AN: Age chart, by popular demand (also posted in chapter one, now):

Azula, Ty Lee - 10

Mai - 11

Zuko, Aang, Toph - 12

Katara - 14

Sokka - 15

Jet - 16 (Season two: get hype.)

Chapter Twenty-One: Day 5, Hostage Exchange

A royal hawk flew in with the dawn. Zuko heard Genji knocking on Uncle's door first, asking where he was. He slipped off the futon and away from the stupid waterbender who he was not sharing a blanket with and met the Hawker in the hall before the man could make a racket and wake her up.

The letter was for him. From Father. Zuko stared at it, then shoved it inside his shirt (which was, for once, actually his shirt). He went on deck, and breathed. Then he got writing supplies from the bridge.

He set the red-jeweled monkey on a stack of blank papers, making it the world's gaudiest paper weight. The morning wind tugged at the paper's edges, and he had to use the Breath of Fire to warm up his hands before he wrote, but working on deck was worth it to avoid Uncle's where did you sleep last night, young man chuckles this early in the morning.

He was writing a letter to Azula. Because he'd snuck a look at what she'd sent to Katara, and she'd asked for one. In her Azula-y way.

Five burned drafts later, he noticed the fluffy white dot that was keeping pace with their ship more consistently than the rest of the clouds.

That was a much easier letter to write.

Sokka did not actually know how to storm a Fire Navy ship. Despite previous experience. Especially not when the ship was a trap.

Oh sure, it looked like Zuko's ship. All rusty and tiny and alone, and he hadn't spotted Zhao's anywhere near. But that was just what Skeezy Sideburns wanted him to think. After all, Zuko was his little buddy and also a brother, too, so he'd understand how ridiculously worried Sokka would have been. There was no way he'd have just forgotten to send the all-clear hawk. Right?

Hawky screeched, and dove off Appa's horn. It was kind of a happy screech, and involved a lot of looping around another hawk that was coming his way. Hawky landed on his left shoulder, and the new bird landed on his right, and Sokka stared into its eyes. Both of his shoulders slumped, mostly from hawk weight but also from knowing exactly what the message was.

"...I'm going to call you Hawky Too. Spelled T-O-O. Because you're a hawky… too."

The bird turned its head almost upside down, and blinked, and all-around looked a lot cuter and less likely to rend flesh than Hawky. Sokka disregarded the name burned into its carrier, and dug out its message.

Took you long enough, Water Tribe.

The minuscule slip of paper was unsigned because Zuko was apparently still being a cheapskate paper-hoarder, but Sokka sincerely doubted that Zhao could replicate the prince's tone. And even squinting and re-reading and holding it up to the sun, he didn't see any traces of a secret stay-away-my-ship's-been-compromised message snuck in anywhere. So. Sokka exercised his only reasonable option.

He didn't bother to write anything; just tore the paper in half, pushed part of it into both carriers, and let slip the birds of war.

Two hawks dive-bombed Zuko, fighting above his head on who got to sit on which side. Also, a flying bison landed on the deck. And a Water Tribesman came screaming off of it, sword raised like he expected some kind of sneak attack and thought that shouting was the answer.

This resulted in a lot of Zuko's crew swarming the deck between him and the scrawny teenage threat, with shouting and a bison bellowing and—

"Fire Flake! Miso! Just pick a shoulder! Ugh." He crossed his arms, and glared with one-and-a-half-eyes and two hawks. One hawk. Fire Flake was less glaring-at-the-enemy and more preening-his-hair. He tried to brush her beak away, but that upset Miso. "Water Tribe. I don't see the Avatar."

"And I don't see my sister," the surrounded tribesman said.

And now Miso was preening him, too. Why was this his life. "She's still sleeping. Umm. Would you like tea?"

"...Sure?"

Tea was an accepted ship-wide signal for 'this thing doesn't need killing yet.' Most of the crew returned to what they were doing. One of them brought out a low table and two cushions. Genji took the hawks. Zuko provided the tea, with a scowl at the crewman who offered to make it for him.

