Chapter Thirty-Five

"I said move, you ignorant beast!"

Though Xin Fu tugged on the 60 pound chain that was looped tightly around each of the bison's six legs and served as a heavy metal collar for the animal, Appa would not be moved. Even maltreated and half starved, he retained a majestic dignity wrapped in an inherently defiant nature. The threat of beating or starvation did not deter him. He had been shuffled from one place to another for days now and he would endure no more. The ten ton bison had made up his mind and he would not be herded another step. Xin Fu would have to live with it.

Infuriated, the Earthbender raised his arm to strike Appa with his driving whip, but then lowered it at the last second because he recognized any attempts to beat the animal into submission would prove futile. The harder he pushed, the more willful the animal would become. Xin Fu's plan was not working out the way he'd imagined. The bison was simply more trouble than he was worth. Having slowly come to the conclusion over the course of the last few days, Xin Fu was beginning to consider cutting his losses. Only his stubborn pride and refusal to take a monetary loss kept him from doing so.

The plan had been a rather simple one. He would hold the Avatar's bison in a secured location and then initiate a trade agreement with the Airbender. In exchange for his pet, Xin Fu would demand that the Avatar give over the Bei Fong girl. Of course, he had planned to double-cross them both, not only extorting Toph's father for more money before handing her over, but also cashing in on the hefty price the Fire Nation had placed on the Avatar's head. He'd eventually free his hands of the bison, the Avatar and the girl and he'd be a rich man by the end of it all. The scheme had been ingenious…foolproof…or so he'd thought.

Unfortunately, he'd miscalculated the cost of caring for such a large animal. Appa nearly ate his weight in food on a daily basis and began quickly draining Xin Fu's money stores. He had cut back on feeding the bison in order to save some coin, but the result had made the animal sluggish and uncooperative. Xin Fu couldn't figure out how a thirteen year old boy had managed to command the shaggy giant seemingly without effort, but he had to resort to threat and violence and even then he couldn't always bend the animal to his will.

Only two days before, a smarmy circus barker had approached him with an offer to buy Appa off his hands. It seemed the man was in the market for a new star attraction, as he'd lost his prized acrobat a few weeks earlier. Xin Fu had refused him initially, recognizing the precious commodity he had in the Avatar's bison even when the beast was driving him crazy. Now, however, he was reconsidering his options, faced with yet another night of sleeping out in the open because no inns had any place to house an animal so massive. After all that, Appa's latest streak of obstinacy was the last straw for Xin Fu.

Flinging away his whip in disgust, Xin Fu collapsed down onto a nearby boulder and sneered at Appa. "I don't know why I bother with you," he muttered crossly, "I don't even like animals."

"Then allow us to take him off your hands."

At the sudden appearance of the three, immaculately dressed young women slipping through the cluster of trees, Xin Fu leapt to his feet, instantly falling into a defensive stance. At first glance, there was nothing wholly intimidating about them. Yet, there was a cold and menacing gleam in the eyes of the one who stood foremost. Something about the wicked expression on her face, the blatant promise in her golden eyes to wreak havoc and lay waste, raised Xin Fu's hackles and warned him of impeding danger. The fact that the bison reacted violently to their arrival only strengthened his suspicions.

In addition to that, Xin Fu couldn't help but be wary about three girls traipsing through the middle of the forest. Though they seemed young, he did not mistake them for naïve. In fact, when he pondered it a bit more, he realized that he had caught glimpses of them here and there over the course of the last several days. He came to the rather obvious conclusion that they following him. And in light of the bison's wild bucking, Xin Fu suspected the reason why.

"Who are you?" he growled menacingly, "and what do you want?"

"That's a simple enough question to answer," Azula chirped almost conversationally in response, "I'm here to take the bison."

Xin Fu laughed. "Move along, little girl," he scoffed, "The only way you're taking this bison is over my dead body!"

Azula released an expansive sigh. "If that's how you want it…"

The blaze of blue fire that surged from the girl's fingertips surprised Xin Fu, but did not frighten him. He recovered from his shock quickly, clasping a cradle of heavy rock about his body, shielding himself from her fiery attack. The girls converged on him together, launching their attack on him from all sides. In an attempt to stave off their advancing assault, Xin Fu spread his stance wide and stomped his feet against the ground, causing the surface to split apart. A large, jagged fissure formed in the earth's crust and created a gaping demarcation between him and his assailants.

