In his dreams he was flying. Always. There was not one instance he can name when his dream self has his feet on the ground. The dream that causes him to wake gasping for air includes the Fire Princess and an unfortunate meeting with the ground. Pain shot up his side as he rolled and realized he was lying on a rough wooden floor. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and immediately regretted it, his head was too fuzzy and the darkness in the room seemed to spin around him.

"It is about time you woke up."

Teo squinted through the darkness and saw an Earth Kingdom soldier standing on the other side of a set of thick metal bars. It was then that Teo realized he was in a cell and that he could no longer hear the comforting thrum of the airship engines. "Where am I?"

"Someplace out of the way. Don't worry, your trial will happen as soon as the Earth King gets back." The guard laughed and walked away.

Something wasn't right. There was a piece to the puzzle that he was missing. Why arrest him? Why bother throwing him in jail? Most people write him off as "just a cripple" and talk down to or over him. He sighed, looking down at his clothes; someone had stripped him of his usual clothes and dressed him in the green uniform of the prison system, likely to make sure that he was not carrying anything.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps along the wooden floorboards outside his cell. The man was dressed as a general with the long cape of a field commander, his long beard streaked with gray. He looked down at Teo with a look of disdain. The general stood straight with his hands clasped behind his back.

"Do you know the current whereabouts of Princess Azula?"

"No. She did not tell me where she intended to go." He tried to keep his voice even as he answered the question everyone else had asked.

"Did she inform you of her current plans?" The general's tone was just as bored as Teo's.

"Lay low and not get caught. Anything other than that she did not tell me." There was no point in lying now. They were already convinced of his guilt and probably had already figured out his punishment.

"Why did you help Princess Azula escape the Avatar?" The general kept his gaze locked on Teo.

Teo did not back down, he knew that it was futile, but lying about it would do him no good. Even though he could have just said Azula forced him to do it. "Because I felt she was being treated unfairly."

"Do you understand that she is the most wanted criminal in the Earth Kingdom?" The general seemed to tire of the answers he was given, he stepped closer to the bars and loomed over Teo.

"I am aware of that, yes." Sitting in the general's shadow, it was apparent that he was stuck. Trapped until he could think of a way out.

"But you assisted her anyway." The questions got more forceful, the rest of the guards were on edge as well.

"I did, yes." Teo kept his tone even, getting emotional would only make things worse.

"Why?"

"Because she hadn't hurt anyone. She was living peacefully at the temple. She had no reason to hurt anyone until she was attacked first." Part of his brain told him he was stupid for still defending the princess. But he just couldn't blame her for the world's problems. She was just as much of a victim as everyone else was. Children forced to war without understanding what the fight was about in the first place. Sure there were the propaganda lines, but Teo wasn't so naïve to think they were true.

"As an Earth Kingdom citizen, you have failed in your duty to uphold the laws of our great nation. You are being formally charged with treason. Your trial and sentencing will be carried out as soon as King Kuei returns."

Treason.

The word settled in the pit of his stomach. He lay back on the bare wood floor and stared at the dusty ceiling of his cell.

After all he'd done for both his people and that of the Earth Kingdom during the war, this was how it was going to end. It's been a while since he thought about being an Earth Kingdom citizen; the temple was so far removed from the rest of the country. The village he was born in was located in a valley just on the edge of the mountains that were Air Nomad territory. Those that could remember the village remembered it as secluded and self-sufficient so it was no surprise that they hadn't thought about paying taxes and tribute to the Earth King that didn't know their village's name.

He was going to have to think of an escape plan.

"What does your friend look like?" The grating voice of the receptionist carried over the large wooden desk. Toph was about to open her mouth to make a rude comment when Iroh cut her off with a firm hand to her shoulder.

"He is a young man, brown hair, Earth Kingdom descent, and lame. He would have arrived in the past day or so? His name is Teo." Iroh spoke with his most respectful tone as he tried to pull information out of the woman sitting behind the large desk at the city prison.

"No one fitting that description has been booked. Your friend isn't here. Now stop loitering and go."

This was the third jail they checked and the third one they were thrown out of, and none of the people they spoke to were lying. Of course they could be too low on the chain of command to know, but the fact that they couldn't even find Teo to check on him told her volumes. "Okay Iroh, you know this place better than I do. What's our next step?"

"I suppose I can try one more place, but it is risky." Iroh sounded reluctant, but Toph didn't have time for hesitation. She already felt responsible for losing track of Teo. She didn't want to have to go back to Aang and the others to tell them there wasn't anything else they could do.

