Welcome back guys! I hope you enjoy my take on Book Two!

The Ever Night is coming to an end. Katara feels the chill leaving the air the further south the Watertribe skiff takes them. Yue will guide them wherever they go in the world, but it still feels like they're leaving a part of her behind.

Sokka won't forget her so easily, neither will Katara. Her brother stayed up with her as long as he could, gazing forlornly into the sky and his lost love. Looking so miserable, like he'll never be happy again, until his eyes would stay open no longer. If she didn't know her brother so well his cold shoulder to her sympathetic goodnight would seem resentful of her blood connection to the moon. But Katara knows her brother and knows two months is not enough time to grieve. Winter isn't even officially over but leaving the Northern Watertribe feels like they're leaving Yue, at least to Sokka. No, his withdrawal does not wound, her feelings are not so fragile. She'd take on as much of her brother's pain she could if such a thing were possible.

Her empathy's a doubled edged weapon, one which has given her similar cuts. There was a time, months ago, she'd held the same desire to heal another broken boy, his scars much more visible to the world, so many more across his soul. Some wounds may be put there by Katara herself. Well, she isn't without her own nick's or cuts either.

The night, the skiff, flickers between memories of another ship deck on another night. A hazy film goes over the peaceful evening, like she's seeing double. Iron underneath her feet, smoke chugging them along instead of sails filled by a brisk breeze. A sharp jaw beneath her fingers instead of watertribe carved wood and hollow bone. Her thumb tingles where a mouth pressed resonantly against the pad. Her lips tingle the same way.

Often and against her will, her mind wanders back to that stolen moment on the ice bridge. Lips she always suspected of being warm covering her own before Zuko threw himself onto the mercy of the ice.

At her request. At her order. Leaving her to think about him every day since in these quiet, smaller moments. Moments they used to share, reading scrolls, telling stories, sipping tea.

Moments she now fills wondering where he is, if Iroh is with him. Is he on his way back to the Fire Nation? Will his home have him back? Will he find a place there? Will he prepare for Aang's inevitable arrival?

And she worries, as often as Aunt Wu's fortune creeps up from the back of her mind, if he's okay.

It's not her place. In his life and in her own. She needs to focus on the future, towards the inevitability they rush towards as they head for the Earth Kingdom. Zuko would call it destiny, but Katara's not so sure.

Aang is the Avatar, it's his purpose to learn the elements and restore balance. That is inevitable. Stopping the Fire Nation is an occupational hazard to this role.

But what if Iroh decided to usurp his brother? What if the three nations truly worked together to stop the reign of fire? What if Ozai realised the horror his Nation had become – fat chance, but it draws the same question to Katara's restless mind:

What place does destiny have compared to doing the right thing?

Aang interrupts the circles her mind is determined to run in, coming to quietly stand beside her in the moonlit night. She knows whatever's troubling him is bad when he doesn't speak, doesn't even smile about something so simple she might have overlooked, distracted by her internal ramblings. His ability to glean enjoyment from the smallest things is a mastery beyond his control of the winds.

Those impress her. His optimism never ceases to astound.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asks when the silence becomes too much for her.

"Nah, just a nightmare." But it opens a floodgate. A flow beyond her ability to calm. "I was in the Avatar State, but I was outside my body watching myself. It was scary. I was scary."

He leans on her, as he always does. And she puts her hand on his shoulder to take his load. The action is second nature; the load never lightens.

Ba Sing Se breathes around Katara. It's a concept she still has yet to fully grasp, how stone can live, thrum with an energy which feeds on the people instead of the other way around.

Ice has a soul. Katara feels it in the shifting floes. Water swells like breath expanding in the chest.

Air flows, tickles the skin, constantly reminds you of its presence. Each brush against her skin feels like a giggle in the air, an invitation to laugh along.

Even Fire lives. Destructively. Passionately. All consuming. Warmth draws touch to it but grasp too fast for too long and it'll bite you with its burn.

But stone? Katara cannot feel a heartbeat. Cannot hear its steady silence the way earthbenders can. Yet this city lives because the people in it live. Build lives. Have families. She supposes it's the same.

