Chapter 25: The Past

…

You found hope, you found faith

You found how fast she could take it away

-Jessica Riddle, 'Even Angels Fall'

…

Her new situation would take some getting used to.

First of all, there was the new people. The only one she really liked was Toph. Sokka was oversensitive and thought himself funnier than he was. Katara was too…something. Too nice or too goody-goody or too…something. Aang had been unconscious, gradually healing, for the past two weeks they had been on the ship, and the Water Tribe men kept their distance from her, sensing she wasn't really one of the gang. The white flying monkey creature of Aang's was alright, and so was the bison Appa. Mostly because they couldn't talk. She hadn't been in the mood to talk much.

Toph was the only one who understood her aloof silences. Though young, the earthbending girl seemed older than her years. It likely had to do with the fact that from a very young age she could hear and sense things with her earthbending that most people are never aware of growing up. She could tell when people lied to her, could see through walls, and could listen to heartrates and breathing. She understood a lot more about people than other children her age did. She could feel how Namura winced with pain whenever memories surfaced in her mind. She could feel the tenseness of her muscles and heard with her sharp ears every night the trickle of her silent tears.

And Toph was the only one that didn't expect the nice girl act Nami had to put it on for Katara and the suspicious waterbenders. If she acted too much like a rough, irritable Fire Nation girl, she was given mistrustful looks. It was wearing on her. She hated the smiling she had to do and softening her voice when all she wanted to do was yell at the top of her lungs and punch somebody.

They had flown all night to Chameleon Bay where Sokka and Katara's father were in charge of a fleet of Water Tribe men. Having spent the first seven years of her life growing up in a Water Tribe village, she had thought it would be fairly easy to fit in among them. But though she had known waterbenders, these waterbenders did not know her, and a lot had changed in eleven years. Tensions and dislike between Fire Nation and Water Tribe had escalated immeasurably, and so her firebender status had earned her immediate grudges from them before they had even spoken with her. Rejected by both sides for my ties to the other…always.

The Earth King (a little soft in the head, in her opinion) decided before they left that he wanted to travel the world in disguise with his bear Bosco. (Good luck to the both of them?) The bay, however, was soon swarmed with Fire Nation ships as the Nation's forces massed into captured Ba Sing Se. Instead of fighting them all, with the help of the Water Tribe men, they took over one ship and made it their disguise. Since then, they had been traveling west and were currently crossing the Serpent's Pass. They had luckily been unbothered by the few Fire Nation ships they had seen.

She had a crimson Fire Nation cloak around her as she leaned against the rail of their ugly gray captured ship. It was cold and the sky was dark and overcast. It reminded her of a storm a while back in which she had proved her ineptness at sea to a certain prince's disdain. The memory had her aching in a way that made her teeth clench and tears prick at her eyes.

She tried to shut the reaction away, but it would not budge. It sat in her chest, hot and immediate. You're still in love with him, it ached. You betrayed the man you love. He hates you now. His arms will never be yours again. He'll never be yours again.

Her breaths were always too shallow, her hands too cold. There were steel cables wrapped around her midsection.

"Stop doing that," Toph said, coming up beside her at the rail.

"What?" Nami gasped. She had realized she had been holding her breath. Her nails were digging into her chest.

"Clutching at your heart or whatever," she replied. "I'm afraid one of these days you're gonna succeed in ripping the sucker out o' there, and you know that would emotionally scar Sweetness."

'Sweetness' was Toph's nickname for Katara.

Nami chuckled humorlessly, lowering her hand. "We wouldn't want to scar Kitty Kat," she replied.

'Kitty Kat' was Nami's nickname for Katara.

"How you holdin' up?"

"As usual."

"Well, don't jump over this rail, eh? 'Cause you know that'd put a damper on my day."

Nami chuckled; a rough, shaky chuckle, but it was genuine. Toph was the only one with a decent sense of humor on the ship. "Your day?" she repeated. "Imagine what it would do to mine."

Toph shrugged. "Yeah, I guess it wouldn't be so good for you, either. I tell you what. Next time I see that scarred bastard, I'm floggin' him for ya. I don't care that you didn't divulge every dirty little secret about your past to the boy. He's still a selfish, stupid prick for turning on you and Iroh, and I will kick his ass for doing this to you." She spoke matter-of-factly.

"He's blinded by his ambitions."

"Yeah, like I said, stupid. So you need to stop moping."

