Author's Notes: 1) I didn't mean to leave you all with a cliffhanger for over a month. My health problems flared up with a vengeance, and I barely function when that happens, much less write.
2) For the same reason, I think I forgot to answer some of my reviewers, and now I'm not sure who. If that was you, I apologize.
3) I'm still not even firmly back to "so-so," and my doctor is experimenting with my medications right now. Future chapters are likely to be delayed until things settle, though hopefully, not this long again.
4) I don't like thinking up titles, but it's difficult to remember what happened when in a story this long, so I'm going to make chapter titles. Since it might make things easier for you, the readers, as well, I'll add them into the dropdown list here, too, so don't be surprised.
Chapter 21
Zuko had once found out (at the worst possible time, naturally), that extreme heat, such as, say, from ancient and overworked engines, could warp metal subtly, make oil gummy, and jam mechanisms that weren't even near the engines. Most people, however, might not be aware of that, or if they did know about this effect, might assume that the heat of the sun had done the damage. The drill was made in sections, and each would need to move exactly in time with the others. Even a small catch at the joins would, in wrenching free, create some damage, and if he could manage to direct such heat under the metal skin, the damage wouldn't be visible until too late. All the workers were at the tail end of the drill, while their group was going around the head so as not to get in the way.
Though most firebending was done with fire, the same principles applied to heat; it was just much more difficult. Perhaps his experience with manipulating fire at long distance would carry over. He did his best to ignore what he was actually seeing, since closing his eyes might be suspicious, and focused his heatsense. (His attention was briefly distracted by the sense that there was something off about Ty Lee's fire, but it wasn't anything as obvious as an empty spot, and the drill had to come first.) The gradients of temperature radiating back up from the metal swayed like sheets of seaweed in response to the slow air currents. If he could compress those large gradients into a small point, the heat should be intense. A physical motion to create the pathway (an unobtrusive one, even though that made bending more difficult) – a sort of mental push to ensure it happened at the right distance – he closed his hands and breathed out.
The billowing heat contracted for an instant; then he couldn't hold it. Once again, he wasn't good enough. How useless can you be? Hopelessly, he tried again, but it was like firebending underwater. In desperation, he visualized the energy flow inside his body reaching out into the air, as he'd done for the training to redirect lightning, and visualized it not just flowing, but using his body as the fuel, like he'd done when actually firebending underwater. Pathway… push…
The aftershock left him weak. Had it worked? Behind him, he could feel a metal-dimmed bubble of intense heat; the irregular sides suggested that it was starting to radiate into the internal structures, even if he couldn't feel it. He blinked hard against the dizziness and moved on; had to act natural. The next time, he couldn't stop himself from swaying, but Ty Lee caught his arm in time. "Are you all right, Zuko?" she asked, sounding genuinely concerned.
"I'm okay," he waved off her concern. Just up ahead, he could see where the drill itself joined to the body of the machine. If he damaged anything, he had to damage that.
"Are you sure? You look all grey, and I don't mean your aura, although that could use some color, too."
Explanation, a plausible explanation… "Yes, well," he made sure to speak quietly and sound a bit embarrassed, "it's just that I haven't eaten in a while."
"Oh!" she pressed both hands to her mouth. "And Azula didn't offer you any refreshment! We've been really bad hosts, haven't we?"
He had to smile a little. Ty Lee was the same as always. "No, not your fault."
"Come on, sit down for a moment." With the remarkable strength that he remembered well, she drew him down onto the wooden planks, and addressed the people following them. "I forgot – I really wanted some juice. Would you like some juice, Zuko?" He nodded. "Could you bring us some? Big, cold glasses of it? I know they serve it to the workers in that tent over there," she pointed.
The woman who had talked to Azula bowed. "Right away." The rest of them pretended to have stopped to admire the view, but Ty Lee still watched him closely. Well, he had made the motion unobtrusive, and they sat very close to the target. He had a bad moment where he wondered if he'd faint halfway through; his heatsense became blurred. The juice really did help, however. He thanked Ty Lee and the woman, and when he walked around to the other side, repeated the technique again, just to be sure. Bright lights swam in front of his eyes, and he couldn't distinguish hot from cold anymore, but all he had to do was follow alongside Ty Lee. With the last reserves of his energy, he focused on moving normally.
After they got out of the central valley, Ty Lee asked him where he had come in, without enthusiasm, so he felt certain it was an Azula kind of question. He pointed out the sloping pass by which he'd pretended to come; it led to one of the main roads nearby. The other watchers soon fell behind as they returned to their normal patrol duties. When that happened, Ty Lee became much more lively, and began to ask him about his life in exile, interspersing her questions with many details of her own life in the past few years, with particular emphasis on how Mai had been.
He enjoyed her tales, but he was deathly tired, his mind too hazy to listen well. It could also be an attempt to get him to slip up on his cover story, so his answers were somewhat short. Vague memory of the oddity he'd felt in her fire today prompted him to ask about her health, but Ty Lee said that she was perfectly fine with great surprise at the question. Hastily, he switched the topic to her time at the circus.
When they crossed the top of the pass, she stopped. Backlit by the afternoon light, she looked like a glowing pink torch. Her grin still took up most of her face, and her eyes crinkled with good cheer. There was one honest thing he wanted to be sure to say to her. "I appreciate you coming with me."
Her cheeks grew even pinker and she twisted her hands together. "Thanks, Zuko. I know you'd have preferred Mai, but… and it was nice to see you again."
He nodded gently. "It was nice to see you again, too, and you've been a good friend to Mai, I know." He wasn't sure he'd made his meaning clear, but it seemed like she understood.
"Good luck!" she cartwheeled back down the slope.
He stared for a blank moment at her speed. Whatever had kept him going in front of witnesses was gone, and he himself was not capable of moving fast anymore. He barely found a hollow with an overhang to shelter under before he fell into it. Well, it didn't feel like he broke his nose, at least. Between one vague swipe at the blood and the next, he fell asleep.
He slept, but woke often at various noises, and when he shifted, things hurt. Thus, he was still fairly wrung out when he heard a deep mechanical roar. They must be starting the drill! Soon after, he heard an unearthly screech and even from his hiding place, he saw several volleys of lightning flash across the clear dawn sky. He smiled dopily and fell back asleep. He'd done it. Just a bit more rest, and he would go back.
The sound of a fireblast woke him next – it seemed to be around midmorning. "No! Let us go!" cried someone. Zuko pressed back into his limited hiding space, not sure he could even defend himself right now.
"Get back to work," was the flat answer; the voice had the bit of hollow echo imparted by Fire Nation helmets.
"Please," the first voice begged. "My wife hasn't been well since autumn. She's much too weak to work! They said yesterday would be the last! Please let us go. You're killing her!"
There was a long pause. The Fire Nation soldier answered at last, "For the memory of my daughter, I'll let her go, but you must come back with me."
"She won't survive alone!"
