Chapter Eleven

"I bet you're hungry," Azula announced in a singsong tone as she entered the confines of Aang's cell.

After setting aside her lantern, the small container of water she carried and the steaming platter of food, Azula contemplated Aang's bent head in the dimness. She actually had the Avatar in her possession, helpless and completely dependent upon her for his survival. Here was the boy, now a man, who had brought her father to his knees, had stripped her of her bending…and he couldn't even lift his own head. The realization filled Azula with heady satisfaction.

As Aang heard her approaching footsteps, he flinched inwardly. If he'd been able, he might have lifted his head to toss her a defiant glare. Unfortunately, he could do little more than hang limply until she scooted over to remove his gag and push back his head and spoon water into his mouth. He tried not to slurp at it gratefully, though it had seemed like days since the last time they had offered him water. While he managed to hold his composure over his raging thirst, however, his stomach betrayed his hunger by rumbling loudly when the delectable scent from the covered platter drifted over to his nostrils. Azula smirked. Aang remained silent.

When he'd had little more than a few spoonfuls of water, Azula re-corked the water skin and slipped it within the folds of her embroidered overcoat. "So…JianJun tells me you've been a very naughty boy in my absence," she remarked thoughtfully.

"Is that his name?" Aang wondered. "Thanks for the heads up. I was starting to feel bad just referring to him as, 'hey you, earthbender!'"

"You're pretty cheeky for someone in your position," Azula told him.

Aang grinned weakly. "I'm a cheeky guy."

"We'll see how long you keep that cheerful disposition of yours," Azula challenged, before her eyes abruptly took on a harsh and unyielding frigidity. "Further escape attempts will not be tolerated, Avatar. I am not a patient woman."

"Really? I couldn't tell."

Azula leaned in closer to whisper against his ear. "Hear me well. You only make things harder for yourself when you test my patience. I may be forced to give you more of the toxin to keep you under control and that would be very bad for you. You see, in larger doses, the shirshu toxin could actually paralyze your lung function. You'd die gasping for your last breath. It's not a pretty end, by any means."

Unwilling to betray even the slightest hint of fear because he was almost positive she was only baiting him, Aang challenged, "And how would you know what it does?"

She leaned back on her heels to favor him with a wicked smile. "Volunteers, of course. I tend to be very thorough about such matters." Aang flinched at the answer. "Come now, don't be that way," she sneered. "They did you a favor. Without them you would have been dead long ago."

"So is that your plan?" Aang demanded. "To kill me?"

"You're very unimaginative. Where would be the fun in that?" Azula purred. "Now your bison, on the other hand…"

Aang's eyes widened at the hanging threat. "Where's Appa?" he growled angrily. "What have you done with him?"

"Relax," Azula laughed with a dismissive sigh. "He's alive…simply more trouble than he's worth. Keeping him fed alone has been a nightmare…ugh…"

"If you hurt him…" Aang began in warning.

"You'll what?" Azula goaded. "Take away my bending? My freedom? Too late, Avatar. You've already done both and I survived."

"Is that why you're doing this?" Aang surmised tiredly. "You want to punish me for what happened before? I've told you…it wasn't an easy decision for me. I never wanted you to feel like you were left with nothing."

"Right," she snorted. "Because you care so deeply. Please, spare me your gentle nobility. I'm not impressed."

"I can't give you back your bending, Azula," he told her. "It doesn't work that way."

"Who said I wanted it back?" she sneered. "You actually did me a favor. You'd be amazed at what the human body can accomplish with the right motivation. I have talents I never even fathomed." Before Aang could obsess over the understandable panic her declaration raised, Azula abruptly changed the subject. "But enough about me," she chirped. "It's been almost four days without food for you and you must be starving."

"It's been four days…" Aang mumbled, more to himself than to her.

Still, Azula answered as if he had addressed her directly. "Hmm…I forget time is nonexistent for you right now," she considered lightly. "You actually have no idea how long you've been down here with me at all, do you?"

"Does it matter?"

"Just an interesting observation," Azula said. His stomach chose that moment to growl loudly. "You may not know how long you've been here, but your stomach certainly does. You should eat."

"Like you care," he muttered.

