Fair warning guys – the next 2 or 3 weekends for me are genuinely insane, including a 4-day visit with parents in my house, 3 concerts, 5 extra rehearsals, and the list goes on. We're also getting to a critical part of the story. So I'm going to promise to try to keep the weekend updates going. If I miss one, I'll make up for it with two. Okay? Don't be shy to send me a note or something if I forget. I'm always on email no matter how much running around I'm doing. Plus, the encouragement might keep me sane.

Also, make sure, those of you who won a oneshot request that you're thinking about what you'd like! After this story is totally posted, I'm going to switch the schedule and start putting oneshots up during the week and the chapters of my next work up on the weekends, so I'll want to be writing them for you soon! I hope you already have ideas.

Enjoy!

Part 20: The Written Design

Relena opened a door and gestured. "This will be your room if you are amenable, Princess Dorothy."

"No need to continue referring to me as 'princess,' Relena," Dorothy replied. "We are equal in rank, are we not?"

Relena bit her tongue, which she seemed to be doing a lot around Dorothy, before settling on an answer. "We may be equals in function, but we do not recognize rank as such on the Council of Republic City or the United Republic. I am just a citizen like any other."

"Well, if I call you Relena and you call me Dorothy and we dispense of the titles entirely, that will be more equitable," Dorothy said. "And yes, this room is fine. I assume that yours is down the hall?"

"Yes," Relena affirmed. "You will be as near to me as Noin, as you requested."

"As is fair," Dorothy returned.

For what seemed like the thousandth time in the same afternoon, Noin was filled with gratitude that Dorothy was not an earthbender. Any earthbender with strong earth-sense would have felt the tension in Noin, the way she practically dug her feet into the floor to keep her from stepping out of line. Dorothy was insisting on being treated exactly like Noin, including always accompanying Relena, being introduced to the guards as her protector, and having say over Relena's movements and plans "for security purposes." Already Noin had excused herself from two confidential Council discussions just to keep Dorothy out.

But she could not keep Dorothy from Relena's side at home. And so they were helping Dorothy become comfortable and arranging for her own men from the Fire Nation to stay nearby.

Noin had not relaxed even a fraction from the moment Dorothy had stormed her way into the meeting in the Council's chamber, and she would not relax until the Fire Nation princess was anywhere but here. But then, she of course realized, Dorothy would likely be the vanguard of any offensive launched by the Fire Nation, so as long as she was in Republic City, she would not be leading her grandfather's army to war elsewhere.

Unless of course the war came to Republic City first.

"It is time for the evening meal," Relena was saying as Noin followed behind the two girls. "Will you be joining us?"

"Yes of course," Dorothy tipped her head. "We have much more getting to know one another to accomplish."

"That," Noin spoke up, "is not in the purview of my function here on behalf of the Earth Kingdom." Thank goodness that much was true – the friendship she shared with Relena had more to do with the fact of Relena's brother anyway, and Noin would die before revealing that to Dorothy.

"Perhaps," Dorothy replied, smirking in Noin's direction, "but this is a rare opportunity and I would not wish to waste it. I think of you as the heroine of our times, Relena. I myself feel a great admiration toward you."

"Do you?" Relena asked carefully.

"Oh yes! Your ideas are completely wrong, of course, in every particular, but your conviction is compelling."

"What do they teach in schools in the Fire Nation?" Relena frowned as they entered the dining room. "Is it really so awful to believe in peace and unity?"

"Awful? No, of course not," Dorothy sat delicately on the elegant mat to the right of Relena's place at the table. "Just foolish."

"How can peace ever be foolish?" Relena asked sharply.

"People cannot abide peace," Dorothy shrugged. "Here we are, less than two hundred years from a war that lasted half that long, and preparing to make war again. Peace is a beautiful ideal, but utterly impractical. People long to fight and kill and die. We're savages at heart, Relena. Surely you know that firsthand."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," she returned tightly. She dared not glance to Noin, not for anything.

"Why I obviously refer to the death of your family, and the attack here in Republic City," Dorothy cooed. "Surely you recognize that no well-mannered, enlightened people such as you imagine make up the world could have done these things?"

"If the people of this world are savage and long for war," Relena met Dorothy's eyes blazingly, "then I will forever stand to offer them another option. I choose to believe that there are more people like me in the world than there are like you describe. I choose to believe that peace can save what war would destroy."