Thrown off balance in the small quake, Mai grabbed hold of an overhead tree branch to keep from falling into the abyss, while Ty Lee sailed over it gracefully in a fluid cartwheel and Azula bounced from tree to tree, deftly avoiding the crack as it expanded across the forest floor. Ty Lee landed first and made several, stabbing jabs at Xin Fu's arms and chest. He skirted and scooted around her advances, counting her twisting steps against the ground so that when she made her final lunge at him, he trapped her ankles in earth. Once she was immobile, he twisted his wrists and quickly drilled her below the surface so that she was buried up to her neck. Helpless, Ty Lee stared up at him with a squeaking yelp of surprise.

However, Xin Fu didn't have time to crow over the victory. The other two were still advancing, intensifying their attack now that they realized they were one less. He caught sight of the deadly glint of the taller girl's shurikens in the sunlight before they went whizzing past his body in rapid succession, slicing out tiny ribbons of flesh with each deadly pass. The knives rained down in a cloud of blue fire and rising smoke.

Rolling out from beneath both girls' unrelenting strikes, which snapped trees limbs and ignited small blazes throughout the forest, Xin Fu decided to take them out one at a time. He concentrated his efforts first on the knife wielder. He found refuge behind an undamaged tree, only vaguely acknowledging that the Avatar's bison had gone missing. First, he would deal with the homicidal twits and then he would give that disrespectful animal a lesson he wouldn't soon forget.

As Mai stalked around the perimeter of the ring of trees where he was hidden, Xin Fu shot forth a linear shaft of earth that caught the stealthy teen unawares and knocked her to the other side of the forest. She lay still some fifteen feet away. Satisfied with the results, Xin Fu felt confident enough to face the remaining girl head on.

It was only the two of them now. They faced each other across the expanse of the broken forest. Xin Fu cracked his neck in preparation for the battle. Azula merely smirked.

"You really don't know who I am, do you?" she queried in an amused tone.

"I don't care who you are," Xin Fu retorted, "You're not taking my bison! No one steals from Xin Fu!"

"That's rather interesting, especially since we both know he's not your bison at all," Azula replied. "However, you've impressed me today. I'm willing to give you the opportunity to walk away with your life. You should take it."

"I'll pass," Xin Fu flung back dryly. "I've already taken care of your friends, now it's your turn!"

The heavy boulder he launched at her was disintegrated into a million particles of choking dust before it ever came close to reaching her. His attempts to lock her at the ankles in earth also failed. She darted and danced from underneath his attacks like a fleet-footed gazelle. Her survival instincts were remarkable, but her deadly precision was Azula's true crowning glory. She matched him blow for blow, singing his flesh with fiery kisses. Xin Fu had the vague impression that she was toying with him, holding back out of sheer boredom and not lack of prowess. That suspicion was confirmed a few seconds later when she made her final assault.

Rebounding from a broken tree stump, Azula planted herself on the ground and began dragging her feet across the surface, creating a crackling halo of electricity around her body. Xin Fu recognized the danger he faced mere seconds before the lightning surged into him in a sizzling rush, constricting his limbs and shocking his heart. His body quaked and convulsed with the sheer violence of the voltage before falling to the ground in a smoking heap.

Afterwards, Azula straightened and went to stand over him, mildly saddened by the outcome of their abbreviated duel. He had been a surprisingly formidable opponent and rather fearless. She'd liked his bold fighting style and she had to admire the sheer audacity he must have possessed to blithely kidnap the Avatar's bison and pass it off as his own. She wouldn't have minded keeping him around a bit longer. Unfortunately, his penchant for stubborn arrogance had been as great as his earthbending expertise. His death was almost a tragedy.

However, Azula wasted no tears for him. Instead, she quickly shook off the strange feelings of regret and turned her attention to more important matters. Her team had been disabled and the bison was missing. Those two things needed to be addressed immediately.

It only took her a few minutes to find Mai, who was still trying to shake off the grogginess created by Xin Fu's punishing wallop. Azula nudged the other girl's hip with the tip of her boot. "Get up," she ordered. "Find Ty Lee and dig her out of the hole she's in. I'm going after the Avatar's bison."

