Sleep—real, comfortable, safe sleep—was something Ursa hadn't realized she'd missed. After spending time in the Upper Ring, sleeping in Iroh's former guest bedroom on a bed that was plush and warm, it's something she's not sure she could ever forget again. The sounds of the street don't clamber in through thin walls, the sun doesn't find its way through tattered curtains. She doesn't hear her children bickering in the other room, or Iroh's off-key singing in the mornings as he goes about his apartment. It's peace, and it's all she's ever wanted.

"Mom?" Zuko says, the door sliding open a fraction. It's something instinctual in her to wake at her children's voices, and she sluggishly rolls over to face him. She can see the shape of him outlined by the fireplace lighting the living room, but no details come into focus. When she glances toward the windows, the curtains are dark. The sun hasn't even risen yet.

"Is something wrong?" She asks, pushing her frazzled hair out of her face. It had been well over two days since she'd actually seen him. He'd been so busy with his work with Iroh, and she'd had her own business to attend to as they settled into their new lives. Any number of things could have gone wrong.

"Well…" She's already sitting up when he starts, reaching over and lighting the lantern by her bed. She waves the burnt match through the air as she speaks.

"You know…" She starts, "If you start off with that, it's definitely something wrong. Is everyone okay?" The robe she slides over her shoulders is long, heavy and well made. The sash she ties around her waist is fastened with a fine jade clasp, "And…what are you wearing?"

Zuko looks down at himself, seemingly unaware of his own strange jumpsuit. When she gets closer with the lantern, she sees the side of his face and his clothing is forgotten. There's lightly purpled skin on his cheek. A darker mark that stretches from his temple to just past his hairline is in plain view. A tiny trickle of blood grazes his ear. She reaches forward, touching his face gently.

"Zuko…"

"Mom, I'm fine—really. But Ozai's not." Zuko brushes her hand away, rubbing his head sorely. Her grip on the lantern gets painfully tight, the edges of the handle digging into her palm.

"Ozai? He's back? Did he do this to you?" Few things compelled Ursa to what she could call outright fury, but the thought of Ozai being the cause of the bruises on her son easily gets her there.

"Not…all of it, no—"

She's rushing past him before he can finish, and she abandons the lantern on an end table as she storms into the well lit living room. Ozai stands in front of the fireplace, bracing his weight against the mantel, his back turned to her. His hair is tied up, the mass of it a tangled mess on his back, and he wears long, dark green robes. As she gets closer, she recognizes them as the traditional robes of the Dai Li. One of the signature pointed hats lies forgotten on the couch. But she doesn't question it, doesn't have the thought to, enraged as she is.

"Mom! Wait, I can explain!" Zuko follows her, grabbing her shoulder. She pauses for a moment, looking back at him. All she can see are the bruises, the marks on his face that his own father had given him. She gently takes his hand off of her and approaches Ozai.

He doesn't turn around, his head still bowed slightly. She thinks there might be some kind of wobbling sway as if he's struggling to stay on his feet, more of his weight braced against the mantel than she'd anticipated. She goes to grab his shoulder to force him to turn and face her, and when she does, her hand comes back slicked with blood.

"Ursa." His voice is barely a whisper. A choked, hoarse thing that struggles to leave him. When he does turn, she staggers back in surprise. Across the apex of his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, there's a red, angry line of mangled skin. Blood still oozes sluggishly from it, seeming to be at its worst over his nose, and it paints the entirety of the bottom half of his face in vibrant red. Beneath the coating of blood, she can just barely make out more irritated patches of torn skin along his jaw. Bruises, all shades of deep rich purple and greens spatter the right side of his face and neck. His eyes are dull, unfocused. His breath comes in harsh huffs.

"I believe…" He blinks slowly. He breathes deeply, "You may be of assistance."

"Ozai, what—"

He collapses, and it takes both hers and Zuko's combined strength to keep him from hitting the floor. She fumbles with his heavy body, grunting with the strain of it as the two of them slowly lower him to the ground. The Dai Li robes fall open and reveal dozens of wounds across his torso, each one topped with a piece of dully glistening metal. Some are sealed with scabs; some have torn open with the effort of walking. The sheer amount of blood soaking his clothes and covering his skin makes her recoil in horror.

