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Four Months Previously:
Return to Omashu
Katara stares into a firing squad of green. Green robes, green bricks, green sewage permeating her every sense. Even the sallow light which illuminates the chamber they've been dropped into is done by a sickly, weak drizzling of lanterns. Sokka and Aang look around the stone chamber, over the heads of the hundreds of Earth Kingdom fighters watching the three intruders warily.
She gets to her feet, trying to reorient herself to this densely packed, stinking chamber. Climbing up into the city through the sewage passage had been bad enough. Here, the oppressive press of bodies heightens everything to an unbearable funk of sweat, fear and desperation.
"Long way from the palace," Sokka mumbles.
Katara has no idea what he's talking about.
Yung and his men don't seem to notice the stink. How long have they been down here?
"Is King Bumi with you guys?" Aang asks from beside the stern rebel. "Is he leading the resistance?"
Katara isn't as well versed in Omashu as Sokka and Aang, but she sees Yung's fists ball at his sides at the mention of their King. Her heart sinks for Aang. "Of course not! The day of the invasion, we readied ourselves for battle. We were prepared to defend our city, to fight for our lives and for our freedom."
There can't be more than four hundred Earthbenders in the cavern. For a military force like the Fire Nation, four hundred would constitute their vanguard before they flooded the city with their true might.
Yung's voice echoes in the cramped underground hall. "But before we even had a chance, King Bumi surrendered."
Aang's huge grey eyes betray his disconcert. His grip around his staff tightens. Bumi's the last person left of his old life, a lifeline to an existence long passed and buried, and not by Aang. He won't believe it.
But Yung's recollection of the day is crisp and detailed, as if the invasion were two days past instead of two months. It's only when he recalls how Bumi laughed after his decision to do nothing does Aang's will to believe in his friend crumple.
She puts her hand on his shoulder when his head bows, as if she could hold him together with the inadequate touch for a man she's never even met.
"It doesn't matter now," Yung declares, as if a king's betrayal is any more painful than a friends. "Fighting the Fire Nation is the only path to freedom, a freedom worth dying for."
Aang doesn't see the rebel's self-satisfied smile. The weight of his grief is so heavy he leans on his staff to offload some of its burden, neck bent so Katara can't see his face. She squeezes his shoulder again.
Please don't buy into their foolishness. She may not know Omashu, not know these people the way Aang and Sokka do, but that was because she was trapped on a Fire Nation ship. She's seen their power, seen a Prince's unfailing belief what they're doing they do in the name of spreading wealth and prosperity. When you have a faith like that and thousands of soldiers to back it up, no amount of rebellion in the name of freedom will be enough, especially one made up of only four hundred shaken, disparaged souls.
"Actually," Aang's voice murmurs, soft yet echoing in the dim cavern, "there's another path to freedom. You could leave Omashu." He captures hold of Yung's horrified expression. "You're directing all your energy to fight the Fire Nation, but you're outnumbered. You can't win. Now's the time to retreat, so you can live to fight another day."
"You don't understand," Yung cries, slamming his boulder of a fist into his open palm. "They've taken our home, and we have to fight them at any cost!"
Aang looks up at Yung, calm and plaintive in his unforceful understanding way. "And what if I believed the same thing as you, Yung, about my home, and my people? How far do you think I'd get?"
The resistance leader has the grace to hold back whatever his immediate answer was to be. In his pause, one of his men comes forwards.
"Living to fight another day is starting to sound pretty good to me," he says softly. "The kid has a point."
Murmurs of agreement hum softly throughout the chamber.
"How would we get out?" one of Yung's men asks.
"You could try the mail slides," Sokka suggests with a sly grin, simultaneously shuddering as if reliving some horrible memory. When he catches his sisters confused look, he shrugs. "You had to be there."
But Katara knows that look on her brother's face. It's a look of jumping without looking, a game gone wrong. A game she wasn't part of because she was locked in the bowels of a metal prison, making up her own games.
Another win for team little sister!
It's an unbidden memory, one of the few she's tried to lock away. And it makes her want to smile, laugh, and cry all at the same time.
Yung looks to his fighters, his followers, the civilians he was able to evacuate from Bumi's palace: cooks, handmaidens, servants, and their children. A heavy sigh exhales his will to fight. "Fine. But there's thousands of citizens that need to leave. How're we going to get them all out?"
"You're late," Katara comments as the Blue Spirit shimmies down the wall of Kwong's Laundry and Dye Emporium. "Get caught making off with another merchants hard earned wares?"
As expected, he doesn't answer her. Dropping the last six feet to the ground, the Blue Spirit straightens up and spreads his arms before her. His tight black clothes would reveal anything hidden on him. Yet he still pretends to turn out his pockets and look around for the bag he wasn't carrying.
"Very funny." Katara's not in a laughing mood. Not only did Zuko – and her own lack of skulking skill – completely invalidate an entire day of stalking, but she also hasn't gotten the rancidly sweet taste of papaya out of her mouth. She tells the Blue Spirit as much. "I wasted my whole day and I have nothing to show for it."
The Blue Spirit cocks his head at her. Why?
"Because he knew I was following him almost the entire time," Katara answers the unasked question. "And now he knows I'm watching him. I don't care what he says or how much he says it's not all an act. He'll lie for as long as he has to if it means getting what he's after."
She doesn't care for the niggle of guilt she feels creeping along her stomach. The Blue Spirit's the one who pointed her to Zuko and told her to give him the benefit of the doubt. She doesn't owe enough to either of them to hide what she truly thinks about the banished prince.
Unless the guilt doesn't come from bad-mouthing Zuko. Unless it's really how gross it feels to talk about anyone behind their back. Especially if it's not all entirely true.
Doesn't matter. What is undeniably true is how Zuko literally went to the ends of the earth to get Aang. What is undeniably trues is how within a week of them coming to Ba Sing Se, Zuko just happens to be in the city as well. What is undeniably true is she doesn't trust him.
So, no, she doesn't like any of it.
The Blue Spirit holds his hand palm up before her. Despite the glove, his hand is bare. Empty and honest.
