Chapter 31. Girls Are Good For: Dancing [End of List]
Yue saw their guests from her gondola. Her Tribe had never had guests. Not like these, dressed in yellows and reds and shades of blue out of fashion with her own people, subtle differences in cut and style and material that drew the eye. The boy and girl, so close to her own age, looked like something out of one of her scrolls. Southern Water Tribe. And those tattoos on the child who was steering that giant animal through the canals—a master airbender, and at his age!
The other child came from quite a different sort of scroll. Fire Nation. The red wrapping his body was an alarm; fresh-spilled blood, butchered animals, a color one should not have on their person in such a quantity unless something was very, very wrong. A color no one in her Tribe would wear, not willingly. They didn't even have the dyes to make it, and hadn't for decades. He was young, but she could see the tongues of fire crossing his lips even from here, and—
And it should have been just as instinctively repulsive as the red, but that part of her that was more felt
(Agni's flames, brother, opposite-balance, the light that lets us shine)
a certain kinship. She had these feelings, sometimes. She'd stopped talking about them long ago—father had always looked worried and mother had looked at her like she was something distant, something more than what her parents had made. Yue had stopped talking about the feelings, but she still trusted them, every bit as much as when she was five and her nursemaid had pulled her away from stepping into the sea (you'll drown dear, you'll drown.)
(She wouldn't have. The sea would have held her, though she did not know then and dared not test now whether it would hold her up, or hold her forever.)
Even before her Southern kin embraced Agni's little cousin, Princess Yue had gotten over the startle of so much red and was looking at the child underneath. The shivering child.
"Why doesn't he have a coat?" she asked.
"I wouldn't know, Princess," her gondolier replied, with his usual disinterest.
The teen and the child were both looking at her, now. With very different expressions. She let her own gaze linger only a moment; then she turned away.
"Take me back to the palace, please."
The man inclined his head, and steered them towards a side canal.
%%%
Chief Arnook was breaking them up to speak with one-by-one, as if things would make more sense to him if he had them explain it individually. Aang wasn't entirely certain that was going to work, but he was up first! He figured he'd just go along with it while Katara and Sokka figured out how to bully the guards into getting Zuko a coat. Aang himself did not approve of bullying for worldly gain, only for awesome animal rides, but the Southern Water Tribe seemed okay with it and he had to respect their culture. Especially when it helped his new advisor-who'd-been-very-clear-he-wasn't-Aang's-friend.
"Yep!" Aang answered the council's latest question, bouncing on his heels. They were finally here and soon he and Katara would get to learn waterbending from a real master and it was so great.
"So that.. boy really is the prince."
"Yep!"
"Fire Lord Ozai's heir."
"Uh-huh!" Aang was starting to wonder how many ways the councilmen had to ask that question. He wanted to make a bet with Sokka, but Sokka wasn't in the room. Just him, and a bunch of frowny-faced gray-haired old men who probably hadn't been penguin sledding in decades.
Wait, did they even have penguin-otters at the North Pole? He could never remember which pole was full of penguins and which was full of man-eating polar-bear-geese.
...The South had definitely been full of penguins, though. So.
Oh oops they were still talking.
"Sorry!" he rubbed the back of his head. "What was that last question?"
The Chief sighed. "Where have you been, Avatar? We… have been expecting your birth for some time. Are you truly an airbender? How did your people survive the genocide? How did the cycle return to air again with no one discovering your other incarnations…?"
Oh. That was… less easy, as questions went. Aang felt his heels come back to the ground.
"It… it didn't. I messed up, a hundred years ago. And when I woke up it was now, and… and—" And he hadn't even known there was going to be a war, but there had been and everyone had died, and Katara said he probably couldn't have stopped it even if he was there. Sokka said so too, but he'd thought it over a lot more first, which… had made Aang feel better. Your Avatar state lasts, what, a few minutes? You could have killed a lot of them, Aang, but you wouldn't have gotten them all. And then you'd have passed out at their feet, and woken up Water Tribe. Not to mention that you're not big on the killing thing to begin with, and I don't think active genocide has a quick peaceful solution. So stop beating yourself up over it, and let Katara hug the bad feelings away.