"What happened?" She asks, feeling up to his abused neck and trying to find an undamaged portion of skin to feel for his pulse. When she finally finds a spot, a pulse resonates against her fingers. It's too fast, the beats coming against her fingers almost too quickly to count.

"The Dai Li captured him. But Azula and I broke him out." He says quickly, kneeling beside him and ringing his hands nervously, "And we need you to help him. We can't just take him to a healer. They're going to be looking for him soon.

There's a lot she wants to say. Many questions she wants to—and most certainly will—ask. But she's torn between getting a full explanation and making sure Ozai doesn't die before he can also elaborate what exactly happened to get all three of them in this mess.

"Zuko…I'm not a healer either. I can do some first aid, but I can't…I don't know what to do for him." She sits back, looking over the entirety of him. She's never seen him in this state, looking so utterly broken and weak, of all things. She recalls finding injured animals on walks in the forest, a twisted wing or a crushed leg. As she lifts his head with gentle hands, it's a similar feeling of pity.

Azula returns then, arms full of jars, boxes and bottles. She groans when she sees Ozai's prone form on the floor.

"He's asleep again?" She complains, more to herself than anyone in the room.

"He said you could help. He said your mom was a healer." Zuko answers his mother, ignoring his sister's mutterings.

"My mother was an herbalist!" She protests, rubbing her face in exasperation. She watches his short, pained breaths. Something in her tugs and twists, and she sighs into her hand, "Alright, we need to move him. Get him onto that table. I'll do my best." Azula sets the armful of items down, coming over to help lift Ozai's limp body onto the nearby dining room table. It takes some awkward maneuvering to get his robes off, leaving him in garishly colored and blood soaked pants, and threadbare leather boots. Once he's settled, Azula returns with what she'd brought in.

"I brought some things you might be able to use." She says, laying them out on the table around him. A jar of water, a sewing kit, a roll of bandages, pliers and scissors, jars of fresh herbs, spices and plants that Iroh had been in the process of drying for new tea recipes. Freshly cut would be superior, but in a pinch, she could work with them. A mortar and pestle, and a half empty bottle of some kind of alcohol. The label was long gone, but when she uncaps it and sniffs, she pulls away. That would do.

"I need one of you to heat the needle to sterilize it." She nods towards the sewing kit as she grabs the bandages, cutting a piece off and soaking it in the alcohol. Azula grabs it first, lighting a small flame over her opposite hand and starting to rotate the needle inside of it.

"Zuko, find something to put in his mouth. Leather, preferably." If he happened to wake during the more painful parts of what she was about to do to him, she didn't want to risk him biting his own tongue and giving her even more work she was unqualified to do. He leaves swiftly, and Azula threads the disinfected needle in the meantime.

"You wouldn't happen to have any explanation for this, would you?" Ursa asks, realizing her hands are shaking as she grips the bandages. She was no healer. She had experience patching scrapes and giving the odd stitch here and there. Whatever had been done to him was far outside of what she considered even plausible for her to handle.

"Some crazy man with a burned face was keeping him in an icebox. He had a muzzle on him that kept him from bending." She points to his face, the gashes there still dripping blood every so often, "Which is where that came from. Whatever is going on with all the cuts and metal on his body? I have no idea."

"I found this." Zuko interrupts, coming back with what appeared to be some kind of leather headband. It was just thick enough to withstand a substantial bite, and she takes it gratefully. She pulls open Ozai's jaw and inserts it into his slack mouth. She wraps it around the back of his head to keep it in place, closing his mouth around it. They watch her closely, Zuko keeping a fire crackling over his hand as he stands nearby, lighting the myriad of wounds in all its intensity.

She pours alcohol over her hands, waving them dry. She hesitates. She's unsure where to begin. It takes a moment of internal debate before she decides to start from the top down, the alcohol soaked bandages swiping across the deeper gashes on his face. He twitches slightly, but doesn't fully wake.