"You think he's telling the truth?" Katara scoffs.
The Blue Spirit shrugs. Doesn't matter, it says to Katara, and if he's not going to speak to her then her interpretations are all he's getting. He goes to the edge of the alley, beckoning for her to follow. After a moment he picks out a large Middle Ring merchant bustling down the street, unreasonably irritated by the amount of evening traffic, perfectly distracted.
Leaning over her shoulder so she can see the mask, The Blue Spirit makes his watching gesture and points it at the merchant.
"You want me to watch him?" She can feel his heat at her back, his clothing thin and lightweight, easy to move around in.
One hand flattens. He walks the fingers of the other across the palm.
She turns to look up at the mask. "Follow and watch?"
He nods once, pulls back, and pushes her out into the street with a precisely gentle shove.
"Hey," she snaps, but by the time she's regained her balance and turned around, the Blue Spirit's gone.
A throat clears above. She tilts her head back to see him on the roof of Kwong's. He makes the watching gesture again, along with a hurry up motion that has her bristling.
Following the merchant is easy enough. She uses the tricks the Blue Spirit's already taught her to skim along his trajectory, weaving through the detritus of people he pushes through. His rich merchant robes are a beacon in the beige and clear glass greens of Middle Ring austerity, shining right for the hustling night market Katara often steers away from on her visits. The food there is already cooked, heavily spiced, and often cold and soggy by the time she's brought them home. The wares are trinkets and cheap scraps of cloth that break after their first use.
A merchant's paradise.
And Katara skulks behind a king basking in the fruits of a kingdom set apart. Separate from the war, separate from the poverty of the Lower Ring, separate from the interference of the Dai Li so long as they don't make waves. The lake of Ba Sing Se is flat and lifeless within the churning ocean of a world at war.
It's disgusting, but she's focused on the challenge set by the Blue Spirit. She can't be distracted by the nausea roiling in her stomach.
She's about to turn the corner the merchants just turned when a hand wraps around her wrist.
"None of that." The civil police officer sternly warns her off pickpocketing in Ba Sing Se with an unnecessary hand on his cudgel and a shove back into the crowd. He makes the same watching gesture to her back and Katara childishly throws it back at him.
It's not being caught by the guard that's embarrassed her. Skipping two alley mouths, she trudges down the third and waits for the Blue Spirit. She hears the soft thump of his feet hitting the ground before she sees him. "Go on. What did I do wrong this time?"
A hand taps her shoulder. She turns, but no one's there. She turns the other way just as the gloved hand comes down to tap the other shoulder, swatting her forehead instead. It rears back, fingers locking like surprised spider legs. Katara follows the arm up to where the Blue Spirit dangles off the wall above her, holding on with one hand like a monkey cat.
Katara rubs her head. "What? No, I heard you land."
The Blue Spirit points above her head where a washing line swings lazily in the soft spring evening. An incriminating space yawns in the middle.
"A distraction?"
The Blue Spirit nods. The hand which bumped her head gestures her closer before opening towards her. She grasps his meaning at the second insistence.
"No, no, no." She waves her hands in front of her. "I can't climb up there."
His hand waits for her to take it, twists to catch her forearm, and hauls her up onto the wall with him. She gasps at his strength, then from the effort of hauling herself past him. His fingers wrap around her ankles, guiding her feet to find the cracks and nicks in the wall. She almost screams when he fully let's go, until a warm hand spans her back.
I've got you, it says. She can't see his face, but she feels it in him.
She makes it to the lip of the roof. Before she can worry over how she'll haul herself up, the Blue Spirit's swinging up at the gabled ledge and shuffling over to help pull her. She's panting, sweating from the ten minutes of exertion, but when she looks up, she can't help but smile.
"Why didn't you say it would be easy?"
A throaty chuckle becomes a cough behind the mask. Then he's back to business. Keeping her hand in his, he guides her up the roof. Ducking so as not to be seen by the bustling market, he points into the square.
Katara watches the people mill, push, and hustle their way about. They squirm in and out of each other, shove their way to the front of a stand. Voices rise and fall as deals are struck and barters rejected. It all looks the same to her.
She looks at the Blue Spirit's blank face. "I don't get it."
The mask looks out over the hundreds of heads, seeming not to have heard her. Katara's readying to ask again when he points. His finger follows a happy customer with arms full of goods. Katara watches him flit from shop to shop, coming out with arms loaded heavier each time.
"He's got money?" Katara guesses.
The Blue Spirit points again, more insistently. She does her best to focus and would have missed it if not for the flash of a wok's fire making the shadows jump and the clear glass of the windows sing.
"His reflection in the windows," she realises. The Blue Spirit doesn't move, waiting for her to elaborate. "If I can see them from here, I can use them to keep track of him on the ground."
The Blue Spirit nods and holds up his first finger on each hand. Starting them close together, he widens the gap between them until his arms are stretched wide.
"And I won't have to stick so close that I get caught," Katara voices. She beams when the Blue Spirit nods. "Show me more."
Four Months Previously:
Return to Omashu
Getting the citizens out with Sokka's plan was high risk, high reward and, if Katara was being honest, a little easy.
Too easy, as it turns out.
Of course, she's delegated to keeping an eye on the baby. She's a Master Waterbender, veteran of a war and part of the team which evacuated Omashu. But the second a baby appears, she's mothering, wet blanket Katara all over again. And she'd be angry about that if his sweet giggle wasn't adorable. The quaff of black hair atop his pudgy head flaps when he laughs, when he chases Momo, and when she fusses and coos over him, favours him over her own brother when he's being an idiot.
"No!" Sokka yelps, snatching his club back when the baby picks it up and sucks on it. "Bad Fire Nation Baby!"
"Who yells at a baby?" Katara punctuates the statement with a swat to the back of her brother's head.
He resists until she plants both hands on her hips, a stance he's well familiar with in the years she's used it while she mothered him. He gives the club back to the baby with a grudging, "Fine."
"Quit defending it," Yung grumbles across their shared fire. "Sure, he's cute now, but when he's older, he'll join the Fire Nation army. You won't think he's so innocent then. He'll be a killer."
