I hope everyone who celebrates anything this time of year has had/is having a lovely holiday! Thank you again to those who've faved/followed since the last chapter; and please do always feel free to ask questions, via either review (if you want to stay anonymous) or PM. The Turkic names in Part 2 of this chapter may sound a bit out of place, but their use is intentional: they're Uyghur names, as best I was able to determine, and therefore entirely appropriate for a setting based on East Asia. Anyway, on to the chapter! (For those of you who really love the Library of Wan Shi Tong: um, sorry. It may still show up "onscreen" later?)

.*.

Chapter 7: The Desert

.*.

Despite being handed an opportunity to test Mizan, to push her and prod her and see how quickly or slowly she might snap, the pirates were relatively polite; even Tan Khai, the angry woman who liked Mizan the least, listened to her, if grudgingly.

The first order of business, of course, was to determine how her Firebenders would be divided—and, in turn, whose sailors would be put under her command to make up for the lack. She willingly described her soldiers' strengths and weaknesses, and even Tan Khai was attentive.

"You know them better than I," Tan Khai said, when Mizan asked her why. "And there is no other choice—your words are better than nothing, Fire Nation, even if they are only hot air."

"You expend the effort to be clever with me," Mizan observed, trying not to laugh. "How gracious."

Tan Khai eyed her. "I have not cut your throat," she said. "That is graciousness."

"And what about her?" said Bui, who was the captain who had brought her in; he was looking at Isani, who had stood throughout the discussion, silently looming at Mizan's shoulder.

"If I am to sail with you," Mizan said, "I'll need to keep at least one—or how will I reply to the signals you'll have my soldiers sending?" She shook her head. "She stays with me."

It was simpler than she had been expecting, for her sailors to be replaced with pirates; she anticipated considerable grumbling, and perhaps protests that none could be spared. But a Firebender to each ship meant a single sailor from it, so no one ship had to suffer a whole crew being split apart. She thought it likely that she was acquiring a collection of the least valued—but her own crew had been made up of such when they had first been exiled, and she had managed well enough.

The rest was more difficult.

"A supply route?" Bui said doubtfully. "You are certain?"

Mizan tried not to grind her teeth. At least, not audibly. "We were exiles, not fools. We have sailed the seas near Port Tsao several times over; we have seen the ships ourselves."

Chen Ma Yun, a woman with a thin, dour face, sneered down at Mizan's chart. "Supply ships. Valorous," she said.

"Sensible," Mizan replied. "I am the only Fire Nation vessel you have; if you try to tell me you do not take heavy losses when you attack their war fleets, I will not believe you." She glanced around the table pointedly; the silence remained unbroken. "Devastating an army's supply line may be less emotionally satisfying, but it is far more feasible, and I suspect it will do more damage than your boats have ever done to a battleship."

"Are you always so disdainful of new allies?" Tan Khai said.

"I do not disdain you; I disdain your ships." Mizan let herself sneer, just a little. "Are pirates always so easily offended?"

"You have called them flat-bellied and lubberly yourself, a time or two," said Jaoshing, from further down the table; he was an older man, and had mostly stayed quiet, but now he was looking at Tan Khai with his eyebrows raised, visibly amused.

Tan Khai huffed out a breath and leaned back in her chair. "When they are mine," she said, "I am allowed."

The small joke eased the whole table; it felt like a breath, held in far too long, had been released.

"The supply route you insist is there," Jaoshing said. "How precise can you be?"

The docks on the coast near Omashu had been somewhat haphazardly put together—Earthbenders, Yin thought, probably could have done much better with stone, but flame couldn't be used to build all by itself. Although it was easy for Firebenders to weld thoroughly, so they probably weren't quite as rickety as they looked.

Still, she found herself holding her breath a little when the first battalion of soldiers stepped from the flagship's hold to the dock. But no splashing followed the clang of boots on metal, and Yin let herself exhale.

"Sir?"

Yin turned. Not Kishen—nor even Chan Dan. Nusha, this time, a plump pale woman from the north.