"But I do," she insisted, reaching over to lift the wooden lid from his dinner platter to reveal a pile of fluffy dumplings on a bed of crisp lettuce. "Doesn't it look divine?" she cajoled. She inhaled the intoxicating aroma. "And it smells even better."

"I'm not eating that," Aang declared flatly.

"You have something against good food?" Azula queried.

"I have something against poison," Aang clarified.

"Oh, you silly boy," she laughed, reaching over to pluck a dumpling from the plate and take a bite. She expelled a pure moan of delight as she chewed the food. "You see?" she said after she'd swallowed. "No poison."

"Eat another," Aang bid her suspiciously.

"Alright," she complied, "but that means less for you." Three dumplings later Aang had ample confirmation that they weren't poisoned, but he still couldn't quell his suspicions over her decision to deliver him such an appetizing meal in the first place. He told her as much. Azula reacted with affected affront. "I'm not without a heart," she said. "There's no rule that says I can't treat my prisoner well. The least I can do is serve you a hot meal." She pressed a warm dumpling to Aang's lips. "Now why don't you eat it?"

Aang took a cautious bite of the morsel, only to spit it out in disgust a second later when he realized what it was. "That's meat!" he bit out accusingly.

Azula regarded him with a wide-eyed stare. "Is it?"

He could tell by her tone of voice and gleeful expression that the "oversight" had not been accidental at all. "I don't eat meat," Aang informed her mutinously.

"That's a shame, Avatar, because you see…meat is all we have," she informed him sweetly, despite the lettuce which sat in plain view and proved her a liar. That was evidently the point because, seconds later, she was dropping her polite hostess routine altogether. "You can either eat what I offer you or starve to death. It's your choice."

"I'm not eating it," he said again.

"I know how revered you are for your morality and your convictions," she considered smoothly. "I think it will be rather interesting to see if you can hold to them under such extreme pressure. After all, the world needs you right now. War is looming. This would be an extremely bad time to die. And…all you have to do is eat, keep your strength up and you may be able to save the world and the people you love. Or, you can hold to your vegetarian beliefs and slowly starve to death." She tapped her chin in a pensive moment. "I wonder what you'll do."

"You're cruel," Aang uttered. "This is nothing but a game to you."

Unbelievably, she smiled at that. "Yes, and I'm quite entertained," she replied without even a shred of contrition. "So…are you ready for dumpling number two?"

"I told you, I'm not eating it," Aang reiterated coldly. "Take that plate and your smug self-satisfaction and get out of here, Azula."

Without further argument, Azula released him and retrieved the food, lantern and water before stooping to refasten the dirty bandage across his mouth. Once she had completed her task, she rose to exit, pausing briefly just before she did. "Right now your anger and adrenaline are fueling you," she quipped in a light tone. "You probably feel quite omnipotent at the moment. It's easy to tell me 'no' at this moment. But let's see how you feel after a few more days without food."

****

Milking a shirshu could be an arduous and dangerous process, which yielded only marginal results. Long Feng had only witnessed the procedure once and quite by accident. Azula had been quick to divert his attention elsewhere. In fact, there were places within the underground labyrinth that she strictly forbade him to go. Her insistence was both ironic and aggravating. While Long Feng applauded her genius in choosing the long abandoned and forgotten Lake Laogai as her secret headquarters, he was also irritated over the fact she had usurped yet another thing in his life. The indignity of it all was beginning to wear thin with him.

She was doing it again, Long Feng realized. She was systematically stripping him of everything that mattered to him and she wasn't even half trying. It had only been two days and already she had grown men, respected military tacticians eating out of the palm of her hand with the misguided notion that she was a poor, wounded bird they could heal and protect. They actually bought into her crockery that she was helping them. None of them could see at all that they were helping her. They could not even fathom how thoroughly she was manipulating them. Poor fools! She would gain mastery over them and the Fire Nation and all by the charming flutter of her long lashes.

But she would not get the mastery over him. Not again.

Just as she had used the shirshu to control the Avatar, when the time was right, he would use the shirshu to control her. He didn't want her dead. Suffering was the only appropriate end for her. Once he had bent her completely to his will, everything she had worked to build would be his for the taking. He would swoop in and pluck it up as easily as he would a fire lily in an open field. In the end, he would have the satisfaction of knowing that Azula was fully aware of what he'd done and there was absolutely nothing she could do to change it.