Forever more, jasmine would taste like confusion to Sokka. Confusion and burned leaves. Sokka did not get what Aang was always raving about. But then, tea always tasted bad anyway, and this wasn't the worst he'd tried. He'd had four chin hairs before Gran-Gran's last batch of seaprune tea.

Zuko's Uncle came on deck, but declined to join them. He watched Sokka drinking with a sort of morbid fascination that made Sokka very briefly concerned for poison, but Zuko was scowling at the old guy and pouring himself a new cup like he was proving a point, so. Probably not. With the poison. Still with the confusion, though, because… he was having tea. On a Fire Navy ship. With the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation. Whose hair had been styled by messenger hawks.

And then came Katara, yawning her way onto the deck with bedhead that could ensnare a trout-squid. She was wearing one of the prince's shirts. And... was that mom's necklace the prince was wearing? Sokka started to wonder if he should be concerned.

"Did you two… sleep together?"

"Yeah," the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation said, unaware of how close to death this brought him.

"Ye—No!" his precious naive full-of-hope-and-sparkles little sister protested. "Not like that! We just had a late night, and then we stayed up talking, and—and the bed was cold! And firebenders are warm! And—and there was a parrot between us! Right?"

She grabbed an iguana-parrot off the shoulder of a passing soldier, and held it up as squawking proof.

"No there wasn't," Zuko said.

The parrot squirmed its way free, and flapped off towards the shoreline in the distance. "Come back!"

"What did you do?" The prince shot to his feet, fists smoking. "You scared it away! That was Jee's!"

"It really wasn't, sir," the soldier said, and was ignored by all parties.

"It's a pirate parrot anyway!" his sister shouted. "And you were being really slow at poisoning it!"

"I wasn't—ugh! Sokka, take her!"

"He can't take me, I'm leaving!"

Sokka sipped at his tea, which had started tasting better the moment his little sister and little buddy had started acting like kids, and not like people he needed to have a sharp-pointy-object talk with. "...Not holding out for an Avatar trade, huh? Not even going to fight for her? Or ransom her for five minutes of cuddle time with the big fluffy bison?"

They were not paying attention to him.

"And give back my shirt!" the prince yelled.

"Like I'd want to keep it!"

"All right, then," Sokka said. He'd known Zuko wouldn't last a week with Katara. The amazing totally-agreed-upon-by-both-Water-Tribe-siblings plan had gone off without a hitch.

The waterbender marched back on deck in her own clothes, with a bending scroll shoved down her shirt and the Blue Spirit mask in her hand. She marched up to Zuko.

Zuko met her glare for glare, and unclasped the necklace from his throat.

The hostages were exchanged.

"...Keep thinking, okay?" she said. She'd already gotten a nod out of him last night; he didn't dignify her with a repeat.

"Thinking about what?" Sokka asked. "How to forget to send a hawk? How to give your brother additional heart attacks? I had chest pains, Katara!"

"Zuko is also very good at inducing those!" Uncle put in.

It wasn't until they were flying over land again that Sokka remembered the most important part. He dug the carving out of his pocket, and stared at it mournfully. "Aww, I forgot to throw it."

Katara leaned over the saddle to see. "Is it a platypus bear?"

"It's Appa Mark Two!" It wasn't his fault that Appa's tail looked a lot like a duckbill. "...I was really worried, you know. What happened? Why did you stop sending messages?"

"I wasn't sending them because you were being stupid. And Zuko… forgot, I guess. What with Zhao, and breaking into the communications center—"

"What? You broke into… where? How? Why?"

His sister opened her mouth. Then closed it. And winked. "What happens on Zuko's ship stays on Zuko's ship, Sokka."

"I'll tell you what happened in the spirit stomach," he bargained.

"That'll get you one day. What will you trade for the rest?" His sister crossed her arms over her chest, and since when had she become a cutthroat barterer? Had to be the pirate-y influence. And—what the—since when did she have the world's gaudiest dagger shoved in her boot? Not that she knew how to use it; he was the weapons guy. Right? Not that much could change in not-even-a-week, right? That grin on her face didn't mean anything, right? "There is one thing I can tell you."