Toph's disposition against the city, and Katara's own disposition against Toph, battle one another as she walks amongst the stone. She's never handled being unwanted well. Not being needed is even worse. She caretakes and fusses and receives huffs and thanks in equal measures, and it sustains the gnawing fear that without it, what else could fall apart if she isn't keeping her eye on it? Toph dismissing her every attempt to bring her into that team, while not malicious in intent, opened the first crack under Katara's feet.

And then Aang lost Appa, and weeks later is still taking his time coming back to them. To her. Weakening the foundations.

Perhaps that's why she's out late now, while the others settle into the Upper Ring villa the Earth King was gracious enough to set them up with. Because if Katara is nothing else, she's an opportunist. They have a roof and a stable place to plant their feet.

Let's see Toph make fun of that.

How she'll undoubtedly try brings a smile to Katara's lips as she takes a deep breath of thriving city air. Comes back tasting of wet stone and sewage. Collected bodies are bound to bring with them the stink of consumption; from clothes to food, to the unmentionable things she smelt as Joo Dee took them through the lower ring.

"It's just a bunch of walls and rules." Toph huffed in her usual, abrupt way. "Cities are worse than any thief you'll meet 'cause it'll smile as it takes your money. You wait, you'll get sick of this place in a couple of days."

Katara isn't sure she's sick of it so much as impressed as she think's she'll be.

Life comes in all shapes, sizes, and smells, Katara supposes. She can't really judge as she parades the middle ring shops in her lightest furs, looking for the places she's sure she'll be frequenting over the coming weeks. Please let it only be weeks. If not, she'll finally be making a cabbage merchant happy with her continued business.

The silks of Earth Kingdom shoppers sway in the spring evening, a noticeable change from the heavier robes Haru wore as the winter winds began to approach his town. Katara herself has begun sporting a light sweat from only the light browsing she's occupied her evening with. While food is mainly on her mind, she allows herself moments to consider dark green shifts that remind her of the pine forests of her home. Leggings and skirts as rich and deep as her own skin. The few she brushes her fingers against are light and silky, some of the softest things she's ever felt.

But Aang's insistent they don't stay here longer than they need to. They find Appa. They convince the Earth King to join their push against the Fire Nation. Comfort's a waste of time, so she sweats and trails past the softer, lighter clothes. Guess that's easy enough for a monk to say, and, really, she isn't suffering. Just sticky.

No, to Katara, Ba Sing Se does not breathe. But for what its city lacks, the people make up for in shouting, singing, stinking, and swearing. Katara's no prude to any of its charms. Her childhood was spent around warriors and fishermen, before her young adulthood was spent watching warriors and fishermen in training. She's built up quite the tolerance.

It's another thing entirely to be completely surrounded by it.

But she can choose to surround herself with a positive attitude. Sometimes she thinks it's the only thing that's been keeping their group together. The promise of bringing back dinner certainly roused Sokka's spirits, and after the day they've had Katara will take whatever victories she can get.

Another victory came when she was able to slip out from under Joo Dee's nose. Wandering the middle ring alone, finally a moment to herself to think, is a blessing all in itself.

"It's called "being handled". Get used to it."

Not until Joo Dee and those pesky Dai Li tie her down with rope made from rocks. Katara's never taken well to being told how she should be, where she should be doing it, or how she should be as she did. Master Pakku's wonky moustache can testify what repercussions that mistake brings.

The memory of it flapping unevenly in the sea breeze before they departed the Northern Watertribe skiff brings another small, secretive smile to Katara's lips. She powers through on the satisfaction, clothes sticky on her back as she switches her browsing eye from light robes to hardy vegetables. The way she knows Aang likes them.

Now all she has to do is find a butcher with the cuts she knows Sokka likes. Which, admittedly, is every cut. Toph seems happy enough to take what she's given. That's why she left this particular task until last.

Unfortunately, as easy as finding a regular butcher is, leaving it until well past sundown means she's wandering the middle ring with a bag on her back laden down with vegetables, fruits and rice, while another swings irritably against her opposite thigh because she can't let the Bison Ram shank get blood on the vegetables.

Everything looks the same. Stone pulled up from the ground by Earthbenders. Shaped into sloping rooftops, hollowed out windows and slotting corners. Carved down to each precise point so every house, shop, school, and parlour creates the maze Katara wanders through now.