He lifted his chin. "I won't mess up again. There's something you need to know. Something Zuko told us."
Avatar Aang stopped taking questions on whether Zuko was really-for-real the Fire Prince, and started telling them about the invasion fleet.
%%%
The sun child was still shivering when he came out of the council chamber. Of course he was; men.
"Welcome to the Northern Water Tribe," Yue curtseyed, low enough for greeting fellow royalty; a gesture she'd never had to make in her life, but which the whispers in the palace told her was appropriate with this group. "I am Princess Yue. Please, come this way."
The prince and princess of the Southern Water Tribe exchanged looks over their ward's head. Yue simply smiled, and gestured them on.
The room was near. It was a simple waiting room, with a simple fire and a simple spread of refreshments, and a pile of clothing waiting on one couch.
"You may change in the room through that door," she said. "Please, let me know if anything is a poor fit, or not warm enough."
The prince and princess exchanged another look. A much more complimentary one. The firechild took a step towards the clothes, and then… stopped.
"Is there something wrong?" Yue asked.
"Uh." He shifted his arms, which he'd been holding behind his back, forming a perch for a very cold-looking hawk. A perch on his bound hands.
(Sometimes, Yue wanted to scream at her father and never stop.)
(These weren't thoughts befitting of a princess.)
The prince and princess exchanged another look. And a look at the guards, who had followed them from the council chambers and taken up a position inside the door. Yue did not frown at the men: years of practice kept her face perfectly placid. Nevertheless, they shifted a little guiltily under her gaze.
(She did not order them out. Could not, if it meant countermanding her father's own orders. That was not a thing she could or should do.)
"This is getting ridiculous," the Southern princess said. And drew a dagger from her boot. It was a very… unique dagger. She shooed the hawk to a perch on her brother's shoulder (the lemur in his coat chittered angrily), and cut through the boy's ropes. "There. Go get changed, Zuko. I'm sure no one will mind." She turned her gaze on the guards again. And paused a very long moment before putting her dagger away.
(It sparkled and shone like moonlight on frosted waves, pretty and cutting)
When the Fire Prince came back, he was wrapped up in the thickest white parka she could find on short notice. It was a little large, but not by much. The pants also fit reasonably well, and so did the boots, and he was wrapping the scarf around his neck even as he came out. He was bundled up for a blizzard while standing in one of the warmest rooms they had, but at least there was color returning to his cheeks. He hadn't pulled his hood up. A moment later, she found out why: the lemur flew to the top of his head, turned around twice, and settled down. Then he pulled it up.
Should she tell him about the tail sticking out the side? His companions weren't.
"It's not blue," he observed.
"Blue didn't seem to be your color," she smiled.
He narrowed his good eye almost suspiciously, though she wasn't sure what she had done to warrant it. He bowed, at a different angle and with different placement of his hands than any she'd ever seen, but with considerable polish. "Thank you."
"Meat," the Southern Prince said, finally noticing the refreshment table. "Meat and meat and meat wrapped in meat, fatty meat and thin-sliced meat and meat-rolls—"
"Aang isn't going to like that," the Southern Princess said.
"I'll just have to eat it all before he sees." He grinned—it was a wide grin, perhaps too wide, like a child down at market instead of a nearly grown young man at court. He turned it on Yue. "You are my meat benefactress?"
"I am," she allowed, with one eyebrow raised.
"Marry me," he gushed.
The Fire Prince choked.
Yue flushed.
So did her spontaneous courter. "I mean—uh, that was a joke!" He waved his hands. "Not that I wouldn't. Marry you. You're really—hey have you met my son? I mean he's not really my son he's—he's adopted! I don't have other girls. On the side. Producing sons. Haha, that would be—OWW!"
The child bowed again, lower this time, after extracting his elbow from his father's side. "Please forgive Prince Sokka; the Southern Court is... quaint. I am Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation. ...And the Southern Water Tribe. By adoption. I do not share blood with him."