A reedy woman's voice joined the conversation – frightened, but attempting to be the voice of reason. "I'll be fine, Kuo. We weren't sure to get even this far." Her voice grew firmer. "All the same, please understand. I'm ill, but who can stay well under the conditions in the quarry? When we begged for kindness of your princess, she said that we had the choice either to rest when we were done, or rest when we were dead. If you can, if you are able at all, spare him such a fate!"
The soldier heaved a sigh. "If I return empty-handed, do you think it will go well for me? I have a family to care for, too. I'm sorry, but I've already given you the best offer I could. It won't be much longer. Our engineers estimate the repairs will take a week at most, perhaps five days, and then we will leave." Days? he thought numbly. Just five days? "You will be allowed to return to your homes and will never see Princess Azula again." His tone became wry. "We, on the other hand, have to follow her."
It didn't take long for the villagers to resign themselves. When Zuko felt it safe to sit up, the soldier and his prisoner had already disappeared down the pass, while the woman hobbled down the track to the main road. Quite young and dangerously thin, she leaned upon a cane as she walked. No wonder the soldier let her go; the greater wonder was that she and her husband had made it this far before they were tracked down. He saw her raise a hand to her face as if to wipe away tears.
Her misery echoed his. He'd been useless, absolutely useless. All that effort with everything he had, and all he'd done was slow the attack by so little? And made things worse for everyone in the meanwhile? Stupid. Should have known. When he tried to get going, everything from his stomach on up hurt, and his movements were stiff. Disgustingly weak.
He stared at his hands, where deep red patches had shown up in the night, particularly over the backs of his hands and encircling the wrists. There was something odd about the pattern of redness – he peeled up a sleeve and saw blotchy red lines going up. They looked like a child's drawing of chi meridians, which confirmed his suspicions. He poked experimentally – they hurt like bruises. Bad, or not as bad as it could have been? It was hard to think.
He made his way straight back to where Uncle waited. By the time he got there, the bruises had deepened and began to turn purple. Uncle's reaction to seeing that was not a good one – apparently, his face was particularly gruesome – and it took him a lot of effort to calm Uncle down. That he had to admit his utter failure at the same time… perhaps it was just as well that he was woozy from the two cups of painkilling tea that Uncle made him drink. So unnecessary – one would be enough. He slumped back. When he came to, Uncle had found or scrounged some other kind of herb which was apparently good for bruising and made him drink two cups of that, too. That much steam made him start coughing, hard.
"Zuko, stop it." Uncle sounded frightened. "Teach me the healing maneuver. Zuko, pay attention!"
He levered himself up fully, which helped with the coughing, and tried to explain, but he must have done it wrong, because Uncle's attempt didn't seem right. "It's like this," he tried to demonstrate. His hand shaped the movement, but inside, nothing responded. He stared at his hand in horror. "I can't – I can't –" Frantically, he tried to bend fire to the side, and instead of the usual swift roll of warmth and the bright blossom of flame, there was just a sluggish stirring and a pale, flickering puff. That was just – too much. Forgetting that Uncle could see him, he curled up into a tight ball. He thought he would cry, but no tears emerged.
A hand on his back brought him back to reality, and yet another wave of shame swamped him. "You're shivering," Uncle's voice murmured, "it's okay, it'll be fine." Warmth spread through him from the point of contact. "Hmm," the voice above him mused, "you know, Zuko, I think I understand the principle after all. How's this?"
The warmth spread again, and this time, it made him breathe easier. The omnipresent aches lessened. It took him a few moments to find his voice, though. "That helped. Thanks, Uncle."
"Good," Uncle patted his shoulder. "I'm afraid it'll have to do for now. I'm not so strong – or reckless – as you are."
"What are you talking about?" he protested.
"I found even this once quite draining. What you did to the drill – that was amazing, but Zuko, please, for the sake of your poor old uncle, don't ever amaze me like that again."
"Don't patronize me." Was that his voice, so sniveling? Uncle must despise him, too. He made an effort to sit up straight; he could do that much, at least.
"I meant what I said. Your firebending will –"
"Not any longer!"
"Calm down," Uncle was exasperated. "Did you truly expect no aftereffects to such a strenuous effort? Only you, Zuko… You must have drained your chi to the last drop. It'll take a while for it to regenerate, even with what I've just given you, but you haven't lost your firebending."
He couldn't help turning to look at Uncle's face, or pleading, "Are you sure?"
"I am." He did sound sure… "Just rest, Prince Zuko. I'll deliver the letter to our friends."
"Huh?" was the best he could manage, his mind not quite keeping up.
"You saw the drill, like you told me you could, and your sabotage has gained us time." Uncle pulled out the paper and writing supplies that Yun-Min gave them for such a contingency. "Now, what were its dimensions?" With these questions, Uncle neatly steered the conversation away from anything but the immediate concerns. When he was done writing, he explained that all he had to do was hide the letter in the agreed-upon spot, and he'd be right back. After extracting a promise from Zuko to rest, he left.
Zuko tried to follow through on his promise. He really did. He even drank more tea. But after only a short nap, he woke up so paralyzed with nameless terror that even opening his eyes seemed like a daunting task. The fear subsided quickly, but the urge to stay frozen remained. He'd had sudden episodes like this before, and it was always bad. If he didn't move now, he'd be like this for days before it wore off – or maybe forever. The idea of a future as a fireless, useless, sniveling lump that Uncle hauled around for his own inscrutable reasons…
By slow increments, fighting against torpor, he got the heartstone out. One small flick, and it clattered over the floor, far enough away that he couldn't reach it. Now came the part where he lied to himself that he didn't have to do anything more than stand and pick it up. It took a few minutes, but it was Mai's gift to him lying in the dirt, so eventually, it worked, as it had before. Once he retrieved it, it was easier to convince himself to stay upright, to start doing something. A scrawl of an explanation for Uncle was nearly as much as he could accomplish. Then he went. Anywhere. Somewhere.
After a while, the warmth of the sun on his face, the cool gusts of wind around him, and the smell of the springtime forest cleared his mind a little. He needed a goal – something, anything. His pack was still up the mountain. If Uncle was wrong, well, he needed his swords. He had gloves there, too. Might stop the Ba Sing Se gate guards from asking too many questions. Maybe. Nothing he did had much effect.
By the time he got there, it was late afternoon. As he made his way up the steep slope, he'd even cautiously tried to feel the flow of chi inside himself as he reached for handholds. The response might have been less sluggish. He didn't dare think beyond that for now. Once he got the pack, a rest became necessary, even though he knew it could mean another struggle to get back up.
He moved just his arms, then, testing the quickness of his reflexes against the remaining bruising at the joints. It helped that he'd learned not to let bruises slow him down after that fall at the Southern Air Temple. (He'd been desperate, unable to believe that the last temple, the one which used to house the Avatar, still had no clues for him. Made all sorts of stupid mistakes.) Something clicked in his mind, from the Avatar's tales of temple life. Wait, so that was the airball playing field? Not the remains of some giant mechanism? He'd gotten himself that banged up because of a playing field? Ordinarily, the thought would have made him laugh at least a little. Right now, it solely made him feel more of an idiot.