She's not the only one. Orange light awakens a soft hue within the city night sky, mainly in the air above the Lower Ring's side of the wall. Back home night laid its claim over the frozen land. Her people would accept its grasp with offerings of blubber lamps and fires in the hearth, warding off the chill more than the inevitable darkness. Fighting it would be to blaspheme the spirits which live in shadow.

Ba Sing Se have no such spirits if their defiance of the night is any hint. The sun going down will not halt its industry, nor the people partaking in it. When the sun sets in the south, doors shut as hearths are lit. Here, Katara walks within square suns as doors are thrown open, laughter spilling from the endless taverns, restaurants, teashops, and parlours of the Middle Ring.

Katara wonders, looking up into the endless artificial sunset above the Lower Ring, what keeps the doors open on the other side. She didn't get a good enough look that morning, Joo Dee hurrying them through without stopping.

A strategy Katara takes now. She's been aware of the three men on her tail for the last thirty minutes. She doubts they've been following her for longer. Their leader hunches over himself like he wants her to think he's watching the ground instead of her every move. His two goons flank the road behind him. All intent on waiting for her to wander down a wrong side street. All completely obvious in their intentions once she does.

Better me than some poor defenceless fop, Katara thinks as she eyes the trash sitting alongside the still chuffing laundry emporium and does exactly that.

She rounds the corner and makes it halfway down the alley before she hears the steps quicken. Her water skin is already uncorked. She doesn't even turn, flicking her hand back like a fly's buzzing irritably beside her ear. Like an unleashed current, her water thrashes into the first attacker, punishing his momentum as it strikes a bullseye in the centre of his head.

His legs carry on while the body tips back, sending him flailing to the ground. It trips up his pursuer, landing in a damp, ruddy brown heap at Katara's feet.

"Not expecting a little damp weather?" She'd been thinking on what she'd say as she searched for the best place to lead them. "Maybe you should think twice before stalking-"

She leaps with fright as a heavy weight thumps behind her. She spins, but the heavy bags on her back swing further, carrying her too far. She's off balance, hands fumbling to bring the water up. Foot skidding out at an angle when she tries to step out of reach, only for her arm to be snatched in black clad fingers.

The foreign hand tugs, but only lightly. She's brought back, centre restored, the fingers giving her wrist a light, reassuring squeeze before letting go. For a moment she's too stunned to move. Then she's stepping back, caution and training forging the instinct to create space, moving her own hands to bring the spilled water off the floor to hold protectively out in front of her.

"I didn't need-"

Her own squawk of surprise cuts her off. It causes the blue demon mask watching her to shy back in alarm. Though the mask radiates impassivity, the tall, lithe body clad all in black perfectly conveys the wearers astonishment. They jerk back as if struck, shoulders forward, arms hanging limp by their sides as two powerful legs bow awkwardly apart. She can't see the face, but the body alone conveys an open-mouthed stare, utterly bewildered.

Katara recovers first. "You startled me."

Her sharp tone forces the mask back another step. Not so much backwards, actually, more to the side, creating a wider stretch of space between them. She supposes whoever this person is just saw her dispatch her would be assailants with a flick of the wrist.

You're right to be cautious, she thinks. But they also got the drop on her. If this is a hidden forth waiting in case the first team can't get the job done, why announce his presence at all?

"You with them?" She thumbs over her shoulder.

The mask shakes in a succinct motion. No effort wasted. Definitely not one for playing games then.

Katara still feels the essence of a confused stare radiating from the being before her. She isn't sure why. The blue demon is one she knows, old stories from Gran-Gran of vengeful river sprites, bitter ocean spirits, and creek demons who live for causing mischief. Except the mask her would-be assailant wears is so plain she can't tell which they're trying to pass themselves off as.

It's so grim. Offensive, almost, in how plainly devilish it wants the audience to believe it is. It screams Northern Watertribe, but a mockery of it.

"What?" she snaps, unnerved by the attention. "Never seen a waterbender before? Never seen a girl easily handle her own business?"

She waits for a reply. None comes.

