When Aang declared at breakfast that he had plans for the day with Shen, Katara had offered to go along and gotten a very strange response.
"Nope, you'll just be bored," he said in a rush. "We're doing air stuff!" Then he'd grabbed his staff and run out, rushed back in to grab the last of the odd but tasty pepper and mushroom stuffed rolls Hui had brought from the barracks, and run back out, shouting, "Bye!" as he left.
Aang had never seemed anxious to escape her company before. Katara tried not to feel hurt. "What are you doing today?" she asked her brother.
"Yanmei wants me to meet some of her friends," he said with a lot less enthusiasm he'd previously shown for the girl's company.
"You don't want to go?" Toph asked. She was dissecting one of the rolls with her fingers, eating the tangy insides with relish. "I never ate chameleon snake before. It's really good."
"It's amazing," Sokka told her with an ecstatic eye roll. Then he said, "I don't not like her any more. She's just, I dunno, intense sometimes? Like a girl talked to me at the last poetry thing we went to and she was all, "He's with me" with this scary look on her face."
"She got angry," Katara said. "Most girls wouldn't like someone flirting with their date." She was determined to be fair. She didn't like Yanmei but the girl had feelings like anybody else.
"She got creepy," her brother asserted. "She didn't get shouty or normal upset. There was no expression on her face at all. They were looking each other in the eye and the other girl just turned and left. Like, fast, and she looked scared when she left."
"So what are you going to do?"
"I'm going to remind Yanmei that we won't be here forever. We can hang out but we aren't a couple. Once we accomplish our mission in Ba Sing Se we're leaving."
"No wonder she thinks you're staying," Toph said dryly. There seemed less and less point to an audience with the Earth King and Long Feng seemed unable to take them seriously. There were reasons previous Avatars hadn't been told of their status until they were sixteen, he'd stated when ending their last visit. Children weren't known for their mature judgement. They were children, and meant to be protected while they grew up. He'd seemed to disapprove of the monks' decision to ignore that tradition and Sokka and she had dragged the last Air Nomad out of his office before Aang could lose his temper at the man.
"I don't think you need a third person around for that talk," Katara said, concealing mixed feelings. While she was relieved that her brother knew the relationship clearly had an ending, she'd gotten bored exploring the immediate neighborhood and Jin had a class today. She hadn't seemed sure how long it would be. University students taught when they had time. Sometimes it was an hour or two but sometimes they'd devote the whole day to the youngsters they tutored. She sighed a little.
"I'm visiting Cousin Pan. Wanna come?" Toph asked.
"Really?" Sokka gave her a frown so Katara knew she hadn't hidden her surprise at all well. Their younger friend was almost defensive about the time she spent at the University. Katara suspected she wasn't just shy about her relationship with Pan. While she hadn't said a word about it, Katara suspected that Toph had accepted his offer to teach her to read the raised writing his classmates had developed. Being invited like this was a sign of trust and she found herself grinning as she accepted the offer. Of course Toph didn't see it, but Katara was certain she sensed it.
"You are such a girly girl," Toph said with fake exasperation. When Katara hugged her, Sokka sighed and muttered something about girls being weird.
##########
"Water," Toph said, fingers caressing the raised symbols on the paper beneath her hand. "Stones. River!" She crowed the last word triumphantly. "The White Stone River!"
"Well done," Pan said. His smile was more sedate than Toph's grin, but this was one of those moments Katara could see the kinship in their faces. "You're a quick student."
"I am amazing," Toph replied smugly.
"Perhaps you're ready for a short poem," Pan said, a hint of Toph-like mischief on his face.
"Bring it on!"
Watching somebody else do lessons should be boring, but Toph brought the same fierce energy to literacy that she did to her bending and to training Aang. Katara found the process for stamping raised symbols into stiff paper intriguing, too. They'd modified one of the printing presses used to print cheap booklets and flyers read all across Ba Sing Se. Sokka would love this, she thought. Logic and original thinking, no "magic" needed. I bet he'd love getting his hands dirty with the engineering students.
