"What's this?" He holds up the tile in front of Iroh, keeping it at an angle, hoping that his grand-uncle can't tell that he's trying to hide his tense face from view.

"Kazou! You are not here at your regular hours."

"How can you tell? It's dark in here —"

"Ah, it is not important. But is there a reason that you are waking me up in the middle of the night? Turn on the lights, please."

Kaz abides quickly before realizing that he's still garbed in black rather than his normal bright robes. Luckily, the mask is in his bag, still hanging behind him. His sword is loosely clutched in his hand, rinsed off in a stream he'd found on the way here, next to the silos that he's cut open. He hasn't slept in about a day — it's dawn — and the heaviness of what he might have done is settling into his bones. "You do not look good, Prince Kazou. What is troubling you?"

"You know," he whispers intently and angrily, because Iroh probably does know. Iroh, for whatever reason, knows a lot. "What's this tile for? I know it has something to do with you."

The old general looks like he's about to comment further on that subject before the tile in Kaz's hand catches the light. "Where did you get that?" He says sharply, moving to grab it. Kaz steps back.

"What is it?"

Iroh almost attempts to put a hand through the bars before realizing that isn't a possibility. Instead he falls back and stares at the lotus tile Kazou is clutching. "Where did you get that, Prince Kazou?"

Prince Kazou ran into Jiro's office a few hours ago. He just wants to be Kaz right now. "I found it," he says because that's enough of the truth. Iroh looks at him with some form of — is that disappointment? No, no.

He cannot have Iroh, too, give him that look. Like his parents did and like the maid did and like Azula won't. Iroh can't know that he snuck out of the palace at night and probably killed someone and cut open the top hatch of three rice silos and is dreading going back to his bed in the morning. He needs to go back. But he's been held off and he wants answers and he wants to distract himself. This is not the reason he had expected to see these eyes.

"You found it," he repeats, before sighing loudly. "You took it from your parents, did you not?"

"I — what does it mean? What is —"

"Perhaps this is what was destined. Although I am sure their journey will be much harder now."

"Stop talking like that," Kaz complains. "What does this stupid thing do?"

"It is not stupid," he's reproached. "There are some who still follow the ancient ways, Kazou. Perhaps you have been chosen in some way, to channel your bending and do good in the world."

He thinks about blood and can't hold in his shudder, so he hides it and jumps to his feet. "You — I can't believe I thought I was going to get anything from you. You're so unhelpful."

"It is important to ask questions. Especially when we doubt ourselves. Come here, Kazou," Iroh gestures, outlined in the thin flame, and Kaz warily puts the tile back in his undershirt pocket, where it always is, before moving closer. He nods sagely. "You have a mask, do you not? You have done good today."

The trusting look on Iroh's face almost breaks him, almost unleashes the flood. How does he explain — no. Of course this man thinks he's a paragon of good, thinks he's his father. He's terrible at doing good things. He slashed Jiro's throat. He hasn't done good today. Why does nobody understand him? Why did he — ugh. This is all too much and he's getting overwhelmed. Adrenaline let him run away from a burning building and had him hold onto the metal towers and slash their tops and send sentries running after him. But now it's phasing out and he's realizing that he did all of this under the moon and he left an unconscious half-dead man in a room on fire. He hasn't done good today at all. He'd tried and he'd failed and he'd injured some poor man. A man with a daughter — he might have been corrupt but he was surely not deserving of death. Even though it did come easy.

"Kazou? Are you —"

He holds out his hand and extinguishes the lamp before sprinting out of the hall.

Kazou sleeps through bending practice for the first time. When he forces himself out of his slumber, it's because Ryozo is pounding down his door and yelling something about the Fire Lord. The sun exiting through his window is harsh. It must be time for their tea soon. He reaches up and stretches before immediately jumping out of his bed and yelling for the man to come in. Any of the seconds in between leave him time to contemplate and he doesn't want to do that.

"Are you alright, Prince Kazou?" he's asked after he exits the washroom in his underlayers. Ryozo stands respectfully next to his closet with robes that are probably incrementally different from the ones he'd worn yesterday in his hands.

"I was just sick," he responds shortly. "I'm fine."

"Are you alright to meet the Fire Lord?"

"Yes," he says, even though they both know that he has to follow Azula's demands no matter what. The fabric, heavy and smooth, slides over him, weighing him down like the sword he needs to clean, and he winces at the mirror as his attendant starts combing his hair back. It's long enough now to be pulled up properly. His crown is at his bedside, and Ryozo places it on carefully. Kaz adjusts it when he stands so that it doesn't dig into his pounding skull.