Katara barely spares him a glance, turning the baby around in her arms so Yung can see his gappy smile. "Because that looks like the face of a killer?"
She's always liked kids, even so it seems, Fire Nation kids who have done nothing to earn the glares the Earthbenders throw at him every time he laughs. So Katara decides she isn't, as the only woman around, delegated to mothering him. She's choosing to be this baby's protector, with the added bonus of kissing and tickling his chubby cheeks until he's squealing with laughter.
It's only for a night, anyway. Tomorrow they trade him for King Bumi. Until then, like most things, he's Katara's responsibility.
Show he does. By the time the night market's winding down, Katara knows how to watch a target without looking like she is, knows how to regulate her pace so if someone suspects she's following she can walk on by without faltering, swap out her parka for another overcoat (one she can turn inside out in a pinch) and, as the Blue Spirit demonstrated, have something on hand to divert attention if needed.
"No wonder he caught me," Katara mutters as she watches the night market thin. She'd been no better than any of the people down there. Making her way through the crowds, craning to see around bodies and over the tops of heads.
The Blue Spirit snorts, agreeing with her with an amused little shake of his head.
"Hey, you weren't there. Even if I could scale walls like a spider squirrel." Katara shakes her head in disbelief. "It's like he could see through stone walls. He... he just knew."
The Blue Spirit clears his throat. His hands fumble together before going belly up and lift with his light shrug.
Katara huffs a light laugh. "Yes, it was weird."
A wave of dark green and black crests through the night market. The pair of Dai Li agents, always in their pairs, break over the lingering shoppers, ushering them from the market as the hour draws later into the night.
Cultural police and resident party-poopers it seems. Their agents truly are everywhere, probably specially dispatched to break up the market. How deep do all their connections go? Will they be heading back to the Upper Ring Headquarters to report to Long Feng? Or was this on their way to something else? Something big enough to require a team?
Katara tracks them with such single-minded focus she almost falls off the roof when the Blue Spirit nudges her arm.
"We should follow them."
She's sliding back towards the edge of the roof before he can stop her, legs going over the side first. As she dangles, looking for a foothold, he catches up and grabs her arm. Thinking he's helping steady her, she begins to slide down further until an insistent tug pulls her back up.
"What?" she grumbles as she hangs in the air.
The blank mask stares down at her. It betrays nothing, but she can feel the eyes underneath searching her face, looking for a reason. The hand not cuffing her to the roof opens, palm up. She's been reading those as questions from him; pauses, moments to think.
"Yes, I'm sure."
He takes her arms again, this time letting her shimmy herself down, grunting as she searches for a place to slot her toes into the wall. He knows she's found it before she calls out, letting go. He's on the streets before she is despite her head start. Staking out the way, mask and shoulders peeping around the corner. She's about to look to, but his arm comes out across her chest before the light of the market can catch her.
The same hand directs her back into the alley. They slip along, the Blue Spirit easily. Katara's been learning how to walk softly but her calves aren't used to the ache being on tiptoes generates. She lets him take point over the low wall, up another side street, across a dimly lit road. She almost squawked when he pushed her head down under the guttering lamps.
"Don't push me," she hisses, but he isn't listening. He's watching the way they've just come, tense and so still if it weren't for the mask he'd bleed back into the shadows.
Two figures walk past the mouth of their alley. Katara hadn't been aware anyone was left on the streets.
"Did they see me?"
The Blue Spirit shakes his head. Holding a hand up for her to wait, he slides up the wall and disappears over the roof. He's back before Katara can worry over losing the Dai Li agents trail, carrying something round and white in the crook of his arm.
The mask he presents her with is almost perfectly round, the cheap earth kingdom craftsmanship warping the clay at the chin so it gives it a heart-shaped appearance. Its white paint is streaked with delicate swirls of red at the cheeks that fade up the sides, and in the centre of the forehead rests a golden crescent moon.
"For me?" Katara asks.
The Blue Spirit nods and pushes it into her hands. She fumbles it on while he checks the Dai Li agents progress, but when she taps his shoulder to show she's done, he makes a displeased noise.
"It's not my fault you didn't get one that fits," she grumbles, only half seeing him fold his arms through the wonky slits in the eyeholes. She pulls it off, wincing when some hair goes with it. "We're wasting time. We're going to lose them if we don't get moving."
But he steps into her path when she tries to move out of the alley. He holds onto her arms as they press against his stomach, prying her fingers away from the mask. Holding it in one hand, he lifts the other and moves it over her face in a slow wave, then flattens it palm down between them.
"Never show my face," she reads.
He nods. Reaching out slowly, he touches the necklace at her throat, the water skin resting on her hip, and the dark green cloak she has on over her watertribe clothes.
"My clothes will give me away?" She asks.
He goes to shake his head, then shrugs and holds up his hand, first flat then tilting it side to side. Almost.
"I don't understand. Tell me what you mean."
The Blue Spirit pulls in a breath. Slowly, he takes her hand in both of his and lifts them to his mask. Her breathing stutters, thinking he's going to let her take it off. But he quickly pulls them away. He touches the space above her heart with their linked hands, then his own, then shakes his head. With a squeeze, he lets go of her hand and lets his fall like snow disappearing before it touches the ground.
Katara nods, understanding. "I could lose a lot if we do this. The mask protects me."
He must know her necklace is a symbol of love within watertribe custom. Interesting that he would since she didn't until a few months ago.
The Blue Spirit nods and puts the mask back in her hands. She's about to put it on when, without warning, his fingers glide along her cheek. She freezes, feeling his touch as he glides higher, smoothing the hair from her face before he moves to the back of her neck. Even gloved, she feels the blunt edges of nails running along the back of her neck as he gathers her hair up and away from her eyes. When they run along her scalp she has to supress a shiver, her eyes closing as goosebumps prickle her neck.
If he notices the reaction, the Blue Spirit doesn't let it stop him bunching her hair up. He holds there, watching her, arms either side of her face. She stares back up at him, waiting, trying to find his gaze in the dark voids of the mask's eyeholes. Then he gives an impatient tug on her hair and she realises he's waiting for her to finish tying it back.