Appa hadn't managed to get far due to the heavy chains hampering his escape, so it did not take Azula very long to catch up with him. When the animal sensed the approaching danger he tried to knock Azula aside with several powerful swipes of his tail, but she had learned from past dealings with him and did not allow herself to fall prey to his wind blasts. When she landed in front of him a few seconds later, Azula shook her head in mild chastisement.

"Too bad for you, I'm a very fast learner," she taunted.

The mighty beast growled at her and, when he would have charged and trampled her, Azula threw up a wall of blazing blue fire that not only stopped Appa in his tracks, but had him cringing and mewling in pain. Azula watched with dispassionate eyes as the bison licked at his injured paws. "Don't ever try that again," Azula warned him coldly. The command was deceptively soft and calm, but Appa recognized the menace beneath it and he whimpered. As Azula came closer, he cowered in fear, the ominous blaze engulfing her hands illuminated in his large, fear-rounded eyes. "You will learn to obey me," Azula told him, "And pain will be your teacher!"

****

"Waterbending bomb!"

Sokka, Aang and Toph sat on the outer banks of the large pond situated on their apartment property as Zuko leapt from a tree limb high overhead and did a spiraling dive into the crystal blue water below. He made impact seconds later, splashing up a gigantic wave that washed on shore and drenched his friends thoroughly. He quickly broke the surface of the water, his dark hair plastered to his skull, and grinned at them.

"So how was that one?" he asked breathlessly.

Pursing his lips in pensive consideration, Sokka took a moment to squeeze the excess water from his shirt before declaring enthusiastically, "I give it a ten!"

"All right!" Zuko glanced over at Aang expectantly. "Well? What about you?"

"I give it a seven," he replied, adding when Zuko balked at the low score, "You didn't need to add that fancy twirl on the end. I thought it was too flashy. It was overkill."

"Don't listen to him, Zuko!" Sokka argued, "I liked the twirl! Aang's probably just mad because he can't do it."

"I can so!" the aforementioned snorted proudly. "And just for the record, that was a blatant rip off of a move I did fifteen minutes ago!"

"Oh, whatever! That so wasn't the same move," Sokka snorted back, "Your move had no flare. It was just jump, flip, splash. Big deal."

"Like you're much better!"

While the two young men fell into a round of bickering over who was the better diver, Zuko turned his attention to Toph. "What did you think?"

"I gave it a two," Toph declared dryly.

After dealing with a long line of low scores from Toph, that one had Sokka exploding with incredulity. "WHAT?" he screeched indignantly, diverting his attention mid-argument with Aang. "That dive was perfection, Toph! It was a masterpiece! You can't give it a two! What's wrong with you? Are you blind?"

Toph's features didn't even twitch with the irony of that outburst. "As a matter of fact, Sokka, I am," she replied sardonically. The boys' alternately groaned and slapped their foreheads as they realized they'd spent the last half hour asking her opinion on dives she couldn't even see. No wonder she'd been scoring them so pitilessly low.

"I thought you guys would have picked up on that way before now!" she snorted in exasperation and then she added in sarcastic mumbling, "And you people are supposed to help save the world. I can't tell you how comforting that is."

"So, if you can't see anything, why are you out here?" Zuko wondered crossly as he came out of the water.

"Yeah, it can't be much fun for you," Sokka agreed.

"What are my options?" Toph snorted. "If I don't hang out with you guys, that only leaves Katara and well…I'll take you guys, dunderheads though you may be, any day of the week!"

"Wow, that's harsh," Aang uttered in a soft rush of breath.

"You would think so," Toph teased him, having already picked up on the romantic vibes between him and Katara within moments of meeting him, "But, be honest, Aang. Katara hasn't been any fun at all lately. She's been bossier than usual and it's starting to get on my nerves. She leeches the fun out of everything." She frowned to herself as she recalled Katara hopping all over her that very morning just because she hadn't made her bed. "Has she always been such a wet blanket?"

"All of her life," Sokka laughed.

"What's with her anyway?" Zuko wondered in a low tone, "Toph's right. She has been crabbier than usual. Is she mad about something?"

"She's not mad. She's worried about you, Zuko," Aang told him. "She thinks you're not dealing with your grief over losing Appa."

"What's to deal with?" Zuko considered with a shrug. "He's gone. I'm trying to accept that. If she's waiting for me to cry over it, she's going to be disappointed. I'm not you."