Once the blood is smeared and diluted, she can make out more details of the wound. It's not a perfect cut straight across, some areas simply irritated and others ripped away entirely. A few spots are somewhere in between. She decides to let the less open tears heal on their own, taking the needle from Azula after she's cleaned out the majority of the cut splitting through his nose. She starts to stitch the skin across his nose together, trying to convince herself that this is no different than mending a quilt.

He groans beneath her hand and she pricks him just a bit too quickly. She pulls back, taking a deep breath to steady her hands, and continues on. Eventually, the stitches are pulled tight and she hurriedly ties them off. It's far from perfect, and it's sure to leave a large scar across his face, but it should at least heal, which is a victory, all things considered. She moves on to the similar wound along his jaw, and is thankful that only one spot there needs a couple stitches to mend the skin. She pulls back, wiping his face with the alcoholic bandages once more for good measure. He's at least more recognizable as Ozai now that he's not soaked in blood.

She moves lower, and finds herself stumped as she considers what to do next. She wipes at his neck with the alcohol, busying herself with the smaller cuts. There's ripped skin here, too, and the bruises are so intense and deep that they're nearly black. He's likely to have trouble swallowing and talking for the entirety of the near future.

"You don't know what these are?" She asks, gingerly reaching forward to touch the metal protruding from one of the lacerations on his shoulders.

"No." Zuko and Azula answer at once. Zuko frowns and shifts his flame closer to give her more light.

"I took some scrolls from where they were keeping him that might say, but I haven't gotten to read them yet." He continues. There's no time for research. She reaches for the pliers, running them over the fire a few times.

She braces her elbow on the table, grips the protrusion in the pliers, and pulls with all her strength. It comes free with a sickening squelch, scabbing skin being dragged along with it.

Ozai cries out into the leather in his mouth, the material squeaking in protest as his teeth bare down on it. He opens his eyes hazily, not truly seeing, before he closes them again. His breath comes in harsh pants, steam curling out and peppering his skin with dew. The resulting hole in his skin oozes freely.

She stares at the device held in the plier's grip. It's some kind of small metal spike, maybe an inch long, with a clear tube in its center. She can't understand what it is, turning it over in the light. Her children lean forward to view it as well, and the same look of confusion crosses their faces. No one has any answers. She sets it aside, and continues to work.

She keeps pulling identical spikes from him, each one drawing a noise of protest, and eventually Zuko and Azula have to hold down his arms to keep him from struggling with each painful extraction. Each spike has a clear tube, but not every one has the same contents. A few are empty, some are filled with blood, and most contain an unknown fluid. It's black, and glimmers faintly in the light, tiny flecks of something floating inside. When she shakes it gently, the mixture swirls with an odd opalescence. She sets them aside in a decorative bowl, the tink of the metal hitting porcelain helping her keep count. By the time he's free of every intruding spike, she's counted twenty.

He's breathing hard against the leather gag, fully awake now, eyes wide with pain and panic. A sheen of sweat has joined the blood thickly coating his skin, and he's groaning against the leather in protest. She picks up the needle again, and begins to stitch each of the twenty gaping cuts shut. It's a painstaking, intricate process. Ozai writhes and twists under the grip holding him down, each prick of the needle on sensitive skin making him more difficult to contain. Zuko is practically kneeling on top of the table, his hands braced on Ozai's shoulders while Azula has shifted to hold down his fidgeting legs. Even weakened as he is, he's formidably strong.

And then she begins wiping him down with the alcohol, and he lets out a muffled scream. His back arches off the table, gripping the edges of it hard enough to make the wood groan in protest. Zuko presses down with all his weight, grunting as he struggles to contain him. His skin is still smeared with blood and alcohol, but every gash and wound is at least sealed, only the smaller scrapes and cuts staying open to heal on their own. Ozai mumbles something against the gag, glaring spitefully up at his son. Zuko manages to force his chest down until it's meeting the table again.