Yue curtsied back, and they both ignored the still-spluttering teenager next to him with the art of true royalty. "A pleasure. What brings you so far north?"
"Princess Katara and Avatar Aang require waterbending instructors." There was something very stiff in how he talked and held himself, like he was somehow afraid of screwing up simple smalltalk.
"Yes! That is Princess Katara. My sister. And I'm Prince Sokka. Son of the Chief. Which makes me a prince," said a teenager who was very much unafraid of screwing up.
Yue hid a smile behind her hand. "Really, a prince? How impressive."
Prince Zuko was shaking his head, his eyes widening. Princess Katara was slapping a hand to her forehead. And Prince Sokka was puffing out his chest.
"So you like titles, do you? Princess Yue, have I got some titles for you—"
The young airbender—the Avatar—
(So young again, soon to be old again, a waxing and waning)
—peeked his head into the room. "Oh, here you are! The Chief said it's Sokka's turn."
"Aang. Timing."
"Huh?"
"...Nevermind. Princess Yue," Prince Sokka swept into a bow that was far too low, "I'll have to regale you later. So just. Hold that thought."
She wasn't sure if the elaborate wink as he sauntered from the room made him more or less charming.
The way he ran into the doorframe while staring back at her, though—
"...Oww. I'm fine, I'm okay, I meant to do that. Just, ah. Testing your structural stability. Good. Good stability."
She giggled. It was a startlingly uncourtly sound.
(Push and pull, refinement and… not.)
%%%
Chief Arnook had no sons himself; only one daughter. Daughters were easier. More obedient.
"To summarize," Master Pakku said. "The Avatar inflicted repeated head injuries upon Prince Zuko while you engaged in a dedicated campaign of psychological manipulation and near-constant physical assaults to break his spirit."
"I mean, if that's what you want to call hugs…" The teen raised an eyebrow at Master Pakku. Master Pakku arched a brow back. The teen shrugged, and casually tilted his head out of the way of his shoulder-hawk's retaliatory beak-snap. "Then yeah, that's a fairly accurate assessment of the situation. Don't forget the part where he deserves way better than his world-burning child-abusing bio-dad." He spread his arms. "Listen, I know the whole 'firebender' thing is super off-putting—I tried to spear him when I first met him, too, it's a completely natural reaction!—but I'm just going to remind you of a few salient points: he's twelve, he's on our side, he's the one that told us about the invasion fleet, he still has lots of information about the fleet that he's willing to tell us as long as no one points out we're interrogating him, he's twelve, and if he disappears while we're up here you're going to learn that it doesn't take a firebender to light this place on fire."
"Are you threatening us, young man?" another councilor asked.
"Nope," Hakoda's son said, popping the 'p'. "Just pointing out casual facts, to my Sister Tribe's honored elders, just in case they looked at a member of the Southern Water Tribe, grandson of our Chief, and got any ideas about what to do with my son. Did I mention he's twelve? And your people dropped him straight into polar water?"
"I'm sure they checked his age before doing so," Master Pakku drawled. "Remind me, was that before or after he tried lighting our scouts on fire?"
"It was one parka," the teenager said. The hawk on his shoulder squawked with equal indignation.
Arnook let Pakku wrangle the boy. For now, he just… observed. Prince Sokka was no older than his own daughter, perhaps even younger, but it was not so hard to picture him leading his people a decade or two from now with some nameless young wife by his side. Or perhaps his uncouth sister, with her knife.
It was only possible to picture his own fragile, demure Yue as some man's nameless wife.
Hakoda's heir was appallingly uncultured. Almost as barbaric as the other nations made all Water Tribesmen out to be, and apparently flaunting of the fact. But the Northern Tribe, for all its greatness, had very few young men who dared half so much in their lives as Hakoda's son did in this single conversation. He spoke to them as their equal, and Arnook's councillors spoke back. They did not even seem to realize they were doing it.
Chief Arnook loved his daughter with all his heart, but he could not help wondering what it would have been like to have a son.
