"Make the best out of it and grow cabbages!" *Furiously uses humor to cope*

"A wonderful chapter. Everyone can take a breath to get ready for the new tasks." New season, new goals. Some big changes are coming up for poor Azula lol. And Sie is in for a bit of a trip too. "Sie'r reason to give Zuko the credit just to make him stop whinning around and annoying him is perfect." It was a good but a failed attempt. "I really love the idea of Mai as a spiritbender." xP thanks, she needs some neat superpower. Even if it is subtle. "So happy that this story continues to grow. Keep on having fun with your stories." Thank you once again! It's always a pleasure!


Jet folds his arms over his chest. "I hate it here."

"We just got here." Azula reminds him.

"And I already hate it."

Azula rolls her eyes, just how is she supposed to sell cabbages when he is approaching the Fire Nation with that attitude. She scans the crowd for potential customers, coming to the first woman she begins her spiel, "I am selling cabbages." Normally this would be when Jet flexes his biceps, but the only thing he is using his biceps for is to firmly uphold his crossed arms.

"This is dumb." She can hear him mutter if she listens hard enough.

The woman begins to walk away.

"You will by a cabbage." Azula declares. "If you don't, I will be forced to...persuade you." She gives a devilish grin.

The woman only offers her a deadpan stare. It would seem that the Fire Nation hosts a tough crowd. Azula is now frowning, this time around there is no drill to capitalize on the urgency of a doomsday.

If only she still had her Dailluminati agents and their brainwashing technology. Sie will pay for swiping them from her. She peers at the remaining Dailluminati agent, tasked with stalking her. He shrugs, "I don't know what to tell you." He then coughs awkwardly as he recalls that he is not supposed to talk to her.

"I suggest that you buy a cabbage." Azula comments to the next passerby. He rushes by, seemingly without taking notice of her. He is not the only person to do so. In fact, everyone seems to be in a state of hurried panic. She takes a moment to observe her surroundings.

The streets are somewhat trashed; a mess of parchment, fragments of glass, and a scatter of debris. The air smells of smoke and feels of danger. She notices that some windows of nearby shops are smashed out and that vending stalls are overturned A quick look to the left reveals an array of flaming buildings-though she is pretty sure that this is normal for the Fire Nation.

"What's with this place?" Azula mutters.

"I know!" Jet says too loudly. "Everything is on fire."

"No, no, I'm not talking about that. I'm pretty sure that's how it's supposed to be." She replies as a shrinking man runs by, also on fire. Standard Fire Nation living. Azula pushes her stall to a place where the flames prove to be less hazardous. "My cabbages can extinguish the fire that is burning you alive!" She declares to the first flaming person that she sees. This captures the man's attention. He pauses, but before he can by a cabbage, he crumples to the ground.

"I don't think that the citizens are supposed to be on fire." Jet points out.

Azula thinks that he might be right. Afterall, earthbenders are not encased in earth and waterbenders aren't in a constant state of drowning. "I think that this Nation is in trouble."

"It's not just our nation." Says another citizen.

"Oh?" Azula quirks a brow.

"We are in a state of national emergency." The woman says.

Gruff hands shove her aside. "Search it!" Azula realizes with rising concern that the gruff hands belong to a burly guard.

"Do you think that it's infected?" His partner asks.

The man picks through Azula's cabbages. "If you aren't going to buy them, then don't touch my cabbages." She feels prickles of annoyance rising in her belly, with each finger that fall upon one of her pristine, hard-grown cabbages. "There is a touching fee of one copper piece." She tries, with an addition of one of her best glares. Most people retract their hands immediately, but this man...he is fearless. He picks out a cabbage and twists it about, inspecting it from all angles.

He exchanges a look with his companion and gives her a nod. Azula does not like the apologetic look that she is given. She drops into a firebending stance, hoping that they will believe that she is a prodigious firebender and stand down. "I don't know about this." The woman says. "She looks pretty deadly."

"Yuza, she is probably no more that five feet tall! I think that you can handle one teeny cabbage merchant."

Azula's eyes narrow. "I will have you know that I took down a furry!"

"Ha!" The man gives a hearty belly laugh. "We've all fought at least one of those, it is a rite of passing!"

"I banished Bosco back into the void." She clarifies.

The woman's eyes go wide and she shoots a look at her partner. This time his laugh is of the nervous variety. He coughs awkwardly, "yes, well, unfortunately there are things more frightening than you and Bosco."

Now Azula is truly confused through and through; everyone is afraid of her! So much so that even when she is trying to be approachable it comes off as uncanny and off putting. Ever since her conception, people have looked at her with fear, one person had even called her the anti-christ!

She thinks that that person might have been her mother.

"What can possibly be more intimidating than me?" Azula asks. On a normal day she would be decently offended by the implication that she is unapproachable. But it is to her advantage now so she will defend it until the day she dies-rather until it becomes a hindrance again.