"So, you're just going to give me a heart attack then stare at me? You know, if you wanted something to do you could have been a little more helpful with-"

A shadow flashes forwards between her blinks. One moment the mask is moving back with every step she takes forwards. The next they're screaming past, a flash of darkness blocking out her vision. She jerks backwards on instinct. And then they're beyond her.

She spins, again too hard. But the mask isn't there to catch her. She hears a grunt of surprise, the pillowed whack of closed fists on soft skin, as she fights to regain her balance.

The mask stands over the third man, foot on his neck. How could Katara have forgotten about him? The shabby head isn't bowed towards the ground this time. It blinks in a daze before focusing in on the screaming blue devil looming over him.

"Wha-! What is that?" He tries to scramble back, chocking off his own cries as trachea drags against the shoe pressing his throat. "You ain't real! You're a Fire Nation trick!"

Katara's hackles blaze. Sensing it, the mask turns towards her. The lake she's made in this alley already churns with a storm. She tracks the masks hands, which way the foot still on the ground points as she gathers her spilled water from the ground.

But the mask doesn't try to stop her. It takes off running, splashing through her gathering water, tearing down towards the back of the alley. She gives chase, two steps behind. But they're fast. So fast, so intent on getting away, they don't see the second thugs hand reaching out to close around their ankle.

"No!" Katara shouts. Water whips out ahead of her, latching onto the reaching thugs fingers. He cries out in alarm, wrenching so hard Katara has to stop running before he pulls her off her feet.

The mask keeps running, though where he plans to go, Katara can't fathom. Let them run themselves into the alley's dead end. She can't give chase and subdue the thug together. He's putting up a tough fight, jerking, rolling away from her. He's trying to over-extend the water, pull Katara off balance with it before she can set her feet. He's about to, when a rooftile sails through the air. It crunches into the thugs forehead, shattering against his thick brow. He drops like a stone back to the ground.

Halfway up the side of Kwong's Laundry Emporium, holding on with one hand while both feet bracket the cut stone corner, a mask salutes facelessly down to Katara. Gripping the railing of the upper window above their head, the body upends itself, hooks their legs through the lattice work in front of the window, and swings itself up onto the roof.

And disappears without a look back.

Katara should tell the others what happened.

But food shopping is something none of them have any interest in. It's the one thing she can do herself. Separate for a few precious hours and strike out some time for Katara. True, being alone is exactly what got her into the predicament, but no one was hurt. Badly, anyway,

And Appa needs their full attention. If she goes running amuck on how even the Middle Ring isn't safe, she's sure the only thing it will bring down on them is more of Joo Dee's unnerving smile. If that's even possible.

Toph's openly hostile to Joo Dee anytime she opens her mouth. Katara does her best to tolerate the escorts presence, but she learns quickly that pretending she isn't there won't help them. She's not sure what's happening, only that something is. It comes about whenever they ask someone about Appa.

Barely two questions into their inquiry, a squirmy look goes beyond Katara's understanding, before they're being run from like they're carrying the Pentapox plague.

And like that plague, something seems fishy to Katara.

It's her idea to try the Lower Ring. Based on her experience last night those citizens won't be so easily cowed. She passed a pet store the evening before, drawn close by the sparrowkeet caws. Whatever's scaring the Middle and Upper Ring business and political inhabitants can't possible trickle down to the refugees.

"I'm sorry," the store owner answers before the questions barely out of Aang's mouth, "but I haven't heard anything about a flying bison. I didn't even know there were any."

Aang won't be deterred though. "If someone wanted to sell a stolen animal without anyone knowing, where would they go ?"

Sokka's less tactful. "Where's the black market?"

As Sokka continues to grill and Joo Dee looms behind them, Katara seizes the chance to study the animal merchant's face. It's a warm day, summer on the horizon. A light sheen coats Katara, gleams off Aang's smooth domed head. Yet the merchant, dressed in much more appropriate robes, dabs nervously at the sweat running down his left temple.

"I... Uhh..."

She waits. There! The moment his eyes dart to that same startled place, Katara subtly tilts her head towards where Momo hassles the Sparrowkeets, catching a look from the corner of her eye.

Joo Dee smiles pleasantly at the merchant. Katara waits for her to blink.

