Title: Blood, Silk, and Steel
Rating: T, although the rating may go up.
Warnings: AU, dark!Sokka, character death, bad language, references to sex (nothing explicit) extreme violence, and general conniving and cruelty on behalf of the people you would expect it from. And in this chapter, from people you wouldn't expect it from.

Disclaimer: Um, this is fanfiction. Hopefully you realize that this means I own nothing you recognize here.

Author's Notes: Is anyone still following this? I admit I've dropped the ball on updating this story, but finally, here's the next chapter. It's not as long as some of my other chapters, but it moves the plot along, at least. And also, because this is a complicated story and I haven't updated in forever and a day, I've even included a recap with the main highlights. There are very long notes at the end. But now, without further ado:

Chapter 26

Previously, on Blood, Silk, and Steel

Where Kya was supposed to die, Hakoda was slain instead. For reasons that haven't yet been fully explored, this led Sokka down a much darker path. When the exiled Prince Zuko came to the Southern Water Tribe in search of the long-lost Avatar Aang, Sokka gladly betrayed his sister, his village, and the Avatar, helping Zuko capture Aang in exchange for passage out of the Southern Water Tribe. Arriving in the Fire Nation, Zuko was received with open arms by his father and his people, but soon it became evident that the secret to Zuko's success was in fact the eerily charming savage, and Sokka became a well-place member of the Fire Lord's Court. The story starts 3 years later: Sokka and Azula have become confidants, accomplices, and lovers. A string of gruesome murders has terrorized the Palace City and thinned the high command of the Fire Lord's Navy.

This presents the Fire Lord with a problem, as it had been his intention to invade and destroy the Northern Water Tribe Civilization, leaving only Ba Sing Se (which the Fire Nation has twice failed to bring to its knees: once during the legendary 600-day siege led by the Dragon of the West, and once during the Day of Sozin's Comet) as a major force with which to contend. Now, without anyone to lead the invasion, he is thinking of putting Prince Zuko at the head of his army. This development displeases Azula, either Zuko will triumph, and so secure his place in line for the throne, or he will fail and weaken the Fire Nation, which Azula aspires to lead as Fire Lord one day. She convinces Sokka to go in Zuko's stead, and together they convince the Fire Lord that it is his idea to send Sokka as a double agent to invade the Northern Water Tribe from the inside. In exchange for delivering the Northern Water Tribe to the Fire Nation, the Fire Lord promises Azula's hand in marriage to the charming savage. Sokka then begins the ruse, falling in with a band of captured Water Tribesmen, among them his father's friend, Bato, and Pakku. Immediately, Bato trusts Sokka as the son of the admired Chief Hakoda, but Pakku is less trusting, intuiting that Sokka's appearance is all too convenient. Nonetheless, Sokka, Bato, and Pakku stow away on a Navy ship. In the North, Sokka almost dies of hypothermia, but is brought back to life by Princess Yue and the Moon Spirit. A romance buds between Sokka and the Northern Princess, prompting Sokka to rethink his plans and intentions, but alas, their love is not to be. Yue is married to Hahn and pregnant with his child; she refuses to revolt against tradition and leave Hahn for Sokka, who, thus rebuked, rehardens his heart and proceeds with his dastardly plan.

Back home, in the Fire Nation, all is not well. The Dragon of the West is convinced that Sokka is the perpetrator of the string of murders. Princess Azula, who knows this to be true, and in fact, has been supporting Sokka in his murderous campaign, takes it upon herself to disprove the Dragon's theory, by donning the disguise of the Blue Spirit, and attacking the retired General. She mauls him, blinding him and tearing his face to shreds, but is prevented from killing him by the timely arrival of Prince Zuko, who earlier had quarreled with his uncle over the latter's suspicions. Iroh lives to fight another day, but Zuko is plagued by guilt. He decides to travel to the Earth Kingdom to seek the Blind Bandit, whom he finds, but there he is arrested by the police forces under the influence of the Bei Fong family.