"And that is why you will fail. You are too sympathetic to those who do not deserve it, Relena," Dorothy smirked again, turning to the cup of wine before her.

Noin took a deep breath and let it out very slowly.

This was going to be a long, long meal.

-==OOO==-

"So, uh, Triton, buddy, where are we going?"

Duo and Trowa were both perched on the sky bison's head, with Trowa ostensibly steering, but in reality it appeared that any request to go a particular direction was being utterly ignored.

Triton rumbled low in his chest.

"I'd ask if you knew what he was up to, but I bet you don't know that either, huh?" Duo asked.

"Nope. Sorry." Trowa shook his head, a faint smile pulling at the corners of his lips.

"Well, we're going kind of south-east. Any idea what's that way he might want to see so much?"

Trowa just gave him a disdainful look and Duo coughed awkwardly.

"Right. Never mind."

They continued in silence, with Duo only occasionally attempting to get Triton to go in a particular direction before he gave up and just let himself go with the flow. Even Duo knew better than to try to mess with a determined sky bison while flying. Unless you liked long drops into the ocean.

It did give him a little more time to consider Trowa, however. Though he had not known the airbender particularly long or well, Duo prided himself on his ability to read people. And what he was seeing in a memory-less Trowa was somewhat different from the previous person he had known. Trowa was still reserved, calm, and methodical, more inclined to listen than to speak, and difficult to rattle. But this Trowa was also very, very detached, more like the Air Nomads of his legacy than he had ever been before. In fact, Duo thought the old Trowa positively enjoyed turning the ideals of the Nomads on their heads, but this Trowa seemed to have settled into those patterns with ease. On the other hand, Duo suspected having no memory went very well with the concept of complete liberation from the cares of the world. Either way, it was an odd shift, and Duo wondered what it might mean for the airbender if and when his memories were restored.

Near sunset, they crossed into a part of the south that Duo knew pretty well, having spent a fair amount of time hanging around Whaletail Island and the nearby island that housed Ice Haven. He figured out where Triton was probably going just as the correct mountain came into view.

"Triton, buddy, is this your way of trying to help Trowa remember something?" he asked. Triton gave a gruff huff in answer.

"I'm pretty sure that means yes," Trowa offered.

"Okay, I get that. Wish I knew why he thought you'd remember being on Appa Island, though."

Triton huffed again and began to descend. Appa Island was less a proper island and more a mountaintop that rose straight out of the sea, towering high into the air. It had no beach on which to land any kind of boat, and the treacherous waters surrounding it made it impractical to sail there anyway. It had long been avoided by general agreement of sailors and, later, when it was named, everybody else.

Because Appa Island was one of the rare sky bison breeding grounds.

On a ledge up high, Triton landed and gave a sort of barking call. Dozens of other sky bison, including the little ones, began to emerge from the clouds and crags in the area, converging on the broad cliff. Trowa and Duo slid from Triton's head, and Duo stepped back, waiting.

Several of the larger, and therefore older, sky bison came forward, licking at Trowa happily. He moved among them, his eyes wide and unfocused, running his fingers through their soft fur or stroking their broad noses as they greeted him.

"Trowa was here a long time ago, wasn't he?" Duo asked, noticing how none of the baby flying bison seemed as familiar with Trowa as those many years older.

Triton huffed.

"Is this where he grew up? Is that how you know him?"

This time, the huff was less affirmative and Duo couldn't interpret it. He shrugged. "Well, is there any place he might remember in particular?"

Triton gestured with his nose to a nearby cave, far too small for any but the youngest bison to enter. Duo made his way over. In the slanting light of the sunset, he could make out carvings on the cave's walls. In fact, the entire interior was inscribed with drawings and images, most of them of sky bison in flight, and of a figure riding them, and of both bison and the same figure airbending.

"Hey Trowa!" he called. Trowa wandered over, a few of the sky bison trailing him with obvious upset in their eyes.

"Look familiar?"

Trowa moved his hands over the walls and the images there with the same delicacy he had shown the bison a moment before. He closed his eyes. "Maybe. It doesn't look familiar, but it feels familiar, if that makes any sense."

"Not really, but I believe you," Duo answered. He looked to where Heavyarms and Deathscythe had taken up a perch beside Triton and were both preening. The birds were entirely casual about the whole place. "If I had anything to bet, I'd bet you were here way before you got caught up in the Order and everything. And from these," he pointed to the pictures, "I think it's where you learned airbending."