She doesn't. She carefully shakes her head, as if disturbed by the dust Momo's kicking up.

"That would be illegal." The merchant shuts Sokka down with a stern look. "You'll have to leave now; your lemur is harassing my sparrowkeets."

It's a quick lesson on how deep the Dai Li's roots stretch. It also makes Katara feel worse for wasting their time.

They spill out into the humid street. In the light of day, the pale stone buildings are stark, their faceless night-time visages revealing small, personalities in the form of chips, cracks, paintings in the windows. All splashes of colour under the harsh sun that, after the gloom of the pet store, hurt Katara's eyes.

She blinks the starburst spots away, a flash of blue in the swarm twisting her to look while the others are ushered on by Joo Dee. She hesitates a second, considers calling for them to follow, before she turns and runs after the flash of blue. There's no night to disappear into this time. Whoever her mystery saviour, attacker - she hasn't decided yet - was, they're not plaguing her for another night. Not with everything else she has to worry about.

The humid air scratches Katara's throat. She can't lose the back pushing its way through the crowds a hundred paces ahead, already pulling at the ties which fix the pointed blue mask Katara knows is sneering at the bodies in its way. What she can see of the person is nondescript, padded out by the dark brown tunic. Last night they'd been tight, form fitted in black to melt into the shadows.

Yanking the distinctive mask off, the figure darts around the nearest corner. Katara puts on an extra burst of speed but knows before she's even reached the corner it's all over. The market square bustles with afternoon shoppers cramming themselves in to get the best of the fresh produce before the sun has its chance to get to them. Without the blue mask to pick them out of the crowd, it's impossible to find her evader amongst the throngs of identically dressed Earth Kingdom citizens.

She collapses against a cart selling purple flowers wilting in the sun. Their soft petals wrinkle in the fudgy city, clawing at whatever clean air they can to stay alive. Katara doesn't feel much better. She's sticky with sweat, cursing her thick leggings as they cling to her skin. Cursing her slower reactions even more.

The mask was right there! She had them in her sights, and she let them get away! A voice fuzzes beside her ear but Katara's in no mood to be drowned under the press of a million different conversations.

Trying to figure out what the mask was doing out in the middle of the day is a hard task. She still has no idea what they were doing out in the middle of the night, either. Obviously something they shouldn't otherwise why wear the mask at all? Her immediate suspicion was watertribe. The mask begged for that assumption, an unimaginative meshing together of all the vengeful spirits of her people. And who better wanted revenge on the Fire Nation than the decimated tribes of the poles?

Newly stitched back together by the Avatar, now was the time to enact Yue's dying promise of consequences.

Yet, Katara's also seen the wanted posters for the infamous Blue Spirit. But he was a Fire Nation foil, plaguing their caravans and camps as their forces pushed deeper into their colonies – if the stories were to be believed. Why would he be slipping between the shadows of Ba Sing Se? While barely engaged with the fighting, the city wasn't harassing the Fire Nation as effectively as other combatants in the war, where the Blue Spirits efforts would be better focused.

Katara hates acting on so little information. Speculation, rumours - all theories. Nothing concrete for her to follow. She's chasing ideas of where to ask about Appa all over again without anywhere to set her feet. If she turns around, will Joo Dee be smiling over her shoulder?

"Buy something or move along, girlie. You're scaring off my customers!" The stall owner glares at Katara over an unfortunately placed mole at the end of her nose. Katara makes the mistake of looking right at it before switching her gaze to the woman's eyes. "I said get!"

She skitters back from the swatting hand, right into a thick body.

"Watch it!" the body snaps. She barely catches a glimpse of the face. Blunt like a rock was thrown into the man's crib. Sun-beaten. Then he's shoving her in the stomach and barging his way into the crowd.

"It was an accident." But he's gone, and her stomach hurts.

She rubs it, muttering to herself. And crinkles unexpectedly, startling at the stark texture. From her sash she pulls a rumpled, slightly torn slip of paper that was not there before. The sparse ink scribbled in the centre has barely had time to dry, smudging in places. Katara bends to gently flatten the page on the flattop of the flower stand, much to the vendors continued ire.