Regretting not having the mask on to hide her blush, Katara hands it over and finishes his work. But when she holds out her hand to take it back, the Blue Spirit steps into her space. He's so close she can hear him breathing as his fingers slip the ties around her head, crossing them behind her ears so it doesn't hang so loose this time. She'd turn around so he can see, but his arms cage her in, fingers working deftly. He pulls the knot tight and steps back.
She can see him. All of him. No slipping, no awkward obstruction. His finger tilts her chin up, moving her head so he can inspect his work.
"It fits." She curses how hoarse she sounds. Stepping back from him, she straightens up and swings her head from side to side. The mask doesn't so much as shift. "See? Nice and Snug. Can we get moving now?"
Four Months Previously:
Return to Omashu
A pink and peach morning gives way to sleet grey skies as Katara, Sokka and Aang wait atop the scaffolds surrounding the beginnings of a statue. Anywhere else and it could threaten actual sleet, but Katara knows it's only the fumes and smog of Fire Nation forges as they tear down Omashu to rebuild in their image, starting with the grotesque statue they wait before. She's never even seen a picture of Zuko's father, but only a tyrant would see to his own edifices before his people.
The statue is barely taking shape, but within the block of stone a pair of eyes have been carved. No more detail needs to be added to the cold, blank impression Katara already has of a man who could banish his own son.
Its cool indifference fuels the tension she fills thickening the air. Aang has Tom-Tom, as the letter demanding this exchange called him, wrapped in blankets and tucked safely to his chest. In his other hand he grips his staff. Beside him, Katara's own hands are free, her best weapons in case things go sideways.
And she should have realised sooner that it would when, instead of the Governor ascending the steps to the scaffold, it's three young women. Aang barely notices, head tilted up to where an old man is locked up tightly in a metal box, only his laughing head protruding from a hole barely big enough to fit it.
"You brought my brother?"
She makes sense, Katara supposes. It's the one behind her Katara doesn't like. Not the one in pink who perpetually seems to bounce on her toes. No, it's the girl in armour, hair parted perfectly down the middle before the traditional topknot of the Fire Nation pulls the rest of the sleek black hair away from her face. Her gold gaze isn't on the baby at all, nor does she care about the King behind her.
Like candle flame shining through cut class, the distant, sharp set of eyes flick to the staff in Aang's hands, the club on Sokka's back, Katara's blue robes and the flask at her hip.
"He's here. We're ready to trade," Aang calls across the meeting place.
"I'm sorry, but a thought has just occurred to me." Those crystalline eyes are far too smart to step into this exchange without a plan. "Do you mind?"
Tom-Tom's sister bows deferentially. "Of course not, Princess Azula."
Of course. It's in the colouring, the way she speaks to the girls beside her, her authority over a Governors daughter and the disposition it brings. "That's Zuko's sister," Katara whispers to Sokka. She feels so stupid to not have realised it the moment she laid eyes on the princess.
"Prince Moody has a sister?" Sokka hisses, glancing between Katara and the Princess.
She barely hears him. A voice like Azula's belongs in a palace, clipped and sleek, those detached eyes taking everything in around her. It's too easy to picture younger versions of her and Zuko and a Pai Sho board between them. Zuko hunched over it desperately trying to keep up with a game he's two moves from losing. Two moves from always hearing about it from that pristine, superior lilt.
His bad temper suddenly makes so much more sense.
"We're trading a two-year-old for a king." Azula tilts her face up to the swaying Bumi. "A powerful, earthbending king?
Bumi gives a joyful, affirmative nod.
Quietly, while Azula's attention is on the king, Katara thumbs the cork off her water pouch.
With perfectly executed confusion, Azula looks over to the Governor's daughter. "It just doesn't seem like a fair trade, does it?"
The girl's grey eyes disappear under her thick, black eyebrows as she ponders the question. Her head tilts to watch Aang pass Tom-Tom to Sokka. The baby yawns, tired, a son ready to go home to his mother.
Her answer disgusts Katara. "You're right." The princess smile's slyly behind her accomplice's back as the girl strides forwards. "The deal's off."
Bumi disappears, and the last of Aang's self-control goes with him.
He flies into the air, and if that weren't enough to tip off the Fire Princess, his cap comes loose.
She's after him in seconds, snapping the winch off one of the pulleys with a precise beam of blue flame. Katara's never seen fire so hot. Smoke cloaks the figure disappearing into the sky. But Katara can't worry about Aang, not when Azula's minions charge across the scaffold.
"Protect Tom-Tom!" are the first words out of Katara's mouth. Her water's already out. Sokka goes to draw his club. "Get the baby out of here!"
But it isn't the club he's drawing from his pack. "Way ahead of you." The white bison whistle lets out its silent scream. The baby squeals and wrestles it out of Sokka's hands, blowing into it furiously between giggles, completely oblivious to what's happening around him.
It was the last thing Katara wanted, leaving Aang to Azula. Only her faith in the airbender allowed her to turn her back and chase after Sokka. He clutches Tom-Tom to his chest, eyes up where he predicts the danger will come from. The fist breaks through the board right under him, turning his foot beneath him and sending him and the baby crashing to the scaffolds decking.
Katara's ready to set upon the pink assailant, water already out of her skin. A flash of something in the corner of her eye saves her four extra piercings, water whipping a board up and in front of her face. It stops four stiletto points from shredding her face by inches, tips cracking through the flimsy wood.
The girl, Tom-Tom's sister, winds up for another volley. Katara knows what's coming this time and beats her too it. The wooden boards lash through the air, stopping the knives, driving through them, and Katara sees the first flicker of emotion on the grim girl's face as she dives away.
She's spinning as she catches the glimpse of surprise, focusing on the girl in pink stalking, more like gliding, towards Sokka. Her whip wraps around a slim ankle and she pulls the girl to the ground, giving her brother precious seconds to reach the ladder and whisk Tom-Tom away from the mayhem.