Azula arrives in the Northern Water Tribe in Zuko's stead to find that Sokka has managed to obtain the unconditional surrender of the Northern Water Tribe. She negotiates the peace and establishes the Water Tribe as a de-facto colony of the Fire Nation, with Chief Arnook as a vassal to the Fire Lord. Azula and Sokka also discover a young doctor, Flem, who has discovered a wonder drug that can cure infections. However, when Sokka and Azula are attacked by Northern Water Tribe nationalists (who underestimate Azula as a result of her sex), Azula's lightningbending fails inexplicably, leaving the Princess so shocked that she receives a nearly fatal wound. Azula has a vision of Agni, who tells her he will come to her aid three times and requires her blood as payment. Sokka learns from Pakku that the water of the Spirit Oasis may restore Azula, and indeed, it does, but there is serious doubt in Flem's mind as to whether Azula will be able to bear children. Tensions rise between Sokka and Azula when the Princess refuses to allow Sokka to murder Ling's daughter, Lei-Ming. Now en route back to the Fire Nation, Azula and Sokka find each other at odds, with Sokka seriously considering whether to throw his support behind Zuko.

Another surprise awaits Sokka in the Fire Nation, for while the Dragon of the West failed to convince the Fire Lord of Sokka's nature as a psychopathic serial killer, he did manage to make the Fire Lord think twice about allowing his beloved Princess Azula to marry a savage of such inferior provenance.

In Ba Sing Se, the Earth King learns from Long Feng, a thin shade of his former self, that the Water Tribe has fallen to the Fire Nation. The City of Walls and Secrets is darker than ever before. Bosco is a blanket.

And now, we return to Prince Zuko, who is captured and alone in Gaoling.

Zuko looked up at the wooden ceiling. It was stupid. The bars were made of metal, but the building was made of wood. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to just burn a hole through the wall and walk out. Except, the Prince of the Land of the Kindling Flame knew that if he did that, he'd have every earth-bender in Gaoling on him, and while he was confident he would be able to take on five Earthbenders by himself, and thought he could probably take on 20 if he needed it, and 100 if he had support from the small guard that had accompanied him, he knew that Gaoling was a large commercial port with a population of maybe 100,000 and a well-equipped police force.

He had already tried to bribe his way out. He'd offered his jailer his weight in gold, and the old man had laughed at him. "I doubt you've got that much money, and even if you did, the ire of Lao Bei Fong wouldn't be worth my weight in gold."

The other easy option, of course, would be simply to explain who he was and hope that Lao Bei Fong would attempt to ransom him. But that was risky, because Bei Fong was rich enough and might just as well hand him over to the Earth King, and if the Earth King didn't simply put his head on a pike and send his heart to his father in a gift-wrapped box, he might try to ransom him for a few generals, and while Zuko was pretty sure that his father (or at least, his uncle) would pay money for Zuko's safe return, he didn't think his father would trade him for a few generals. [1]

"This would never have happened to Azula," he muttered bitterly to himself. Azula would never have passed up the chance to conduct the surrender negotiations with the Northern Water Tribe to come find a little blind girl to help Uncle. Azula would never have let herself be captured so easily. And then, even if Azula were captured, Zuko knew, he just knew she'd be able to get out without so much as a scrape.

"What would Azula do?" he asked himself.

The first thought that came to him was that Azula would burn Gaoling to the ground. Azula could burn Gaoling to the ground, if she wanted to. His sister was a force of nature. But, just as soon as he thought it, he realized he was wrong. As much as she loved to set things on fire, his sister wasn't stupid. She wouldn't do something so pointless and resource-intensive. So what would Azula do?

Make Lao Bei Fong wet himself, the thought came unbidden. Zuko laughed and his jailer yelled at him to shut up. There were four men in the whole of the world who weren't terrified of Azula: his father, his uncle, his soon-to-be brother-in-law, and him. Azula's smile possessed a special double talent: it could convince men to lay down their lives, or to take them, as she needed.

Azula would talk herself out of the jail cell, and then she'd talk Bei Fong into wetting himself, and into letting her walk out of Gaoling unscathed. And that was if she was alone. If she had others to back her, she'd talk Bei Fong into giving up Gaoling to the Fire Nation. Or maybe she'd talk his guards into doing it for him. All Azula would need to do would be to lie.

Azula always lied.

But that was it. Azula would lie, and he realized, that if he ever wanted to see his sister and Sokka, Uncle Iroh and the Fire Lord, he would have to lie to Lao Bei Fong. First he'd have to lie about who he was in order to get to Lao Bei Fong, easy enough, he'd been doing that already, and then he'd have to lie about the kind of support he had; he'd have to lie about the sort of support his father would send, and his reason for being in Gaoling in the first place.