He let his head drop back against the rockface. The sun warmed his face, and it felt like the warmth began to seep inside him, sunray by sunray, from a very distant place. Some time later, he heard the sounds of running feet, then of fireblasts. More escapees from Azula's workforce? She probably had quite a large problem with that. To slow her down, even a little… Quickly, he threw on the Blue Spirit disguise.
Then, almost disbelieving, he heard the thump of a water whip. Voices cried out in pain. A familiar voice called, "We're almost there!"
He scrambled up over the top of the ridge almost before he knew it. Then he leapt downslope to plant himself between the Avatar's group and the firebenders who pursued them. A part of his mind babbled about whose side was he on, and why did he even dare think that he was capable of helping anybody? Another part answered that Azula couldn't be allowed to get the Avatar, and they could be useful to him. Right, he could get from them – something – think about it later. Mostly, he just saw the looks of delighted recognition on their faces and felt the first rekindling of happiness.
Earlier that day, Suki saw Aang and Katara hugging and smiled to herself. Suki liked Katara, especially after seeing her in action with the Serpent, not to mention the way that she'd gotten everyone organized for baby Hope's birth, and it was nice to see her get some appreciation. She'd have made a great Kyoshi warrior, with or without her waterbending.
Katara adjusted Aang's collar as she stepped back, and Suki heard her say something about how it should only take a few more hours to catch up with Appa. She sighed a bit – she would really have liked to stay longer in this friendly group – but it would be awkward, and she had responsibilities, even if it sometimes seemed that being a guard wasn't that great, or even really useful. She shouldered her pack and approached Sokka, who crouched over a bagful of scrolls.
"Sokka, it's been really great to see you again," she said.
He stood immediately. "Whoa, hold on. Why does it sound like you're saying goodbye ?"
"I came along because I wanted to make sure you got through the Serpent's Pass safely," she explained. "But now I need to get back to the other Kyoshi warriors."
He literally drooped, with his arms and head both flopping down. "So you came along to protect me ."
Yeah, such a great plan, wasn't it? She blushed a little. At least they got to spend a little time together. She wanted to say goodbye without any misunderstandings – make sure he knew she'd be his friend no matter what. "Listen, I'm really sorry about last night. We were talking, and saying things," and he liked her, just not that much. She closed her eyes. "I just got carried away and before I knew it I…"
That was a kiss, a real kiss. It was over far too quickly, but when her eyes flew open, Sokka looked at her with such tenderness… "You talk too much," he said. Oh, she was going to make him pay for that comment, but then he kissed her again, and she decided that she would still make him pay, but later.
They kept kissing until a not-so-discreet cough sounded. Aang stood nearby, with his eyes theatrically averted and an ear-splitting grin on his face. "Guys, are you ready to go?" he asked.
"I suppose so," she sighed. "Good luck, Aang." She couldn't see anybody else around. "Sokka, give my best wishes to everybody, would you?"
"Sure." By the way he stared at her with dreamy intent, she wondered if he would remember. Ah, well. Couldn't be helped. She had to fight not to turn back herself.
She barely got a few steps away before she heard loud whispering behind her. "Sokka, what are you doing?" Katara hissed. Suki feared, belatedly, that Katara had some objection to her. Much as she liked Sokka, she'd spent her life so far relying on her sister warriors, and their opinions had a large impact on whether a relationship could succeed. Thankfully, Katara's next words were, "Why is Suki leaving?"
Suki stopped. Sokka explained dejectedly.
"Did you hit your head lately? How is she getting back – walking around the entire lake? If she comes with us, we can give her a ride back on Appa!"
"Katara, you're the best sister ever!" he declared, forgetting to be quiet.
Suki grinned – she quite agreed – but sighed too. "Under other circumstances, I'd be happy to come with you. But I really do have to get back – by way of the gate and the ferry. I also have to tell the gate guards that the bridge is down, so that they can repair it for the next group of travelers."
His face fell. "Aww, no. We could, we could –" he held up one finger as his face lit up again, "We'll give you a ride to the gate, too! And then back to where you need to go. On Appa, it won't take long at all. C'mon, it'll be faster that way."
"Not by much, if at all, if Appa's rescue takes any time," she said, not as firmly as she would have liked. It was tempting, after all, and the outbound ferries usually took winding trade routes, since they had so few passengers. It might be several days either way.
He grabbed her hand and tried to pull her along. "Then we could really use your help to make the rescue faster! Please, Suki."
She flipped him over her arm neatly. He hit the ground with an 'oof.' "Sokka, if I do agree to come, first things first. I get to decide that, not you. And telling me that I talk too much? Not flattering."
"Sorry," he wheezed and raised both hands in surrender. "I promise you'll decide. And I love to hear you talk, I swear, just not when I'm trying to get you to stay!"
She extended her hand down to him, and when she pulled him to his feet, kissed him. "Deal."
"So you'll come?" he was adorably excited.
In answer, she linked her arm through his. Katara and Aang both looked happy at this. Toph, much less so. When they started walking again, Toph scuffed her feet along the ground and said nothing. With dawning awkwardness, Suki realized just what must be going on. She tried to figure out a way to say Sorry, Toph that wouldn't come off as patronizing, but couldn't, so she said nothing for now. She could remember her first crush. No more public displays. At all.
It was difficult to navigate in this broken-up rocky countryside, especially with Aang's hundred-year-old maps, so Aang called Sokka over to the front. Katara fell in beside her. "You've got your paint a bit… smudged."
She blushed. "Thanks. I'll fix it later." She paused. "So, uh, I suppose everybody saw us."
"I could have stood not seeing my own brother – and Toph's so young she turned nearly green – but I suppose exceptions have to be made for special occasions," Katara said with mild exasperation. She followed this with a smile, so Suki relaxed about her opinion. Now, was Katara really that oblivious about Toph, or was she just trying to spare Toph's feelings? A quick look in Toph's direction showed her that Toph was scowling mightily, and probably had heard. This could get complicated. "Sorry," she said loudly enough for Toph to hear, too.
"I'll live," Katara replied. Toph sort of nodded, and Suki caught her breath in relief that Toph didn't seem angry.
"So, uh," Suki said, "about freeing Appa. I know you didn't really need me along – but count me in."
Katara smiled. "I already have. Aang will probably be going insane from seeing whatever it was they did to Appa, so it might take several of us to keep the rescue going smoothly. And you've got a level head on your shoulders, and combat training, and, hm –"
"Stealth training," she offered.
Katara nodded, looking pleased. "Mustn't overlook that. Hey, here's something I was always wondering. If Kyoshi Island had stayed out of the war for the entire century, then how have you kept your fighting skills going all this time?"
"Well, tradition kept us from letting it die out entirely. Then, about ten years ago, we got pirate company. Got them out, but by the skin of our teeth, and decided we wouldn't be caught like that again. So by the time I started, we had a really good practice regimen, thanks to the previous leader." Katara asked after details (apparently, she had grown up without even tradition to help her figure out her waterbending). Suki was happy to explain, pausing only when she needed to rescue her tassels from Momo's curiosity.
A little gasp from Toph startled them. "What is it?" Katara asked.