She still wasn't quite used to the regular company of her squadron commanders. The fleet's organization had been exceptionally lax on their return from the north, with easily half the officers dead or injured, and Yin had usually had her orders issued to the rest of the ships with fire signals anyone on deck could see. She had conferred with no one but Kishen for so long.

But now that they'd been formally reinforced, she was surrounded by a bevy of captains and division commanders and who knew what else. Kishen was one of the division commanders now, promoted by the officials in Phnan Chnang—it was probably in poor taste to keep him closer than her squadron commanders, but they were still bound together by the secret of the Avatar's escape from Jindao, and she had come to trust his advice besides.

All her endeavors to avoid Zhao's legacy, she thought wryly, and she was already more prone to favoritism than he had ever been. At least he had been equally disdainful of everyone.

"Yes, Commander?" Yin said.

Nusha bowed. "Sir, the lieutenant general in charge of the area troops requests a meeting. His messenger indicates that he has orders to pass along from General Jingzan. He's waiting on deck."

General Jingzan—she was the regional commander. She must have been told that Yin was coming, and passed her orders along so they would be waiting when Yin arrived.

"Very well," Yin said, and then hesitated. She could get formal about it, but that meant loading up the scarily impressive admiral's tent and dragging along a dozen soldiers to set it up. The lieutenant general must have sent his messenger off the moment their ships had been spotted on the horizon, if the fellow had made it here already, which implied something of a hurry. "Fifteen minutes," she told Nusha, "and I'll be ready to ride back with him."

Nusha looked at her, steady and considering. "The man has no ostrich horse," she said. "He ran."

Yin blinked. That must have been an uncomfortable trip. She glanced through the window at the side of the bridge; she could only see him from the elbows up, but it looked like he was wearing nearly full armor. Just how beleaguered were they, if they couldn't spare an ostrich horse, or travel through the foothills without wearing armor?

"Give him one of the relief mounts, then," she said, "and tell him: fifteen minutes." She glanced out the window again. "And have somebody bring him some water."

"As you say, Admiral," Nusha said, and bowed again.

They had to get out of Gaoling as quickly as possible, and with Toph along, they had been able to head right into the mountains—not that they couldn't have without her, but it would have been much harder. They had avoided the most straightforward routes, and Toph had been invaluable, clearing fallen rocks out of the way, or lifting them up outcroppings so they wouldn't have to stop and find a way around.

Katara hated her.

Earthbending was the only thing Toph would do for anybody but herself. In every other way—in ways Katara would never even have thought of before this—she was so unhelpful it made Katara want to scream. Katara had tried to be thoughtful; she'd figured she would give Toph the easiest tasks when it came time to set up camp, since Toph had probably never done anything like it before. But Toph had categorically refused to lift a finger to help out, all the way up one side of the mountains and down the other. She could make a tent for herself with two jabs of her hands, and everybody else could fend for themselves. It was so ridiculous Katara could barely even argue with it properly—it was like trying to scold somebody for putting their shoes on their face, for punching you to say hello instead of bowing. Where did you even start?

But she was going to find a way soon—that or her head would explode. Suki had convinced her to let it go while they were in the mountains; they were in a hurry, and Toph was doing a lot for them even if she wouldn't boil water or lay out mats. But they were in the foothills now, the last descent before they hit the great beige blur that marked the Si Wong Desert on the map; the hurry and the obstacles were both mostly past, and Katara's patience was just about gone entirely.

It had been so easy, before—maybe too easy, in retrospect. Suki had slotted into place like Katara and Sokka had known her all their lives, and Yue was so polite and forgiving that even if she'd hated them, she would have made it work. Toph was nothing like that at all. Katara had caught herself thinking at least twice that she'd have been willing to double back, to scale the outcroppings with hands and feet, to climb around the remains of rockslides, if only she hadn't had to do it with Toph.

"Hey, whoa, you look like you're about to punch something."

Katara glanced at Sokka, and then realized she had gritted her teeth; her jaw was aching. Aang, drifting easily ahead of her even though his back was to the path, was looking at her sort of doubtfully.

She made herself relax. "Sorry," she said, deliberate in the cheerfulness of her tone. "Just thinking."

