing. Defeated, she shrugs. "We'll figure something out, Patches. We're both pretty clever when we want to be." And she smirks, sending him a thumbs-up.

Smiling slightly in return, Zuko nods. "Okay, fine. I trust you. But as of right now… if anyone coming? I want to get my clothes."

"Toph touches her hand to the ground and listens carefully. She shakes her head. "No one's at camp yet. Momo's skittering around, but you obviously won't get ratted out by him."

"All right. Thanks, Toph."

"No prob."

xXxXx

"…Suddenly, they heard something down the hall, in the dark. 'Oo0o0o0o0ohh!' It came into the torch light. And they knew… the blade of Win Fun was haunted! Oo0o0owaaaiiiieeee!" Sokka concludes, and no one says anything or looks frightened.

"I think I liked the Man with a Sword for a Hand better," Aang drawls tiredly.

"Me too," Zuko mutters to himself, separate from the others behind Appa.

"…Man, Water Tribe slumber parties must suck," Toph remarks.

"Unlike Sokka, I have a good one. It's a ghost story… that's true," Katara murmurs vaguely, her knees brought up to her chest. From a distance, Zuko sits up and listens more carefully.

Sokka doesn't look impressed. He plops down on the dirt in front of the fire. "Is this one of those, 'a friend of my dad's cousins' stories? Because those are really unreliable."

The waterbending girl shakes her head. "No. It happened to Mom."

Sokka shuts right up. Toph sits up straighter. And Aang and Zuko simultaneously lean up and forward.

"One winter, when Mom was a girl, a snowstorm buried the whole village for weeks. A month later, Mom realized that she hadn't seen her friend Nini since the storm. So Mom and some others went to check on Nini's family. But when they got there, no one was home. Just a fire flickering in the fireplace. When the men went out to search, Mom stayed at the house. While she was alone, she heard a voice." She pauses for dramatic effect, then whispers eerily in a childish voice, "'It's so cold, and I can't get warm…!' Mom turned and saw Nini standing by the fire. She was blue, like she was frozen. Mom ran outside for help, but when everyone came back… Nini was gone."

Sokka dares to ask, "Wh-where'd she go?"

Katara deadpans and stares blankly into the fire. "No one knows. Nini's house stays empty to this day." She pauses, and her eyes lock onto each of the campfire members'. "But sometimes, people still see smoke creeping out of the chimney; almost as if little Nini is still trying to get warm."

A shiver runs down Zuko's spine, and he curls inward, closer to Appa. There are rarely any ghost stories told around the Fire Nation. Most firebenders think they're too good for them, as if they only need to care about the living. They respect and honor the dead, it's true, but Fire Nation folk don't generally go around telling stories. They find it boring and unrealistic. But Zuko believes what he just heard, and it haunts him.

"Wait… where's Patches?!" Aang squeaks, wrapping Momo's ears around him. "It's kinda cold out tonight, what if he –"

"I'm sure he's fine, Twinkle-toes," Toph comments lightly, patting the bald monk on the arm. "Cats like to run off sometimes. He'll be back; he always is."

"R-right," Aang says, a little sad. He sighs. "I just, y'know… want to make sure he's not scared. 'Cause I'm not scared, but he might be."

"Mm-hmm," Toph hums sarcastically. She knows him better; he's scared, all right.

Suddenly, Toph feels sharp vibrations radiating from just below the mountain nearby. She sits erect and her eyes grow wide.

"Wait, do you guys hear that?! There's people under the mountain, and… they're screaming!" she says in a panic, and the group of three (plus Momo) gather together in a bundle of equally panicked faces.

"Nice try," Sokka says with false bravado.

"D-don't scare us like that, Toph," Katara says shakily. "That's not f-funny."

"No, I'm serious," the blind girl counters fiercely, and Zuko ceases his cringing to stare across the way at the girl. She is being serious. "I hear something." She pauses, listening. "Wait. It just… stopped."

Zuko stands and searches for a weapon. He winds up borrowing one of Sokka's, a machete of some sort. I better go check this out, he thinks to himself. I might as well do some good, or at least inform Toph about it so she can tell the others.

And so Zuko sneaks off in the direction of the mountain, his hood up over his ears, utterly unaware of the stranger appearing behind the Gaang just a few meters behind him.

xXxXx

The mountain is oddly quiet as Zuko approaches. From this height, he can see a small village down below, casted in shadow from the strong moonlight behind the tall rocky structure. He gazes up at it, narrows his eyes, and continues his search around the base.