"Hey!" Aang balked in affront, though he quickly joined in with the laughter that ensued.

Off on the edge of the pond, seated in the shadows on the breezy garden, Katara listened to their conversation while absently popping plump berries into Momo's mouth. Sensing her despondence, the lemur leapt into her lap and snuggled there in an attempt to comfort her. With an absent smile, Katara scratched his ears, but otherwise remained lost in thought.

She didn't necessarily like being designated the "wet blanket" of the group. She didn't like that, while everyone else seemed elated with Zuko's sudden shift in personality, she was the only one who was wary of it. Katara couldn't help herself. She was worried and that worry grew more and more as the days passed. The only one who seemed to understand her pain was Aang and even he believed she was overreacting.

Katara wished she could verbalize the sense of impending doom that had settled into her belly, but she could not. She could simply go on one irrefutable truth: she knew Zuko. She knew his heart. She knew his motivations. She knew his soul. And the Zuko that was with them was not Zuko. The Zuko she knew could have never shrugged off the idea of waiting a month to talk with the Earth King. The Zuko she knew wouldn't dismiss Appa's memory as if losing him had been nothing more than a bad day. The Zuko she knew wouldn't blow off his all important training to splash around in a pond.

And, while these things seemed good and even healthy to the untrained eye, they clanged loud warning bells for Katara. They screamed at her that Zuko was not Zuko. They needled at her again and again, nudging her conscience with the inescapable knowledge that something was very wrong.

"How long are you going to sit over here and mope in the shadows?"

She tipped back her head to find Aang standing above her, grinning. Momo darted up onto his master's shoulder as Katara swiveled around to face Aang fully. "How did you know I was over here?" she asked wryly.

"I always know where you are, Katara," he said, folding down beside her on the soft patch of grass. Once he did, Momo happily settled into the cradle of his folded legs and began to doze. "What is it about me that makes him sleepy?" he wondered aloud.

Katara emitted a grunting giggle. "Consider it a good thing," she said, "The only time Momo is truly relaxed is if he's in your presence." She slanted a shy look over at Aang. "I know how he feels."

"Well, if that's so," Aang drawled in counter, "Why didn't you come over there and join me?"

"And ruin your fun?" she countered in a hurt tone, "I don't know why'd you even want me to, seeing as how I'm such a 'wet blanket.'"

"Aaah, so you did hear us," Aang surmised in disappointment.

Katara surveyed him under the curtain of her lashes, suddenly insecure in his presence when she couldn't remember being anything but relaxed and comfortable before. "Do you feel like that about me, Aang?" she wondered glumly, "Do you think I leech the fun out of everything?"

"I love being around you, Katara," Aang stressed, reaching out to take hold of her hand, "You know that."

She smiled at him, the ache of uncertainty in her chest easing a bit. She stared down at their clasped hands, tracing the lines of his slender fingers with her own. "But, it's true, isn't it? I haven't been much fun. I've been such a mess lately, Aang," she conceded candidly. "With everything going on with Zuko and the upcoming banquet, I've been so distracted that we haven't even had a chance to talk about what's happening between us."

"You don't need to apologize. I get it, Katara."

"It's still not fair," she insisted, "You deserve some answers." She peeked up at him. "And…and we should probably talk about it, don't you think?"

Katara realized she had avoided this discussion as long as possible. While she liked the secret looks and the blushes and the inadvertent brushes of shoulders and hands as they passed one another in the hallway, she understood the time had come to deal with reality. The gradual changes taking place in her relationship with Aang were exhilarating and confusing, curious and frightening. It was almost too much for her to process.

While Katara recognized that her feelings for him were deepening and changing and that those feelings were wholly out of her control, she wasn't entirely sure she was ready to deal with the rampant emotions, especially when she had so many other things going on at the same time. Simply stated, falling for Aang was entirely too distracting a prospect and Katara could not afford to be distracted. Not now. She told Aang as much.

He frowned at her and tugged his hand from her grasp, confused by her adamant declaration. "What do you mean I'm distracting you?"

"Aang, right now my first priority has to be Zuko and helping him master waterbending so that he can end this war," Katara told him, "I can't be distracted. I don't have time for a…well, a…I can't have a…"

"Wait a second," Aang interrupted as she rooted around for the proper word, "Do you think I don't know that? Zuko's training is just as important to me as it is to you! Did I give you the impression that it's not?"