She can't focus on his pain. Ursa moves quickly, and grabs the mortar and pestle, starting to fill it with the herbs she knows she'll need. It's been a long while since she's needed to make this particular blend, and she tries to remember her mother's soft voice. She remembers the moist, warm air of their greenhouse. The sun on her face as she'd gathered wild flowers with her. She remembers gashes on her leg from a game of tag that had ended with her tumbling down a steep hill into a bush of thorns.

Yarrow, to speed healing.

She'd said, tapping her daughter on the nose with the delicate flowers.

Goldenrod, to promote clotting.

A quiet hum as she'd eyed her small herbal menagerie, the yellow fuzz of its petals bright in her recollection.

Turmeric, to prevent infection.

The bright orange powder had colored the air around it as she'd sprinkled it into the mortar.

Cloves, to relieve pain.

Tiny brown wedges that looked like little more than rocks. They'd crunched loudly under the pestle.

Ginger, to reduce inflammation.

An unattractive, nodular root that she'd been unfortunate enough to take a bite out of on a dare. Ever since, her mother had kept the ingredient on a high shelf. She'd stretched to reach it before grating flakes of it into the mortar.

Ursa splashes water into the mortar, grinding the mix into a fine paste. She then lifts the bowl over Zuko's fire, letting it heat slightly before continuing to blend it. There were more plants and herbs her mother had used in the pastes and mixes she'd sold, but they weren't likely to be found in the jars of a teashop. They weren't likely to be found in the Earth Kingdom at all, some ingredients growing only in the rich volcanic soil of the Fire Nation. She hoped this would be enough to ensure his recovery.

She shifts to be near his face again, locking eyes with him. They're shiny with unshed tears, ever too prideful for such a thing as crying, but he's more awake now, that haze from before seeming to have started to clear. It makes her hesitate. The paste dribbles from her fingers onto his cheek, and she softly scoops it back up with her thumb.

Despite the audience, it's a deeply intimate moment. He's watching her with a desperation she's never seen from him before, and more importantly, a profound trust in her to help him. It's an unprecedented amount of vulnerability, so different from his usual hard, calculating gaze. Every time she'd looked at him, it felt like she'd been watching him through tinted glass. Something he put up, a lens he forced people to view him through. But not now. The glass is shattered and he's raw and open and something in her flutters unnervingly.

She hadn't even thought he was capable of such a gaze, something that made her desperate to help him. To want to protect him. The intensity of it forces her to look away.

She spreads the paste across his nose and cheeks, and the initial sting makes him tense, but it passes quickly enough until it leaves a comfortable warmth. He closes his eyes, tilting his head to let her spread it along his jaw. She clears her throat, and tries to continue her work without thinking of the feeling of his eyes locked on hers.

This was still the man who had hurt her son, she reminds herself. She couldn't forget that, even in his current state. She continues to spread the paste across his torso, pressing with just a little too much force.

The final step is wrapping the wounds to help the paste absorb. He badly needed to be bathed, if only to scrub the mud and blood from him, but the herbs needed time to absorb. She would let him rest before they had to endeavor to do that painful activity. Zuko and Azula realize they no longer need to hold him down, and climb off the table to let her work. They start to clear away the supplies as she wraps him in all the bandages they have, speaking amongst themselves as they look through the bowl of discarded spikes. Just covering the slashes on his torso takes up a considerable amount of the bandages, and she uses the very end of the roll as she slides it over his nose.

Again, he looks at her, and that same intensity bores deep into her. She pauses, her fingers hesitating on his cheeks as she presses the bandages into place. She hates how expressive his eyes are, how much he can say to her without speaking. She removes the gag, his jaw flexing sorely. He speaks so softly, his voice so damaged, she isn't sure that she hasn't imagined it.

"Thank you." And then he's asleep again, hand resting on her arm as if it belonged there.


Waking is like slowly rising through murky water. Memories of the days before sluggishly swirl past him as he tries to orient himself.

The Ball, the Avatar, the Dai Li. Cold.