"Where did she hear all that screaming?" he mutters to himself, thinking aloud. He ducks around some trees and bushes, coming out into an open area. There, in the center, is a small opening to a cave leading into the mountain. Zuko's golden eyes flicker a moment, comprehension sinking in. He lights a small flame in his hand, using it as a torch as he ventures into the cave. At least here, in the Fire Nation, he can rescue somebody using firebending without being shunned, like that farm boy from the Earth Kingdom had.

As soon as he's deep within the cave, Zuko sees them: people chained to walls and earth-made pillars, many of them a bit starved but clearly not too beaten. He rears back in surprise when one of them screams at the sight of them.

"No, no! It's all right! I'm here to help you," Zuko says as gently as his gruff voice is able to utter. "I heard you screaming. How long have you people been kept here?"

"Weeks at a time, for some of us," a man says as Zuko comes over to him and breaks his shackles with Sokka's machete. "Hama brought us here."

"Hama? Who's she?" Zuko questions as he begins saving another person.

"An old woman from our village. She's an innkeeper, and she looks innocent, but she's crazy! She casts some sort of spell on us, one where we couldn't control our bodies! It was… terrifying." The man shudders, and Zuko empathizes. It would be terrifying to be unable to control your own body.

With seven of the approximate fifteen prisoners free, Zuko is feeling good about himself. He's helping people, and he's doing it because he knows it's right and because he actually wants to. Hang around the Avatar and his group long enough, and you're bound to change as a person, it seems. He feels like a new man. It warms him inside to know that Aang in particular would be surprised and proud of him.

But suddenly, one of the people who hadn't already left turns around and yells out in distress. Zuko freezes, his arm locked on an upswing, about to break another set of chains. But his other arm is free, holding a flame.

The fire goes out.

"Firebender, firebender!" the sound of an elderly woman shrieks, and though Zuko tells his body to move, he is unable to. "How dare you come and save your own kind! You all deserve to die," she hisses, and she is right up behind Zuko, stepping closer and closer. His body feels strange – it's as if every muscle fiber and ever vein in his body is knotting together, bending to a will that isn't his own.

Zuko grinds out from his tightened jaw, "Hama, I. Know. What. You've. Done."

The old woman steps aside to allow a sliver of moonlight enter the cave. He can see her face: wrinkled, hateful, sneering. Her hair falls randomly over her eyes, but otherwise done up in a bun and hair loops. Like Katara.

"No doubt they told you, the people you freed. I'll have to collect them all over again! They all deserve to rot in prison like I had. All of your people do. Firebenders are all the same!" she spits on the ground, as if trying to ward off the curse of the Fire Nation. Her eyes return to Zuko's, glaring fiercely. "And you, too, will receive their fate, their just rewards."

Still controlling his body, she moves him to an unbroken, empty set of shackles and buckles him in. He's trapped, stuck to the wall. He struggles, but his brute strength isn't enough.

Hama lights a torch with spark rocks, and looks about the room. There are still a little over half opf the prisoners who remain, Zuko now part of them. The old witch spies Sokka's machete on the ground. She scowls when she recognizes the Water Tribe design.

"Thief! Where did you get this weapon from? Some poor Water Tribe citizen you beat down and robbed, no doubt!" she growls, her voice low and menacing. "Well, well, it should make a nice gift to my new inn guests. Two of them are from the Tribe, hiding among the Fire Nation to take it down from the inside. Warriors, true ones." And as she says this, a twisted smile forms on her dry lips, and a sort of pride emerges in her tone.

Sokka, Katara, and the others are at her inn?! Zuko frets, and begins to struggle more. No! What if she hurts Aang? After all, the Avatar has the potential to firebend, and this woman despises firebenders –

"Let me get a good look at you," Hama says suddenly, her tone oddly soft. "You're a young one. Younger than most of the others here." She draws nearer, torch held out in front of her. She comes within arms length of Zuko, holding the torch out to the side. She studies him with narrow eyes, and whips back his cloak to get a better view. But as she does so, she notices his pointed black ears and long-haired black tail, and cries out in horror. "Demon! Demon!" Hama yells, and suddenly slaps Zuko across the face, directly where his scar meets his cheek. "Oh, oh, you won't get me, Creature! I'll be sure to torture you until you bleed!" she snarls, and then turns on her heels and storms out of the mountain cave.

Left to himself, Zuko slinks down as far as he can without straining his arms too much, and chews on his bottom lip. What now…?