"Prince —"

"You can take your leave now. I'll go to the tearoom myself."

"Yes, Prince."

Ryozo is dutiful and exactly what a royal servant should be, he thinks, walking across the courtyard, grateful that nobody is crossing his path. I should feed the turtleducks. Perhaps I should go to some fancy dinner tonight and make it up to Azula. The sky looks nice today. I wonder if he's still alive or if I burned him. His guards weren't that incompetent, were they? What did I do? I need to plan. I needed a plan — I don't want to — there is blood on my shoes —

The door to the room they both frequent is open and when he wanders inside to settle onto a cushion Azula is already there, a cup of tea in hand and papers to the side. "Slept in, did you? You're late. Eat," she dictates.

He crams a soft roll into his mouth, not quite sure what he's consuming. When she looks back up he swallows it quickly in order to not look so uncivilized. She's fingering the papers by her side. "Have you recovered, Kaz?"

So this is Aunt Azula. "Yeah, I'm fine now," he mutters. "I had a relaxing night."

"Yes," she raises an eyebrow. "You slept for an awfully long amount of time. You must be well rested."

And he knows that's political vagueness talking, because his eyes are red and circles are visible in the mirror. "I'm fine. I'm going to get that legis—legislation tonight."

"Don't stutter," she notes before sipping and licking her lips — for what reason he's not quite sure, as she's not eating anything. "I had the most startlingly relevant report come in today morning, actually."

He stays still. "Oh. That's interesting. What happened?"

"Well, it seems like Agni knew of your plan. That merchant Jiro — not even a noble at all, really, virtually worthless — was attacked last night, can you believe it? And nobody is quite sure who came after him. And that's barely relevant, of course, but some strange figure went to his storage silos, the one near the dirtier districts of the city, and cut them open. Rice went everywhere. It's been quite a disaster down there for the past few hours," she says. "I really wish you'd have woken up so that you could have taken the lead on this one."

"I —"

"Yes," she drawls. "Your health is, of course, one of my highest priorities. Still, I don't have the time to deal with such useless tasks. Present the work to me at dinner today. You can handle all the vigilantes."

"What happened to the merchant?"

"Ah. It was gruesome, I heard. I don't normally care about such things but I had to read the hospital report and it was rather ingenuitive. His throat was slit so he has vocal cord damage, I believe. Burns, and his head was rather strange when he was sent to the hospital. Someone had blocked a chi path to make him unconscious," she says flatly.

At least she isn't being candid about what she's saying between her lines and at least she doesn't know about Iroh. He hopes. "This has sparked some protests within the population, of course. They're trying to take the grain and it's causing chaos. People are hungry."

"They should eat," he tests, and she taps against the cup.

"They should, indeed. Even my war council does not like this strange person. Nen mentioned to me today morning that there is going to be a new radicalization movement in the Caldera. That the people will want more."

"I see," he fights the urge to shake his legs and concentrate all of his energy out.

She's watching him like a hawk. "I trust that you will take care of this situation? Your word, Prince Kazou."

Azula steps up and he spills his open cup as he hastily rises. "Fire Lord Azula."

And then she disappears out the door and he stays inside, inelegantly throwing another bun into his face. He's famished but he can't drink the tea, so he lets it sit.

The room is almost uncomfortable without another presence and he carefully gets up after a few minutes, mulling over that conversation. The first thing that settles into him is relief; Jiro is not dead. He hadn't — he hadn't gone That far, yet. The situation gets moved to the back of his mind. And the second is that he really needs to go and work on these papers now, especially if this cause is going to be his pet project from her out. He's not sure why Azula is alright with protesters in the streets channeling all aspects of her court, but he won't complain.

He's out the door when he hears a telltale footstep to his side and straightens. "I will have your head for eavesdropping —"

Suddenly strong arms shove him back into the tearoom and slam the door behind him before he can think or react. He's grounded in a bending pose when he suddenly falls to the floor. "You have a lot of nerve," he growls. "I'm going to fire you."

Yesterday what this strange and almost nice girl had said to him, the implication that she'd thought he was something else . . . whatever she had meant had turned circles in his head, had made him feel much too much. He crosses his hands petulantly when he makes his way back up before reconsidering after a second and keeping his open palm out at her. "You're harassing me —"

Rini's not dressed in her maid's outfit. She's in some kind of red, day clothes, and her hair is down and still choppy and she's bright red. "I'm sorry."