The guards give a uniformed shudder. "Just follow orders and you will never have to find out."

"Will do, good sir." Jet smiles as Azula decides to herself that she will be ignoring any order given to her henceforth.

She watches the woman's palm come to life with the roar of a fire. Azula goes tense. "I am going to have to demand that you take several steps back." She says firmly. "You are holding your flames much too close to my cabbages."

"Yes." Says glumly and with a sullen nod. "I apologize, young merchant."

"My cabbages!" Azula hollars as the woman sets the stall aflame. "W-why?" She can feel tears burning behind her eyes.

"They were infected." The man informs her.

.oOo.

"This is your fault!" Sie hears his father roar.

"How is this my fault!?" Zuko screams back.

Ozai sniffs, "we didn't plagues before you came back."

Sie flinches, if the plague is Zuko's fault and he had brought his brother home, then it is technically his fault that their nation is sick. By all means, he could inform their father of this, in fact that would be the noble thing to do. But he is still a timid man and the last thing he wants is his father's wrath. And besides, he is already blaming the possibility of the Avatar's re-emergence on his brother, what's one more thing?

"Maybe if you offered better healthcare we wouldn't be in this situation!" Zuko boldly declares.

Sie can practically see their father sputtering out his reply. "Or maybe if we closed off our borders to Earth Kingdom trash…"

Sie wishes that his father would stop pointing the finger and begin working on solving the problem at hand. He thinks that a quarantine may be optimal.

.oOo.

Azula clutches the remains of her cabbages, she has managed to salvage exactly twelve of them. A single tear works its way down her cheek. "Here, hold these." She hands Jet six. She takes one back, "actually, I want to hold that one. You can have this one." She gives him a different one.

"Now." She says. "This could work to our advantage!"

"How?" Jet asks.

"Supply and demand, Jet!" She declares. "We have a limited quantity of cabbages and I would imagine that in these dangerous times, food is sparse." She explains. "I do believe that we can ridiculously overprice them! We can capitalize on this disaster."

"Shouldn't we try to...I don't know, help out instead of trying to take advantage of these people?"

Azula rolls her eyes. "Help them? You hate firebenders, remember?"

"Oh yeah!" Jet recalls. "Fuck these guys, let's charge them an absurd amount and make them want to pay more! We can tell them that our cabbages hold the cure!"

"Brilliant, Jet!" Azula exclaims with a smirk. "Now, you're getting it."

With her vigor restored, Azula makes her way down the chaotic streets.

"Medicinal cabbages! Get your medicinal cabbages!" Jet bellows. Unfortunately his words are lost under a cacophony of terrified screams. "Medicinal cabbages!" He calls again.

Azula decides to take a more direct approach. Careful to maintain her distance, she prods the first passer by she sees with a very long stick. The woman turns to face her. "Yes, hello, I am selling medicinal cabbages." She holds one up. "I suggest you buy one before you succumb to disease, supplies are limited.

The woman shakes her head. "There's only one thing that can help us now."

"Let me guess. Agni will save you?" She quirks a brow. "The spirits will save you?"

Jet, picking up some of Azula's habits, gives a haughty sniff, "your gods can't save you now! Only cabbages."

The woman shakes her head once more. "We know that, our gods abandoned us long ago."

Azula quirks a brow, "but this disease is new, at most it was discovered a week ago."

"And we already know that there is only one thing that can help us…" She trails off and takes a look at a forming crowd. Azula watches someone leave the crowd with something bundled under their arms like some sacred artifact. Its holder's eyes glimmer with joyus and hopeful tears, "thank you spirits!" He declares, "thank you!"

Azula observes the crowd for at least a half an hour as it thins. Occasionally she tries to coax a potential customer her way, but they are all captured by the competitor. At last, she glimpses what precious merchandise the man is selling.

Azula approaches the stall.

The man flashes her a smile. "Ah, you must be here for a roll of protective paper."

"This," she pokes at the object in front of her, "is toilet paper."

"It will deliver you from infection."

"It will help me clean my asshole." Jet grumbles.

Azula does not appreciate his crass remark. "Just because you are a peasant, doesn't mean you have to speak like one."

"But it's true!" Jet throws his hands up.

"Are you going to buy protective paper or not!?" The man standing behind Azula asks. "Because if you aren't, get out of the way."

"Sir, you are being misled. Toilet paper cannot protect you from this disease. Only my medicinal cabbages can."

"The wench lies!" Declares her competitor. "You all know that my protective paper will set you free!"

"Honestly." Azula rolls her eyes, feeling wholly exhausted. "What sounds more plausible? Using herbs to cure illness," she holds up her cabbage. "Or magical, protective toilet paper. I understand that you are all panicking, but do yourselves a favor and make the logical choice."