"Excuse me?"

"Seriously. Put the jerk in the past."

Nami struggled with herself for a moment. I've always been able to do exactly that before. "I… It will take a while for me." In a low voice, she admitted, "Toph, listen. Usually I'm always the one who moves on first. I don't let people have this kind of power over my life. But… Look, I don't know how it happened exactly, but Zuko, he's…he's down in me too deep. I can't dig him out and leave the remains in a pile. I'd destroy myself trying to do it."

"Aw, that's corny baloney," Toph scoffed.

"I like you, Toph, but stop ragging on me. I'm being as strong as I can right now. You think I want to feel like this? You think this is some kind of masochistic impulse? I hurt. Every part of me hurts."

"Alright," the little girl sighed, "alright."

Suddenly there was a thump on the deck and the two turned to see Aang on his stomach, his glider clutched in his hand. Apparently he had fallen as he came up the steps.

"Momo?" he asked blearily as the monkey skittered around his shoulders.

"Twinkle Toes, that's got to be you," Toph said. 'Twinkle Toes' was her nickname for Aang. Nami had yet to think of a nickname for Aang, but 'Arrowhead' was in the running.

"Aang, you're awake!" Katara exclaimed happily as they gathered around him.

"Are you sure?" Aang asked, rubbing his eyes. "I feel like I'm dreaming."

"He must be confused about the Fire Nation stuff," said Nami.

Katara threw her arms around him. "You're not dreaming. You're finally awake."

"Aang!" heartily exclaimed a formidable-looking Fire Nation mask as Sokka came up to him. "Good to see you back with the living, buddy."

"Sokka?" Aang asked, disbelieving.

"Uh-oh," Toph said. "Quick-somebody-catch-him-he's-gunna—"

Katara moved forward to catch Aang as he fainted.

…

Tears ran silently down the prince's face.

He couldn't remember the last time he had cried.

Staring up at the full moon in the gray, murky sky, he pressed his palm to the skin of his chest above his heart. It felt like there should be a hole there. He didn't understand how that muscle could still be beating when he felt like a cannon had carved a hole through his chest.

His breath was so shallow. There wasn't enough oxygen in the world. Prince Zuko slumped against the rail of the ship. He was weak. So very, very weak. It had turned out he had not even known her, yet he was still deeply, completely, helplessly, agonizingly in love with her. He wanted to hate her. But his every pore screamed for her. Maybe he would be able to breathe properly again if she were close to him.

How did this happen? I thought Nami was it. Everything. She was the only one I wanted… She's still the only one…

Why was the universe so cruel to take something so beautiful, so good, and twist it, separating that which should not be separated and turning love into a residual, excruciating ache that throbbed with every pulse that pumped blood through his cold body? How was anything worth this? He wanted to find her. To beg her. I don't care who you are, who your mother is, that you were lying in wait to betray me from the start. Just take me back. I'll give up my throne, my family, my future for you. Please. Please.

Zuko's shoulders shook as he forced the air out of his lungs with silent sobs, his nostrils flaring and his tears running into his open mouth. He tasted the salt of them. That taste reminded him of her skin, her bare skin, which of course brought on another wave of suffering. He wiped his face.

Prince Zuko gripped the railing, his knuckles turning bone white. You're stronger than his, he thought, his teeth gritting. A girl who would lie to you, fight against you, and leave you in such pain is not worth giving your life up for. Be strong.

It had been over three years since he'd been home. Zuko looked back out at the churning gray waves. There could be no going back now.

…

"Why are we on a Fire Nation ship?" Aang asked when he came to. "Why is everyone dressed this way? And why am I the only one who's completely out of it?"

Nami shrugged off her cloak and draped it over his shoulders. She wasn't getting any warmer, anyway. And she hated that color.

"You need to take it easy, okay?" Katara said. "You got hurt pretty badly."

Aang reached his hand up to touch the bandages around his middle. "How long was I out?"

"A few days."

"Days?" As Aang blinked, Katara's father Hakoda introduced himself to him. Afterwards, Katara helped Aang off the deck, saying something about a healing session. Nami wasn't really listening any more. She leaned against the hull of the ship with her arms crossed, her expression distant.

"So," Toph began, addressing her. "Your mother's a waterbender."

Katara had told everyone what she and Aang had heard Azula say down in the catacombs. Nami had not appreciated the most personal details of her life being spread around by yet another stranger, and still felt resentful of Katara's lack of discretion.