For Long Feng, that would be a long awaited justice and it would begin with an animal's saliva. The fact that it required nearly half a dozen Dai Li agents to subdue said animal just to acquire what amounted to little more than a few ounces failed to dissuade Long Feng. Though he would have to face the shirshu alone, he was more than confident that he was up to the task. There was no glory without sacrifice and hardship after all. The effort would be well worth it in the end. His nemesis would be no more and, better still, he would be sovereign ruler over everything she had.

Sweet revenge indeed.

****

"Tell me again," Zuko entreated his mother tersely. "Start from the beginning."

"Darling, I've already told you!" Ursa replied, her tone equally tense. "The doctor acted as if he'd never seen me before and he insisted that Azula had never even been his patient! He had no idea what I was talking about!"

"He obviously believed what he was telling her," Komo interjected. "Even after I arrived he did not change his story. He wasn't putting on an act, Zuko. The man was genuinely confused."

"Are you sure?" Zuko pressed. "He might have been putting you off. You know how persuasive Azula can be when she puts her mind to it. She could have easily frightened him into cooperating."

"Like I said, I didn't sense any deception in him…or fear," Komo reiterated. "What he was saying to us…he obviously believed it. In fact, seemingly everyone we questioned in connection with Azula's case acted as if they didn't know what we were talking about."

"It was very strange," Ursa murmured. "I actually started to feel as if I was the one who had gotten it all wrong."

The description of the doctor's odd behavior as well as Ursa's statement snapped a thread of familiarity within Sokka. He remembered being in Ba Sing Se before the war ended and the ridiculous time he and his friends had endured while trying to convince its citizens that there was a war outside the city. He remembered Jet and his odd behavior, his insistence that he was something he wasn't…after the Dai Li had brainwashed him. Sokka eyes flared wide as the thought occurred to him. "The Dai Li…" he gasped. "They have to be behind this!"

"It makes sense," Mai considered. "They had an almost abnormal loyalty towards Azula. They even stood behind her when she tried to burn the palace to the ground, remember?"

"But we disbanded the Dai Li," Zuko reminded her. "They are scattered and broken. There are probably only a handful of them left. Besides that, I have kept strict tabs on who does and doesn't visit Azula. No one gets in to see her without my approval first!"

"Apparently someone did and they likely brainwashed the staff at Donghai Aiguo," Sokka commented. "You can't ignore the implications, Zuko. This has the Dai Li written all over it, especially in light of Azula's escape."

Zuko threw back his head and growled in sheer frustration. "How many times do we have to do this?" he lamented before throwing a woebegone look over towards his mother. "I thought you said she was getting better!"

"She was!" Ursa defended. "Our…our relationship was the best it's ever been. I…I thought we were finally beginning to understand each other."

Komo rested a hand on his distraught wife's shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. She stared up at him with wet, anguished eyes. "All that still might be true," he murmured gently.

"And it might have been another one of Azula's lies," Zuko cut in brutally. "After all, that's what she does!" He pivoted abruptly to stalk towards the service cord at the far end of the sitting room and yanked it hard. "I need to put the palace on high alert," he said. "I can't take the chance of what happened last time she got free happening again!"

"Zuko, I don't think she's coming here," Sokka considered. "If she was, we would have seen her by now. I think Azula has bigger things planned. Think about it. Aang's gone and now she is too. That can't be an accident."

"But remember, Azula has no bending," Mai reasoned. "She's good and she's quick, but even she can't take on a fully realized Avatar, especially now."

"You don't need bending to take someone by ambush," Sokka countered.

"All this is a moot point," Zuko interjected, having finished rattling off orders for palace security to two of his most loyal palace guards. "If Azula has taken Aang, which I'll admit is probably exactly what happened, there's not much I can do about it now. I can't exactly go hunting for her. Ri Shan is only the first Fire Nation colony to be invaded. I'm sure the others will follow. I need to get there."

"And what about Aang?" Sokka demanded. "He's the only one that can put an end to all this, Zuko."

"Katara and the others went to find the bounty hunter, right?" Mai interjected. "Once they get to her, finding Aang will only be a matter of time. We should focus our attention on containing the uprising at Ri Shan before it gets any bigger."