Toph laughed nervously. "Nothing, nothing."
Katara kept looking at Toph.
"Just a sharp stick that poked my foot."
Katara didn't argue the excuse, but Suki thought that Toph was paying too much attention to a certain huge boulder up ahead of them. She kept her eye on it, but saw nothing even when they passed it. Still. Something was off.
The conversation expanded as the hours passed – the war, Suki's job as a guard, some of the group's funny-in-retrospect adventures, their childhoods… Sokka kept trying to show off for her, demonstrating this or that new fighting technique and flexing his muscles as if casually. She found it both funny and endearing, especially the part where he got excited rather than jealous when she showed him that he was not the only one who'd learned a thing or two. Aang was more subdued, as he obviously kept all his hopes pinned on finding Appa quickly, but Toph now occasionally joined the conversation. By listening to her, you'd never know that she might have suffered a disappointment recently, and Suki did her best to show respect to Toph without making it contrived.
Finally, Sokka called a halt and unfurled his map again. "Okay, we're nearly there. All we have to do is go through that pass," he pointed it out both on the map and next to them, "and the circus should be somewhere nearby," he ran his finger back and forth through a curving valley. "Now, it's a recently conquered territory, so there will be a few Fire Nation soldiers wandering around, not to mention civilians. Everyone be on the lookout, and hide yourselves."
The terrain here was ideal for hiding – a lot of broken up giant boulders, hills and gullies, and copses of trees. She was ready. Aang, on the other hand, clearly had no idea what he was doing. "I think you'd better follow me," she told him, "and cover up your clothes and tattoos." He nodded and did so. She used warrior paint to hide the last traces of his arrows.
Toph stamped her foot. "All clear here, but there seem to be several people just at the edge of my range there," she reported.
Sure enough, they successfully snuck over the pass. Almost immediately, they saw a huge red tent being raised with ropes at quite a distance to their left. "It's just like on the poster. Appa!" Aang cried as he ran forward.
"Aang, wait!" they all called after him, but he didn't listen. They had no choice but to follow, and it was a good thing they did, because he suddenly stopped in his tracks. A dozen firebenders in full armor came out of hiding to surround him.
Although Suki had never trained with any of them except Sokka, they worked together well. Katara swept water whips in wide arcs to force the knot of soldiers apart and knock them down. She herself and Sokka kept anyone from coming close to Aang (quietly warning him not to airbend – the Avatar was a greater prize than just a kid). Toph flung boulders about and put stone manacles around every soldier that they defeated. In short order, they'd cleared the way of all attackers.
"Sorry, guys," Aang panted. "I'll be more careful now."
"You'd better!" Toph yelled at him. "More incoming! There – and there –" she pointed, "and – oh no, they're trying to cut us off!"
They ran back the way they came, but it was too late – the sounds of fighting had obviously drawn every patrol in the vicinity. So many – too many for just a conquered territory. There was no time to figure out why. They tried fighting their way through, but more and more soldiers hurried towards them.
"Let's go that way!" Aang yelled and pointed towards the tent. Good idea – if Appa was there, they could make a quick getaway. Retreat was easier than advance, too. Toph sent clumps of dirt whizzing at the soldiers' faceplates, then threw an earthen wall in their path. It held for a minute, then exploded in a blaze of combined fireballs. "Toph!" Katara yelled with a gleeful smile. "Mud! Together on three!" Toph grinned back, and Katara quickly counted off. On three, Toph lifted her hands and all the loose soil lifted into the air. She turned her hands over and it fell straight onto their attackers. At almost the same time, Katara bent water out of the waterskins the soldiers carried with such force that the corks popped. The dirt and water combined to form a very satisfying mudslick, and the soldiers screamed as they slid uncontrollably down. Some of them tried to bend and got clay mittens for their efforts.
No time to laugh, though. They all ran quickly, and gained a good amount of distance. But all they saw when they skidded into the tent were stands and a stage being set up. Aang's face twisted, and he looked like he might collapse. Katara grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away; Suki helped. The bewildered circus workers wouldn't be stupefied forever. "The animals must be kept elsewhere. Let's go, let's go!"
They ran on and saw some small animal cages, but no Appa. "Where is he?" Aang screamed angrily.
Multiple clanking sounds announced that the firebenders had caught up with them, and a solid wall of fire advanced on them. Katara and Toph used their elements like shields, and Aang joined them with waterbending after a second, but there wasn't enough water for both him and Katara – and of course, he couldn't switch to earth now without revealing himself as the Avatar. Since Katara was the better waterbender, he let her have most of their supplies. Instead of attacking himself, whenever she and Sokka threw their weapons, he retrieved them with tendrils of water. They knocked out one soldier after another, but Suki felt as if she were contributing less than her share, since the other women did more than her. Anyway, there were still too many. "Retreat!" Sokka called. "That way! Hide behind the trees!"
Now as they ran, they had to keep pausing to break up the enemy forces. Slowly, the numbers dwindled, but they needed a short break to regroup, themselves. The firebenders had grown wise to the mud trick and baked the ground into clay before advancing. The mountain slopes grew steeper as they approached the denser part of the forest, which made it more difficult to maneuver to higher ground. They'd make it through to the other side, far more quickly than the heavily armored enemy, but it would be uncomfortably close. "We're almost there!" Aang cried encouragingly.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something – someone – hurtle down towards them. Didn't look like a firebender, but she almost attacked the potential threat – as did Toph – before Sokka told them "He's a friend!" Another pair of – it seemed he favored swords – would be handy, but not all that useful, she thought – until she saw that the firebenders had frozen where they stood.
"It's the Blue Spirit!" several of them screamed. Now that he'd stopped moving, Suki saw the edges of a mask, and that he stood in a good battle stance and held his swords easily – but why such fear? He took a few slow, deliberate steps forward, and many simply ran.
Except it wouldn't be that easy. "Hold your ground, you bastards!" some commander boomed. "I'll have you all executed for desertion, else!"
"Sir, don't you know what he did to the Princess' ship?" a subordinate pleaded.
"I don't care! He's obviously no ghost. Attack!" the man led by example.
With wonder, she saw the newcomer duck under the fire barrage. She'd have worried, but the commander went down immediately, and the swordsman popped back into sight briefly only to knock one firebender into another. Inside their lines, they couldn't bend much fire without hitting each other, and he made full use of that. Katara sent water to extinguish as much of the flames as she could, and Suki shook off the desire to just keep watching. No matter how good, one man couldn't take on a company – she and the others backed him up. It was a quick victory. The firebenders were too demoralized to fight hard, and with bending and weapons ranged against them, they didn't last long. As soon as all the firebenders either fled or were taken out, the newcomer pointed with one of his swords towards the most convenient crossing-point, and climbed the slope. He then quickly led them through the rocky hills. Suddenly, he began to cough – a hard, dry cough, though he kept moving, even bent over with one hand pressed to his chest. Katara insisted they stop, so they found a good hiding place and did so.