And if he could get Toph to play along, then maybe he could get out of this alive. And if he really played his cards right, well… maybe he could show Azula up.

Zuko knew what they said about him behind his back. He knew his father still considered him a fuck up. Even when he had returned with the Avatar, his father's smile had never really reached his eyes. Instead, he'd cast long distrustful gazes at his Uncle, at least until he'd figured out the role Sokka had played in capturing the child Avatar, and then he had cast long bemused glances at the noble savage.

He knew his father had considered sending him to oversee the invasion of the North Pole. He knew his father had not been particularly happy at the prospect, and knew how relieved the Fire Lord had been to find that Sokka was ideally suited to the task. Zuko bore Sokka no ill will—Sokka was after all his best friend, and Zuko had no doubt the noble savage was quite capable. And he knew how Sokka felt about his sister. If Sokka could succeed in taking over the Northern Water Tribe, and in so doing, secure Azula's hand in marriage, Zuko wasn't going to complain. He was glad to have Sokka on their side and would be glad to have Sokka in his family. And besides, though Zuko loved Sokka as a brother, and knew he was worth at least as much as any highborn son of fire, Zuko doubted his father would want Sokka's sons sitting on Agni's throne.

Zuko also knew that his sister thought he was a fool for letting her go to the North to negotiate the peace. And he knew that she was wrong.

First, he had a duty to his uncle.

But more than that?

There was nothing to be gained from going to the North. Sokka was capable. Zuko was confident that Azula had found the Northern Water Tribe subdued and amenable to any request she might think of. He also had no doubt that if he had gone to the North, as his father had requested, no one would attribute any triumph to Zuko. It would be like with the Avatar all over again; true or false, whispers would follow him in the palace corridors: Prince Zuko, so weak, so reliant on the Savage.

And if anything went wrong? Then it would all be his fault. Going to the North was a no-win situation. But here, in Gaoling, with only a handful of men to support him, without Sokka or his Uncle, here Zuko could win. And if he won, the victory would be all his. And Azula would turn green with envy.

Of course, he could lose too. But he decided not to think about that.

He would focus on winning. And he would win. And so, Zuko began crafting the lie that would let him win, and for once, show up his immaculate sister.

Jin brought his men, as he had requested.

Zuko felt the Captain's thick skepticism, but Zuko stood his ground. "Put the word out to the Blind Bandit that I want to speak with her. And prepare metal shackles and a fish tank deep and wide enough to hold me. I want it reinforced with steel. The Blind Bandit looks like a girl. She's as skilled with earth as my sister is with fire—we'll have to attack her in of doors if we have any hope of defeating her."

Zuko didn't believe that the Captain was any more impressed with him after that order, but he was the Fire Lord's loyal servant, and Zuko knew he would be honor-bound to follow his orders.

Toph Bei Fong didn't know what to do. It had not been her intention to get Prince Zuko captured, and she felt bad about how she'd stood idly as her father had ordered the police to capture the boy. She knew the danger to his life; if her father learned who he really was, he'd hand the boy over to the Earth King for sure. Toph didn't have any illusions about her father's loyalty to the Earth King. Her father's loyalty was first and foremost to his own power and wealth, but if he could hand the Fire Lord's heir to the Earth King, he would be deeply rewarded, perhaps not with riches, but maybe with a title. Her father ruled Gaoling like a king, but he would appreciate the title of King of Gaoling.

She had liked the silly prince. In its hundred years, the war had scarcely touched Gaoling. As the other parts of the Earth Kingdom were turned to scorched earth, Fire Nation colonies, or impoverished city states, Gaoling had prospered under the stewardship of the Bei Fong family. Toph heard the rumors about what had happened in Ba Sing Se; about how the Earth King had gone mad. She heard the rumors about what the Fire Nation did, about how they ate children, washed down their thirst with the blood of virgins, and picked their teeth with the bones of men. She had never cared enough about the war to give any thought to whether the tales were any truer than the tales about the Avatar or the dragons. She had rarely thought about the Fire Nation, and never about its Prince. She wondered how she would have imagined him, if she had ever had cause to imagine him.