The image made her wistful. After they ended the war, they had a home to return to and rebuild. Sokka's gift for original thinking would be channeled towards hunting and fishing. Maybe better ways to build their homes, boats and tools, too. He'll be challenged, she told herself, he won't be wishing he'd stayed or had a different life. Turning her attention back to her friend, she listened with amusement as Toph growled a grumpy comment about the poet's turn of phrase.
"It's not weird. You misinterpreted the text. Try again," Pan told her.
Toph got it after two more attempts. "It's still a dumb poem," she complained.
"The author is very well respected."
"Not by me."
"It wasn't that bad," Katara said. Toph just huffed in response.
Pan was choosing another page for Toph when a tall student sporting a stunningly bushy head of hair and lavish beard rushed in. He addressed the youth in a near panic, ignoring the girls completely. "Your mum's in custody!"
"Impossible," Pan replied calmly. "Neither of my parents would come anywhere near Ba Sing Se."
"Not your mother! That lady! The mum!"
"Ava?" He rushed around the table to grab the other's arm. "What's happened to her? Why would the guard..."
"It was the Dai Li," came the reply, pronounced like a death sentence.
Pan went ice pale. "That's insane. Ava is the most inoffensive, decent person I know!"
"I'll get Aang," Katara said, rising from her stool.
"For what?" Pan snapped. "Has he managed to arrange that meeting with the Earth King, after all?"
Katara clamped her teeth shut to hold in her initial reply. Pan was usually a really nice guy but he was afraid for Ava. Katara was concerned, too, so she forced herself to pause and think.
"We can break her out in no time," Toph said confidently.
"The Dai Li don't have barracks like the Watch," the hairy youth said. "Nobody knows where they keep their prisoners."
"I believe I know someone who could be of assistance in this matter," Pan said, sounding more like his usual thoughtful self. Katara sighed inwardly with relief.
She liked him. She liked Ava, too. She just wasn't sure they could risk confronting Long Feng about this. Ending the war had to be their priority. A few weeks ago we'd have charged the palace, she thought soberly, and assumed that things would work out. What if it didn't? We could get thrown out of the city and Ava would still be locked up somewhere. AND we still wouldn't have gotten anyone to listen to us about the eclipse.
"Hairy Li, would you continue my cousin's lesson, please? I have to see someone." Pan was already walking toward the door as he asked over his shoulder.
"Wait!" Katara called, rising. "You aren't asking Jet and his Freedom Fighters to do something, are you?"
"Are you referring to Smellerbee and Longshot?"
"Yes."
"I had no intention of bringing this matter to any of them, I assure you."
"Okay. I know they're friends of yours but they can be reckless."
Before she could offer to explain, he said, "I really must go," and left, walking briskly as if he'd rather have run.
"So how are the lessons going, Toph?" Hairy Li asked.
"Pretty good. I read a poem." She turned to Katara. "What's got you worried, Katara?"
"Pan was lying, wasn't he?"
His friend's "Hey!" was ignored by both girls as Toph answered. "Nope. He told the truth. Listen, Hairy Li, I think Katara and I should get going. Thanks for helping with my lesson."
"We haven't actually practiced anything."
"Thanks anyway." Toph actually took Katara's arm as they walked out. She tugged the older girl close as they approached the stairs leading to the building's first level. "He didn't lie but did you notice he left someone out?"
Katara paused, then they started down the wooden staircase. "Li's not a Freedom Fighter."
"He wasn't when you met in that forest. Maybe he is now."
Katara pondered that thought while the two of them hurried home. If Pan thought the Avatar could do nothing, why would he expect Li, another refugee, to be able to do more? She could hear Gan's lecturing tone as he warned her against false assumptions and acting without assessing the possible consequences first. "He could have meant somebody else. Pan's met people all over the city, after all. And I know he calls himself a poor relation, but he's still a Bei Fong. His branch of your family might have connections here."
Toph nodded thoughtfully. "Could be. I still think he went to Li."
"Why?"
"Buncha stuff. I'll tell you when we're all together."