Things start to become clearer then. He remembers more, feels the breathlessness of the mask choking him. Remembers the rage at being manipulated by his false employer. Remembers the fear of seeing that imposing metal device poised to slice into him. More pain, and then blackness. He doesn't recall anything else between then and now. He tries to hold onto those thoughts and feelings, cling to what he'd been told. His fury is renewed and the knowledge of what he's done, and the blood on his hands, sickens him. He'd been manipulated by a man he'd stupidly trusted. He'd been pulled around on a leash he hadn't even known was there. His greatest hope for restoring the Fire Nation, and his crown, had lie with that man.

What a complete fool he'd been. When had he grown so careless, to do something as idiotic as trust and hope?

He'd thought of him as his greatest ally. His employer, giving him the names of those who had been instrumental in the Elemental Revolt. All along he'd just been hiding behind them, letting Ozai slit the throats for him while he continued tearing apart the legacy he was desperate to reinstate. And most importantly, he was Ozai's only source of funds. He was a contract man for hire, he'd done small things. Petty theft, enforcement, the odd murder, even more menial, legal work, but those didn't bring him the kind of money he needed to sustain himself or further his cause.

Where was he to go now? What was he to do? The complete isolation, the absolute despair of his situation, the lack of direction, really does start to strike him. Overall, it just leaves him with a sense of disorientation.

You've burned every bridge you had. Followed the only path you looked for. And now you're at a dead end. The voice in his head chastising him sounds like his father's, and it makes him cringe, What now? And the nagging thoughts are right. Fifteen years, wasted. Gone. All that struggle for what was ultimately a net loss. The sensation of defeat is so unknown to him, he isn't even sure that's what he should call this.

His head hurts. The thrum of pain breaks him out of his wallowing, and he's almost glad for it. He shifts, and he realizes he's lying on something soft. There are luxuriously soft blankets wrapped around him. The sound of a fireplace crackles to his left, and the warmth soaks into him as he turns his face towards it, ignoring the stinging in his neck. The heat feels heavenly, his skin still holding a slight chill. He takes a deep breath, and his core revels in it, fueling a spark within him to spread a pleasant heat throughout his body. Steam curls off his skin.

He opens his eyes, blinking to regain focus in the dimly lit, unfamiliar room. Earth greens. Fire reds. Brilliant colors and patterns on the walls and floor. The couch he's lying on is a deep green and stuffed with something soft. A thick pillow is settled under his head, and his hair sticks to it as he moves. He catches sight of a large glass of water on the floor beside him and immediately reaches for it with uncoordinated fingers. His throat aches and itches, on the inside and out.

He finishes it in one swift, painful chug, gasping softly once he's finished. It's then that he pauses to notice the bandages wrapping his arms, soaked through with spots of blood and something thick and oily. He lifts the blanket to see more wrapping his chest. He's still dressed in the battered pants from before, though they are now thoroughly soaked through and stiff with dried blood. His boots lie next to the fire, washed of debris and drying.

"Ozai?" He sits up, startled. Ursa stands in the doorway, fresh bandages, a small jar, and a large bowl of water perched on her arm. A towel sits over her shoulder. She comes into the light of the fire, and he sees her clearly. She's tired, circles under her eyes and hair pulled back messily.

"You've been asleep for nearly a day." She says as she kneels beside him. She starts unraveling the bandages on the arm closest to her with a practiced ease that belies her experience.

"I see." His own voice sounds foreign to him. It's a faint whisper, hardly audible. He clears his throat, but it doesn't improve, "Where am I?"

"Iroh's apartment." She answers matter-of-factly, quick hands unfurling the rest of the bandages clinging to his body, "The children brought you here after risking their lives to free you from the Dai Li. Who, by the way, imprisoned you for trying to murder the Avatar." She dips the towel in the water, and begins to slowly slide it down his arm, washing the remaining mud and blood from him. It's a welcome sensation, every inch of his skin feeling soaked through with grime.

"That wasn't necessary." He mumbles, turning his head to rest his cheek on the pillow. He recoils at the sting, reaching up and touching his face to feel along the bandages there with distant intrigue.