An explosion above rocks the scaffolding. Katara barely has time to look up. A flash of blue, Bumi's coffin plummeting down. Then she's spinning, firing wild tendrils of water in the seconds it takes her to focus in on the grim girl as she sprints to close.
More knives slash through the girl's sleeves. Katara's projectiles line a wall before her which she freezes, relying on her waterbending instincts to defend. The knives slap into the ice, dig deep, digging through it to get to Katara. They can't, but the girl is on her instead, thrashing her arsenal against Katara's wall of ice.
Katara meets her with a whip, batting her arm aside, encasing the next blow with water. She freezes the girl where she stands. The girl pulls and wrenches, but nothing can break free once Katara sets her feet. It's something no waterbender would willingly resort to but Katara's built her mastery on being unlike any waterbender before her.
And like the first of any of its kind she faces her unknowns head on and blind.
The pink girl bounces on light toes towards her. Katara's confident she can take her, already mapping out how she'll fake low, try to trap her hands like she did for the other-
White numbness, paralysing and sudden, the kind one gets when they knock an elbow, floods down Katara's arms in four successive jabs. Her arms flop to her sides, the ice holding the grim girl's arms going with it. Dissipating back into water. Katara tries to bend, but the water won't obey.
More than that, fire invades her veins, pulsing, like her bloods trying to flow the opposite way. The more she tries to bend, the more stoppered and backed up her blood, her very soul, gets. Spirits, she's going to explode.
"How are you gonna fight without your bending?" Dark haired and taunting, the grim girl's face is the most delighted Katara's ever seen.
She pulls a thin, guarded blade from her sleeve – how does she walk around without tinkling? – and takes aim at Katara. She reels back, but the blade is knocked from her hand by a thicker spinning projectile.
Sokka snatches the boomerang from the air. "I seem to manage!"
Two sets of shocked eyes follow his voice. Pink and Black take a fearful step back as Appa, huge and hairy, crests the scaffolding. Bellowing, like a monster from their stories, the sky bison lands hard enough to shake the flimsy wood and metal skeleton under their feet. Only Katara knows to widen her stance and set her knees. A strong swing of Appa's tail and even sure-footed pinky goes flying from the scaffolding.
Katara runs to Appa's shaggy side, the feeling blessedly returning to her arms. "We need to find Aang!"
The Blue Spirit stalks the Dai Li agents like they're prey and he's a hungry panther wolf. He has the uncanny ability to bleed into the shadows, moving smoothly like an oil slick through the alley's, up the walls and across the rooftops. Katara keeps up, but she feels clumsy in comparison. All she can do is trust he's taking her the right way.
Her trust is well placed. The Blue Spirit is what stops her blundering right into a group of agents. His hand knots in the hood of her cloak, yanking her back from the corner she was about to turn. Low voices murmur on the other side of the old crumbling stone. She'd been so focused on moving, and so used to the Dai Li's quiet, unrelenting authority over the public, she didn't consider if they'd also skulk around the alleys.
The Blue Spirit puts an unnecessary finger to the mask's lips, head craned to listen to the agent's.
"-increasing in the lower ring," a husky male voice mutters in practiced fashion.
"By how much?" a voice asks, clipped and familiar with these kinds of reports.
"Another five percent. My Lower Ring squads believe it is in reaction to the increase in detentions."
The second voice makes a displeased sound. "That is a reasonable assumption. But not one the Dai Li can help with. Our job is to quash the insurrectors before they can threaten Ba Sing Se's stability. Thugs hassling store owners and gang payments are a civil police matter."
"Do we really have to get involved with Lower Rim gossip?" the voice giving the report asks. He sounds young. inexperienced even. "What harm can it do?"
"Damn's can burst from the smallest trickle. Besides, we have even more reason to keep a tight grip on what's going on in the city."
"The refugee population is growing out of control."
"The Dai Li aren't concerned with that. It's what came in with the refugee's that's more our concern."
Katara tenses, and the Blue Spirit goes rigid beside her. She hadn't realised how close they were pressed to each other, both listening to the Dai Li. Now she can feel his heart thumping against her shoulder, and the hand she hadn't felt him place on her low back clenches.
"I heard they showed up at the Earth King's party," the younger agent is saying. "But that's common knowledge in the Upper Rim. What's the harm in the refugee's knowing he's in the city?"
"Bee's share their duties in a hive so that the queen need not bother herself. She sits her throne, commands the drones, and they have warrant to carry out the work which needs to be done. If the queen doesn't know all the work, or the lengths the drones go to keep peace in the hive, the more efficiently the hive can run. But what happens when the workers buzz out of sync? What happens when that buzzing disrupts the queen?"
The younger man pauses. "The order of the hive is disrupted."
"Exactly, Gok. So, we can't have rumours of the Avatar being in Ba Sing Se getting back to the Earth King. We were lucky his appearance at the party was so brief. Long Feng is certain he doesn't suspect the Avatar's presence in the city, but he doubts we'll be so lucky again."
A relieved sigh shifts the loose hairs in Katara's braid, and she feels some of the tension leave the Blue Spirit.
"So, we get stuck patrolling slums and shoddy markets," Gok grumbles.
Katara's lip curls at the tone. The people of this city, their city, live in those slums. Instead of treating them like insects infesting a cabbage patch, maybe the Dai Li should be acting like the shepherds these lost sheep are so in need of.
"All for a cause, Gok. Ba Sing Se is impenetrable. Can we really blame our citizens for seeking such safety?"
"I joined with the reprograming corps. I'm supposed to be in nice clean rooms, not stepping around puddles of filth," whines the younger agent. "I miss the lake."
Katara shuffles closer to the edge of the alley. Blue slides out from behind her and skims his way to the rooftop, seeking out a better angle.
"Why? Those classes give me the willies." She hears Gok's superior give an exaggerated shiver. "Don't those tour guides give you the creeps?"
Katara frowns. Joo Dee never offered them a tour of a lake.
Gok's voice takes on a despicable glee. "The creepiness is well worth it. Let's just say the... side effects of their training make them especially eager to please. So long as they face away and I don't have to look at that creepy smile, I have no problem getting them to go above and beyond the call of duty."