Sokka knew better than to ask. He did, but he was really curious and sometimes traps were baited with delicious delicious seal jerky and no wonder antarctic hare-foxes got caught. "...What?"

"He knows how to do his own laundry!"

Sokka briefly considered turning this bison around, but he didn't think Prince Zuko would allow give-backsies.

Zuko waited until the bison was out of sight. Then he broke the royal seal.

His father didn't ask how he was. Or congratulate him about Omashu (no matter how accidental it had been). He didn't include Crown Prince in Zuko's titles or give any advice on how to fulfill his everyone-thought-it-was-impossible-until-it-wasn't quest and return to his proper place in the capital.

In the blandest possible language, in the handwriting of some dictated-to scribe (...he had at least dictated, hadn't he?), his father ordered him to relinquish the waterbending prisoner to Commander Zhao.

Zuko stood blinking down at the letter. And then he laughed, which was completely inappropriate and made Uncle look really nervous—

"Is everything all right, Prince Zuko?"

"I—no—yes—it's just—" he gasped in a breath. "Sokka's titles were longer."

He needed to stop laughing. Now. He couldn't laugh at his father's titles, they were each a piece of history, passed down through their bloodline or earned, not like Sokka's stupid fake ones. He wasn't laughing because his father's signature suddenly looked just as ridiculous as a Water Tribe peasant's attempts to look impressive, he was—outraged! This was outraged laughter. For the insult to his family, and, and…

(And it was really easy to picture Ozai making up new ones, like Dragon Emperor or Phoenix King. Where had half these titles come from?)

Those peasants had done something to his brain. Stupid Ka—stupid waterbender and her promise-me-you'll-think-about-it. Their idiocy was contagious.

At least their bickering had given him an idea. Zuko went back to his letter writing.

Lala,

You are the worst sister ever. Please refrain from harrying my prisoners at a distance.

Zuzu

That should do it. And for Father… For Father, he studiously copied each and every title, and then wrote.

He sent two hawks, but only one of them came back with a reply.

Dum-Dum,

I knew you cared.

In future correspondence, please be sure to use my correct name and titles or you will learn what else I can do from a distance.

Princess Azula of the Azure Flame, Youngest Wielder of the Cold Fire, Heir to the Dragon Throne, Objectively Less Banished Than You

Zuko broke down laughing. Again.

Uncle was still startled by the noise, but thought he could get used to it.

At approximately the same time Ursa's son was having an unseemly fit of emotion, Fire Lord Ozai was dismissing his court and sitting down with his mail.

The waterbender escaped before I read your orders, the boy had written, amidst court-perfect niceties and formulaic apologies drilled into him by his tutors. Escaped, he wrote, while numerous sources reported to Ozai what friendly terms Zuko was on with the girl's brother. The firstborn son of Hakoda, whose fleet was the only resistance to the Fire Navy worth mentioning. The unmarried young heir apparent of the Southern Tribe, traveling towards the Northern Tribe's unmarried daughter. An ineffectual non-bender that Zuko had repeatedly allowed to escape uninjured, despite the tactical advantage of capturing him. Or killing him.

If Zuko had shown even half this capacity for political maneuvering while he was still in the palace, Ozai might have kept him. A pity he was funneling all this newfound acumen into treason. Ursa's son, indeed.

Ozai did not return the boy's letter.

AN: Replies to guesties, by which I mean spring, on chapter twenty: I've always assumed General Iroh was the sort who took an inherited military position, and earned the hell out of it. Do not tick off the Dragon of the West, for he has tea and a firm grounding in how to psychologically ruin you. Episode-wise, this arc was "The Waterbending Scroll." It just got a bit… expanded. *cough* Glad you're liking the non-canon stuff! There is going to be a whole lot more. *is very much looking forward to the Season One finale*