Suki looked at her, and then ahead at Toph, and so did Yue; but Toph thumped on ahead of them, utterly oblivious.

And that, that was another thing—she was so loud, she walked like a komodo rhino in a bad temper. Sure, fine, not everybody had learned to walk surrounded by snow and ice, where a heavy step meant a hard fall or an abrupt soaking; but she was practically shaking the ground, like she was trying to pound in nails with her feet—

"O-kay," Sokka said loudly, "I think it's time for a break." They were on the beginnings of an actual road now, shimmering with heat ahead of them where it bent close to the Si Wong, and Sokka squinted ahead at a sign by the nearest cross-path. "Misty Palms Oasis, anyone?"

"Seriously?" Toph said.

Was she kidding? Maybe they hadn't been walking that long, but it was already hot, and it was only going to get worse—Toph couldn't see the maps, but they'd told her there was a desert ahead of them, after the little strip of grasslands by the mountains. She knew, even if she was acting like she didn't. Like she was so much better than they were, just because she could walk longer—

"I believe I could use a drink," Yue said, diplomatic. "We will be quick."

Toph shrugged one shoulder. "Okay, fine," she said.

The nerve—like it was up to her! Katara had to actually bite her lip to keep from saying it, and took a step instead. A break. That would be good. Toph could go one way, and Katara could go the other way, and they could just not be around each other for a while.

.*.*.*.

Misty Palms Oasis, as it turned out, wasn't very misty, or very palmy—or even very oasisy. Sokka figured it probably had been at some point; but now it was mostly sand, a lot of grumpy-looking people, and some dusty buildings that looked like they wanted to get out of the heat just as much as he did.

But apparently there was still a spring left somewhere, because one of the dusty buildings sold cool drinks, with tables to sit at, and handfuls of wilting and depressed fruit in little bowls as a side.

"... Thank you," Sokka said to the storekeeper, when he had his cup and bowl in hand; but he couldn't help staring into them doubtfully. That wasn't even a plum anymore—that was a prune pretending. Badly.

"At least we can be pretty sure they haven't rotted," Suki said to him brightly, lifting a wizened peach out of her own bowl with a flourish.

"No," Sokka agreed, "that would take moisture."

But the drinks were pretty cold, somehow; and Katara and Yue took turns freezing them over with a slim film of ice to keep them that way. "Excellent," Yue kept saying when Katara pulled off the smooth little tug of fingers, and Katara was laughing and smiling and not grinding her teeth at all, which was a nice change.

Sokka saw what was going to happen a second before it did—not fast enough to do anything, but fast enough to be grimacing already, even before Toph said, "Hey!" loudly.

"What is it now?" Katara said, and her good mood was gone like—well, like the moisture from Sokka's prune.

Toph had been the last of them in line, which should have meant she'd get her drink next. But there was a man at the counter, a pretty short guy with kind of knobbly elbows; and judging by the way Toph was standing a foot back and rubbing her shoulder, he'd used one of them to knock her out of the line.

"I think that actually wasn't her fault," Sokka said, a second before Toph skidded a foot forward across the dirt floor—and the earth under the man's feet rumbled sideways, shoving him off-balance and away from the counter. "... Well, that part sort of was, but—"

Katara wasn't listening, he saw; she'd already clenched up her jaw again, and she let out a sharp breath through her nose.

But Yue was already up and halfway across the room, a smile firmly pasted on her face. "Apologies, sir," she said, "you must not have noticed my friend—"

"I'm not that short!" Toph said.

"—standing in line here," Yue finished.

"I don't know what you're talking about," the guy said grumpily, wincing as he picked himself up. "I was here first."

Yue hesitated for a second; she was used to people who were trying to be just as polite as she was, Sokka thought, not people who'd lie outright. But the storekeeper, behind the counter, straightened up with a cup in her hand. "If you were," she said, "you forgot to order; girl's drink is up first."

She set the cup down with a clack and slid it across the counter; and Toph caught it in one hand and turned away. She still looked sort of angry, but she only stomped a little on the way over to their table.