Tall and wicked, she decided, and clad from head to toe in black steel. She didn't really know what black looked like—some idiot had once told her that the only thing she could see was black, but Toph, who could see everything and nothing didn't find any meaning in that description—but she knew it was supposed to be a very foreboding color: the color of night and ash. Not small and sweet, awkward and self-aware, like he actually was.

Her father would hand him over to the mad old Earth King, who hated the Fire Nation with a burning intensity that rivaled the hottest of Agni's flames. The Earth King would kill the boy-prince, that was for certain, and if the rumors about Ba Sing Se after the second siege were true, that was the best Zuko could hope for. Her father would become the Earth King's vassal, no more a mere merchant, and she would become a princess. The prospect made her frown.

The next day in the ring she fought harder and dirtier than she'd ever fought before, and Xin Fu had to pull her aside and tell her there was no money to be made in murder. She was angry and frustrated; angry at her father, at Prince Zuko, and at herself.

So when the news came that the man who had been imprisoned by the order of Lao Bei Fong wanted to speak with the Blind Bandit, she went to him. Because after all, he seemed a sweet enough guy, and if she'd gotten him as good as killed, she owed him that at least.

She had intended to talk to him from outside his cell. She knew the jailhouse was floored with wood, not marble like her father's house, and it made her anxious, but Zuko's cell apparently wasn't connected to the outside, because he wouldn't answer her calls from behind the building. So she swallowed her fear and went into the jailhouse.

The jailer seemed to almost jump as soon as he recognized her, but he let her in to see Zuko. "The boy is just on the other side of the bars," the man said. "I'll be outside if you need me."

Toph heard the door close behind her. Zuko was silent. His silence and the wooden floor combined to leave her in an eerie darkness, and after a minute, when she couldn't bear it anymore, she called out to Zuko.

"What's the game, Princey?" she asked. "This building's made entirely of wood. Why haven't you busted yourself out yet?"

"Have you heard of neutral jin?"

"Wait and see. Yeah. So that's what you're doing? Waiting, for what? If my father finds out who you are, he'll hand you over to the Earth King!"

"My father would pay a handsome sum for me." There was an odd quality to Zuko's voice, but she couldn't feel his heartbeat, and wasn't sure what it meant. Maybe he was scared. Maybe he was angry. Either reaction would have been understandable.

"The Earth King would make my father King of Gaoling; that's worth more to him than the Fire Lord's gold."

"How curious. Well, why haven't you told your father who I am? You'd become a princess then."

"I don't want to be a princess. And I don't want them to hand you over to the Earth King."

"But you don't mind my being in this prison, do you?"

"You had no right to try and out me in front of my parents!"

"Well, what's done is done, and for that, I'm sorry."

Suddenly, two large weights fell from the rafters next to Toph. Her heart began to race as she realized that she was blind, away from her element, and in danger. The men at her sides grasped her hands and pulled her up. Struggling was useless. In a fair fight, she could have taken Zuko and his lackeys, but this wasn't a fair fight.

She yelled for the jailer.

"I'm afraid he won't be able to help you," Zuko said. "He's indisposed at the moment." Zuko didn't sound like Zuko, and Toph couldn't help but think of the mirthless wicked prince clad in black steel. "Restrain her," he ordered, and more arms grabbed her feet. There were more of them than of her, and they were bigger than she was. She couldn't move, she couldn't see, and she couldn't earthbend.

"Let me go!" she yelled as she tried to squirm away from her captors, but they held her fast.

She heard footsteps.

"Just so you know," Zuko's voice was cold, "This wasn't my intention. This wasn't what I set out to do when I came here."

Warmed metal shackles closed around her feet and hands, and the men who were carrying her started to walk to the side. They lifted her up higher, and then started to lower her. The minute her toes felt water, she knew what they were going to do.

"No!" she screamed. "Please! No! Don't put me in there!" she cried. But her pleas fell on deaf ears. The men let go of her feet and dropped her into a tank. She dropped in it until the water covered her head, and it took all her willpower to keep from screaming while still under water. Then she felt her hands be lifted up by the chain attached to the shackles at her wrists. She clutched at the chain and pulled herself up as high in the tank as she could, but she realized there was a lid. Pulling herself up so that her mouth was above water, her head hit off against the metal lid; her feet couldn't reach the bottom of the tank.