Toph hadn't paid much attention to the swordsman – the infamous Blue, apparently – as they ran, but when he slowed down because of the cough, something tickled at her memory. Did she know him from somewhere? Up until now, his footsteps hadn't seemed familiar, but now, there was a similarity to… someone.
Katara fussed over him, asking him what was wrong and whether he needed healing, while Aang and Sokka pelted him with multiple questions about whether he was okay and where he'd been in different tones of worry, happiness, and relief. Even Momo squeaked at him from Aang's shoulder. Blue waved his hands, obviously unsure of what to answer first and wanting them to slow down. Katara reached towards him (Toph felt the odd drone around Katara's hands which meant waterbending), but he dodged her as easily as he'd dodged the firebenders earlier, then gently pushed her arm away.
He then took off the small pack he carried, took out the slate board she'd heard mentioned, and began to write something quickly. Chalk on a slate which he balanced on top of a rock outcropping – Toph realized she could, for the first time in her life, examine something written, and concentrated. It wasn't easy, but at last she distinguished the chalk particles amongst all the other vibrations. Writing was a series of lines crossing each other in complex patterns, apparently. Suddenly, Sokka said, "You don't need to bother; it's just some bruising."
"What?" she asked. "What bruising?"
"Sorry, Toph," Sokka said. "I was just reading what Blue wrote."
She felt like making him suffer a little, so she waved a hand in front of her eyes. "Hm, perhaps you should have made it clearer that you weren't speaking for yourself."
Sokka's shoulders drooped. "Right. Clearer."
He was just so easy to bait. She hid her grin.
Blue pointed to her and to Suki, then tilted his head questioningly.
"Oh, right!" Sokka slapped his forehead. "Should have introduced you all right away. Blue, this is Suki. She's a Kyoshi Warrior – you know, from the island." Blue nodded. Toph wondered why Suki got to be introduced first. "We'd met before, and she taught me some great fighting moves, and now that we've run into each other again, well," Sokka's excitement became even more palpable than it had been for hours, "we're together now."
Didn't take much, did it? Toph's weird sense of disappointment, which had been plaguing her since morning, flared up again and made her miss whatever Blue's response had been. She sat down and began to clean the mud off her feet (it made things slightly fuzzy, though of course her senses would never be thwarted by a little mud). Really, it wasn't that she didn't like Suki, but why did she have to keep tagging along? In Suki's presence, the soothing, deep resonance she'd grown used to feeling from Sokka changed to a jittery one, and Toph knew she didn't like that.
Toph only came back from those thoughts when she heard her own name, "…she's Aang's new earthbending teacher. We found her in Gaoling right after we saw you last, and she's amazing! You should have seen her taking on all those huge earthbender guys by herself!" Although it was no more than the truth, Toph felt better at hearing him say so. The enjoyable timbre of his voice, at least, didn't change around Suki.
"Eh, they needed their butts kicked," she smirked.
She sensed that Blue was curious about her, rather than dismissive, like most people would be because of her age. In fact, it was almost surprising, how unsurprised he was.
"She's so good that she's invented a way to see with earthbending," Katara added.
Now he was surprised, and respectful with it. Quickly, he turned back to the slate, scratching something quickly. "Blue just asked 'How?'" Sokka said.
So that particular pattern meant "how"? Even as she explained – twelve years she'd gone without explaining to anyone, and now this was the fourth time in a couple of weeks – a part of her mind focused on memorizing the pattern. It wasn't like it was useful to her, but it was satisfying all the same, a "take that" to her former tutors and their clucking over how allowances had to be made for the poor child who was unable to read.
Sokka then explained to Suki about Blue – rescued Aang, friend, yadda yadda. Meanwhile, Toph tried to figure out again if she knew him from somewhere. The footsteps weren't recognizable. Since he didn't speak, she couldn't use her memory for voices. What was left was general size, shape, and proportion – far less useful identifiers than the first two. Something as simple as fatigue could change the resonance of the muscles and throw off her proportion estimates, and his overall shape was a common, unmemorable one. Nothing seemed familiar, nothing, except – the left ear was noticeably smaller than the right. That was an uncommon distinguishing feature. She'd only met a couple of people who had it. The latest one was Iroh's nephew.
Zuko's face was sort of unusual, but here, she couldn't easily distinguish between face and wooden mask, pressed close enough together to distort each other's shape and resonance. She couldn't rule out her guess, but she couldn't confirm it, either, and why would it be Zuko? She'd known when they met him that he wasn't as enthusiastic about capturing Aang as his words would suggest, but he'd been deadly serious all the same. It was something he thought he had to do. Everything she'd heard about Blue suggested a very different kind of person, with much different priorities.
At the moment, in response to a question of whether he was all right, Blue shook his head no. Katara became extremely anxious, and Toph nudged her in inquiry. "It's the first time he's ever admitted it so easily," she told her in a low tone, before taking her place in the noisy attempts to get him to elaborate. Sokka continued to read out the replies, fairly vague ones at first, but then Blue wrote, "I failed to accomplish several of my objectives, used up too much chi strength in the latest failure, and some family issues came up. Now please don't push."
The three who knew him immediately switched to reassurance. "Well, surely those are temporary setbacks," Aang said, overlapping with Katara's "It'll get better, and we'll help you if we can," and Sokka's "Don't forget how much you've accomplished in the past." Momo flew over to Blue and butted his head under Blue's hand.
Blue scratched Momo's ears and shrugged tiredly. From what she could read of him, it wasn't a ploy; he really was so down on himself that the reassurance wasn't penetrating his skull. There was another point; he didn't react as strongly to everything as Zuko. "Hey," she said. "Not that I know you, but when firebenders tremble at the mere sight of you, you must have done something right."
It didn't cheer him up any more than the other comments, but Sokka got excited. "That's right. And you've gotta tell us – what did you do to Princess Azula's ship that they still remember you? That must be some story!"
Blue wrote for a bit without enthusiasm. "It isn't," Sokka read out the latest message. "I just damaged it somewhat. I did use some spooky sight and sound effects to frighten the soldiers. Since Princess Azula is now here, those soldiers must be as well, and they must have exaggerated what happened, so as not to seem cowardly."
"Wait," Katara interrupted. "You didn't know they'd be frightened into running, and you planned to fight them all? You could have been fried!"
"Ha!" Sokka protested. "Takes more than that."
Blue wrote more rapidly. "Considering that the five of you were already holding them off quite well, I really didn't have much to worry about in joining your fight."
"But how did you dodge those fireballs?" Aang asked. "I gotta know that!"
"Well, if you're planning on dismantling the drill, yes, you do," Sokka read out, then interrupted himself. "Wait, what drill?"
Blue startled, wiped out the rest of whatever the sentence had been and wrote instead with some anger, "The giant one menacing Ba Sing Se, perhaps? Isn't that why you're here?"
"Ah, no," Aang rubbed the back of his neck. "Haven't heard of it."
"Yes, we have!" Toph interrupted. "Don't you remember? We were even arguing about whether to find that first or get you trained first."
"Oh, right!" Sokka said. "So that's why we haven't seen you until now!" he addressed Blue. "They sent you alone against a giant drill, huh? How's that going?"