She scowled out at the gray waves. Then she shook her head. "She wasn't a bender. Just in the Southern Water Tribe. But… The Tribe has a lot of villages spread out all over the Pole, so I've never seen any of these people before. A lot of villages keep to themselves."

"I've never heard of a firebender and a Water Tribe woman…y'know—together."

Nami's lips were pulled into a taut slash across her face. "Obviously."

"How did they meet?"

Nami glanced over and downward at the little blind girl next to her. Very few people knew the truth of her childhood, and she had told the story to no one. She did not particularly want to tell it, not to anyone. But the people on this ship were a small army made up of different benders. It was a sort of haven of acceptance and cross-cultural friendships in this intolerant world. And, besides her older brother, this little girl was the closest thing to a friend she now had.

"I don't know the details of the beginning," she began in a low and unwilling voice, "because my father refuses to talk about it." They walked together to the railing again. Toph was quiet, watching her. "But his parents—my grandparents, I guess—were part of Fire Lord Azulon's court. They had money and wanted their sons to take up the lives of courtiers and scholars. My brother's guess is that my father and his two brothers were too wild for that life.

"It was a time when the Nation was realizing there was more to the world than our volcanic island and what little we had explored then of the Earth Kingdom. The empire was just beginning to turn the wheels of military expansion. He and his brothers signed into the army. According to records, they had long careers. One made a name for himself in our navy. My father and his other brother were mostly foot soldiers.

"Our weaponry and army were more sophisticated than anyone else's, and the Nation began leading raids on the Air Nomads and annexing more of the Earth Kingdom as Azulon's thirst for land and power grew. The Air Nomads were a pacifist people, and they refused to fight. They were wiped out—completely, at least that was what was thought. But the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes were more trouble. The Southern Water Tribe, split from the more powerful North, was the weaker target. My father was sent as one of many scouts early on to record the presence, numbers, and reach of the peoples and villages of the Southern Tribe. Each scout was given a section to report on…"

Her face was distant as she gazed out at the grey sea. "My brother and I are only guessing here, but he's looked at the old scouting records and reports the Nation keeps archived, and in my father's reports there is a large gap reporting no Water Tribe settlements, which much later maps corrected. We think our father purposefully left that gap in his report. It wasn't noticeable because the Tribe's settlements were patchy—some extended further south and there were actual gaps as well. The raiding parties took the scouts at their word and used their reports and maps to conduct their raids. So, by neglecting to report a village he'd found while scouting, my father protected the village for a very long time."

"Your mother's village," Toph guessed.

Namura nodded, the movement stiff. "He's never confirmed anything, but we think he met her while scouting that year. Maybe she caught him or something. Or maybe he just saw her and that was all. We don't know. We were too young to ask our parents questions like that while they were both there to ask."

Her memories of living in the ice and snow with both her parents when her family had been happy were dim. Sometimes the more she tried to retrieve of them, the more fabricated they seemed, like remembering dreams.

"Let's go inside," Nami said suddenly. "If I'm telling you my life story, I want to sit and get warmer."

Toph nodded. She followed Namura into the hull and into her cabin. The cot wasn't made for sitting comfortably, so the girls sat together on the floor. Namura pulled off her boots and wiggled her toes to stretch them. She yanked a blanket off the cot and spread it over her legs.

"So," Toph began, trying to guess the rest, "your dad and this Water Tribe lady had you and your brother and you guys lived in the village until the Fire Nation found you guys?"

Obviously Katara had not heard or had not given her the full account of what Azula had said.

Nami shook her head slowly. "No. It's much more complicated. My father never stayed with her very long in the beginning. Maybe they only met once. Maybe he stayed with her for months. But he had to check into the scouting camp every once in a while, and one time he went in, a string of messages found him. One of his brothers was confirmed killed in a battle in the Earth Kingdom, and his other brother had been missing at sea for two months. The Northern Water Tribe's fleet had capsized almost an entire fleet of ours on a particularly strong full moon when the Nation had made the mistake of anchoring too close to the city.

"It was really bad luck. Just bad fate. But he had to go home then. He had to console his parents with his presence and safety. He gave up the army. Within a few years, his parents had him married to a courtier's daughter like they'd always wanted. And not long after that, my brother Jareth was born."

"So you guys have different moms."

Nami's looked away. "Neither of us really had moms."