"Long Feng approves of this?" Gok's superior asks.
"The commanders don't need to control everything the drones do. So long as we keep the workers in order. What's wrong with plucking some pretty bugs off the job?"
"As long as it's only Dai Li down there, I suppose you can do what you please off the clock. So long as you're not slacking."
"I'm making my rounds, peeping in through the slats, and the big brute's still there. Hard to miss. How in and above the earth can someone miss something that size?"
"So long as we don't, who cares?"
She's inching closer, straining to hear more. Big brute. Hard to miss. Is it caged? "Come on," she mutters through gritted teeth. She's practically around the corner now. "Give me something."
The Blue Spirit taught her to watch the area around her, how to walk, where to hide. In all that, you think he'd show her where to place her feet. The bucket and mop resting against the wall clang as Katara nudges the handle, sending the whole thing crashing to the ground. Dirty water spills in one sudsy, dark brown wave over the two Dai Li agent's feet.
The young one yelps, backing up in a vain attempt to keep his slippers dry. The older is quicker, raising the stone in front of his toes so the wave breaks against the pointed rock and fans out.
Slowly, he lifts his head. Rocks aren't necessary to pin Katara to the spot as those piercing green eyes narrow on her.
"It's him!" Gok cries as he runs up, steps squelching. "It's the Blue Spirit!"
"That mask is white, you dolt," his superior snaps.
But Gok's on the war path. He rushes Katara with reckless intensity. A trait shared in the young. Katara sets her feet, willing the spilled bucket water to aid her. Her hands are pulling back, arching over her head, when a roof tile sails through the arc of her arms and hits Gok square between the eyes.
He shrieks as he goes down, skidding in the muck the water around them has created. Disrupted, Katara slides back and prepares to seal Gok to the ground in ice. She feels the whoosh of air before hands are clamping down on her wrists. The Blue Spirit's momentum from jumping off the roof pulls them both to the ground, tangling them in heap of limbs and her cloak.
"What are you-" Katara starts before his muddy hand slaps over her mouth.
More agile, he's up in seconds and facing the standing Dai Li agent. Gok moans as he holds his face. His superior pays no attention.
"So, you are sniffing around the Middle Ring." Derision drips from the man. His fingers are covered in stone, the rocks shifting and grinding like a boxer cracking his knuckles. "And you've made a friend."
The cloak's so sodden and caked in mud, Katara has to undo the clasp to get back up. She's covered in a second skin of heavy muck as she stands behind the Blue Spirit.
The Dai Li agent glares at her. Gok's moaning finally gets his attention as he takes in the situation he's landed in. Two against one, but neither of his opponents have displayed bending. The odds might be in his favour still.
He decides to gamble. A stone fist flies towards Katara. She throws her hands up to defend. The Blue Spirit steps in front of her and executes a spinning kick. It knocks the fist from the air, but it also knocks him off balance. He hits the mud, struggling to get back up, but he's not fast enough. A second stone fist clamps onto his shoulder and, with a shout from the Blue Spirit, begins to drag him towards the Dai Li agent.
He kicks, scrambles, tries to latch onto the wall, but he can't get a hold in the mud when the Dai Li agent smooths it flat. He's reeling in the Blue Spirit like a fish on the line.
"Hey!"
He looks up from his catch just in time to dodge the mop bucket sailing towards his head. Katara charges into the opening and thank the spirits the agent believes she's going for him. His defence is instinctual, throwing a wall of mud between them. Katara doesn't even reach it. Skidding through the muck, she hefts the mop handle over her head and brings down in three solid cracks against the fist holding the Blue Spirit. The wood splits on the third strike, but it also cracks the stone.
It's all she needs. With the Dai Li agent blind, she forces whatever moisture she can quickly grasp into the cracks and pulls. The knuckles spilt.
The Blue Spirit's up before the stones finished crumbling. He grabs her wrist and yanks her behind him as he takes off down the alley. He could escape easily over the rooftops, but Katara's not so good a climber.
They sprint like madmen down the alleys, bursting out into full view on the street as they cross into another zigzagging maze of alleys on the other side of a fountain square. Katara has no idea if the agent is even following them, but the Blue Spirit's pace is unrelenting.
She hears them coming as the Blue Spirit skids around an alley.
"There he is!"
"He's heading for the Gems district! Cut him off!"
The Blue Spirit hears them too and cuts right, out of the alley with a claiming green glow at the end. It means they have to scrabble over a low wall, Katara's inexperience costing them valuable seconds. They're off as soon as her feet touch the ground. The Blue Spirit pulls her along as if he has a plan, but she can hear his panicked breaths, see his head darting around, searching blindly for escape.
As they're sprinting down an alley so thick with swampy air Katara's mask feels glued to her face, she skids to a stop. The Blue Spirit, still clutching her hand, is pulled up short so suddenly he almost falls over.
"Go," she pants. "They're only looking for you. I'll ditch my mask."
He shakes his head, hand rising to his chest, palm down, before he jerks it downwards.
"Yes!" Katara insists. He plucks at her mud splattered clothing. She has nothing to throw over it now, nor anything to change into. "I'll think of something. All I'm doing is slowing you down."
His chest heaves in quick, laboured breaths. They speed up even more as the shouting draws closer. He looks up at the roofs they both know are his only chance of escape.
"Go, Blue," Katara says again, lifting her hand to push him along. "I can get out of this. I'll-"
He grabs her reaching hand, hoists her up and onto his shoulders and fumbles them both towards a wall.
"Stop!" She yells as he begins to jerkily scale the wall. "This isn't going to work! You're too slow! You'll be caught."
An almighty heave and a grunt, then Katara's world flips onto its side. He's made it onto the roof, but the shoulder the Dai Li agent grabbed, the one she now rests over, sags in pain. His steps falter under him as he doggedly moves across the roof.
"They'll figure it out you're off the ground. This doesn't change anything. Leave me and go," Katara thumps his back with her fist. She squeals as she's suddenly yanked off his back.