His thoughts are interrupted by a timid female voice. "Wh-why did she call you a demon?" one of the villagers says. She leans forward from her place on the cave wall to squint into the moonlight. It barely casts a glow on Zuko's face. "You can bend, I saw, but so can half of us here, and she never called us that," she puzzles. Zuko is at a loss as to what to say.

But a man nearby has his eyes wide in horror. He answers the girl in Zuko's place. "It's because he isn't human. He has the ears and tail of a beast!"

Zuko hangs his head in shame. He doesn't say a word.

Bu the young woman is persistent. "Ears and tail? That sounds more like a curse than a demon. Were you cursed, rescuer? Did the gods punish you?"

"Yes, so to speak," Zuko rasps out, his voice a smack croak. "But it doesn't matter. What maters is getting out of here."

"Good luck," the same man who answered the girl retorts with a snort. He sounds as though he's falling apart. "We're never getting out of here. I just hope the ones who escaped tell others, or at least avoid the wrath of Hama. That woman needs to be locked away herself."

"You said it," the girl sighs. No one else seems to be talking. Zuko doesn't look any of their ways, or say anything more himself. He simply gazes out at the full moon, wondering what will become of him come sunrise.

xXxXx

He had fallen asleep at some point, but as Zuko awakes, he finds himself on the cave floor, his shrunken wrists slipped out of the chains above. He glances around and finds everyone else asleep, even with the early morning sunlight leaking in from the mouth of the cave.

For one overjoyed by the curse's ability to transform him into a small cat, Zuko leaps up to his feet and dashes out of the cave. He has to warn somebody! Toph might understand. And if not, he can always attempt to write something by holding a stick or calligraphy pen in his mouth, dragging it through the dirt or across some paper…

His thoughts distracted, Zuko nearly runs into a few people on the village streets. One even shouts, "Dumb cat! Nearly tripping me…" but he ignores them. He has to find this inn before it's too late.

In the marketplace, Zuko stumbles across Katara and Hama and the others, shopping for food supplies. Hama seems much less threatening in the daylight, and she's smiling sweetly. Zuko shudders in disgust. He dashes over to Katara, hastily rubbing up against her leg.

"Oh!" the waterbender gasps, her eyes landing on the small animal. "Patches, there you are! Aang and Toph were worried sick."

At the sound of their names, Aang and Toph turn in Katara's direction and jog over to her, their hands immediately attaching themselves to Zuko's fur.

"Where'd you run off to?" the three coo as Katara scoops him up into her arms and cradles him to her chest. She's warm, and for a moment, Zuko sighs in relief and rubs against her chin lovingly, glad that nothing has happened to her or anyone else just yet.

But as the warm feelings wear off, he remembers. 'Dammit, I wish I could tell you!' Zuko meows in frustration, and Katara and Aang frown at him for a moment, wondering why he's meowing. But soon they're shrugging and before long, Zuko's in Aang's arms, the airbender snuggling against the little cat. Zuko feels his stomach flip happily.

"Well, no more running off and getting lost for you, Mister. You're coming back with us," the Water Tribe girl says in a chipper tone.

"That's right," Toph adds. She stares Zuko down and adds a hair suspiciously, "Because who knows what you were up to last night. I'd sure like to know." And she winks at him.

But behind her, Hama is staring at Zuko with much too keen an interest. The old woman's gaze morphs into a glare. Zuko sinks lower into Aang's arms, not at all wanting to be discovered. If she somehow manages to recognize his scar –

"We have what we need for tonight's supper, children," Hama says suddenly, forcing a smile. "You should all head back to the inn. I have a couple more errands to make, and then I'll be joining you. All right?"

Sokka looks suspicious, something Zuko's all too glad to see. "This is a mysterious little town you have here," he remarks with a quirk of an eyebrow.

Hama smiles broadly. "A mysterious town… for mysterious children."

And that would be a 'touché' moment.

Sokka backs off, and the Gaang returns to the inn.

And Zuko can only hope that he can talk to Toph tonight before things go horribly wrong.

xXxXx

"That Hama seems a little… strange. Like she knows something, and refuses to tell us. And I'm telling you, something isn't right about that," Sokka says suspiciously. "And I'm going to find out what she's hiding. I don't trust secrets."

Unnoticed by the others, Zuko nods vigorously in agreement, his small furry head bobbing wildly up and down.

"That's ridiculous," Katara says naively. "She's a kind woman who took us in and gave us a place to stay. She kind of reminds me of Gran-Gran."

"But then what did she mean by that 'mysterious children' comment?" Sokka retorts, his fingers stroking his chin in thought.

"Gee, I dunno! Maybe it's because she found four kids she's never seen before, camping out in a forest at night?"