A murmur ripples through the crowd. "We will!" Speaks someone on behalf of all of them. Azula gives a satisfied smile that is quickly erased when they push past her and swarm the toilet paper merchant.

Azula folds her arms and snarls. This is completely absurd, they already had their plague episode back in season two. Azula distinctly remembers Sie using Mai's brother as a bargaining chip. She remembers because this is the very same episode wherein she was turned away at the gates because outside produce was a danger to Omasok. She doesn't know why they need a second pandemic.

She watches the crowd swell in size.

"I don't understand." Azula frowns. "I am offering them medicinal cabbages and yet they are hoarding toilet paper. Only an absolute fool would..." She pauses, realizing that Jet is no longer at her side. Her stomach lurches nervously as she turns her eyes to the toilet paper stall. "Oh, Jet…" she shakes her head sadly.

He had been right all along, coming to the Fire Nation was a bad idea.

.oOo.

Sie tries to make himself as small as possible in his chair. Maybe if he sinks low enough, father won't notice him. Zuko sits next to him, equally as nervous. TyLee has long since been evicted from the room for giggling. Sie has to suppress one of his own as he looks his father in the eye.

The Fire Lord has wrapped a thick layer of toilet paper around his neck and a thinner layer over his mouth. It is woven into his hair and beard and is wrapped around his hands. He rests his chin on his hands as he looks upon the siblings.

"Now, I don't know which one of you two bought illness back with you from the Earth Kingdom, but the consequences will be dire." He emphasizes this with an explosive burst of fire. His brows twitch and he scowls, "now look what you made me do." He reaches for one of the several dozen toilet paper rolls stashed behind his throne and re-wraps his hand.

But it is neither Zuko nor Sie's fault that the man had burned the first layer away. They don't say as much.

"One of you, perhaps both of you, have shamed our nation with your sickness…"

Sie respectfully raises his hand.

Ozai nods.

"But neither myself nor Zuzu are sick." He points out.

"Then whose fault is this?" Ozai drums his fingers upon the conference table.

Though none of the three know it, it is neither Zuko nor Sie's fault. It isn't the fault of Ozai and his poor healthcare system either. Nor is it any of the Earth Kingdom arrivals nor Dialluminati agents'. It is, in actuality, Iroh's wrath coming to fruition.

Zuko should not have betrayed the man.

Had Zuko just been a kind and thoughtful nephew, Iroh wouldn't have sent a plague to destroy them all.

.oOo.

Far from the palace a cabbage merchant sits by herself mourning the loss of her cabbage stall, her business, and Jet's remaining two brain cells. She sighs. Things are much different now that they are in the Fire Nation.

She watches Jet eat a square of toilet paper and she knows that the inevitable has come. She knows what she has to do. She stands up and approaches him.

"Oh, hey, Azula!" He greets through a mouthful of toilet paper.

"Jet." She starts firmly. "I think that it is time we part ways." It is a simple and clean cut. Yet it still puts a sorrowful pang in her heart. It doesn't matter, she knows in her heart that she is not meant for partnership. Hard as it is to admit, she had done better when it was just she and her cabbages.

Jet has become a distraction at best. At worst, he is sapping away her intelligence. For spirit's sake, she had drawn a picture of dickbutt! She is losing herself and it is time to choose what matters.

Cabbages.

"This has everything to do with you." Azula states, matter of factly. "You are an unrepentant idiot and I cannot work with that."

Jet blinks.

"If I am going to have any success, I am going to have to get rid of dead weight."

"Oh, wo-ow." Jet says. "Just because I died in season two doesn't mean I'm dead weight."

"Yes, Jet. It does." Azula replies.

"Well, fine!" Jet yells. "You don't care about anything but your cabbages anyways!" He accuses.

"Yes." Azula agrees. "That is what I just told you. And you are hindering my ability to sell them." She tentatively brushes her fingers over the leaves of her cabbages. "So I advise you to leave my sight at once."

As things usually happen, a portal opens up before them.

"Your ride is here."

Jet throws his roll of toilet paper on the ground. "Fine! But when your business crumbles, don't come crying to me! Oh wait! Your business can't crumble because there's no success to crumble!" He declares as he steps into the portal.

His words hit her like a strike to the face. She will show him. She will show all of them. She will be the best cabbage merchant in Fire Nation history.

Like a ghost of the past, Jet's roll of discarded toilet paper unravels as it makes its way down the hillside. The night and the world around her has gone quiet. She is alone once more. Alone and faintly regretful. She picks up a cabbage and hugs it to her chest.

This is how it is supposed to be, she tells herself.

Somewhere somehow she had lost sight of what was important.

But now that Jet is gone, she may reclaim it.

She knows what needs to be done.

She must free the tea man.

Once it is done she will have her business partnership and her pan-fried noodles and roast duck.

Yes. That is how things should be.