"Oh I'm sorry, did you think I was joking about the Fire Nation cultural heritage destruction? Where have you guys been, locked in a self-enforced policy of isolationism? Do you even know about Omashu? ...Wait, no, forget I said anything, my son definitely doesn't conquer cities on accident at all and even if he did it was just the one time and, really, Aang started it—"
Not that Arnook would have wanted this one.
%%%
"Your turn, Zuko," Sokka said. He patted the doorframe on his way in. "Yep, still stable."
The Northern Princess giggled again. It was, possibly, the world's most lovely sound. He would need Suki here to do her own giggle-snort for a truly fair comparison. But maybe he was just going to slide thoughts of Suki aside for right now. It would be rude not to give this white-haired manifestation of first snow's beauty his undivided—"OWW!"
Zuko. Was grinding his foot into Sokka's boot. Which was a habit they were going to have to talk about.
"Don't trust her," his nephson whispered. "She's a princess."
"Uh. So is Katara?"
Zuko didn't seem to understand the point Sokka was making any more than Sokka understood his.
"Princesses are terrifying," Zuko tried again. "When they're being nice they're even more terrifying, it means they want something and you don't know what it is."
And, well. Yeah. If they were lumping Katara and Zuko's far-off-but-still-made-the-kid-shudder sister into the category, maybe some princesses could be a little scary and liked to reindeer-butter people up right before they asked for something. But not this one. Not Yue.
"Stop sighing," Zuko hissed.
"Go talk to the Chief," Sokka said back, with a little shoo-shoo flutter of his hand. "Shout if they try to kill you."
"Ugh."
Zuko stomped off, as dramatically as possible. The slightly-too-big boots helped the effect. Sokka grinned fondly; when he looked back to the room, Yue was also doing some fond grinning, if he did say so himself.
Time to break out the Sokka suave.
%%%
Zuko knelt on the ground, and bowed, and waited for leave to rise. And waited.
And waited.
(And did they even know what he was doing? They seemed to have some form of culture up here, way more than in the Southern Water Tribe, but maybe they didn't do this. His knees were getting cold even through his new pants, which were a lot thicker than his old pants which was nice even though he hated them. He'd had no choice but to put them on because he'd been so cold, but he hadn't asked for them and he didn't like taking gifts when he didn't know their price, he definitely wasn't going to let his guard down around that princess even if her hair was supercoolamazing—)
"Rise," their Chief said, and he made it sound like Zuko had inconvenienced him rather than honored him.
Zuko stood all the way up instead of staying humbly kneeling. Then he waited for someone to speak. And waited.
And waited.
(And tried not to think about the guards behind him, and how far away Sokka and Katara and Aang were, and if he shouted would they even hear him through all this ice? Not that he needed them because he didn't, he had his fire back and he was pretty sure he had his lightning even though Aang had nervous-laughed and asked him not to do experimental bending on Appa's back please. But… but Zuko was standing in front of a room full of frowning old men, and if they'd been dressed in red instead of blue this would have been exactly the same as—)
"What are your intentions here?" the Water Lor—the Chief asked.
"I'm the Avatar's Fire Nation Advisor."
The Chief narrowed his eyes. The especially cranky looking man next to him scowled. So Zuko crossed his arms and lifted his chin and scowled back, because these barbarians clearly didn't care about manners anyway and Zuko's were wasted on them and, and why did they all have to be so tall even when they were sitting, and the stupid coats made them look twice as big as normal people—
The lemur churred under his hood, quiet enough that no one else could hear him. Zuko took in a breath and turned his head to the side so he wasn't scowling at anyone in particular. His good side, so they couldn't stare at his scar.
"...Is that a tail?" one of the councilmen asked.
"Momo was cold," Zuko huffed. And didn't blush at all, he was just really hot suddenly. And now everyone was back to being quiet again and it was creepy, like watching sharkipedes crawl around in narrowing circles on their hundreds of legs all hungry-silent as they sniffed for blood.