Blue stiffened at the same time as Katara jabbed an elbow into Sokka's side. "Sokka, how about you think on it for a single moment?" she chided him quietly.
Sokka did, and worked it out quickly. "Ah! Well, since we had planned to do something about it sooner or later," Blue started writing again, angrily, "then as soon as we rescue Appa, we'll take care of that!"
Blue thrust his slate at Aang, who read, "Better make it sooner; you've got five days. Appa?"
Aang began to give a very abbreviated explanation of all that had happened since they'd seen Blue last. Blue had a strong, complicated reaction to the news of the advantage they'd gained over the Fire Nation. It was hard to tell exactly what kind, but generally not a pleased one. Toph's suspicions were aroused again. Sure, there must be several people in the world with such ears. But she'd sensed Iroh on the road today, alone, and Iroh wouldn't go far from his nephew.
She'd almost given Iroh away with her startle, so she'd been ready to drop him into a hole until their group safely passed. Somehow, however, he'd kept the boulder between himself and their group, almost as if he wasn't relying on sight, either. Hmm, she could believe it of him. He was too smart to think that blind equaled helpless. She'd been happy that Iroh was okay, though she noticed the same kind of worry in him as when they first met – was it because the nephew had stupidly gotten himself lost again?
No one would react well if she was wrong. And if she was right? There must be some reason why a prince of the Fire Nation would be running around in a mask and helping his enemies. She could, unwittingly, trample in something. No, she'd wait and listen for the right opportunity to check, but there was no reason she couldn't probe in other ways.
Aang finished his explanation. Blue wrote, "Yes, you'll have to retrieve Appa first, but it's going to be extremely difficult right now."
"We're not waiting!" Aang said angrily. "Who knows what could be happening to him?"
Blue nodded. "It's worrisome. But getting yourself killed instead will accomplish nothing, and this is the most-guarded area in the vicinity."
"You're a bit behindhand," she joined the conversation. "Now that some of us know that we need to be careful, we won't make noise, and I can detect patrols from afar. We sneak in, blend in with the circus crowd, and once we have Appa, getting out will be pretty simple. Not a whole lot stands in the way of a giant flying critter."
She felt him nod with exasperation, but didn't realize it wasn't in agreement till he finished writing "Exactly. What if the reason Appa hasn't escaped yet is because they're keeping him drugged?" and Sokka read it out. This was a very annoying method of communication, but it was a good question.
"I could try healing him," Katara said dubiously.
"I'd find whoever was responsible and make them give me the antidote," Aang sounded very grim.
"Or," said Suki, "we could stop guessing in advance of our knowledge. What we need is a recon mission. If Appa's there and just being restrained, we get him out immediately. If it's something worse, we find out what to do about it, and come back later if we have to. No, Aang, this is the best way," she forestalled the protest. "He's valuable to them, so they won't hurt him, and an extra few hours won't make much difference."
Reluctantly, Aang agreed. They all began to discuss the details. Whether they all needed to go or whether it might be easier with fewer people. How exactly they would disguise themselves. Whether freeing Appa might make enough noise that the nearby patrols would catch them in the act, anyway, and so they would need to fight firebenders again while escaping, and what to do about it. Aang insisted that this time, he wanted to fight, too, and despite everyone telling him that the last headache they needed was for the firebenders to try to bring down the Avatar, he wouldn't quite give up on the idea. Blue wouldn't be able to join them, since apparently, he had somewhere else to be by sunset, but for now, he stayed to help finetune the rescue plan, and said that he could come back in a few hours to help make plans about the drill.
Sokka began to draw a crude map in the dirt. At least, that's what he said he did. "What's that supposed to be?" she scoffed at a jagged line.
"The mountains, of course!" he answered, a bit offended.
"Mountains don't look anything like that."
"It's a strategic representation, not a painting!"
"Toph," Katara said, "how would you draw a mountain? I mean, I understand that you don't see things the same way we do."
"I wouldn't. I'd do this." Concentrating, she created a miniature model of the valley in question.
She grinned toothily at the exclamations around her. "At your service."
"This is great, Toph!" Sokka said. "We'll definitely use it." She felt a bit warm, suddenly.
"But," Katara added, "we can't do what you did, and we can tell what Sokka was trying to draw, so his artistic skills don't deserve this much criticism."
"Thanks, Ka –"
"Though they definitely deserve some."
"Hey!"
"So I've never seen a drawing in my life – so what? Isn't it difficult to squash the world flat to put it on a piece of paper without completely distorting it? You're the weird ones, not me."
"Our eyes already see the world as mostly flat," Suki argued unexpectedly. "Also, your model takes up a lot of space. You could have a whole atlas in a smaller space, and it would have drawings not just of this place, but of many others, too."
"Huh." She drummed her fingers on a nearby rock. "I suppose so, but it still seems weird and not that great. I used to wish sometimes I could read, so that I wouldn't have to memorize all my lessons – very, very boring lessons, made more boring when someone keeps repeating them to you until you can repeat them back – but I did fine. Same with this."
Suki smiled. "It is weird, but that's how it goes."
Blue reached out to tap her shoulder with a stick for attention, and scratched some writing patterns into the earth. According to Katara, the message was, "Wouldn't you be perfectly able to read if the words were written like this?" As Katara read, Blue tapped his stick by one pattern after another.
She smiled with one corner of her mouth. "Yeah. But my tutors had no idea I could see with earthbending. Poor little delicate Toph was supposed to have nothing to do with mud. Anyway, it's a useless skill to me, since most people don't write in the dirt, or on a slate like you."
He nodded, but wrote, "You could still take notes that way."
"Hold on, hold on," Sokka added. "Taking notes? Reading is one thing, but writing when you can't see where you're putting the brush – well, the stick – isn't going to work."
"I can write my name with my eyes closed even using a brush," Blue replied. "We had to practice that at school. It's difficult at first, yes, but it's a matter of memorizing the movements. Useless, but not impossible."
Something in her went cold. "Wait. You're saying I could learn to sign my name. On paper. Yes?"
He nodded with some curiosity. "A signature is more complicated than ordinary writing, though, and the same sounds can be written with different kanji, so if your family has a traditional way of writing your name, you'd have to find that out first," he added.
"Show me," her voice came out flat and hard. "I need to learn that." Producing her passport, she shoved it into his hands. (It was the only proof she had that her parents had ever let the wider world know that they had a daughter, so she felt a brief twinge at handing it over.) "There. That has my name."
He looked at her steadily for a long moment, then acted as if he suddenly understood. Her fists clenched. If he dared pity her… He held up his hands defensively, then shook his head as if to say "Perish the thought." Then, with occasional glances at the passport, he began to write on the ground, far more slowly than he had before, forming each line very carefully. He didn't seem to have a reaction to finding out that her family were the Bei Fongs. Of course, not everyone in the Earth Kingdom knew of them, but most people did. Not him.
When done, he reached for his slate again. "You'll need to memorize this first, and be able to reproduce it on the ground. Then you'd need to practice doing so on paper – that's more difficult, particularly because for formal signing, you'd need to be able to have fine control over raising and lowering the brush."