An idea struck Duo and he practically hauled Trowa out of the cave.

"Go on, then. Airbend with your friends," he waved at the wild sky bison. "I bet your body remembers that."

Trowa had no real reason to resist, so he closed his eyes and started to breathe. He could feel five or six of the sky bison, including Triton, settle around him, breathing with him.

After one hundred breaths, they moved into the sky as one.

Duo, on the mountain, watched in awe as Trowa, his eyes closed the whole time, moved through the air with a combination of airbending and acrobatics that put any airbending master with a glider to pure shame. The bison sometimes held him up with their own bending, but more often they dodged and twisted through his own gusts of air, dancing in patterns and formations that were unlike any bending form Duo had ever seen before. It was ease and grace and freedom in motion, strength and oneness with the wind itself.

They remained a part of the sky until well after night had fallen.

When Trowa at last lowered himself back to the mountain, the sky bison all settling around him in a circle and each licking him in turn, he was smiling.

-==OOO==-

A man whose face was hidden in shadow looked at the two young officers before him.

"You did the right thing reporting this. You know what to do now?"

"Yes sir!" they snapped a salute.

"Then get to it."

-==OOO==-

Lady Une dropped the last guard from the strangling hold she'd put him in, a delicate sneer crossing her features at the pitiful skills of these so-called soldiers. They wouldn't have been allowed to clean the latrines on the lowest Fire Navy ship. But then, they were not regular soldiers at all, it appeared. Their black clothing was mismatched and their styles from completely different schools of techniques.

Une had infiltrated the location at the request of General Treize, and had discovered almost at once that it was a nest of activity obviously somewhat central to the Order of the Black Lotus. She had known she would be facing the Black Lotus, but not that the hidden base indicated by Treize was so significant or she might have considered bringing a few of her own trusted men along.

But on the other hand, she would not have been able to tell them why the Fire Nation prince had sent them here, and their questions would have been annoying at best and dangerous at worst.

Une opened the door and let herself into what she had identified as the central room in the complex. It was empty, of course – with such lax security, she assumed virtually all the major authority figures must be elsewhere. No commander of a worldwide conspiracy shrouded in mystery would allow their soldiers to be so wretched if they were present to witness it.

The room was a trove of knowledge, with scrolls and parchments and maps and bound books lying everywhere. Une took a deep breath. She had a lot of time before dawn, assuming anyone would even check the rotations all the way down here by then, and she had to get to work.

-==OOO==-

Treize's light boat had caught the wind and was making excellent progress back towards where his Fire Nation Navy vessel waited when only a lifetime of observation and instincts saved him from the initial attack.

A bolt of lightning came out of nowhere in the dark night. Treize managed to get himself mostly out of the way, but he couldn't save his boat from the strike. Wood and metal splintered and screamed at the impact.

Treize peered through the darkness for his enemies. At last a boat became visible off to the port side. He held his flames in check, however – this could just as easily be an Earth Kingdom patrol, and starting a fight with Zechs's people would be difficult to explain and complicated to resolve, and he had time for neither. Treize waited in the silence.

Until another bolt of lightning, illuminating the vessel for that instant of burning brightness in the dark, hit the side of Treize's boat again. Worryingly, it was an Earth Kingdom patrol. Except that no Earth Kingdom army force would have a firebender with them.

"Surrender!" came the shout over the water, and perhaps the echo was distorted but Treize felt certain he knew that voice. "Surrender or we will leave you to the serpents!"

Really, it wasn't the most difficult decision Treize had ever made. Another bolt of lightning would likely bring a serpent if one wasn't already on its way, and Treize did not relish the idea of fighting off an entire force while trying not to fall into the water. He could swim, but that would hardly prevent him from becoming a late-night snack.

He smirked indulgently. A very neat ambush indeed.

Treize held his arms up and called back. "I am rightly defeated. I will not resist. You have my word of honor, assuming you don't toss me to the serpent anyway."

A light flared on the mid-sized ship before him, and he waited to be examined. Then the order came across. "Take him and get him below. We've got to get out of here before first light."

Treize definitely knew that voice. He waited patiently as the ship came close. Manacles on the ends of chains flew from the deck and snared his wrists. Treize raised an aristocratic eyebrow – such devices were rarely seen outside of Ba Sing Se, and only ever used by skilled earthbenders and metalbenders. So not only firebenders on board the ship that had come for him – interesting. He allowed himself to be drawn upwards like a caught fish, his dignity refusing to be cowed by the rough handling.