"Something happened to his mom?"

"She and our father had five years together. Jareth was born in the second year. But then the Red Plague hit the island."

Toph nodded slowly, understanding. Her mouth frowned sadly. "My parents told me about that. The Hososhin. They lost some family to it, too."

"It took my father's parents and then his wife. When he heard his elderly parents were showing the symptoms, he had my brother—who was almost three at the time—sent away to live with some of his wife's family far away from the crowded Capital. He stayed to take care of everyone and could really only watch as the disease took them. He waited a long time to get my brother again, until he had finished all the funeral rites for his parents and wife and until the disease had taken everyone it intended to and was fading away.

"When he showed up to get Jareth, he never returned to the Capital. He went straight from there to the South Pole and disappeared completely from the Fire Nation's sight for eight years."

Toph was nodding. She stretched and lay down flat on the wood cabin floor. Namura did the same, lying flat to her with her hands behind her head.

"So do you remember her?" Toph asked. "Your mother?"

Namura considered this question, frowning. She shrugged. "I remember being close to her a lot when I was really little. For warmth. She and my father carried Jareth and me close to their bodies in the front when we were little like most Water Tribe people do with their kids. And I think I slept close to her, too. I don't remember her speaking voice, but I can remember her singing voice. She could sing well. And she was funny. Witty, I guess. And pretty. Y'know. Charming.

"But," —Nami paused, her lips tightening, debating how to explain— "she wasn't… You know, like Katara. She wasn't really very warm or kind. I mean, no one in that village was exactly tame—everybody was a little bit wild. And she was gentle somethe time, but she was sort of…unpredictable. My father was the steadier one."

After a moment's pause, Nami added, "She lied a lot. Little things, big things… Like she couldn't help it. Sometimes she would say she was going to be gone for a couple hours, and then be gone out on the ice by herself for three days. That kind of thing never bothered our father, but Jareth and I hated it." She realized she sounded bitter.

Toph's eyes were milky and they didn't focus on her. But Namura felt she was watching her closely all the same. Or rather, listening closely to the words beneath her words. Toph said softly, "Katara said once while she and Aang were training that water was the most changeable element. Sometimes it's gentle and nurturing, but it can turn on you the next moment. It can be ice. It can be hard enough to carve rock."

Nami smiled, though it didn't reach her eyes. "She wasn't always cold, but she was hard. Changeable, I guess, like you said. And she wasn't…feminine. You know what I mean? She was tough. Sort of…formidable. Her hair was always snarled. She never combed it. And she hunted seals. She was known for it. I don't know if you know, but seals are massive and their hides are insanely tough. The bulls get really aggressive, too. But my mother would go out with a spear and a couple razor-sharp knives, and then she'd have a seal for the dogs to drag back to the village."

Toph was chuckling. "That's badass."

Nami didn't chuckle with her. "She would skin them for clothes and everything. But the fur of the adults is grey and not as warm or soft as the white fur of the babies. Jareth and I...we always had white parkas."

Toph grimaced. "Well…ya gotta do what ya gotta do."

They were quiet for another moment. Nami liked that Toph gave her minutes to think about what she wanted to say.

"She and my father were crazy about each other," she said finally. "They fought sometimes, and when they did it was really explosive, but they never fought for long, and they seemed to understand each other. They respected each other. My mother never ordered him around or hurt him, and he never let anyone speak badly of her. He didn't keep my mother in a cage—but still she was tied to him. She didn't want anyone else. I think everyone else bored her.

"The Tribe villages… They're different from the Earth Kingdom or Fire Nation with its royalty and nobility. Nobody was noble in that village. Everybody was needed and important. Men weren't stronger than women, there were no—y'know—classes, and no one held up any stupid ideas about relationships and propriety like people do in the Nation or Earth Kingdom. In the Nation, everyone's so uptight about sex and marriage and doing everything 'properly'—which is according to some old tradition.

"It wasn't like that in the village. Men and women formed relationships and broke them as things flowed. Some relationships had children, some didn't. No one was ever bound to anyone else with any laws—because, honestly, if you want to be loyal to a partner, no law is going to hinder you or ensure that you are. If you want to be disloyal, no law's going to stop you. So what's the point of that nonsense?

"Growing up, I saw my mother and father kiss. I heard them make love in the night. Everybody on the village could sort of hear everybody and it didn't need to be so private since it wasn't anything anybody should have been ashamed of. I know that must sound weird to you. But…it's just a different culture."