He flinches at the words and she notices but doesn't say anything. Without knowing how to respond he defaults and snaps. "Call me by my title."

"Prince — whatever, I — I'm sorry."

He should really kick her out but he hasn't heard anyone apologize to him in the longest time. Not for the first time that night in the kitchens runs through his head. Mopping up water, slipping around, her holding that pitcher to him, sitting down in the lamplight and talking about the ducks in the pond and the best part of the palace, the fact that she doesn't actually do his laundry, how much she admires Fire Nation fashion. He'd told her awkwardly about his sword-training and how he sometimes enjoys writing. It had been nice. It had been somewhat innocent and it felt good.

"About what?"

"I couldn't help but I — I overheard," she gestures to the room and he groans. "I . . . you were joking about Ba Sing Se, weren't you? The Earth Kingdom is, like, a metaphor. There's no war or anything. I heard about the thing with cutting down the prices of vegetables and food for the people and what happened and — I'm sorry, I felt bad. I judged you," she peeks up.

He doesn't know whether to curse or applaud his luck. She — she seriously perceived that conversation as a joke? Like he would joke. Like Azula would. But her wide and light eyes look awfully trusting and he wants a friend. There is no war to most of the inhabitants of the Fire Nation. Any thoughts of it have died out. "Uh, yeah."

"Oh, sorry, uh, Prince —"

"It's fine," he's almost wondrous. "I was - I was being mean," he stumbles out. "You don't have to use that. I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry," she smiles. "You obviously have a lot on your shoulders and it wasn't fair of me to judge you. And I shouldn't even be — I shouldn't really be talking to you, should I?"

His heart is thumping in his chest. "No. It's not - it's alright. You're . . . cool." Stupid Kazou. "Just stop listening in on conversations I have with my aunt — the Fire Lord, okay? I don't even know how you sneak up on us."

She's red again. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to. I'm not even supposed to be here today."

He frowns, although the lines of his face are loose. "Why aren't you home, then?"

"You heard, didn't you? These gigantic towers of rice near my part of the town basically broke apart. There are soldiers everywhere," she giggles. "It's interesting but my mother made me come here because it's safer. And they let me in."

He wonders if she, listening in, picked up on Azula's subtexts — he doesn't think she did. "Oh," he says, noting that the door is closed and motioning for her to take a seat next to him. He would tell her to sit across from him, to be further out, but he doesn't want her in Azula's seat. "Sounds rough. Some . . . guy did it, didn't he?"

"Could've been a girl," she teases. "But yeah, some guy basically killed the guy who owned all of it."

"That sounds . . ." he feels guilty having this conversation. "Justified, a little."

"What?" she exclaims as she settles down and looks at him. "No, it isn't. He wasn't nice but he didn't deserve to be attacked."

"Really?" he whispers. Rini doesn't notice.

"I'm glad that this guy opened the rice and wheat and everything but I hope that you find him. You're going to have to do an investigation and stuff, right? Doing stuff that's technically right in a wrong way isn't good. He should still be punished."

"Oh," he starts. "Uh, do you want some tea?"

"That would be really nice of you," she says widely, and he takes his untouched cup and lights up his hand briefly underneath it before handing it to her. She smiles and accepts it. "But anyway, this is a good time to say sorry. I heard stuff about you being sick, uh, Prince . . ."

"Just Kaz. You can call me Kaz."

"Kaz," she tries out. "I don't feel like I should be calling the Crown Prince by his first name. Or a nickname."

"You shouldn't be talking to me at all," he deadpans. "You're breaking proper etiquette procedure.

Rini nearly drops her tea and he winces. "I was kidding."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

She takes a sip and they stare at each for a moment. Then she laughs a little. "You look so tense, uh, Kaz? I'm not going to bite you or something."

"I'm sure you won't," he says, internally in conflict. "You like fashion, right?"

"Yeah. I'm surprised you remembered that —"

Kaz reheats the teacup five times over the next hour, wrapping himself up in friendly laughs and conversation. He doesn't want to think about what happened last night.

Been getting a lot of questions about the Gaang. A lot of discourse around them is purposefully vague. In this AU both Aang and Ozai are gone and Fire Nation troops got rid of everyone else during the comet (as far as you know). Zutara won the Agni Kai but Azula doesn't like that narrative. I recommend rereading chapter six, seven, and fourteen (figured out, quiet conversations, and tell me the truth) to see Katara's POV and then Azula's unreliable one. You'll see why I'm not being clear especially as we make it to the next few chapters. Thanks for reading, and as always, I would love to hear from you!