Toph was a brave girl, but she was terrified of water. She began to scream in a panic, to beg and plead with Zuko to let her out of the tank before she drowned in water and darkness.

Her only reward was to have an angry fist slammed against the tank. "Shut up," Zuko snarled. "Shut up, or I'll have them boil you alive."

Toph thought he was bluffing. She couldn't imagine the boy she'd met, so self-conscious about his scarred face, so willing to leave her alone, would boil a girl alive. But she also hadn't thought that he'd do something like this to her, and she couldn't feel his heartbeat.

So Toph did all she could to stay quiet as the tank she was in began to move, replacing her panicked screams with terrified whimpering.

Prince Zuko watched with clenched fists as his men ambushed Toph Bei Fong, falling from the rafters as the Blue Demon had fallen on his Uncle Iroh. He knew she was much more than a crippled girl—an incredibly powerful bender—but here, cut off from her element, she was a blind child, and in his mind, Zuko screamed at himself as he had four men take this scared child by surprise, bind her hands and feet, and lower her into the tiny pool of glass and steel he'd ordered them to bring for the task.

The girl did her best to struggle against his men, but obviously they overpowered her. Is this what honorable men do? He screamed at himself in his head. He knew the answer; but he also knew that it wasn't honorable to send loyal recruits to their deaths and it wasn't honorable hold a child hostage and burn out his eyes with hot pokers, to drive him mad with torture, and bind him, away from sun and moon and wind, to nearly starve him, but deny him even the mercy of death. So he merely clenched his fists tighter, grit his teeth, and steeled his resolve.

And then her bare feet touched the water and she began to scream and squirm in terror: "No! Please! No! Don't put me in there!" It made him sick to his stomach, and he was glad when she disappeared beneath the surface of the water with a splash. He himself reached into the tank after her and pulled her up, sliding the chain of her shackles through the lid, and shutting the tank.

Her panicked screams began again in earnest. "Please!" she begged, "Let me out! I can't see!"

It was such a stupid thing for a blind person to say, but it made Zuko realize what he'd done. He'd blinded Toph Bei Fong by submerging her in water. It was what he'd meant to do—he'd meant to take her away from her element to make her harmless. But he hadn't realized that in making her harmless, he'd also made her helpless. He'd left her in the dark and in deep water. He knew it wasn't uncommon for people to be terrified of the dark or to be terrified of deep water. As a child, before he'd learned to bend fire, he feared abject darkness like he now feared his father's wrath.

Toph's screams drained his face of color and made his knees grow weak. Still, he swallowed back the rising bile and hit the tank with his arm. "Shut up, or I'll have them boil you alive," he ordered. It was a lie. A badly crafted one, and he wondered if Toph would know him well enough to know it, or if she'd hear the shaking in his voice. But if she did, she shut up anyway, and the fact that she might have bought his threat was enough to make him sick.

He said nothing, because he feared his voice would betray him. Instead, he undressed himself, casting aside the fine green robes he'd been wearing. As quickly as possible, so as to not keep the girl in the dark any longer than needed, he put on the black silk under layer, and then his suit of black steel armor. He reached for the crown that marked him as Ozai's first-born heir, and slipped into his hair.

"How do I look?" he asked, his voice a whisper to keep it from wavering.

"Like a Favored Son of Agni. A conquering prince with an army of fifty thousand," his captain answered.

Zuko nodded, praying the man was being honest and not merely flattering him. He reached out for his broadswords. He had hoped to never again touch such weapons, after the way in which the Blue Demon had defiled his own collection in its attack upon his uncle, but Zuko knew he needed to be at his best, and there was no weapon in the world he trusted more than broadswords. Indeed, he was better with twin blades than he was with fire. Azula made it a constant point of mockery.

Finally, he let his men cloak him. The disguise would have to hold until they made it to Bei Fong's manor. His men were all cloaked like him, concealing their uniforms, which had been shined for optimal effect.

Silently, the prince led the way, out of the jailhouse. As he passed the idiot who had refused his bribe, still, badly burned, and lying in his own red blood, Zuko said a hushed prayer to Agni. He begged the Spirit Lord's favor. He prayed for luck in his ruse, and for forgiveness.