"Of course, you didn't."

"Then what is this about?"

"Aang, you kissed me," she whispered meaningfully, "You turned everything upside down."

"I know that," he acknowledged softly.

"I know you don't mean to do it…not on purpose anyway, but I'm really confused now."

"Confused about what? Why?"

"I…I don't know what I'm supposed to do or how it's supposed to be now," Katara explained haltingly, a hot blush staining her cheeks as she spoke. "What's happening between us isn't simple for me and…I just don't know if we should be thinking about that right now."

"Thinking about what, Katara?" he prompted.

She managed a spasmodic swallow before she clarified in a gruff whisper, "Being together."

"Oh," Aang squeaked, unsure whether he should be saddened by her declaration or elated because the idea had crossed her mind at all. Just to err on the side of caution, however, Aang decided to ask. "Are…are you saying you want to…I mean…be together? Do you want to be together, Katara?"

"I…I don't know," she stammered, "I…guess so. I'm not sure." She lifted blue eyes full of uncertainty to his equally bewildered gray gaze, pressing her fists into her lap in an effort to keep from twirling her hair, a habit that had recently begun manifesting itself whenever she was alone with him. "I like you, Aang," she confessed in a rush of breath, "I like being with you, but I don't really know what that means."

"I like you too." He searched her features earnestly, noting that the admission didn't seem to comfort her. "Why do I get the feeling you think that's a bad thing?"

"Because now isn't the time to try to figure out what's happening between us," she stressed in a miserable tone. "There's a war going on and we have so much to do before the time comes to face the Firelord. I think we should focus on that." She swallowed, dropping her eyes into her lap as she finished, "I think we should stay friends."

"You want to stay friends?" he parroted thickly.

"Yes."

"For how long?"

"I think we should wait until after the war is over…and then…then we can talk about it."

"Talk about it?"

"Yeah."

"Okay," Aang agreed slowly because he wasn't sure what else he could do.

Katara peeked at him through the canopy of her lashes. "Are you mad at me?" she wondered timidly.

A painful beat of silence passed between them before he finally answered her. "No," he said, "No, I'm not mad. I'm disappointed, but I understand, Katara. In fact, you're right."

She jerked a startled glance to his face. "I am?"

Aang nodded. "We are fighting a war and that's where our focus needs to be," he told her, "I apologize if I've lost sight of that." She flinched at the hurt she heard in his tone and, because the last thing Aang wanted to do was to make her feel bad, he quickly reassured her with a wobbly smile and said, "It's okay, Katara. We're fine. We're still friends."

"Really? You don't hate me?"

He couldn't help but smile at the meek uncertainty in her inquiry. "I could never hate you," he uttered sincerely, "Thank you for being honest with me. I know it was hard." Aang closed his eyes briefly and then blew out a resolved sigh. "We've discussed it and now it's behind us," he said, "We can focus on more important things. The banquet is in a few nights and we'll finally have an opportunity to speak with the Earth King in person."

"Right," Katara agreed, both grateful and saddened by his abrupt change of subject.

"Maybe once we talk with the Earth King and make formal plans for the invasion, Zuko will stop acting so weird," Aang considered, "After all, we can't win this war if he hasn't got it together."

Katara speared Aang with a surprised look. "But I thought you didn't believe there was anything wrong with him."

"I never said that," Aang disputed with a crooked smile, "I said that it was nice seeing him happy for a change, and it is. I guess I didn't want to rock the boat. But, it's not Zuko and I know that. Something's off about him. I just don't know what it is."

"I was beginning to think I was the only one who felt that way," Katara sighed, "I didn't say anything because I knew you guys would just think I was being a killjoy."

"It's not that I can't believe that Zuko would be happy in certain circumstances," Aang prefaced, "But considering the situation we're dealing with now, especially because of losing Appa, his good mood is a little weird. Something happened that day he went for a walk."

"Maybe we should try and retrace his steps for that day," Katara suggested, "If we know where he went and who he talked to, besides the king's advisor, we might be able to figure out what happened to him." Feeling vindicated for the first time in days, Katara threw her arms around Aang's neck in an impulsive hug. "Thank you for believing me," she whispered.