Toph shrugged. "It might sound weird to others, but growing up seeing as I do—I felt everything. Saw everything. I couldn't help it. Neighbors in their houses, my own parents. It's not weird to me, either."

Nami chuckled, imaging that. But her eyes grew pensive again. "When I think back to that time, I remember my father holding me more. My mother wasn't always someone I could go to. She was just as likely to laugh at me as to hold me. I remember my father's voice and smile better. I remember the way his arms looked as he hauled in a net, or how quick his big, pale fingers were as he flipped salmon on a spit. I remember him guiding my firebending, too, in the beginning."

"Right—you had to learn firebending in a Water Tribe village," Toph laughed. "How did people feel about that?"

"By the time I can remember, everyone was comfortable with my father and Jareth and me. Jareth can firebend, too. My father taught us for a while, when we were really little, but there was a waterbending master in our village—Master Innu—who had taught the other few waterbenders in the village. But he didn't have many pupils anymore because all the other children in the village were teenagers by the time I was old enough to walk. He took interest in Jareth and me and began to work with both of us on our bending.

"Jareth says it took a while for him to figure out how to teach us. How the two bendings differed and were similar. We were fascinating to him and he studied us for a couple of years, apparently. I was too young to have any memories of that. As far back as I can remember, he understood my bending, and taught me to firebend with slightly altered waterbending moves."

"That's cool."

"Yeah. My father kept an eye on it, but he let Innu teach us how he wanted. Sometimes he would teach us something extra, but I think he respected Innu, and so he didn't interfere. Maybe he realized how special and effective the moves we were learning were."

"How did your mother feel about your bending?"

"She loved it. She would always ask to see moves and praised us. She didn't resent anything. She had her own strengths—she didn't need bending. And she never treated Jareth badly because he wasn't her son. She treated him like her own. It's not the Water Tribe way to ever hold a grudge against a child for the way they were born or who they were born to.

"She was never afraid of what we could do, either. She was not a coward, my mother. Other people in the village sometimes shied away when Jareth and I did any particularly potent bending. But when he and I would get into fights, she would just step right in and break it up, even if her skin was burned. She never seemed to care about pain."

"I can picture her," Toph said. "From everything you've said. You started out like you couldn't remember much, but you can remember a lot."

Nami glanced at her. "You're easy to talk to."

Toph smiled, looking genuinely pleased. "I do pride myself on my listening skills."

Nami nudged her shoulder. "So what's your story, kid? How'd you end up the Avatar's earthbending master?"

"Wait," Toph said gently. "You weren't at the end of yours yet."

Nami shrugged. "When I was seven years old, the Fire Nation destroyed my life. The end."

"What happened to the village?"

Namura was quiet for a moment. Then she began in a low voice, sighing with resignation: "My father suspected they would find the village eventually, so he'd set up a scouting system of his own using people from the village. We didn't get a lot of news where we were, but we'd still heard news of increased raids and attacks. Some villages had been scoured for waterbenders and each one killed. Everyone in our village knew if a Fire Nation scout was spotted, we would have to quickly pack up and move inland where it was safer. Water Tribe villages can pack up overnight."

She continued in an apathetic voice, "But we must have missed the scout. Three ships full of soldiers attacked us in the early morning, right after the moon set. Everyone woke up to screaming. They were throwing oil on everything—including people—and lighting it up.

"My brother and I got thrown into someone's home near the center of the village with other people who couldn't fight while people defended us. But it stared to cave in under the oil fire, so we had to go out again. Innu was the strongest waterbender, so they had concentrated on him first. He was in a heap of furs on fire when we got out into the snow. I remember it because when I saw it, my bladder get go. My legs were cold all that morning because of it. My mother was fighting with her knives and spears, and she had two waterbender boys helping her. Her nephews, I think. My cousins. I can't remember exactly.

"My father was terrifying. I remember being terrified watching him, but also glad, because I thought he'd be able to kill everyone. He killed so people, so many soldiers, and I was happy to see each one burning or broken. But there were so many of them, and they had uniforms and rhinos and the oil. Oil fires are ready hard to put out. They just burn and burn.

"Things didn't happen quickly. That's the strongest part of my memory—the impression of how long everything took. How long the fighting was, how long it took people to die after being fireblasted to the chest or stomach or burning to death. How long soldiers took to bleed out after my mother stabbed them all over their front. Everything took a long time. It took so long, my tears dried up.