"How do you propose to do that?" Sokka wondered.

"I'm sending troops into the Earth Kingdom," Zuko revealed deliberately. "The navy has already set sail."

"You what?" Sokka exploded. "Are you insane? That's the worst thing you could have done right now!"

"Man power is very limited in the Colonies, Sokka," Zuko argued. "Should I just hang back and wait for my people to be slaughtered?"

"Ri Shan has a fortified, defensive wall, right?" Sokka pressed.

"Yes," Zuko confirmed.

"Has it been breached?"

"According to my last report, not yet," Komo spoke up. "But it's only a matter of time."

"But we have time," Sokka stressed. "If we wait just a few more days I'm sure Katara and the others will have found Aang and then we can all decide on a course of action together."

"We may not have a few days," Zuko retorted. "Azula has Earthbenders at her disposal now. It won't take days to bring down the city's walls. If they get close enough, it may take only a matter of hours. As it is, my naval fleet won't arrive in time to prevent Ri Shan from being decimated, but I can stop further destruction to the other colonies."

"Zuko, Aang wouldn't want this," Sokka urged. "You know he wouldn't! If you invade the Earth Kingdom then this really is war. There's no turning back."

"Don't you see, Sokka?" Zuko muttered sadly. "It already is war."

****

"Good to see this place has remained as seedy as ever," Suki remarked dryly as she, Toph, Katara and Iroh entered the tavern June usually frequented. In one corner of the room a fistfight had broken out, despite the morning hours and several men were already passed out across their tables. Suki crinkled her nose in revulsion. "I really don't get the appeal," she muttered under her breath.

"You don't? This is my kind of place!" Toph interjected excitedly. "I think it's awesome!"

Suki flicked her with a sardonic look. "You would, Toph."

"We should split up to look for June," Katara suggested brusquely. "We'll cover more ground that way."

When she had divided off from the group, Toph leaned into Suki and mumbled, "I thought you said she was doing better after your little talk."

"Better, but not happy by a long shot," Suki said with a worried look over in Katara's direction. "We should probably just give her some space for a while."

"That's a good idea," Toph agreed. She turned towards Iroh to get his opinion on the matter, only to find that he was craning his neck rather assiduously for a glimpse of June. Toph smirked. "So Iroh…" the young earthbender drawled, nudging her boyfriend in the side with her elbow. "See your lady anywhere?"

"Now Toph, we've been through this," Iroh replied mildly as he continued to scan the tavern. "She's not my lady. There was never anything between us at all."

"Not for lack of trying though, right?" Toph teased him.

Iroh favored her with a smile. "Maybe once…" he confessed softly, "…but I've long since found something better."

In a rare display of vulnerability, Toph's cheeks warmed with a pink hue over his unapologetic flattery. "You are one smooth talker for an old guy," she commended. She administered a playful punch to his upper arm, which turned into a fleeting caress. "Keep it up," she suggested with a meaningful perusal down the length of his body, "and so will I."

"I hate to interrupt your…um…sexual banter," Suki interjected with a mild shudder, "but remember how we agreed about giving Katara her space? We should probably rethink that. She's clearly on the verge of a meltdown." She nodded over to where Katara was aggressively interrogating the tavern keeper over June's whereabouts. "We'd better get over there before she completely loses it."

"…she's in here all the time!" Katara yelled impatiently as her friends came up from behind. She thumped her fist against the wooden countertop. "How can you not know who I'm talking about?"

"Katara," Suki interrupted carefully. "What's going on?"

"This man is lying," she sneered, grabbing the tavern keeper by his shirt and yanking him forward. "He knows very well who I'm talking about, but he's playing dumb for some reason."

"Yeah…okay," Suki replied, reaching forward to slowly and cautiously uncurl the waterbender's fingers from the thin material of the tavern keeper's shirt. "I get that you're a little upset right now…but I'm thinking manhandling him really isn't the best way to go about convincing him to help us." In answer, Katara uncorked her water skin and drew forth a snaking tendril of liquid, forming it into a snapping whip. "No, not that way either," Suki sighed, attempting to nudge Katara aside and meeting with little success. "Why don't we have a little talk, okay?"