"Get away from-" Katara tosses her a copper coin and plucks the least wilted flower from the bunch to placate her. She crooks the stem between her fingers as she twists, leaning under the awning failing to give shade to the deprived flowers.

Purple petals dance against the brittle scroll as Katara hunches over to read the precise sharp penmanship.

Waterbender,

Lower Ring. Pao's Family Tea House.

The Blue Spirit.

She gapes at the page until the flower vender's wart nudges back into her vision. Katara quickly whips the paper away from her prying eyes, stuffing it back into her sash. The flower goes with it, drawing a deeper frown from the woman at the treatment of her stock.

He's here. The Blue Spirit is in Ba Sing Se. And he wants to meet with her. Katara's gut gives an instinctive pull, demanding she go to Pao's now, but a call of her name forces her feet to stay planted to the ground.

"Katara!"

Aang's waving at her. Toph's blind eyes survey nothing but Katara finds it a little unsettling she appears to be looking in the right direction, despite Katara not having moved. Can she feel the vibrations of Aang's wave? Sense the direction its going despite it not touching the ground? It's an amazing power that's taking Katara a little time to get her head around.

"There's more places we can ask about Appa!" Aang's calling across the square. Behind him, Joo Dee smiles as pleasant as always. The unease in Katara's gut deepens, almost rooting her to the floor.

She's in the lower ring now. A few quick questions can have her setting off for Pao's tea house in seconds. And the tour guide will be dogging her every step or sending the Dai Li to do it for her, no doubt.

And she can't risk Aang not finding Appa.

"What were you looking at?" Toph asks, and Katara once again cannot tell if Toph means generally, or the note hidden in her sash.

"Flowers." She pulls the squashed flower from her tunic and holds it out to the younger girl.

Toph's nose wrinkles. "My sense of smell isn't heightened, Sugar Queen. I'm blind, not a tiger hound."

Aang laughs, plucking the flower from Katara's fingertips and holding it closer under Toph's nose. "It's a Drifting Whisper. They grow on mountains sides. The monks used to tell us to pour our worries into the pods, then when the summer breeze came, they'd carry our troubles away, down the mountains where they drop seeds to sprout. Those don't last long." He squints up into the harsh blue sky. "Heat makes them wilt."

Not just the flowers, Katara thinks as Toph takes a deep sniff.

"Smells fruity."

"They're purple," Aang says like it was a question.

"I don't know what that is, Twinkle Toes."

"Oh. Right. Uh…" Aang tilts his head in thought. "You know when someone with a deep voice is murmuring, and it's all soft and mellow? Could be a song. Could be reminding themselves to pick up some apples. It doesn't rise or lower with intonation. More it sucks the surrounding sound into it, keeping a piece of it for itself. It's not warm, it can't be, because purple is the place between red and blue, hot and cold. It sedates something in the blood. You can practically smell the jasmine and spices."

"Like something fruity."

"Exactly." Aang beams at Toph. With a quick flick of his nimble fingers, he floats the flower through the air and settles it in the gap between her head band and ear. "Purple's a funny one. Makes me taste sweet and sour sauce."

Toph's nose wrinkles. "Sounds like a gross colour." But the flower stays tucked safely in the headband as she turns to find her sightless way back to Sokka and Joo Dee.

Katara gapes at Aang. "You just described colour to someone who was born blind."

Aang shrugs. "Wasn't hard. I just took the picture out of it."

Katara has no idea what that means, but Aang's smile makes her think of meadows of Drifting Whisper, mellow and content despite the turmoil she knows swirling in him.

Katara's feet are dragging by the time they make it through all their leads in the Lower Ring. They tried the pet shop, the market square, a goat breeder who was looking to expand into Yak's, and, in a final desperate attempt, a leather worker who also sold fur pelts. Aang had to wait outside the man's store for that one, and when they came back out, he was so relieved by the news Appa wasn't seen there he practically fell into Katara's arms.

Shadowing them the whole time, Joo Dee's smile never wavers. Even as the sun reached then passed its zenith, her relentless cheeriness hung over them like a shadow, casting the suffocating doubt onto everyone they questioned that Katara felt earlier that day.

Working so out in the open isn't going to get them anywhere. She needs to operate in the shadows. And when they begin to trudge back to the cart which will take them back to the Upper Ring, she hangs back. "I need to get some stuff for dinner. I'll take the tram back. You guys go on ahead."