She scoffed. "Not a problem. Just have to borrow Sokka's scrolls to practice on,"
Sokka yelped and hugged his pack to his chest. "They're valuable, ancient scrolls! You can't just scribble on them." She glared in his direction. "Well, I suppose we could spare one or two," he amended in a very reluctant tone. "We don't have writing supplies, anyway."
Blue's next message was, "I do, though not with me right now. Maybe a few scraps of paper, too. I can bring them tonight."
"Good." She couldn't quite say thanks, because it made her feel too exposed. "Anyway. What are we wasting time for?"
They fell into a discussion of the terrain, using her model, which she adjusted to include the initial locations of the patrols they encountered today on Blue's request. After studying it, he noted that they'd changed the patrol patterns since a day before, and according to him, this new pattern was meant for close sweeps. Exactly the kind they didn't want to deal with.
Aang then remembered again his question about evading fire. "It's simple," Blue replied. "A group of firebenders is trained to use particular techniques to avoid injuring their own side, which actually makes them easier to deal with than a single one. When they start to sweep their arms around like this," he demonstrated at that point in the reading, "it means a chest-height expanding stream of fire, the usual first attack in any case. It takes a fair amount of distance for the fireballs to expand fully, so if you are quick, it's easy to slip under – or jump over – the attack. Under is better because the fire tends to hide your movement from them."
Oh, interesting, and in more than one way. Blue kept revealing all sorts of potential ways around the firebenders. He also explained the setup for the drill, and was very insistent that they should attack it only after it was far away from the valley, because otherwise, the people here would be forced to work on it again. His loyalties didn't seem to lie with the Fire Nation, after all.
Sokka and Suki took full advantage of Blue's knowledge, and she could almost feel contingency plans coming together in Sokka's head, and stealth patterns in Suki's. She tried to join in, but she'd always fought alone – she was slower than the two of them to figure out group actions. Unhappily, she settled back again and wished this was over already. While she waited, she copied her name as exactly like the example as she could. When she was sure she had it memorized, she stopped, and was reduced to kicking the ground aimlessly. So when she felt an opportunity to jump back into the discussion, she did. "Aren't you forgetting one other thing we could do?"
"Hmm?" Sokka said.
"Aang, remember? If he could learn firebending defense, that would both be very useful, and confuse the stuffing out of the firebenders."
They all turned to look at Blue, and Toph slapped one hand on the nearest rock just in time to catch as much detail about his reactions as she could. His heartrate spiked in alarm, but he spread his hands in a gesture of 'what.' "We were just wondering," Sokka apologized, "whether you might have seen how they do any defensive moves, like you did with extinguishing a fire."
He froze up in… fear, definitely, but mixed with something too complicated for her to tease out. Then there was a jolt of pure shock from him. A few moments later, he wrote, "I'm not sure. That move is only useful against non-bent fire. For anything else – you do realize that in firebending, most of the defensive moves consist of using an offensive move?"
"Figures," Aang muttered. "In that case, no, I still don't want to hurt people, but isn't there anything else?"
"I'll have to see if I remember anything like that, but there's certainly nothing that I could teach you quickly enough to be useful right now," he wrote.
"It'll be more important when attacking the drill, anyway," Sokka said. "That's when we definitely won't get by just on stealth."
Blue nodded, with some relief. Toph understood after a second. He was buying time. Well, and why?
"Thanks!" Aang said. "Anything we can do to pay you back for your help this time?"
He started to shake his head no, then abruptly stopped. "Actually, I could use your expertise as the Avatar." Aang's mouth hung open in astonishment. "It seems that I do have some connection to the real Blue Spirit. I was able to sort of communicate with him recently, but it consisted of fragmented and confusing images. You can talk with the Spirits, so do you know of any way for an ordinary person to communicate with them more clearly, aside from making an offering?"
Aang drooped unhappily. "I don't know any of that stuff. I barely got two months into my training as the Avatar! There was just enough time for some advanced airbending."
Blue went very still. "Hold on. You told me that they informed you four years too early because they thought they might need an Avatar's power, right?"
"Well, yeah," Aang gave a confused smile.
"Then why was your training only to make you a better airbender? There were plenty of highly skilled airbenders around, and only one Avatar."
"I, I don't know. I guess they thought they would have more time to train me. I did run away early, after all." Suki startled, and Sokka whispered to her that he'd explain later. Toph found herself grimacing a bit. He didn't have to talk to Suki so constantly, did he?
Blue let it go. Aang promised that when he had time, he'd contact Avatar Roku and ask. The reminder of the time caused Blue to jump and hastily write, "I have to leave; I won't make it back before sunset as it is."
"Why, is someone going to be in trouble if you don't?" she asked, curious.
He nodded and pointed very emphatically to himself, made a single brief bow to all of them, and took off. Sokka muttered something as he watched Blue leave. "What?" she asked him.
"I said, it seems that they really don't treat him right."
"I dunno, he felt more frustrated than afraid," she tried to reassure him, but he just shook his head.
That same day, after the dishes from dinner had been cleared away by nervous servants, Mai followed through on a conversation that she and Ty Lee had earlier. The circus had come to the new Fire Nation colony – the very circus that had given Ty Lee a whole year of happiness. The only problem was Azula's foul mood – the way she'd been, she might deny Ty Lee permission to even go see her circus friends, never mind what Ty Lee actually wanted, which was to perform again for the night or two that the circus would be there. But they knew a few things about how to handle their difficult friend. Accordingly, Ty Lee gazed off dreamily into the distance while Mai drawled, "It's so boring around here, and now we're stuck for several more days."
Azula gave her an unpleasant stare, but Mai had a better immunity to it than Ty Lee, which was why she'd be the one mostly leading this conversation. She stared back emotionlessly.
"Boredom might be the least of our problems," Azula said at last, with a hint of warning in her tone.
Mai made a small, languid motion with the fingertips of her hand. "Yes, I know we still haven't found how the drill got damaged, but with all the soldiers and technicians working on the problem, we ourselves have nothing to do. As I said – boring."
Azula had been meticulous in her investigation, but after questioning Ty Lee and the soldiers relentlessly, she concluded that Zuko had been observed at all times and had neither done any firebending nor been able to get to the insides of the drill. Mai wasn't convinced because she knew that Zuko didn't give up easily. During the painful conversation she'd witnessed, he had. Therefore, he must have had an ulterior motive for doing so. She had a few ideas on why, some of them terrible to contemplate, but she hoped – trusted – that he did have a good explanation. She was certain that some of the things he'd said were true. About his mother, for instance. Zuko would do the impossible for that chance, even if it meant interfering with his sister's plans when they got in the way. Azula had responded very foolishly there (but Mai understood, as Zuko didn't seem to, that Azula had her own hurts on that subject).
She worried about him, especially since Ty Lee had reported that he seemed to have a fever – glazed eyes, an increasingly unsteady gait, and occasional coughing. That was another bit of evidence that he'd done something. He'd been fine when talking, and she could imagine some ways of covering up small firebending moves with a pretended unsteady walk. Azula was convinced that Zuko wasn't capable of that level of firebending based on their recent confrontation, but Mai understood why he might have hid it from her, even then.