"No, it wasn't. Especially not after you assaulted Zuko." She pauses in the slow movements of the wet towel to glare at him. It takes him a moment to recall what she means, but when he makes the connection, he snorts indignantly.

"I'd hardly call that an assault. He'll be fine." She dunks the towel into the water more roughly than necessary, water splashing onto the floor with the force.

"He's your son—"

"He disrespected my authority and disobeyed me." The towel practically slaps onto his chest, and he grunts at the pressure it puts on his stitches.

"And that gives you a right to hurt him?" She demands. She wipes more blood from his skin.

"I have every right to do whatever I wish with him." He expects another indignant remark, a rough grind of the towel on his wounds. Instead, her features soften and she finishes cleaning his chest with a soft touch.

"That's your father talking, Ozai." She sighs, moving on to his opposite arm. He frowns, watching her work.

"My father taught me respect." He retorts. She rings out the towel in the bowl, and she lets it rest there for a moment.

"And you respected your father?"

"Of course. I despised him, but I respected him. He was a powerful Fire Lord deserving of respect." His voice is still weak and hoarse, but it's an easy answer. It was entirely the truth, and he'd come to terms with that many decades ago.

"Ozai." She starts, sliding open the jar in her lap and scooping up a handful of thick paste, "I know how your father treated you. The awful things he did. And even though I understand what you went through, if you ever lay a hand on my children again, there will be nothing you can do to redeem yourself from that. And you will regret it." She speaks coolly, almost impassive in her tone. But when he meets her eyes, there's a deep, burning fury there. He stares, intrigued, before a grin tugs at his lips.

"Ever spirited." He responds as she coats his wounds in the substance, "An effective threat, but one I doubt you can follow through with, my dear." Her hand pauses on his chest, and she smiles softly. She scoops up another handful of the paste, leaning over him to apply it to his arm furthest from her. Her face hovers over his, bound hair falling over her shoulder and tickling his face.

"You knew of my mother's skill as an herbalist." She speaks softly, intimately, in the tiny distance between them.

"Vaguely." He whispers back.

"I made this healing balm from a recipe my mother taught me." She peels the bandage off his face in one swift move, and he blinks at the sharp movement, "I learned a lot from her. Not enough to call myself an expert, but it's actually very easy to make blends that will kill people. Herbalists have to be so careful to avoid them."

They share their breaths. Her thumbs smooth the cream along his nose and cheeks. Her hands remain on his face, challenging him. She expects a violent response, her fingers tense against his skin. The same thought crosses his mind, eyes searching hers. Her nails drag on his cheeks, her brows pulling inward.

Instead, he closes the distance with a stolen kiss. His hand cups the back of her head and holds her in place. He sighs against her lips, the taste of them a sufficient distraction from his own anger and swirling thoughts. Raw rage was never quite as effective on his wife. He was remembering that slowly. He pulls away before she can properly react, smirking up at her.

"I appreciate your tenacity. It is attractive on you." He chuckles against her lips, releasing his grip on her hair. She scoffs, quickly moving away and finishing applying the mix to his jaw. She tries to hide it with the angle of her face, but he catches the pink coloring her cheeks.

"You're so…" She doesn't finish, muttering to herself softly, "Just sit up." She leaves, and he's unsure if that's the end of the exchange. She returns with a fresh bowl of water, a comb and a clean towel. He sits up slightly, and she grips his hair, freeing it of the loose tie that's begun to crust into it. He cranes his neck back to let her dip his hair into the bowl, and she cups the water to soak it into his scalp.

"You didn't answer me." She says as she works, and he realizes he'd started to relax into her hands, the gentle touch on his scalp reminding him of the days when servants had cared for his hair for him. Every step, from washing to combing to styling, had all been someone else's job. The thought makes a dull pang of despair creep into him. He opens his eyes and stares up at the beams of the ceiling.

"Hmm?"

"I told you not to ever hurt my children again. You didn't say you wouldn't." Her fingers break up chunks of dirt, and the comb slides them out into the water.