"My cousins were killed, and my mother had lost her spear in some soldier a while back. Her face was splattered in blood from the men she'd killed. Her parka had caught fire, so she'd taken it off, but the clothes she was wearing had caught fire in some places too, and she'd put it out with her hands, so her hands were red and bleeding. It was too cold to be without a parka, so her lips were going blue. Four men converged on her. Only one of them was a bender, and he downed her with a blast to her chest and the others killed her with a spear and swords. When they moved off, she was piked into the snow through her lower chest like a trout.

"My father reacted like you'd expect, but he was only able to kill a few more before they had iron clamps around his hands and feet. Jareth and I had broken free of the arms of the older people who were holding onto us and tried to attack the soldiers with our firebending. It must have looked comical. One of them cuffed Jareth in the head and sent him sprawling. Me they just advanced on and I froze in my tracks. I was too terrified of them. Behind us, they were finishing off the people too weak to fight. They tossed oil on, and then set the pile ablaze." Her voice had gone strange. Toph was staring at her. The little girl's hand darted out to rest on her hand.

Nami swallowed. "The soldiers had seen Jareth and me firebend, so they didn't know exactly what to do with us. If we were Fire Nation, we had rights. We could only be sentenced by a court back on the island, like my father had to be. My father told them that we were both Fire Nation—both Jareth's mother's—Lady Kame's—children. Jareth had the white skin to fit the story, but mine was a smidge too tan. We could hear them discussing it. They were talking about killing me and taking my brother back with them.

"I remember the moment, because my father seemed to give up. He stopped arguing and just let them talk about murdering me. But my brother—who was ten or eleven—heard the discussion and started screaming about how I was his sister and we had the same mother. He held onto me and just screamed his fool head off at them. They didn't want to deal with it, so they just took both of us. They loaded us all on a ship and left. They didn't bury anyone. To them, Water Tribe people weren't human and didn't deserve the burial rites of people. Jareth and I can't honor our mother on Obon because she was never…" Her jaw had grown too tight to continue. Toph squeezed the top of her hand. Nami moved on.

"Anyway, it was left to the new Fire Lord—Ozai—to decide our fates. He was launching all all-out war by this point, and the way my father looked as well as his history must have impressed him. Clean, and in Fire Nation dress, my father probably looked truly intimidating. He'd always been a powerfully-built man, and years of living and working in a Tribe village had made him really strong. Ozai sanctioned him for the war effort. We don't know the particulars, but Jareth thinks he probably threatened our lives for compliance. The life had gone out of our father, so Jareth doubts he would have given a shit about Ozai sentencing him to death. So there must have been another reason he agreed.

"We were deemed innocent by the courts and sent to live with Jareth's mother's family. It was a big, busy house in the Upper Ring, and we were never paid too much attention to. Our father very rarely visited—the war kept him far away.

"Jareth's mother's family didn't like me much. The lady of the house was the only one who knew the truth about me, and she kept it to herself, because it would have brought shame to her household if people knew what I was. But she thought I was trash so I avoided her. The whole house sort of saw me as a symbol of disrespect to Jareth's mother, but accepted me after a while.

"Jareth and I hated the Fire Nation in the beginning, of course, but he shed it after a few years. He was a hit with everyone. He was ambitious, affable—everyone in the house liked him and said he was like his mother. Kids at school liked him. And to be honest, the Fire Nation is like any country—it has its terrible people and its kind people. People are people. So he and I went to school and grew up in the Nation just like any other kids. Despite the bitterness I chewed on like a bone, I admit it became home. There were always people in the big house—young people to play with, old people reading, things cooking—and I made friends at school. Jareth and I got some formal firebending training and kept our old moves fresh by dueling with each other in private.

"After three years away, our father returned on leave. We were brought to him in the sitting room of the big house and left alone with him. He looked… Well, I didn't recognize him. I felt no impulse to run to him. I could sense immediately that he wasn't the man who used to take care of us. I was afraid of him.

"Jareth had just turned thirteen and looked old for his age. Our father gave him a long look and started asking him questions. He didn't seem warm, but he wasn't angry, either. He seemed interested in Jareth's life. He never asked me any questions or looked at me. When Jareth tried to bring me up in the conversation, his eyes would convulse with this little twitch like he'd swallowed poison, and he would ignore the implication to bring me into the conversation."