The latest report said that the Blue Spirit had been seen helping a strike team of both earth- and waterbenders, so he was probably okay, if a little too invested in his disguise. She couldn't let any of that distract her now, anyway. Together, she and Ty Lee brought the conversation around from boredom to the circus. Before Azula could get angry and forbid it, Mai started downplaying the idea for all she was worth, with arguments such as that she hated crowds. If Azula thought that Mai was making Ty Lee upset with her refusals, she would most likely come to Ty Lee's defense.
It worked. "I've seen a performance," Azula said with her eyes gleaming. "It was a riot of color, exactly of the type you'd enjoy, Mai."
"Ugh." They all knew too many bright colors made her want to throw up.
"The show did have some interest," Azula said with a nod towards Ty Lee, almost like an apology. Azula was not very susceptible to guilt – but that didn't mean she was entirely immune to it. Given the measures she'd taken to get Ty Lee out of the circus, it was no wonder she was feeling it now. However, before they could continue trying to sway her, she said, "Still, it's not safe, at least for now."
Mai chased the remaining slim chance. "Not safe? I knew it. You have something for us. Tell! We're stuck in this – inadequate pigsty – but instead of having fun by at least yelling at the peasants, like you usually would, you've been…"
"Almost broody," Ty Lee put in brightly. Mai would not have dared say as much herself, but she had a bit of a struggle holding back a smile at the apt description, or Azula's indignant huff in response.
"Perhaps we have spent too much time here, if you are picking up such rural expressions," Azula said, in that very pleasant tone. "Pickens are broody. I'm strategizing."
They didn't even need to look at each other to know how to handle this. Mai leaned forward alertly, while Ty Lee expertly plastered on an expression of extreme curiosity. The little play on Azula's need to be listened to worked. She leaned forward in turn. "Have you heard of the Blue Spirit before today?"
Of all the things, Mai hadn't expected this. She couldn't allow fear – the Blue Spirit, she made herself think, wasn't connected to anyone she knew. "There was something…" she murmured languidly, "can't quite remember…"
"Didn't he rescue the Avatar?" Ty Lee exclaimed.
"Ah, that was it. I saw a wanted poster to that effect. Utterly boring – couldn't he find anything better to do?"
Azula's expression became calculating. "Yes, that's right. I'd almost forgotten. Treachery, that far back? My father will be interested to hear of this." Mai pressed her feet into the floor, hard; the part of her body above the table had to look bored and relaxed. Snapping back to the present, Azula added, "Neither of you understands what it means that the Blue spirit has been spotted nearby, I take it?"
They both shook their heads.
"It means that he must have sabotaged our drill. Spirit he might be, but this cannot go unpunished. Even spirits must have their weak sides. Until I can come up with a plan, though – be careful."
Mai's eyes widened. Azula sounded – just for an instant – almost afraid. Ty Lee noticed it, too. "You're the smartest!" she gushed. "It won't take you long. Why worry?"
"I'm not worried!" Azula snapped.
They looked at her.
"Well," she amended, "I'm just being reasonably cautious when dealing with an unknown threat."
Mai fingered one of her throwing stars. "I thought the poster specifically said that despite rumors, he wasn't a ghost?"
"No, not a ghost, those are former humans," Azula dismissed the matter. "I've personally seen that he is not human."
It didn't take much coaxing to get Azula to tell the story, though Mai had to work hard not to react at how Azula had imprisoned Zuko and his uncle. "I made certain," Azula's gestures grew more expansive through the telling, "that none of my crew spoke to them and they suspected nothing. Well, Zuko anyway, and he knew better than to listen to our uncle. Yet I've barely slept for two hours before I found them escaping. Something must have warned them. They stole a boat to escape in, and every step of the way, they had help. A sudden fire broke out when they were fighting against overwhelming numbers, for instance. Some of the men later reported a sighting of the Blue Spirit as early as an hour before the escape. They claimed he was man-shaped, at that point, but glowing and floating in the air. Others saw a glowing face under the water. I wouldn't have believed them, except that when the traitors finally got the boat working and fled, I saw… A blue mist rose between the ship and the boat, like a shield, and it did glow."
Azula fell silent here, uncharacteristically, and required more encouragement to go on. At last, she did. "It just hung there, and those so-called soldiers were too frightened to fire at it. I gave the order for the catapults to be raised – the boat was getting further and further away, you understand – and shot lightning at the apparition myself." Again, she fell silent.
"Please, Azula," Mai coaxed, "what did it do? The more we know about it, the better we can help you fight it in the future."
"We want to help!" Ty Lee chimed in, her hands folded beneath her chin as she looked up at Azula adoringly.
"Very well. The lighting hit it, but it just seemed to stretch back and then rebound, as if returning the blow, though my lightning had dissipated. There was an unearthly screech behind me, and I was thrown off balance by some strange force. I couldn't have looked away for more than a second, but the next moment, the apparition was gone, and all my catapults – all at once, you understand? – were so many heaps of junk metal. When we tried to at least get the ship going, it turned out that one of the engines had exploded, even though it had been surrounded by crew and no one and nothing had been near it. I personally sifted through the remains for signs of an explosive, and there were none. Yet it exploded from the inside…"
She began to brood again.
Hesitantly, Mai asked, "Anything else we should know about its powers?"
Azula seemed to struggle with herself for a moment. "If I hear that anyone has heard –!"
They fervently reassured her that they would not tell anybody. Azula leaned in close and whispered, "When I hit it with lightning, it felt like the spirit yanked on the lightning and drained part of my power for a moment."
So that was the reason for running frightened. "If it can do that," Mai mused, "you might be able to yank back and drain power from it."
Azula inclined her head, pleased. "A good idea. Though – difficult to test."
"Yes, and misty spirits must be pretty much made of chi and nothing else," Ty Lee said. "Maybe I could use some of my techniques?"
Azula bestowed a smile on Ty Lee. Mai asked, as if casually, "Hey, Ty Lee, you've told me that the circus attracts quite a number of odd types. Think if we ask around, some of your old friends might tell us something useful?"
Ty Lee's eyes shone, but her voice was perfectly demure, "Well, it's a long shot, of course…"
Combined with the earlier conversation, it was a virtual guarantee that Azula would let them go. Now that they once again proved their usefulness to her, she grew expansive. "Not bad. Let's see my uncle try to hide behind the Blue Spirit's back now!"
Mai hadn't forgotten that, although nothing in Azula's story really pointed at Zuko, and in fact, she still couldn't explain how he could have done half those things, he was the one with the mask. "What does your uncle have to do with it?" she asked.
"Who else would do such a thing to attack me? He's had his little journey to the Spirit World, hasn't he? So sad, looking for his son." Her tone darkened. "Clever, not to let anyone know he can now call on powerful spirits for assistance." She pulled out Zuko's dagger and twirled it through her hands idly. "It won't save him, though, and his interference won't stop me, either."