Zuko and his entourage drew strange looks as they passed through the streets of Gaoling. Silence and hushed whispers followed them, but only once did anyone dare approach him. The prince hid his face and answered that he and his brethren were traveling monks bearing a gift for Lao Bei Fong, the greatest man in Gaoling.

The guards at Lao Bei Fong's house were harder to deal with. They wouldn't buy the travelling monk routine. Zuko had to acknowledge that to his credit, Bei Fong didn't hire idiots. He was sure that would be cold comfort to their widows. But Zuko reminded himself that there was a war going on, and these grown men had been paid to risk their lives for the Bei Fong family. And besides, even if no one in Gaoling seemed to care for the Earth King, these men were still his subjects, and therefore acceptable casualties of war.[2]

Zuko's cloak was stained in blood by the time he found Lao Bei Fong and his wife.

"What are you doing here?" Bei Fong asked, the color draining from his face as he recognized Zuko.

Zuko said nothing, but as a guard ran against him, he merely swiped his sword, driven on by instinct, and the man crumpled to the floor, his throat slashed.

Bei Fong's face was painted with horror. "Who in Koh's name are you?"

Zuko put on his best impression of Azula's smile.

"I think the question, really, is who you are."

"What? I'm Lao Bei Fong! Everyone in Gaoling knows that."

"You're more than that, though, aren't you? You're king of Gaoling in all but name. You've made Gaoling prosper, and Gaoling runs as you command. You know, I tried to bribe my jailer. I offered him his weight in gold. But he was afraid of you. He said that much gold wouldn't be worth your wrath. Pity. He didn't realize how terrible my wrath could be. He should have taken the bribe."

"You killed the jailer."

"An unfortunate casualty of war. Unintended, unwanted, but ultimately, inevitable."

"Who are you?"

"Who are you? Merchant. Lord. Husband. Father." Zuko hit the metal box his men had brought. "Why don't you say hi?"

The girl screamed. "Please, please, let me out! I can't see, I can't see! I can't reach the floor and my arms are getting tired!"

"I'll let you out when the time's right. Now shut up, or I'll make good on my earlier promise," he shouted cruelly, and wondered how Azula could do this sort of thing with such ease.

Bei Fong's eyes widened. "You have my daughter! Let her out, monster!" He rushed forwards towards Zuko.

The prince sent a lazy jet of fire at the merchant's feet. Bei Fong stopped dead in his tracks. All the color was gone from his face and his eyes widened in fear, though, Zuko felt, not understanding. He reached up and pulled down his hood. Zuko noted with grim satisfaction how Bei Fong's eyes drifted up to his crown.

"Did you think I was a low-born burger, like you?" he asked with Azula's cruel smirk. It felt odd and uncomfortable on his face. "Such little imagination," he continued, "but what can one expect from a trader and usurer?

"My name is Zuko." When recognition didn't immediately dawn on Bei Fong's face, he continued: "Son of Ursa and Fire Lord Ozai. Prince of the Fire Nation and heir to the throne.

"My father the Fire Lord sent me to scout out the prospects of Gaoling," he lied. "At this moment, fifty thousand troops have surrounded Gaoling." His heart was racing in his throat, and Zuko prayed to Agni the lie wouldn't be too obvious. "The port is a gem, unsullied by the cruel war your Earth King has forced the Fire Nation to fight for the last century.[3] It wasn't a strategic position until we conquered the Water Tribes and doubled the size of our navy.

"So now you have a choice to make. Fifty thousand of my father's men stand at the ready to take Gaoling. If I do not return to them within the week, they will come looking for me. If they do not find me, or if they find my corpse, they will tear this city apart; they will burn it to the ground, and they will sow the ground with salt. The people of Gaoling have grown fat in peace. You do not stand a chance against my father's armies. I have your daughter at my mercy. So, I give you this choice: hand Gaoling over to my father, let me take your daughter as my hostage to ensure your loyalty, and Gaoling will proper under my father's kind protection, or defy me: you daughter will be the next casualty of this war and my father's wrath will rain fire upon this land."

And it was with grim satisfaction and mild disgust that Zuko read Lao Bei Fong's defeat in the fall of his shoulders. In that moment, Zuko knew he had triumphed. He had succeeded in procuring for the Fire Nation one of the most splendid ports of the Earth Kingdom, more importantly, Lao Bei Fong, the richest man in the Southern Earth Kingdom would swear his loyalty to the Fire Lord, and along with the man's loyalty would come the loyalty of his coffers.