"How could he do that?!" Toph demanded, furious for her sake. "He still could have been a father to you guys! How could he just become a different person like that?!"

Nami shrugged apathetically. "I'm not him, so I don't know. He's a bitter old shell of a man now. It doesn't hurt me because he's not my father anymore. That man died on the ice."

"Did you say anything to him?"

"No. But after he dismissed us and we left that room, Jareth told me he'd never let him see me ever again. He was furious. And disappointed. I was too young to know how to be disappointed. I just felt like trash. Like I'd done something terribly wrong that had made my father hate me.

"Jareth kept his word. He always went alone to him whenever he visited and didn't allow me to sit through that treatment ever again." Namura was quiet as she remembered.

"I'm going to go alone. If he asks to see you, I'll spit in his face. He can't treat you like that again," Jareth growled, pulling on his nice clothes and straightening them in the glass.

"He'll probably be glad I'm not there. He probably won't even ask." Nami perched on her brother's bed pad, her feet tucked under her. She picked at her thumbnail nervously and then tugged on her hair.

"He's not our father anymore," he replied, "and there's no reason for you to let some angry old man hurt you, Nams." There was a coldness in his voice not directed at her. He was savoring that coldness for someone else. He finished straightening his clothes and came over to squat in front of her and look in her face. "Do you want to go back in that room with him?"

She shook her head quickly. "I—I don't want to go."

"That's why you won't have to. I'll be back in a while." He left, closing the door behind him, but Nami waited until he was all the way down the stairs before opening it and sneaking off after him. She snuck through the house to the wide back hallway and doublewide sitting room doors just as they closed again. She tiptoed up to them to listen.

"Father," Jareth greeted curtly on the other side of the closed doors.

There was a brief silence.

"No bow today?" their father asked. "You bowed so well two days ago."

"Yes, I bow well—everyone says so."

Another pause. Nami could hardly believe her bother.

Their father let it go. He commented, "Your grandmother dresses you finely. I'm glad to see that."

"She takes good care of me."

Nami heard the sound of them both sitting on the upholstered furniture.

"You're alone," their father stated. Nami's heart hammered. She didn't want him to force her into that room where his ignorance could stab worse than any wound. She clenched her jaw.

"My sister isn't here, you mean," Jareth replied coldly, sounding older than thirteen. "My sister Namura your daughter isn't here with me, is that what you mean to say, father?"

Silence.

Jareth continued, "Your daughter Namura isn't here because I will not allow you to see her. Not after the way you treated her two days ago. If I wanted my sister to be ignored, I'd teach her to pray."

"Do you speak to all your elders this way?" There was anger at the edge of their father's tone that frightened Nami to her bone marrow, but her brother was seemingly unaffected.

He replied coolly, "I could tell you I don't. I could tell you I do. I could lie to you all day about myself and you wouldn't know the difference."

There was quiet. Nami's pounding heart seemed deafening to her. She had never heard her brother behave this way to anyone. Wasn't he afraid?!

"The truthfulness of your answers to my questions is up to you, that is true," their father agreed after a moment. He sounded calmer than Namura expected after her brother's egregious rudeness. "I hear your marks in school are good."

"They're fine. I like history. It's funny to me, the way they teach it here. I'm always laughing in class and no one understands why. Mathematics is complicated, but rewarding. Nami's marks are poorer. She doesn't play the game like I do. She doesn't like Fire Nation authority. Surprising, I know." His tone was coolly sardonic.

"Your grandmother says your firebending is exceptional. That your trainer is raving about you."

"He takes credit for the hard work another man did long ago," Jareth muttered. "Don't toy with me. We both know why my bending is so impressive to these people so set in their traditional forms. And Nami is just as good as I am but doesn't get the recognition."

"Despite your bluster, that was a humble thing to say," their father mused. "Kame, your mother, had the same humility."

"The only mother I knew hunted seals," Jareth replied coldly.

There was the sound of chair legs scraping against a wooden floor.

"That is enough for today," came their father's hard voice. "I will visit again two days from now."

Nami scurried back down the hall away from them.

"But didn't you find Zuko in the Earth Kingdom?" Toph was saying. "When did you move there?"