Yue nodded to the storekeeper, and then paused: Toph had stumbled back a step and a half, and she'd hit some guy sitting at the counter before she'd recovered her balance. He'd turned around to see what had struck him, and now he was staring down at a wet spreading patch on his shirt—where he'd spilled his drink, Sokka realized.

"I apologize," Yue said, but the guy looked up with a wide smile on his face.

"No, no, not at all," he said. "It actually feels quite good! I would spill the rest on my head, except I would also like to drink it."

"We would be happy to pay for a refill," Yue said, grinning, "which you can spill on your head at your leisure."

The man laughed. "Unnecessary," he said, and then blinked, and looked more closely at her hair. "Those medallions—forgive me. Are you by any chance from the Northern Water Tribe?"

"Yes, I—"

"If I could beg a favor," the man said, "might I sit with you?"

.*.*.*.

His name was Zei; he was a professor all the way from Ba Sing Se, and he nearly fell off his chair when he learned that Katara and Sokka were both from the Southern Water Tribe.

"Amazing!" he said, when he had recovered his balance. "Simply amazing—we all heard of it when the fleet came north, of course, but I was never able to speak to anyone who was actually part of it, they were off to the front almost right away. I am the head of the anthropology department, you see—the university library has almost no literature whatsoever on the Southern Water Tribe, it is simply dreadful."

"The university?" Katara said. He talked like there was only one in the world.

Suki, across the table, was giving her a funny look, so she raised an eyebrow. "Sorry," Suki said, "I just—even at home, that was always the big news in the market, who'd be leaving for the exams to try to earn a spot."

"Oh, yes," Professor Zei said, nodding, "it is quite competitive. Probably it ought to be Ba Chang University, it was founded to serve the entire kingdom; but then Ba Chang and Ba Sing Se are nearly the same thing anyway. There would be no kingdom without the great city."

"And the Water Tribes are—your area of study?" Sokka said. He was sort of making a face; and it was kind of a weird idea, that someone could find their lives unusual enough to study, Katara thought. Before, that is, back home; now they really were weird.

"No, no, my expertise lies elsewhere," Professor Zei said. "But Professor Taoyi would be quite upset with me if he found out I had run into you and had not asked you anything at all. No—I am currently engaged in a reconstructive study of the Air Nomads."

Katara sucked in a breath, and turned to look for Aang automatically; she covered the motion with a stretch, but it probably came off pretty awkwardly. Aang had been hovering over the table, sliding his head through the rock to watch people outside—but he tumbled back at Professor Zei's words, like even spirits could lose their balance, and turned around, eyes wide.

But Professor Zei didn't notice anything. "Fascinating, truly fascinating—of course, there is very little left, so much was lost in Sozin's purges. There are traces, though, in the works that remain; references to authors and books no one can find anymore. And, of course, there is the library of Wan Shi Tong."

He said it like he expected it to mean something, but all Katara could do was look at him blankly. Sokka, too, seemed clueless; but Yue looked like the name was familiar, and Suki was staring at Professor Zei in outright surprise.

"You found it?" she said.

Professor Zei grinned, faintly smug. "Oh, yes," he said. "The lost library itself!" He glanced at Katara, and then at Sokka. "Surely you must have heard the stories. How the great library of Tuo-Ma-Tian was saved—the spirit's fox servants came in droves, stealing dozens of manuscripts despite the nuns' best efforts, and a week later the wildfires came? Wan Shi Tong's library is the greatest repository of knowledge in the world, books and writings saved from a dozen disasters—half of it is probably editions of which there are no other copies." He sighed dreamily. "The poetry of Nhan Duc, the epistles of Jingyao, Areum Hee-sik's calendar of the great eclipses for the war ministers of Seon—"

"Wait, what?" Sokka said. "Why would anybody want that?"