"I have no interest in lying." She tugs a little too hard on his hair, his head being yanked back with a twinge of pain. He growls, straining to look back at her.

"It wasn't an empty threat." They lock eyes again, and he battles her for dominance. She refuses to look away, now, and he sinks back into the couch, waving a hand flippantly. He didn't have the energy to play her petty games.

"Fine. You have my word."

"Your word?"

"On my honor." He clarifies, "I will not harm our children. And in exchange, I expect not to be poisoned by my dear wife." She dunks his hair in the water again, soap sliding across his scalp and through his tangled locks. The brush slides smoother with each pass until it glides through it easily, and he returns to settling comfortably under her touch.

"Then we have a deal."


Fire Prince Ozai was alive.

The revelation passes through every circle of Ba Sing Se as quickly as if he'd set it ablaze himself, and with that information, came the price of his bounty. The number of coin offered for his head was unprecedented, and had only grown as days passed. The news climbed the walls to the outside world. Mercenaries and bounty hunters alike congregated in and near the city, searching for the long lost Prince and to claim the bounty of the attempted Avatar slayer. Enemy of the Earth King, last living heir to the throne of the war mongering Fire Lord, he's an attractive target for more than one reason. Even the Avatar himself searches for him, his Bison swooping through the midday skies as he looks for the escaped criminal.

The waterbender looks up at the bison's massive shadow as she walks the Upper Ring streets. The Ball isn't the first time they've met. Aang had spent a considerable amount of time in her village after he'd been released from the ice. He'd been sad to go, but they couldn't keep the Avatar to themselves when the rest of the world needed to know of him just as badly. So a group from her Tribe had sailed him to the Earth Kingdom and escorted him through the known yet unfamiliar land. As soon as news had gotten around, an informal tour had become an entire celebration. Hearing about a Ball held in his honor was an opportunity she had refused to miss, cancelling yet another long trek to the Northern Water Tribe to meet with her instructors just to attend and catch up with him.

He spots her, and waves with the end of his staff. She smiles back up at him and returns the wave. She'd only just started teaching him some basic waterbending forms after he'd woken, but he was a good student. She hoped that once he finished his training with the earthbender, he'd consider training with her again. The bison is long gone, and she watches until his shadow disappears.

She pulls her fur-lined hood higher, and continues on her way. Her head hung low, her face out of sight. Her face is not well known to the average Earth Kingdom citizen, but there's always the chance that she might be recognized and word that she's wandering the streets while a mercenary was on the loose would return to her father. She'd never be able to walk in this amazing city on her own again if he found out, and she's sure her brother would be eager to fill the role of her personal—unnecessary, and a little bumbling—bodyguard.

That alone was enough to motivate her to keep to herself. She wasn't afraid of this mercenary. She'd studied under the greatest waterbenders the world had to offer, whether they'd wanted to teach her or not, and she considered herself well on the road to being a master. A firebender was of no concern to her. She was the dominant element in that matchup. She represented the fire's natural foil. Let the mercenary try to attack her.

This city waited for her, and she wasn't going to ignore it in favor of something as petty as safety. She's spent her entire life in only the Water Tribes, primarily her home in the South, but with journeys to the North every few years. While her own Tribe had slowly rebuilt into something respectable, and the Northern Tribe was a beautiful display of waterbending and ice construction, seeing something like Ba Sing Se was a thing of dreams. Buildings made of great slabs of stone, stretching impossibly high. Trains propelled with earthbending on smooth tracks of granite and metal. Dust swirling through the streets in the wake of fine carriages. And plants.

She could feel the water within their fleshly limbs, stopping at every evergreen and succulent that hadn't wilted in the winter chill. Plants were so rare where she came from. Such a delight, so foreign and exciting. She discovers she loves flowers, the smell of them exotic and new. They'd only ever arrived in the Water Tribes as blends in herbal teas, their aromas mixed and muddled. Fresh flowers had no purpose in the extreme colds and long nights there.