Once on the deck, he permitted his hands to be bound behind him with the chains. The ship's single lantern lit its crew, revealing mostly men and women in black, but two faces were familiar.

"Alex and Muller, isn't it?" he asked conversationally. "You are among General Zechs's most trusted soldiers. I am surprised to find you here."

"So are we, Prince Treize," Alex replied. "Especially with them," he looked venomously at a particular group of the black-clad individuals, "but some things are bigger than rivalries."

"I quite agree." If the men Alex was glaring at were not firebenders, Treize would eat his manacles whole. Very interesting indeed.

Treize remained placid and unresisting even as he was led below to a small metal room, where he was left. And some indeterminate amount of time later, when he was hustled off the ship and into some tunnels on the beach, he simply went where he was directed without even the appearance of defiance. He knew well how much more he could learn by being the pliant prisoner of these people than in being their enemy.

Besides, Treize was not particularly concerned. If his own ship and crew didn't tear the world apart to find him – which they would attempt to do, of course, and probably fail – he felt utterly confident that Lady Une would incinerate the sun herself before she would abandon him.

-==OOO==-

It was only years of training and discipline that kept Lady Une from burning the entire room to ashes.

She located a satchel of some size and began methodically cramming every useful text and document into it, loading it up as though it were her only supplies for a trip alone over the ocean for a month. She rolled scrolls so tightly she could have used them as blunt weapons, and any books that had only a few helpful pages she mercilessly ripped apart and took only the necessary bits.

When she had double- and triple-checked to ensure she had absolutely everything of strategic value, Une smiled darkly and gave in to her furious impulse. In moments, the room was aflame.

She sneaked out of the stronghold – if it was worthy to be called that, and in her opinion it was not – with no one the wiser. She raced back to her own ship, calling out orders to put to sea at once. Then she shut herself in her room and swore to flay alive any crew member who dared enter without her permission. It wasn't common for her to be so cruel with her crew, so they obeyed and did not question it.

Lady Une was grateful for their alarm – had any disobeyed her, she might have had to kill them for fear they were numbered amongst the many traitors she now knew surrounded the very world.

Over the course of a sleepless morning, Lady Une carefully assembled all the evidence and information she had collected and put it together in order. Then she wrote a summary, keeping it as brief as possible given the sheer amount of facts to cover, which she bound on top of the stack.

"There is a clear conspiracy that spans the entire world and virtually all nations, intent upon nothing less than a world-wide conflict that will crack any hope for peace asunder for many generations. It began with the murder of Avatar Yuy by the Order of the Black Lotus and continues to this day. It is many-pronged and well-supported on all sides, not only by many benders and warriors from diverse backgrounds, but also from within the highest seats of power.

"The Order of the Black Lotus has followers close to the Earth King as well as the Fire Lord, and there is some evidence that suggests Fire Lord Dermail himself may be a Black Lotus Grand Master. These powers have brought the world to the brink of war deliberately, some for personal gain and glory, others for a twisted ideology. The thrust of their most common theme appears to be fear and loathing of peoples other than themselves. The Black Lotus is committed to ensuring that the world fractures into nations divided along the lines of bending and heritage, and that places such as Republic City where these are blended be conquered or eradicated.

"The Black Lotus has engaged in efforts around the world, in the smallest hamlets and the greatest cities, not only to recruit those of like thinking, but to instill fear and mistrust in the population. Certainly there is evidence that the Earth Kingdom's ill-advised actions against firebenders have their roots in this very philosophy, cutting out those of Fire Nation heritage from the fabric of society and treating them like criminals based solely upon their birthright. The latest communications between this group suggest that they are converging now for a final confrontation, but that they leave behind them a public opinion inclined to trust only to those who have the same powers and histories as themselves. To defeat them, not only must their forces be utterly repressed, but their message must be renounced by the people.

"The Black Lotus have seen to murders and corruption to ensure their pieces are in place for this final confrontation, including eliminating members of the Order of the White Lotus who might have helped guide the world peacefully. They also have hidden and very-well entrenched presences in places like Republic City, unknown to any, it seems, and poised to take command of the entire Black Lotus force from there when the war begins in earnest. Their agent and Grand Master in Republic City is named Quinze, who was once a famous friend and ally of Avatar Yuy himself. Why he has allied himself with the very people who killed the Avatar is unknown at this time, but if the rumors about him are true, he poses a very real threat to Republic City just in himself.