He'd done it with nothing more than a handful of men, and he hadn't suffered a single casualty; he'd only had to kill a handful of men. And all he'd had to do was lie through his teeth, kidnap a blind girl, fill her with panic, and threaten to boil her alive.

Father would be proud.

Azula would be green with envy.

So, why did he want to vomit?

Author's Notes: Wow. It's been a long time. I mean, a LONG time. I haven't been as good with responding to some of the recent reviews; previously I had replied to every review I received, but I've been terribly busy with law school. If you reviewed this story and I didn't answer, then I'm sorry. I read it, and I enjoyed it, I can promise you that.

Part of the reason this chapter took so long to put out was that I have been terribly busy, and I'd been really enjoying myself and I tend to write this fanfic when I'm not terribly happy… It's just a sad fact of life. Instead of going to a headshrinker, I write about Sokka killing people when I'm sad. Another part was the tremendous writer's block I had early on in the chapter. One of the most fair criticisms of this story is how I've consistently portrayed Zuko as a fool. I've usually explained this to readers who raise the point by highlighting that (1) when I started writing this story, I was incredibly angry at Zuko for siding with Azula in Crossroads (since that was, IMO, an extremely stupid move). Zuzu sort of had the idiot ball through the early parts of S3, I think. But also, that (2) this story is told from the point of view of the hyper-competent villain protagonists (and I know some of you don't think of them as villain protagonists, but I assure you, Sokka and Azula are most definitely villains in my book), and not only does Zuko look less competent by comparison, but Sokka and Azula don't value some of Zuko's more notable positive qualities: loyalty and honor.

But… still, the point's been raised more and more, and rightly so, so eventually, I realized I would have to "redeem" Zuko, and it starts with Zuzu bringing Gaoling into the Fire Nation fold. This will be Zuko's first real success, and it will help to establish him as a credible threat to Azula's quest for the throne…

So I sent Zuko on this stupid little errand to the EK because unlike Azula, he's a good person, and helping his uncle is more important to him. If anyone pointed out that this was a stupid call on his part (and I'm almost certain that people did, but it was such a long time ago…), I hope I adequately addressed the reasons for why his choice was not as stupid as Azula thought in this chapter. You, dear readers, will have to tell me what you think.

The idea was always for Zuko to find himself stuck in a prison with very few resources, and then lying his way into getting Lao Bei Fong to let him take Toph to the FN, and also to get Gaoling under FN control. I had always intended to have Zuko draw inspiration from Azula—what would Azula do? She would lie, so that was what Zuko would do. But then I hit a HUGE wall of writer's block. The first page of this story has been on my hard rive for MONTHS now. I just couldn't think of a way of pulling it off. Yeah, so Zuko would just march up to Lao Bei Fong and lie about the armies surrounding the city… it seemed too easy. Zuko and I were both stuck.

I've also got a third reason (other than real life and writer's block) for not writing this fic, and that's that I've sort of lost interest in the Avatar fandom (ALTHOUGH! I found out when I was fact checking something that they're doing an S4 comic, and it looks absolutely baller, so I'm PSYCHED!) and I've been bouncing around the Young Justice anon meme. Most of my fics there are lighter in tone, but the other day, I was writing a chapter for an incredibly GRIMDARK fic I've got over there, and there were basically no good guys in that chapter, and I was like "You know, it's been a gazillion years since I wrote villain protagonists, and it's a hell of a lot of fun. So, I decided today to sit my ass in a chair and work on this.

I guess it was because I really wanted to write a villain protagonist (and Zuko's not a villain) that I was finally able to figure out how Zuko was going to pull it off. And he was going to pull it off by ripping a page from his sister and soon-to-be-brother-in-law's books and being an evil bastard. I hope it doesn't come across as too OOC (though, Zuko's one of the most inconstant characters on Avatar—he continuously switches sides and makes terrible choices (like, in the forthcoming comic. ZOMG! I AM SO EXCITED! It's not even funny… PM me if you want spoilers).