"No!" Katara blustered. "If this guy isn't going to cooperate on his own, I'll be more than happy to provide him with some encouragement!"

"Are you threatening me?" the tavern keeper challenged with a narrowed glare.

"I don't make threats!" Katara flung back. "That was a promise!"

"Okay then…" Suki interrupted, forcibly dragging Katara aside. "You definitely need a moment. Come with me."

As Suki ushered a protesting Katara away, the tavern keeper remarked, clearly aggravated, "Your friend is crazy."

"She's not crazy," Toph corrected. "She's looking for her husband and she needs June to find him."

"Oh, so this is a domestic dispute…I get you."

"No, it's not a domestic dispute," Toph retorted. "We're looking for the Avatar, genius! You could say the fate of the free world depends on whether or not we find him so…given those circumstances; I can understand my friend's frustration with you. Because she was right…you are lying."

"W-Wait a minute," the man sputtered. "What has this got to do with the Avatar? That waterbender was only asking me if I'd seen the bounty hunter!"

"So you did know who she was talking about," Toph charged slyly. "Now why would you lie about something like that?" She placed her hand flat against the serving counter. "Your heartbeat is going a mile a minute. What has you so nervous?"

"I'm not nervous," he denied.

"You seem nervous," Toph insisted. "And you're lying…again."

"I…I've got work to do," the tavern keeper stammered.

"The last thing we want to do is trouble you," Iroh interjected politely, "but you see…you are right." He lowered his tone to a conspiratorial whisper. "Our friend is a little crazy." He nodded over to where Katara was obviously breathing threat and murderous intent for the tavern keeper. "The war was very hard on her. She's sort of a loose cannon," Iroh confided dishonestly. "She could literally snap at any moment. I've seen it before. It's not a pretty sight."

The tavern keeper threw up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Look, I don't want any trouble…"

"Neither do we," Iroh said. "Let's say we clear this whole thing up and have a nice pot of tea? Now doesn't that sound pleasant?"

The tavern keeper favored him with a look that clearly questioned Iroh's sanity. His next words confirmed the look. "Are all of you insane?" he wondered deliberately.

Ignoring that, Iroh prodded gently, "June, the bounty hunter? Do you know where she is?"

"I haven't seen her in nearly a week," the tavern keeper revealed. "She had a run in with some earthbenders a little while ago. They were trying to take that animal of hers and there was a big fight."

"Did you do anything to stop it?" Toph demanded.

"Hey, fights happen in this place all the time and I don't get in the middle," the tavern keeper tossed back defensively. "I try to mind my own business."

"So then what happened?" Iroh asked.

"They loaded her and the animal up and took her," the man informed them. "Afterwards, some big shot earthbender comes in here and gives me a lot of money to say I never saw anything. That was it. He never said a word about the Avatar or why he wanted June and her animal in the first place."

"Can you describe what this earthbender looked like?" Iroh questioned.

"Um…regular looking guy, tall…black robes, green and gold circle insignia across the front…" the tavern keeper recalled. "He was…was very quiet when he moved…like he was gliding across the earth, not actually walking. Come to think of it, they all moved like that."

"All?" Toph queried.

"There were a least a dozen of them," the tavern keeper said. "But the guy I talked to…he seemed like he was in charge of the whole operation."

Suki and a significantly calmer Katara approached on the tail end of his description, but for Katara that was enough. "That sounds like the Dai Li," she remarked in disbelief.

"The Dai Li?" Toph echoed. "But why? Why would the Dai Li want to kidnap June? What could they possibly have to gain by taking her?"

"A better question is…how are we supposed to find Aang without her?" Katara wondered thickly. "What are we supposed to do now?"

"Wait now…are you saying the Avatar is missing?" the tavern keeper demanded, horrified.

"What's it to you?" Toph challenged.

The tavern keeper took a cautious step back still half afraid they had intentions to hurt him. He definitely didn't want the situation to turn into a "shoot the messenger" type of deal. "I'm just saying…" he began defensively, "…if he was, it would be really bad timing that's all."

"And why is that?" Suki demanded shortly.

"Haven't you heard?" When he was met with nothing but blank stares all around, he clarified with an exasperated sigh, "Have you people been living under a rock or something? The Fire Nation invaded Earth Kingdom waters this morning and opened fire. We're at war."