Sokka's too tired and fed up to argue. Her brother's one of the most naturally suspicious people she knows. He's been well aware of the lying being thrown into his face all day and its exhausted him. Toph climbs in after him without a word. Her natural independence has finally found a way to work its way into Katara's favour.

Only Aang hangs back, and with him Joo Dee. It's the first time the smile has slipped. Barely, but Katara feels the guides disapproval.

"Are you sure?" Aang's grey eyes study her quizzically.

"We're out of those green roots you like." Katara's had nothing to do but think on how she'll craft her excuse to slip away from the group for the last few hours. It still twists her guts as she delivers the polished words, like she's lying to him.

"It's not a big deal. We can wait until the morning, Katara." Aang looks around the station of carriages, back into the section of city they've been skulking through all day. The coming night is casting a shadow over the already reputable Lower Ring. It's the only place Aang doesn't know, never travelled to when he lived with the monks. "We should stay together."

"I need to pick up more than the vegetables. Sokka wants paper and ink, and if Toph isn't going to wash her feet, I at least need to get some incense before she stinks out the villa. Besides, I need to get used to these tram systems eventually, right?"

Aang nods at the logic but still hesitates. "I could come with you?"

"You're sweet, but it's been a long day." She squeezes his shoulder. "Go back and wash up. I won't be long."

Aang goes, and thankfully Joo Dee goes with him. Katara suspected if Aang did come, Joo Dee would insist as well. The Avatar wandering around the Lower Ring would be way too noticeable, but who would care about a single waterbender meandering around like a lost tourist?

Still, despite her urgency, she meanders through the jobs she does actually have to get done. She wasn't lying, despite feeling like she was. Not telling the whole truth doesn't count. Rifling through the best paper the lower ring has to offer is just boring enough that she hopes any Dai Li sent to tail her will be so fed up by the time she asks the perfectly innocuous question of a place to find some good tea they won't think anything of it.

Cautious of appearing to have particular interest in Pao's, she accepts directions to four different shops before she's finally wandered far enough from the south gate to be directed to the family-owned establishment.

Like the rest of the lower ring, the shop is shabby. Chunky boards cover spots where holes clearly pock mark the front wall beneath the windows. Gaps dot the tiled roof like missing teeth in the mouth of a pro-earth rumbler. It's got nothing homey to speak of, and smells damp as Katara walks in. Only the distinct smell of tea saves it. Laboured over, lovingly tendered.

The smell reminds Katara of something, but she can't quite bring it to mind. For some reason, a smile won't work its way free from her memory, lined at the edges. She takes a deeper inhale, pausing the mission she's been so focused on for the better part of the day to try and find it.

An overworked host bustles about in front of her, and she's about to get his attention when he straightens and looks towards the kitchen. Livid skin peeks around the corner of his face, cupping a mottled left ear. It freezes Katara's imploring hand as it's about to tap him on the back.

"I'll be with you in a minute," he rasps over his shoulder without turning to look at her before turning his attention back to the kitchen. "Uncle, table four wants an extra Ginseng, and seven wants two Oolongs."

The memory of the smile is crushed between the frustrated rasp and metal walls of a ship. But Katara only needs to look at the kitchen and see the man it belongs to as he calls back. He's stuffed into an apron too sizes too small, happier than Katara's ever seen him as he stirs the giant vat of bubbling tea he labours over.

"Four Ginseng and seven Oolongs, got it!"

"No," Zuko growls, so familiar it strikes at something Katara thought she'd frozen over months ago. "Table four wants-Never mind. Don't pour anything yet, I'll show you!" He stalks off with the order slip before Iroh can pour more tea than anyone could possibly drink.

Zuko. Skinnier, and he has hair now, cropped, and black, but she'd know that voice anywhere. And Iroh. Zuko and Iroh. Here, in Ba Sing Se.

Whether Zuko remembers the customer waiting to be seated before he goes back to taking orders doesn't matter. She's gone, sprinting out the door before he has the chance to turn around.

As always, Kudos welcome, likes, dislikes, comments and complaints. Let me know what you think!