But the problem, of course, is that Zuko isn't Azula. He HATES what he's doing, or at least, the means he's using, and he hates himself for putting Toph through what he's putting her through. We're going to see him deal with this later. It's an important character moment, because deep down, Zuko knows that what the Fire Nation is doing is wrong. Or, maybe he doesn't think the war is wrong, but he does know that the methods the Fire Nation uses are wrong. And, I also think he's carrying a lot of guilt. There's a blink-and-you-miss-it reference to Aang here, for all of you who have asked where the young airbender is. Aang's position in this world is inspired by Zhao's comments in "The Blue Spirit. "Oh, don't worry, you won't be killed like they were. See, if you die you'll just be reborn and the Fire Nation will have to being its search for the Avatar all over again. So, I'll keep you alive but just barely." And Zuko is responsible for that. And he knows it's wrong. And he hates it.

I had a really hard time with this chapter, but I eventually really enjoyed writing it. Let's hope I can keep up a half-decent schedule—as you all know, reviews are much beloved, and they're certainly encouraging to getting me to write more. I don't know if I really pulled it off very well, but I hope you've enjoyed this nonetheless. As always, I'd love to hear your comments.

Footnotes:

[1] – Stalin's son was famously captured by the Nazis, who attempted to exchange him for a general. Stalin reputedly answered something along the lines of "a lieutenant is not worth a general" and left his son with the Nazis. Stalin's son died while in Nazi custody… I think I remember reading that there was some speculation that it was a semi-suicide prompted by the realization that his father wasn't going to help him.

[2] – It used to be the case, when wars were considered to be the wars of princes, that a prince's subjects were all fair game. Under this paradigm, Zuko would be entitled to kill any of the Earth King's subjects. Under the modern rule, which uses the "combatant" class as a proxy for threat, Zuko's actions here, if occurring in the context of an armed conflict, would be a war crime, because the intentional killing of any civilian is a war crime. (Note that one is still allowed to kill civilians in armed conflict as collateral damage, but the point of the killing cannot be to kill the civilian. This is deeply tied to the Kantian categorical imperative, and the idea that you should treat people as ends and never as means to an end.) It's pretty clear, however, from the show, that there is no existing law of war in the Avatar Universe. The Fire Nation routinely targets civilians, they don't seem to have any special protections for prisoners of war, and the Earth Kingdom routinely uses child soldiers (defined as soldiers under the age of 15). For the bits where the Gaang engages in battles against the Fire Nation without identifying themselves as combatants, they're unpriviledged combatants (probably civilians directly participating in hostilities.) Heck, even Sokka is a war criminal by modern standards. Dressing up in the enemy uniform with the intent to deceive the enemy (which Sokka does on multiple occasions) has been long forbidden as perfidy. Actually, now that I think of it, Azula engages in perfidy too when she dresses up as a Kioshi warrior. Of course those two love birds would use the same war-criminal techniques! No. Just kidding. I know Sokkla is a completely crack pairing. But still… Nice to see that they think alike, even though they're such different characters. It explains, at least a little bit, my attraction to the pairing. And yeah. It turns out that I am not only a history nerd, I am also a law nerd. Which is kinda great, on account of how I'm sinking a ton of cash into becoming a lawyer. Anyway, this means that war is a bit of a free-for-all in the BSS-verse, and you know what else it means? I get to have the characters develop a law of war! (Which will make the war lamer… but, um, character development!)

[3] So Gaoling is apparently actually in the mountains; it's not a port city. But… I imagine it as a major commercial center, why else would it be the home of Lao Bei Fong, and how else would he be so rich? I imagine Lao as something of a Medici… Not Lorenzo, certainly, but, you know, the mildly competent son of the robber barron who built the fortune (You know what they say about fortunes lasting three generations). I imagine Lao's father inherited a strong merchant position (as did Lorenzo) and was the first to leverage that and join it to political power, becoming the de-facto leader of Gaoling (as Lorenzo became the de-facto ruler of Florence). Lao didn't earn his fortune or his power, but he saw his father build the family empire, so he respects it enough not to waste it, and though he lacks the brilliance to continue the growth of his forefathers, he's reasonably competent. If Toph's blindness hadn't made her tough as nails, she might have become a foppish heiress who would have squandered the fortune. As it is, she's not. We'll see what she becomes. I guess it's possible for it to be situated in the middle of an important mountain pass, maybe even sitting on one of the major veins of commerce feeding into Ba Sing Se… But I like the idea of it being a port.