"Most disturbingly, the Order of the Black Lotus seems more than willing to embark upon any course of action, no matter how radical or harmful, for the opportunity to rend the world into pieces. If not for a few interrupted schemes including setbacks in Ice Haven and Folly's Fortress – both of which they blame on interference by the Order of the White Lotus – grand, lethal attacks would have been staged across both the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation to goad both into war with one another as well as Republic City. The peoples seeking independence from the Old Four merely serve as a backdrop against which the Black Lotus intends to rewrite the course of history.

"Recent evidence suggests that information has been provided to the Order of the White Lotus that General Treize is the single Grand Master of the Black Lotus. They assume the Order of the White Lotus will act against General Treize in an attempt to stop him from initiating a war, but such an act will only incite the Fire Nation to violence sooner.

"In conclusion, I find that the Order of the Black Lotus has already committed crimes expressly forbidden by every nation and charter in the world, including the murder of Avatar Yuy. Whatever our particular disagreements with peoples across the world, it is clear that the only true enemy is the Order of the Black Lotus and the dark seeds they have planted in the hearts of the people. To prevent destruction on a level not seen since the pass of Sozin's Comet nearly three-hundred years ago, we must pull together all peoples and nations to combat this darkness if we wish to have any chance of achieving peace and prosperity."

Une blew on the ink on the last line to speed its drying, wondering if Treize would chide her for her sentimentality, and deciding she didn't care. That message was too important to be lost in the coldness of the military communication regulations.

Finally satisfied that she had prepared all adequately, she left her cabin and strode to the foredeck to determine if her suspicions were correct. As she feared, a black hawk awaited her. When she came near, it trilled anxiously.

Treize and Zechs had each trained their hawks to retreat to Une and Noin respectively if ever the hawk was unable to locate its master. If Epyon were here, and she believed it was Epyon for all she could tell, then the Order of the White Lotus had already taken the bait and seized Treize in an attempt to forestall a war.

Which would, of course, be the perfect opening for Fire Lord Dermail to begin one.

"Captain!" she shouted, turning on a heel even as she drew Epyon to her shoulder. "Set a course for the Earth Kingdom. We must take swift action before the Fire Nation ignites a chain of events we will not be able to correct."

But even as she gave the order, she feared it was already too late.

-==OOO==-

Quatre reached the rock on which he had spent so much time as a child, finding it without error after only a couple of days of walking. He was exhausted, ravenous, and still thoroughly heart-sick, but the sight of the vast ocean comforted him.

"Duo kept saying desert," he commented to Kai as she settled on a scrubby tree nearby, "and I didn't correct him, but I'm glad he was wrong. This would be a lot worse in a desert."

Kai ruffled her feathers at him and Quatre felt an odd sense of reproach from her.

"I didn't exactly lie," he shook his head at her. "Compared to everything else I've told them or avoided telling them, this was pretty mild." She snapped her beak at him and he sighed. "I know. Believe me, I know."

He looked over the shoreline in each direction. This area was craggy and difficult to navigate, both for ships from the sea and for anything on the land. He really had no idea how anything could live in such a barren, unstable, dangerous landscape.

"Perfect for me," he muttered with a heavy heart. Then he drew himself up and sat down facing the west. He folded his legs into a meditative pose and closed his eyes. What he wanted was to sleep, but if he slept he would learn nothing.

Quatre did not know how much time passed while he waited, meditating and practicing what skills he possessed as he had been taught. It could have been only a few moments or it could have been days. He barely moved and did not open his eyes. When a curious scorpion-lizard got too close, Kai fended it off and ate it. Quatre never acknowledged the interaction, if he was even aware of it.

An eternity of silence and stillness later, Quatre's heart was touched by a heart he remembered well. He opened his eyes to the familiar weathered face that was smiling gently at him.

"Greetings, master," he said, bowing low from the seated position, and felt tears of relief prickle in his eyes. After everything that had happened, he was not sure he would still be worthy of the help he so desperately wanted. But the piercing brown eyes would not regard him so fondly if his master had decided to abandon him.

"Hello Quatre. I see that it is time to complete your training."

"Yes sir."

"Then let us begin."