Sokka dusts this answers from his shoulders. "I'm going to take a look around. Any of you are welcome to join me."

Zuko is the first to tag behind the amateur swordsman's heels.

And so Sokka takes the others with him on a little adventure, searching the inn for anything suspicious. They find a closet full of puppets (How creepy, Zuko thinks), and a locked attic-like room. The entire time he's snooping, Katara is protesting about the morals and how rude it is, and Aang is worried that Hama will come home at any moment.

"Just a puppet-loving innkeeper, huh? Then why does she have a locked room like this up here?"

"Probably to keep nosy people like you away from her private stuff!" Katara returns defensively.

"We'll see," Sokka grumbles, bending down to peer in through the keyhole. "That's weird. It's empty except for a little chest."

Toph's eyes light up. "Maybe it's treasure!" she says excitedly.

Zuko, Katara, and Aang all look at her like she's crazy. Sokka merely shakes his head as he removes his sword from its sheath and begins picking the lock.

"Sokka," Katara hisses at her brother, "What do you think you're doing, breaking in to a private room?!" She crosses her arms over her chest.

"I have to see what's in there!" Sokka says, and the second the door is free, Zuko leaps in front of Sokka between his feet and pads over to the chest. He nudges it with his nose. "See, even Patches knows that something's up."

And as they all crowd around Sokka as he holds up the chest, Aang murmurs nervously, "We shouldn't be doing this. It feels wrong…"

"And yet your curiosity keeps you here, Twinkle-Toes," Toph snorts.

"Maybe there's a key around here…" Sokka thinks aloud as he find the chest locked as well, as he expected it would be.

"Oh! My space-rock bracelet!" Toph says suddenly. Grinning, she removes it from her arm and morphs it into a skeleton key.

"Hurry, hurry!" Sokka encourages.

"This is crazy. I'm leaving!" Katara says, beginning to storm out.

"Uh, guys? This can't end well…" Aang frets.

And all the while, Zuko is staring intently up at the box with his golden cat-eyes narrowed. He's sure that whatever's in there might help explain why Hama is so twisted.

But the second Toph gets the box to click open, Hama appears in the doorway, stating, "I'll tell you what's in the box."

The four jump, and Zuko himself freezes, fur on end, before dashing out of the room and down the stairs.

Hama watches him go.

xXxXx

As all four of them return downstairs, they're all laughing with relief. Zuko is puzzled, left staring out from under the kitchen table where he hid.

"The Southern Water Tribe! No wonder I felt a connection with you right away," Katara's saying, and suddenly, it all makes sense to the banished prince: Hama hates firebenders because firebenders have practically destroyed the Southern Water Tribe over the years, removing from it every last waterbender they could.

Zuko shakes his head. If only the four knew about the mountain, and how Hama is behind it all.

As the group starts cooking, Toph goes outside to visit with Appa and Momo in the small barn nearby (blindness isn't very good for cooking, especially when it comes to chopping and measuring). Zuko decides to follow, still weary of whether or not Hama recognized his scar and put two and two together of a boy with cat ears, tail, and scar, and a cat with the same.

The sun starts to fall, and the moon begins to rise. Toph waits in the barn as Zuko transforms, dresses himself, and comes to sit next to her.

"You don't like Hama, do you?" Toph says straight away. "You keep avoiding her."

"That's because I saw some horrible things last night," Zuko informs her softly. He shivers and curls up. "Toph, you have to keep the others away from Hama, especially Aang. She might know that Katara and Sokka are Water Tribe, but I don't think she knows that Aang's the Avatar. Please, don't let her find out. The Avatar can firebend, and Hama hates firebenders." He turns and stares at her. "You know that screaming you thought you heard coming from the mountain?"

She frowns at him. "You mean… I wasn't imagining it?"

He shakes his head gravely. "No, you weren't. It's real, and I went there. Thank Agni for my curse, or else I might still be there; she tied me up to a wall because she caught me firebending and helping some of the other villagers there to escape. It was awful. She tortures them because she hates them for an illogical reason."

Toph's eyes are wide with fear, and she slowly squeezes them shut and stands up. "We have to tell the others!"

"Not yet!" Zuko hisses, "Or else Hama might attack you if she finds out where you're going, and that you know her true secret. No, we have to plan this out," he says slowly. "I almost never plan anything, but I think this requires some timing. We can't go rushing blindly in." He suddenly catches himself, and immediately apologizes. "Uh. Sorry. I didn't mean –"

Toph waves it away. "Zuko, I'm used to blind jokes, intentional or not. So don't sweat it." She nibbles on her cuticles. "But – mn – this is bad. We need to help those people, but…"

"I know," Zuko says quietly. "I was going to slip away tonight and help a few more get free. But that means you'll have to keep Hama distracted. Do you think you can do that for me?"