She pauses, looking in the window of a highly decorated storefront. Glittering jewels and flowing gowns stand in the window. They weren't very practical, and they were all in greens that clashed with everything else she owned. She moves on, uninterested. Restaurants touting fresh fish that couldn't possibly compare to the fish they netted from the sea in the Water Tribes. Dance halls where people seemed to be standing around chatting rather than dancing. Finally, a store catches her eye. The window is filled to the brim with scrolls and tomes, and the appearance of the Water Tribe insignia on a select few of them make her pause. She steps through the open door.

There's a man at the counter having a tense conversation with a boy opposite him. The boy is hunched over it, a scroll laid out between them. His shoulders are tense, his fist clenched tightly as he slams it down. He's dressed in fine Upper Ring clothes, but his hair is a wild, untamed mass on his head. Unusual for the nobility to allow. She catches pieces of their conversation as she makes her way over to the Water Tribe scrolls.

"I'm telling you what I know." The man says, "It's theoretical, first of all. No one's ever made it."

"What if someone did?" The boy questions.

"Well, if they did, and it somehow got used like it says it would be here, there wouldn't be a cure." She stops in front of her scrolls, frowning. The conversation is quickly growing more interesting than what she'd come in for.

"There's no mention of a cure anywhere?"

"Not in any of my scrolls, or the ones you brought in, no. It doesn't even really describe what it does in the first place. Whoever wrote this scroll was being vague on purpose, I'm guessing."

The boy gathers up his scrolls, tucking them under his arm with an angry huff.

"Well, thanks for being no help."

"No problem, kid." She's gotten closer than she meant to in her intrigue, and when he spins on his heel to storm out, he slams into her. His scrolls scatter to the ground and she nearly falls with the force of the impact. She catches herself on a shelf, kneeling and helping him gather his scrolls. He mutters an apology offhandedly, but she stalls as she gets a full look at his face.

She'd never been so close to someone like him. Even at the Ball, her father and brother seemed to guard her from anyone who even might present as being of Fire Nation ancestry, much to her chagrin. No firebenders lived in either Water Tribe for obvious reasons, and both poles were equally hostile in their tales and laws towards them. She'd always wondered if the stories and fables passed around those too young to have witnessed the war were true. Her father insisted they were all wild exaggerations, but a part of her couldn't help but wonder if they were as cruel looking as they sounded.

If some of them had the sharp teeth of dragons and tore the throats out of people, simply for the joy of killing. If during the war, they made armor out of the charred bones of their enemies. If they burnt people alive with a mere thought. If their skin was scalding hot to the touch, and would burn anyone who dared to get too close. If they were inherently violent and bloodthirsty, and even looking at one would bring about a sort of cursed dread. If they were truly the malevolent spirits in human shape that the gossip had elevated them into being.

If all that was true, this boy was rather disappointing. He gives an awkward, tense smile that's trying to be polite, and his teeth aren't nearly as pointed and sharp as she'd expected them to be.

"It's fine, you don't have to apologize." She says, a little breathless in her intrigue.

"Alright, then I'm not sorry." He says it with a wry smile, further displaying his blunt teeth. His eyes are a brilliant gold, but they're soft. She'd consider them kind, if they were blue. She looks back at the counter.

He'd gotten reasonably angry at the shopkeeper, but nothing was on fire. The man still stood behind the counter, very much not burning to death. She brushes his hand as she grabs one of his scrolls, handing it to him. His skin is warm, his fingers calloused, but it doesn't burn. She realizes the air between them has gotten tense in her lack of a response to what had clearly been a joke. He frowns, adjusting the scrolls under his arm, clearly having thought she took offense to what he'd said.

"Sorry."

And then he's rushing out of the shop, his mop of dark hair blowing out of his face and revealing his sharp profile. He looks back at her, and the gaze stays with her for the entirety of the walk back to the palace. The Ball is set to continue as the sun sets, mercenary or not, and she's determined to get past her family and investigate this matter further.

And though she knows it's nearly impossible, she hopes to see the boy again.


N/A: Fourteen chapters in and I introduce Katara! Wow.