"It was fascinating," Professor Zei protested, "though of course it is not my area. Dark days for the Fire Nation, quite literally—of course, unification had not yet occurred in Hee-sik's time, I should more properly say the illustrious southern kingdoms of Bahratshana and Chempang—"

"An eclipse," Yue said, very calm and slow; but Katara could see her hands, she was gripping the edge of the table so hard that her fingers were trembling. "You mean to say that an eclipse of the sun—"

Katara stared at her. Of course, of course—had no one thought of it since Hee-sik? She knew what Yue was remembering, because she remembered it herself: that awful dim light in the sky, Yue limp with pain against the grass before Katara had darted around her to reach the spirit pool. That hadn't been an eclipse, not really; but the moon's light and power had both been blocked by Zhao's attack on the spirit, and in those moments everyone's Waterbending had failed them. And the comet—Roku had hinted at it, but she had known already, it was in the stories. The comet had made Firebenders powerful, and would again; why shouldn't an eclipse make them weaker?

But it wouldn't matter, Katara reminded herself, if there wasn't going to be another before the end of this summer. "How far did it go," she said, "that calendar?"

"Certainly not three thousand years into the future," Professor Zei said cheerfully. "No, I would expect you would need the university's observatory for that. A wonderful facility—you will not even need to do the calculations yourself, they have an armillary sphere the size of a room. The library had a duplicate of that, too—simply marvelous."

Sokka was gaping at him, and so was Suki; Yue was staring, though she hadn't let her mouth fall open; and Toph—

Actually, Toph was sitting there sipping her drink happily and gnawing on a plum. Figured, Katara thought darkly.

But for once it was easy to let the irritation slide away. They hadn't had anywhere in particular to go, except away from Toph's parents, and now that they were on the other side of the mountains, all they needed was somewhere for Toph to teach her Earthbending. Surely it would be easy enough to find a place to practice in Ba Sing Se.

Professor Zei glanced at them uncertainly, one by one. "... Would you perhaps like to accompany me on my return to the university?"

"Yeah, I think maybe we would," Sokka said.

.*.

The most direct route to Ba Sing Se cut through the Si Wong—not into the deep desert, but along the side. They probably wouldn't have risked it if they'd been by themselves; but Professor Zei had spent years searching for the library of Wan Shi Tong, and he had put together very detailed maps of the desert.

"We will have to pass through the dunes for part of the way," Professor Zei told them, eyeing one of his charts. "Most of the path crosses gravel flats and open ground; but the Si Wong is famed for its dunes for good reason. There are so many, there is no way to avoid them completely."

Sokka shrugged. "It's just a lot of sand," he said. "How bad could it be?"

"Oh, the sand is not so bad," Professor Zei agreed. "You grow used to the strain on your legs after a time. It is the sandstorms that make the dunes dangerous, more than anything." He rolled the charts up cheerfully, like he hadn't just said something incredibly ominous.

"... But you've done this before?" Katara said.

Professor Zei beamed. "Many times! And I have only come close to death twice, if you do not count the time with the camel spider."

"We're doomed," Toph said, and finished off her drink with a flourish. For once, Katara couldn't totally disagree.

Aang hovered at her shoulder, strikingly quiet, and she knew why; but she wanted to wait until they were out in the desert to ask Professor Zei about his research. Suki had told her what had happened, that time she'd been shot and dragged off to the Fire Nation fort, and a high wind suddenly rising inside a building seemed like a bad idea—outside, she could at least pass it off as a random breeze. And they hadn't had the dead guy talk with Toph yet.

So they walked out into the Si Wong until Misty Palms was a little heat-blurred smudge behind them, and then she let herself edge up next to Professor Zei, and spoke. "I hope you don't mind—you said you specialized in Air Nomad history?"

Professor Zei smiled broadly. "Oh, yes," he said. "Fascinating, truly fascinating—it would be a dangerous profession in the Fire Nation, but fortunately Ba Sing Se University encourages the search for truth."

"Truth?"

"Surely you've heard the things that are said of the Air Nomads," Professor Zei said, and Katara remembered involuntarily: the sages in the Avatar temple, repeating their lessons on the dangers of the Air Nomads and looking at her apologetically after. "Unfortunately, few primary sources remain. To be sure, you can still find secondhand tales in the mountains; but the Fire Nation burned so much in the early years of the war, before the Queen of Seven Kingdoms beat them back. That is why I set out for the library of Wan Shi Tong." He sighed, biting his lip, and for the first time since they had met him the smile dropped from his face. "The Fire Nation beat me to it, to some degree—many documents on the history of their nation had been destroyed before I came. But they were not thorough, and the library of the spirit is very, very large."