Blue sets her on her feet in front of him. A wide chimney chugs swampy air out of the building he's dragged them onto. It coats her back in sweat. He's panting, mud stained, the mask covering his face askew and so heavy his head is tipped down. Fingers fumbling with the cord, he tries to untie her mask before he gives up and rips it off her face.
Planting one hand on her shoulder, he presses his mask to her forehead.
"This isn't goodbye," she snaps. "I'll find a way out of this."
Th Blue Spirit nods, then shoves her.
Her world flips for the second time. "Blue!" She shrieks as the night sky and his snarling demon mask disappear. Light floods her vision, flames flickering all around before she plunges into a world of heat.
He's pushed her into a fire pit. She's going to land screaming on hot coals!
Her back slaps and breaks through the firepit. Water floods up her nose. The heat stings her eyes, swamps her face and when she opens her mouth to scream, boiling water engulfs her and turns her tongue into a stewed sea prune.
Her back touches stone and she rockets up. Gasping, her head breaks the surface. Light briefly makes its way through before her hair drops like a sodden curtain across her face.
Pulling it back, Katara's met with the stunned faces of four women in soft pink robes, and two people sharing the square tub of warm water. Green, caked on slime covers their faces, now melting off in the wake of Katara's entrance through the chimney.
No, she thinks as she looks up, blinking the hot water from her eyes. Not a chimney, a vent. Not smoke, but steam. And she didn't land in a families' firepit, but a spa's hot tub.
She's turned the water a filmy brown. Her clothes cling to her, heavy but for the most part washed clean of mud. She looks up again, lightheaded, and disoriented. She can barely make out the few stars strong enough to shine in the city sky through the steam. They're all that peek through the haze of steam and exhaustion swirling around Katara.
Blue is nowhere to be seen.
The spa is nice enough to give Katara a towel before they send her packing. She considered offering to bend the water her fall sent flooding over the spa back into the tub but decided better of it. If the Dai Li come sniffing around where the Blue Spirit split off from his supposed partner, better not let rumour of a waterbender fuel their search.
She twists her heavy dripping hair up into a new braid and rubs herself down until she's out of sight of the angry, damp spa workers. Once she's bended all the water out of her clothes, she folds the towel and leaves it around the corner for them to find before she takes off.
She won't be able to go back to the Upper Ring without knowing if Blue got away or not. If he got caught, it's because he wasted those precious seconds helping her get to the roof. And if he is, she'll have to waste his sacrifice. Her bending will give her away in seconds, she can't imagine there are many waterbenders in Ba Sing Se, but she can't abandon him.
Kwong's Laundry and Dye Emporium is closed, the lanterns outside extinguished for the night. It's the only place Katara can think to start looking. Their first meeting, and where he'd found her again. She'd come back there subconsciously while trying to find clues on Appa.
Will he come back to be found by her?
"Blue?" she calls gently, wary of other ears. She waits for a response, then feels a wave of embarrassment when she remembers he doesn't talk.
And stops dead when she hears the unmistakeable noise of wood thunking against stone. Venturing around the corner, Katara freezes.
Blue's shoulders hunch so high she can barely make out the slope of his head as it bends over whatever's in his lap. His back is to her, completely caked in mud right up to the black hood covering his head. Rips dot his shoulder where the Dai Li agent's stone fingers clenched, pale pools of skin stark against his stealthy get up.
Most captivating to Katara, his mask is off.
She can't see his face, not with his back to her. But he's scraping mud from the inside, shaking it out where it must have been forced in through the eye holes. Had he been blind as he led their mad escape from the Dai Li?
He hasn't noticed her, too caught up in his work. With a quick dash she could get around and finally see his face, catch him before he has time to put the mask back on. A mask he'd rather let push mud, grime and chunks of rock into his eyes then let her be caught by the Dai Li.
With a quiet call of his name, she makes her decision. "Blue."
His shoulders stiffen before he begins to fumble with the mask.
"Hang on," Katara soothes. "Don't move, just hold the mask up."
He hesitates, but only she calls him Blue. So, he holds the mask up, inside facing her. With a quick flick of her wrist, she pulls water from Kwong's supply and power cleans the muck with a sharp jet. She almost knocks it from Blue's hands. Before she can bend it dry, he's putting it on, tying it secure before he stands.
His groan tugs at her heart. "You're hurt."
He holds his hand flat and moves it side to side. Only a little.
"It's still too much." Guilt pulls her further into the alley, but she stops short when Blue chuckles huskily. "What's so funny?"
He gestures to the alley around them, to himself, then to her, his head tilting playfully.
"Yeah, yeah, fine, I finally followed you down this alley." Katara shakes her head. "I can't believe you're laughing after what we just went through."
Blue comes closer, and as his hand lifts to her face she realises for the first time one of his gloves is off. With pale fingers, he touches the messy knot of her hair. In her rush to find him, she left it damp. She shivers now, and it has nothing to do with the clammy chill at the base of her neck as Blue drags his fingers down from her hair to her temple.
"I'm okay," she breathes, knowing what he's asking without even a gesture. Even so, he lifts his hand, palm up, and tilts his head in what she now understands is his sign for a question. "Yes, I'm sure. You... I can't believe you did that."
He shrugs, then groans softly when it disturbs his shoulder.
She doesn't think, popping the cork from her skin and pulling a cooling salve of water into her palm. "Hold still," she instructs.
Most people shy away from the first touch of her cold healing. Blue doesn't even shift, accepting it, sighing in relief as the tension of his pain bleeds away. When she's done and pulling back, he takes her hand from the air and presses her fingertips to the pulled back lips of the mask.
"You're welcome."
Katara shifts from foot to foot. The need to explain herself for the danger she put him in overwhelming. Yes, he walks a perilous line every night, but this is probably the first time he was forced to run towards the Dai Li instead of bolting at the first sign of them.
"The Dai Li have been giving my friends and I problems." The words feel too rehearsed, but even if Blue risked his life for her tonight, she can't risk anything concerning Appa coming back to their group. Long Feng shrouded it in metaphors and disarming charm, but his threat was clear as day. "They're watching us like hawks because they think we're going to disturb the cities peace. I suppose they're right, but isn't that meant to be the point?"