Nami laughed darkly. "When I was fourteen, I had two years left of school and Jareth was already gone. My father hadn't visited the house since Jareth had left it, but one day he saw me in the city. We both saw each other. He hadn't laid eyes me in five years. The expression on his face was...well, I'll never forget it. After that, Jareth's mother's family began packing my things. I asked them where I was supposed to go but got no answers. Apparently 'gone' was the only place I needed to be."

She shrugged. "It didn't bother me that much. I was a lot older then and already itching to get away from the Nation, anyway. The family sent me away with a lot of money, too, which was kind of them. So I traveled and explored for a long time. Worked in different places."

She smirked. "I really enjoyed it. No one knew me or who I was. I could be anyone. And if I didn't like an identity I crafted in one town, I could leave and make a new one in a different place. And there had been a couple boys before in the Fire Nation, but now that I was out in the world, I felt freer and stronger. There was an earthbending boy I was with one spring and summer. Then a fisherman's son and then a street dueler." She laughed, and Toph giggled.

"I visited the South Pole, but there wasn't much left of it, and what was left was concentrated in the center and heavily protected. I wasn't allowed near. They didn't know me and I didn't know them. I didn't stay. I saw some Air Temple ruins and visited some other islands. I stayed on one for a while that had a jungle with waterfalls. There were these women there—they weren't benders, but they had a sort of commune, and I was drawn to how free they were. I stayed with them for a year."

"Aw, I'm jealous," Toph admitted. "I'd love to travel and see more of the world like you."

"Seems like you're seeing plenty how that you're involved with this little group."

Toph grinned. "Yeah. So how old's your brother now?"

"He's twenty."

"And you're, what, seventeen?"

"Yeah."

"How long has it been since you've seen him?"

"A few years. He's a soldier in the Fire Nation army. Or he was, last I knew."

"What?!" Toph stared at her. "After what the army did to your family?! He joined it?!"

Nami looked to the ceiling, a smile playing at the corner of her mouth. She shrugged. "He has his reasons."

Toph still looked disgruntled. "If you say so…"

Jareth was waiting to walk home with her as usual beside the stone pillars at the entrance of their school. He had his books under an arm and was pretending not to notice the girls from a grade below him who were half hiding behind a pillar and giggling over him.

He looked the same as always except for his eyes. There was a manic sort of gleam in them that she had never seen before.

"I read something in school today," he said before she could ask as they began to walk.

"Most of us do that every day."

"Listen." His voice was low with an intensity that she didn't understand. "Fire Lord Ozai has this group of Imperial Firebenders who serve him and his family as personal soldiers and guards. They're called the Royal Procession. The article said that they are the people he trusts the most." His voice dropped further and Nami had to walk closely to hear him. "The people he trusts the most are the people he is the most vulnerable around."

She began to catch his meaning. He continued, "I'm going to become one, Nams. My name is good and so is my connection to Father. Grandma says he's been rising in the ranks because he's so powerful in battle. He might even be made a general. Ozai will trust me because he trusts Father. And when I'm close enough…" His eyes had the manic look in them again.

Namura snorted with derision. "It's never going to happen."

"It's the plan, Nams."

She eyed him. When Jareth set his mind to something, he was able to win it. To accomplish it. But this one was simply too big. Too crazy.

"Say you actually managed all that. What would happen to you after you…" She glanced around a bit fearfully and whispered "...killed the Fire Lord?"

"I'd be happy."

"But what would happen?"

"I don't care. They'll probably kill me. But just think of it, Nams. I'll knife him until there's no more blood in him to ooze out and then I'll burn him. I'll just bathe him in flames until the skin melts off his face. I'll scatter him and throw him in the street so he can't be honored like we can't honor Mom."

The thought was sweet as candy. "I wish you could," she muttered.

"I'll do my damndest. We'll see how far I get." He flashed a fearsome smile and slung a lazy arm over her shoulders.

He had begun specialized firebending training after that day, and in his last few years of high school more often than not he'd had his nose in a military history book or map. He joined the Nation's military after he graduated high school to the heartbreak of half the girls in his graduating class, and since Namura had been forced to leave home and wander, they had fallen out of contact.

"You should go see him," Toph said. "I bet it would do you good."

Nami blinked at her. "I can't. You guys need me here. And I don't even know where he is."

Toph was sucking on her tongue thoughtfully. "You could find him if you tried to. You're breathing easier talking about him. Did you notice? It's made you feel better. We need you around for now, but maybe we'll find a time when you could go to see him."

"Maybe," Nami murmured.