"And what did you find?" Katara said, more than usually aware of the faint blue shine of Aang in the edge of her vision.

"More than I could possibly tell you," Professor Zei said, and this time he sounded pleased when he sighed. "Truly, the riches of the library are beyond reckoning. The annals of Tsantsen Po, every volume; genealogies of the Tshub-Nga clan going back a thousand years; even the personal diaries of Bhrikya. I have long doubted the Fire Nation's claims that Avatar Aang—the Avatar who followed Roku, that is to say—"

"Yes," Katara said, "I've—been told his name."

"Of course," Professor Zei said. "Well, at any rate, Fire Nation historians are very fond of citing each other's assertions that he had raised a great army of Airbenders and meant to wreak terrible destruction. But Dzu Liing was a contemporary of that Avatar, a monk at the same temple where Aang was raised, and his writing had been saved in the library. He makes no mention whatever of any army. And that man recorded every time a fly landed on his windowsill." Professor Zei paused, wiping sweat from his forehead with one hand, and when he smiled at her again, the expression was tight and closed up. "They saw the ships coming, you know. He wrote of it in the last few days, how the comet shone down even through the coal-smoke. 'The elders' council says we must not fight them,'" he quoted, "'that if they have come to us for war we must not give it to them. The Avatar has vanished, but his purpose is with us, and there is no balance in hate.' A difficult passage to copy; but I did not like to leave it in the desert where so few eyes would ever read it."

"No," Katara agreed; it came out crumpled, squeezed through a tight throat. Aang drifted up and away silently, until he was only a dim light against the flat hot sky, and Katara didn't try to stop him.

.*.*.*.

Yue only meant to draw Katara aside to tell her how they might draw water up through the sand—not that Yue had ever done it before, but she had some ideas. But when she caught up and touched Katara's wrist, Katara looked at her with something like relief, like she was glad to be brought out of her own head.

"So," Sokka said behind them, "are we taking a break soon, or should I just save some time and die of heat exhaustion right now?"

Professor Zei glanced at the sun, and then at the horizon. "This is not a bad place to stop," he allowed. "The ridge provides a little shade."

Which was true: they were not far from a small sloping ridge, and it lay at such an angle as to provide a narrow line of shelter from the sun.

"I didn't realize coming with you guys was going to be so much fun," Toph said, wiping sweat from her forehead.

Yue was still touching Katara's wrist, and when Katara's hand moved she was only a moment behind, quick enough to catch Katara's arm before the blow could fall. Toph couldn't see it, of course, but she ducked reflexively away from the rush of air, dropping down to touch a hand to the ground—to feel more clearly, Yue thought.

"Hey! What is your problem—"

"Excuse me," Yue said, still gripping Katara's arm. Katara talked so much, but now, now she was quiet; Yue was beside her, but she could see from here that Katara's eyes were wet. "We will see if we can collect some additional water. It will make things simpler if we do not have to ration so carefully."

"All right," Sokka said slowly, and Yue turned and pulled Katara toward the ridge.

When they had rounded it, she stopped pulling, and Katara sank down and put her head on her knees. "I know you do not like her," Yue began.

"I hate her," Katara said, muffled, and then lifted her head, scrubbing a little at her eyes. "But it wasn't her, right then. Not really. I was—it was something else." She sniffed, shook her head, took a deep breath. "It won't happen again."

It didn't seem like the moment to press; so Yue let it be. "The water," she said, and knelt down next to Katara to touch the dry hot ground.

Katara put her hand to it, too, and then made a face. "You really think we can get anything?" she said.

"There was water at Misty Palms," Yue said, "and it must have come from somewhere. Far down, probably; but we might be able to get something." She hesitated. "She's the reason I thought of it, you know—the way she can feel the earth."

Katara grimaced. "Well, now I don't want to do it anymore," she said, and she was only half laughing.

"Katara," Yue said, gently chiding.