"Risky? I like it. So what does it involve? Fighting? I can do that. I need something good to punch."

"No, no, nothing like that. I just need to send a message to a friend."

"Then how long will it take?"

"This is not something we can rush, Toph."

Toph sighed and blew her bangs out of her face. "Alright. I trust you."

Teo attempted to sleep, but he had a hard time getting comfortable in his cell. He could hear the roach-mice skittering in the darkest corners. He tried not to think of what kind of critters were crawling around in the straw that made up the pallet he lay on. That thought alone made him want to get up, but the pain in his back kept him down. He was going to have to force himself to focus on something else. Like escaping.

But try as he might, he was never going to get out on his own. Maybe he could try something if they ever decided to move him. His walking speed was slower than a snail-sloth; maybe he could escape if all the soldiers suddenly got stuck in one of his father's glue bombs. He laughed bitterly to himself and finally pushed himself up into a sitting position, scooting back until he sat up against the wall. Wood. His cell was made of wood and metal; it was an old cell for earthbenders, before Toph had figured out how to bend metal and began teaching it to others.

His mind drifted to the Toph and the friendship they'd rekindled since she helped bring his father back from the Republic. Their friends teased them about it at the Western Air Temple all those years ago, but it just made them laugh. Toph had been very blunt to tell the others how ignorant they were being by suggesting that she and Teo were "meant for each other" just because they both were physically handicapped. He had laughed a bit too hard at Katara's embarrassment. Since the "handicapped herd", a name Sokka invented and had unfortunately stuck, were reunited they compared notes on the past five years of life. Her metalbending fascinated him and she was eager to help him with building a new chair. Her ease with handling metal gave him so many ideas… ideas that he didn't have the time to work on. But now… now all he had was time to think.

He shivered slightly in the dampness and shifted his weight on the straw pallet. The old floorboards testing the ones near him for the telltale squeak of a loose board. If he could just get to the subfloor… then what? He frowned and kept at his task until he found a loose board. He would just have to think of that once he found out what was underneath the wood. He hoped it was dirt. He hoped that his prison was old enough to have been built before many earthbenders discovered how to bend without touching their element.

Azula was drifting aimlessly through the bustling crowds of the Lower Ring at midday. She had some coin left, but no plan. She had enough coin for a room for a few days, but without a source of income, she would be in the same situation in the next few days. She stopped in the first tavern she could find and watched the owner hustle about.

"Excuse me," she said, pitching her voice low in her best "Zuko" impersonation. "I'm new in the city and looking for work."

The man looked her over. "Sorry, I don't need any help. Why don't you try down the corner, the Muddy Boot?"

Azula nodded and left without another word and went to find the Muddy Boot. She thought how awful it must be to be so uncreative to name a place of business after a filthy shoe. Then again, this was the Earth Kingdom.

The owner of this establishment was an old man, too poor to retire and hunched with age that gladly paid "Lee" some coin and a room upstairs in exchange for doing all the lifting, cleaning and general grunt work of taking care of the tavern.

It was an uneventful life, but Azula couldn't complain. She had done worse in her time as a fugitive. It was a few days before things got interesting. She was busy carrying barrels from the cart out back to behind the bar. It was difficult, physical work, but that's what she needed after neglecting her training so long.

She had just set the third barrel of so-called wine behind the bar when she caught the familiar face of her Uncle. He sat at the decrepit pai sho table with another old man. They spoke in hushed tones to each other at the darkened table.

"He's going to recognize you!" Ursa shouted in her ear.

The princess checked the exits, no one suspicious stood out as a Fire Nation guard. Iroh must have come here on his own. She decided to risk getting caught and grabbed the broom to start sweeping the filthy floor next to the two geezers.

"I am looking for someone." Iroh said, moving one of the tiles.

"Perhaps I have seen them." The other geezer moved another tile. It was a tactic Azula had studied, intelligence gathering during a "casual" game.

"My friend's son was arrested and brought to the city. But he seems to have vanished since."

Azula's broom stopped mid-sweep. He wasn't looking for her? She resumed her task; any sudden movements would make her look suspicious.

"I see. Sometimes, prisoners just disappear. It is not unheard of, especially here, though in these times of peace," the old man put some emphasis on the word 'peace' and continued, "It has happened less frequently."

"Where would such people be taken?" Iroh moved his jade dragon tile.

"Some say they are taken under the lake."

Azula turned to watch Iroh's expression, which turned from passively interested to disturbed. Something was going on, and she was sure it was more than just the old fool's strange hobbies. When he left the tavern, Azula followed.

She didn't even tell the tavern owner she was leaving.