The blank mask stares down at her. It occurs to Katara Blue might be just as bad as the others. Does he have any idea what's going on in the world beyond these walls?
"You're hated by the Fire Nation?" She asks. He nods. "So, you know what's going on out there. You're not sitting around with the rug over your eyes?"
He shakes his head, then kneels down and scribbles something into the dirt with his finger.
There is no war in Ba Sing Se.
Katara snorts when he straightens and drags his foot deliberately through the dirt, obscuring the message. "My thoughts exactly."
Arms crossed over his chest, the chuckle that Blue lets slide is low and grim. His derision for the lie is obvious, but a deeper understanding of it all emanates from him. He's as fed up with this world's determination to break itself apart as she is.
"You're not a bender, are you?" She guesses. He hesitates a fraction before shaking his head. "It's why you fight with your hands, or those swords."
The nod comes quicker this time, followed by his head tilt question.
"You stopped me bending, even if it would have saved you, because you know this city well enough to be sure my waterbending would have gotten me in trouble," Katara explains, voicing the dread she'd been carrying around the entire time she'd searched for him. "And because I couldn't do anything to help you without my waterbending, that Dai Li agent was more than too much for us to handle. He almost caught you."
Blue's head tilts again. He lifts his hand, points to her, points to himself, then holds it palm up. You want this to stop?
"If I can't take care of myself without my bending, we'll have to," she answers.
In that split second when Blue had been grabbed and she couldn't bend, she'd felt totally helpless. The only other time she'd felt so vulnerable, so exposed, was in Omashu. That pink girl had robbed her of her ability to defend herself. Just remembering it invites that sick swirl of dread into her gut. Before she'd cleared the water from her eyes, she almost lashed out at the spa workers.
A person who can't step out the front door without being afraid has no business trying to look for Appa in a city like Ba Sing Se.
"So, teach me to fight like you can."
Blue rears back in surprise.
"I mean it. Teach me to be a better climber, to fight with my hands as well as with the water. I can learn to sneak and slip between conversations all I like, but if I get caught, those skills are what's going to save me. You saw that tonight."
Blue hesitates, then points to himself before striking his flat palm with a fist. He points to her and shakes his head.
"I'll get hurt going out without the skills," Katara fires back. "You think not being able to defend myself is enough to stop me?"
An unhappy noise escapes Blue.
"Just because we did something stupid tonight doesn't mean I haven't done stupid things in the past. The only difference tonight is I almost got someone else hurt." Katara tries to look beyond the mask, tries as hard as she can to find Blue's eyes. "Please? I've been without the water before. I can do it. What I can't handle is being afraid."
Blue's left-hand rubs across his right forearm, the action unconscious. He seems to be tracing a pattern along the skin before he catches himself and quickly stops. Then, to Katara's delight, he sighs heavily and nods. Before she can thank him, though, he points his thumb at himself, then his finger. With the emphasis clear, he taps his ear then points at her, then folds his arms sternly across his chest.
Katara rolls her eyes. "Yes, fine. What you not-says goes. I'll listen."
Blue inclines his head towards her.
"Fine. I promise I'll listen. Watertribe's honour." She holds up her left hand, the other over her heart.
Blue considers it before another sigh and a shake of his head. He takes her hand from the air and places it in front of her. The other he moves lower, so it rests in front of her stomach. Hands where he'd like them, he makes a square across her body in the air, starting from her upper chest, finishing at her gut. He taps his own stomach, then shakes his head.
"I know how defence works. I'm a waterbender," Katara grumbles. "Face's bruise. Bodies break. Always protect your core."
Blue nods emphatically at her, doubling down with a thumbs up, before striking his own guard across his body.
"Yes? Yes, to defence?" Katara thinks aloud, following the vigour of Blue's nodding. "We're going to start with defence? But I already know how to do that. I just told you."
Blue snorts at her petulant whining, then turns. He gestures for her to follow before shimmying up the wall opposite Kwong's. He does not help her up this time. Punishment for her gripes, she decides, and doggedly does not let herself struggle despite how bone-tired the night has left her.
Except when she reaches the edge, the roof doesn't flatten out like the other's Blue has led her across. This one slopes up to a thin beam across the pointed top, becoming an arch at the end. Blue leans against it, the flickering lamplight washing him in reds and golds as he balances across the beam. His impatient gesture for her to hurry up reignites the fire in Katara. It's not easy going, but she manages to scramble up the slick tiles and make it to the beam. It's barely wide enough for her to stand on.
"No what?" She pants as Blue watches her.
He nods to her feet, then strikes his own defensive pose. Except Katara can't fall into what comes naturally up here. The beam is nowhere near wide enough for waterbender stability. Too narrow for even half that.
"I don't know what you mean," she says, at a loss for what he's expecting.
Blue straightens from his pose and comes closer. With a twisting motion of his finger, she understands and, arms out to keep her balance, wobbles her way into turning around.
Vulnerability and vertigo make her flinch as Blue puts his hand on her shoulder. He holds but lightens his grip. Gently, moving ever so slowly, he straightens her shoulders before manoeuvring her left shoulder forwards and right slightly back. It forces her stance to follow, feet matching her shoulders. But he tsks, and crouches behind her. Her breath sucks in as he grips her knee and calf in his hands, pulling her right leg back. His hand shoots up to press into her lower back when she wobbles, warm and steadying. In that simple gesture, Katara's fear of falling from the roof fades away. She relaxes into her stance, feels the weight rest comfortably through her ankles so she can roll through to her toes if she needs.
Blue feels it, straightening behind her. His head appears over her shoulder, arms coming around her to rest under hers. He adjusts her shoulders one more time, down to her elbows, wrists. When he steps away, she feels the chill sweep across her back, but she holds the stance as he shifts down the roof then back up to stand in front of her.
She watches his feet as he moves, grinning when he gives her a thumbs up for the instinctual move. When he shuffles his feet towards her, she copies and shuffles back. His hands raise to mimic her fighter's stance, and Katara knows the real work is about to begin. Her grin widens at the challenge.
"Show me what you got, Blue."
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