The earthbender nods. "Definitely."

xXxXx

In one night, Zuko manages to free all of the captives. Most of them don't question him. The one girl who acknowledged his curse thanks him, but says little more. They all flee back to their homes, their families, to food and water and shelter and security.

But Zuko knows that Hama will come back, see the damage done to her little prison, and look for more victims. He can't allow that, not when it's his people in danger, not when he knows that the right thing to do – what Aang would do – is to destroy this place.

And so, with careful precision, Zuko hacks kicks and sets torch to the supporting pillars and the rocks leading to the entrance, until all that is left of the mountain nook is a caved-in pile of boulders and rubble.

Hama is going to be furious. But Zuko could care less.

xXxXx

When Zuko returns to the inn in the morning, Katara and Hama are gone. Zuko wonders where to and why, but he soon gets his answer from a little conversation between Aang and Sokka.

"I wonder what Katara's learning right about now?" Aang says first. "I bet it must be awesome, learning some old Southern Water Tribe bending from a surviving master."

"Yeah, whatever," Sokka says with a roll of his eyes. "I bet whatever Hama teacher her, Katara will teach to you, too. She likes to share stuff like that." He forces himself up out of his lazy pose on a couch and cracks his back. "Welp, we better go looking around town to see why the spirits might be angry with the villagers here. I'm still sticking with the theory that people mysteriously vanishing at night during a full moon is some sort of Spirit World hocus-pocus. After all, that's how it was with Hei Bai."

Aang nods in agreement. "Right. Let's go, then."

But as they wander the beautiful landscape, admiring it, nothing comes to mind.

"I don't understand it," Aang remarks as he overlooks a breathtaking valley with a little river and a brightly green forest. "This is probably one of the most peaceful-looking environments in the Fire Nation. How did these people get the spirits angry?"

Toph shrugs. "It's during the full moon, right? So, maybe the moon spirit turned mean."

Sokka won't stand for that remark. He leaps at the chance to defend who Zuko knows all too well to be Yue. And Zuko also knows that Sokka's right; this isn't Yue's doing. It has nothing to do with "lunar goodness," and has everything to do with the fact that the moon isn't the culprit at all. It's Hama.

If only Zuko could speak to them, and tell them…

Instead, he has to settle with following the group of three into town again, where they search for an old man who's supposedly seen the "spirit" who's been taking people away.

Except as they near the village, the sunlight begins to dwindle. No, not again! Zuko thinks as the moon starts to rise early once more, perfectly round and inescapable.

He dashes off, Aang calling after him. "Patches! Wait, where are you going?"

xXxXx

As Zuko dashes through the woods, looking for a place to hide, he hears Aang trailing behind him, calling out his pet-name, everyone else not too far behind. And Toph is trying to convince them to stay focused, and remind them that Patches always comes back, but Aang is clearly more concerned for the cat's well-being in a place like this to let him get away again.

But it winds up being a good thing.

As Zuko darts behind a bush and clamps a paw over his mouth to muffle his grunts of pain as he transforms under the nightshade of a tree. Aang and the others narrowly find him, but thankfully, they pass by as their attention is turned on something else.

And after recovering from changing again, Zuko sees why.

It's Hama. And Katara. And they are… bending. Bending each other. And the others. Using what? It can only be water, they are only waterbenders… Oh. There is water in the human body, Zuko remembers with a shiver down his spine.

And it's awful, really, because he wants to leap out and stop all of this, but he's naked. And still seen as the enemy by everyone here (save for Toph, of course). He has no choice but to watch with a sickening churn in his stomach as Katara has to blood-bend Hama while the others take her. And watch as they turn her into the people coming into the woods in search of the woman who trapped them.

He watches silently, feeling helpless and defeated – because even though he helped those people escape, he doesn't feel like he did enough, can't feel like it was at all enough when Aang was in danger for a split second and he just sat here, unable to do one measly thing.

Sighing, he's able to go to Appa and wait out the night after everyone is gone from the area, and by morning, he's sleeping in the saddle, a relieved expression on Aang's face being enough for him. But there is still that dark thought in the back of his mind that Katara knows a dark form of bending, and hates it, which is good, but the bending itself… it frightens him beyond all reason. Because apart from perhaps using it as a healing technique, what moral good is there in knowing how to control every artery and vein in a person's body?