"I know, I know," Katara said, and sighed. "She annoys me so much! She never listens, she never does anything unless she wants to—she's so stubborn—"

Yue coughed twice, studiously.

"Oh, shut up," Katara said.

Yue wasn't sure whether she could feel the water or she just hoped very badly that she could; but they concentrated and raised their hands together, arcs and loops to draw the water up, and when they paused and looked the ground at their feet was damp.

"We did it," Katara said, beaming, and for a second Yue could almost forget she was the Avatar, and see only a girl who was proud of herself.

They drew the water they'd called up into cups; all of Professor Zei's waterskins were already full, but this would at least keep them from having to use it as quickly, even if there was no water further in.

"You're done," Yue said, as Katara filled the last cup.

Katara eyed her. "No, there's still an inch or two," she said, nodding at the cup in her hand.

Yue laughed, and shook her head. "No, I mean with Waterbending," she said. "You know everything I know—we made that up, together, and pulled water out of the desert." She would have spread her hands if she hadn't been clutching full cups. "If I'm any judge, you are as much a master as I am."

Katara had gone still, cup in hand and a dollop of water waiting patiently by her fingers. "You'll still—you'll stay with us, won't you?" she said, and then tried a laugh, voice cracking only a little. "I mean, somebody has to keep me from punching her."

Yue lifted a finger and nudged the water into Katara's cup, smiling. "It would be my honor to serve the Avatar," she said.

"No, I mean—for real. Not for that. Not that that's not real, but—just me." Katara flushed a little. Though, Yue thought, to be fair, the sun was very hot.

Yue grinned. "It would be my honor," she said again, more gently. "But we should go back—we've been quite a while, you know. I expect Sokka is thirsty."

Zuko had been relieved to leave Lingsao behind them, but that was before he'd realized Uncle was leading them right toward Sennang.

"Are you insane?" he hissed, when he realized which road they were on, passing the third signpost in as many miles with the queen's seal painted on it. "No, I know, senile—your age has finally caught up with you—"

"Relax, my nephew," Uncle Iroh said unhelpfully, and smiled up at the sky. "All will be well. It is a lovely city, you know."

"A lovely city full of people who would be happy to kill us," Zuko said, and then paused. "You've—have you been to Sennang before?"

"A very long time ago," Uncle said, and glanced at him. "It was occupied, then; and there are few things as unlovely as occupied cities. But something of its beauty remained, even then. I also escaped through it once, after it had been rebuilt."

Beauty—Zuko scowled. A useless measurement, too subjective, Father had said so many times; it could be used to entrance or manipulate the foolish, but intimidation, impressiveness, were far less variable. Besides, Uncle thought beetles were beautiful. Uncle's taste could not be trusted.

The walls of Sennang did not have the scope of the walls of Ba Sing Se, but they were still very tall; the mountains were north and west of them, the road curving through the foothills, and the walls were there and hidden and then there again as they drew closer. The road filled—at first they had been alone, but by the time the walls were close enough that even the foothills could not block their view, they had had to dismount, and they were shuffling along in the middle of a crowd with their ostrich horses following behind. Normally, the road would have been split, space for those heading toward the city and those heading away; but there was no one traveling west from Sennang.

Uncle might have been senile, but Zuko still expected a moderate effort at self-preservation, and he waited for the moment when Uncle would touch his elbow, lead him off among the trees and describe a plan that Zuko could then spend an hour mentally tearing apart. But that moment failed to come, and failed to come, and failed to come.

"Uncle," Zuko said. "Uncle, are you planning to walk right up to the gate?"

"I am," Uncle said placidly, and then laughed—laughed—at the look on Zuko's face. "I told you, nephew: be at ease." He took something from his waistband—a coin?—and flipped it once in the air before curling his fingers around it. "We will be quite safe, I promise you."

Promises—promises, like beauty, were nothing, useless, dependent on too many factors that could not be adequately controlled. Azula, Zuko thought, would never be foolish enough to rely on them; and Zuko ought to know better.

Which did not explain why he let it go with nothing more than a roll of his eyes, and kept walking down the road.