Aang hugged her hard. "Don't thank me," he replied. "I should have said something to you sooner. You shouldn't have had to fight this long by yourself."

Katara leaned back in his arms, regarding him quizzically. "I haven't been alone, Aang," she told him. "I've felt your support this entire time, even when you thought I was overreacting. I couldn't ask for a better friend than you."

He winced inwardly at her use of the term "friend," but even his disappointed hurt couldn't keep him from falling into the deep sincerity he read in her eyes. It didn't matter that she didn't seem to feel for him what he felt for her. It didn't matter that what he considered a remarkable blessing appeared to be, for Katara, an inconvenient curse. Aang was lost. He had given her his heart and there was no retrieving it. Katara was the girl. She was the one. He had never been surer of anything in his entire life.

With that awesome realization, Aang suddenly became hyper aware of her proximity. The warm stir of her breath against his cheek was magnified one hundredfold. He could literally hear his heart drumming in his ears as blood pounded through his extremities. She was so beautiful and perfect and generous and wise that he knew he was going to negate everything she'd just told him and kiss her anyway. She was so incredibly close and he was so incredibly tempted…

Yet, as much as he wanted to kiss her, ached to kiss her, Aang recognized that he shouldn't. Though there was a part of him that needed the reassurance, that needed to know for certain that her reservations really did have to do with the war and not lack of feelings for him, Aang held himself in rigid check. Had he been younger and less experienced, he might have attempted a kiss as he had done once with Mai a long time ago. But that time had ended in humiliating disaster and Aang had learned from his mistake. Kissing Katara when she was so confused would not improve matters, for him or for her. She had made it clear to him that she was distraught and overwhelmed. Aang couldn't let himself take advantage of that.

Reluctantly then, he untangled himself from her lose embrace and removed a sleeping Momo from his lap before rolling to his feet. "You don't have to thank me for being your friend, Katara," he told her, "I'm the one who should be thanking you."

"We're going to have to agree to disagree on that point," she laughed wryly.

"Got it," he replied with a small smile, extending his hand out to her, "I'm going back to join the others. You want to come with me this time?"

"Sure." Katara tipped back her head and smiled at him as she took hold of his fingers and, in that moment, Aang wasn't sure what he felt most, happiness or disappointment.

****

Suki noticed the smoke curling on the horizon long before she became aware of the fact that someone was frantically calling her name. She tore her eyes away from the curious scene to regard a rushing Niyu. "What's going on?" she asked mildly when the winded Kyoshi Warrior reached her side. "Why aren't you at your post?"

"Didn't you say you saw the Avatar a few days back and that he was missing his bison?" Niyu gasped, doubling over to brace her hands against her knees in an effort to catch her breath.

Prickles of apprehension began to dance down Suki's spine, a feeling that was only heightened as she surveyed Niyu's panicked expression. "Yeah, I did. Why?"

"Because I know where he is," Niyu revealed fervidly.

"What? You know where Appa is?" she cried, jumping to her feet, "Where? Tell me where!"

"No, you don't understand," Niyu cautioned, nodding gravely towards the horizon, "That fire in the distance is no ordinary brush fire. Firebenders have the Avatar's bison, Suki."

"What?" Suki exploded again, overwhelmed with a new sense of urgency at that latest revelation. "Niyu, why didn't you stop them? We need to go after them right now!"

"They're long gone by now. And besides, there was no way I could have stopped them, not by myself anyway," Niyu said, "You didn't see what I did. Those girls were fierce."

"They were girls?"

"I think it was Princess Azula," Niyu revealed darkly.

"The Fire Nation princess?" came Suki's dubious response, "But how did she even manage to elude the border patrol to get this deep into the Earth Kingdom? That's crazy!"

"I saw her with my own eyes and what she's capable of. You have to go to the Avatar and tell him what's happened," Niyu insisted with a tremble of fear. She closed her eyes, recalling the macabre scene she'd glimpsed in the forest just one hour earlier with a pronounced shudder. "If you knew what I saw…" she whispered gruffly. She bracketed Suki's shoulders firmly, her tone and manner insistently authoritative when she said, "You have to go back to Ba Sing Se and tell the Avatar what's going on!"

"But, what about the—,"

"Now, Suki," Niyu said, interrupting her weak protest, "You have to go now."