The cranky old man let out a sigh. "Prince Sokka tells us your invasion fleet is coming."
"It's not my invasion fleet. And don't say prince all weird like that, if Yue is a princess than Sokka is a prince. I don't make the rules in your stupid Tribe."
The old guy had a really scary scowl. But Zuko had the scariest scowl. He turned the bad side of his face towards the man and narrowed his always-narrowed eye even more and just dared him to say something. And he felt good and not at all bad when some of the other councilors flinched. But not the cranky man. He just stared at Zuko steadily, super unimpressed.
"Prince Zuko," their Chief said. "What are your intentions here?"
He scowled a little less. Then more, to make up for the lapse. "What do you mean?"
"Your… tribesmen's fleet is coming. Yet you stand before us as a both a prince of this invading nation, and our guest. What are your intentions? Whose side will you be on, when these ships arrive?"
"I…" (didn't think about that) "I…" (except he had, a lot, but Sokka and Katara and Aang had never asked so he'd never had to answer, and it didn't matter how much he'd thought about it, he might as well have not thought at all for all the good it had done him.)
The councilors were all looking at him and he didn't know, he just… he just wanted to stay with the others, but that wasn't a good reason, he couldn't say that.
He straightened up and looked the Chief in the eye, and gave the only answer he could. "I don't know. It's stupid that Admiral Zhao is even coming here, you don't attack our people and you don't have anything we want. Except for the Avatar, but he's my mission. I don't know what's going to happen or what I'll do, but I'm going to do what's right. Whatever that is."
" 'Whatever that is,' " the cranky man repeated, raising two eyebrows, the cheater.
The Chief kept looking at Zuko. Like he expected more or maybe just something different, like Zuko's honesty was stupid and too transparant and the Fire Lord's son should at least be able to pull off a pretty lie if he didn't want to get dunked in hurting-cold water again—
Zuko took in slow deep breaths, warming himself. But, umm. Not letting the flames out from between his teeth. He waited.
And waited.
"Thank you for your… candor, Prince Zuko. That will be all," the Chief dismissed him.
Zuko bowed one more time, perfectly polite but not a degree lower than he had to, and turned to leave. The old guys behind him were getting up and talking, they looked almost like they were going to move to a different room, but that couldn't be right—
"Aren't you going to talk to Princess Katara?" he asked.
The Chief looked startled, like he hadn't thought of that. "I don't think that will be necessary."
%%%
"My turn?" Katara asked, standing. As fun as watching Sokka verbally faceplant again and again in front of a regal girl-who-had-always-known-she-was-a-princess was...
"Uh," Zuko said. "They… don't need to talk to you? But, uh. We're invited to Princess Yue's birthday party tonight. And you can borrow a dress to get ready. They said."
"I don't think that will be necessary," Katara said, gritting her teeth behind a smile.
%%%
The Chief had seated them in places of honor at the head table, right next to the true star of tonight's festivities. Princess Yue, who was turning sixteen; an auspicious age, made even more auspicious by the Avatar himself appearing after a hundred years to grace the tribe on the very same day. Not to mention the three members of royalty he'd brought with him.
No really, don't mention them. They'd received a very minimal introduction. Almost like Chief Arnook was trying not to draw too much attention to the firebender sitting between Sokka and Katara. Prince Sokka, Prince Zuko, and Princess Katara of the Southern Water Tribe, our welcome guests. And if the Chief had left out what else his little buddy was a prince of, at least he'd included him under the 'welcome' header.
And Sokka got to sit next to Princess Yue, for the whole meal. He was in his suave ice flow. His suave current. His suave dangerously shifting ice pack. His suave boat careening wildly through all of the above, desperately trying not to crash, and Princess Yue kept laughing behind her hand but he was getting less and less sure if she was laughing at the jokes or the joke-teller, and he had this sort of fuzzy-around-the-edges feeling like maybe he didn't care, just as long as he could listen to that laugh forever.
"You're allowed to just tell her she's pretty," Zuko said, interrupting his third joke about seal jerky. She'd liked the other two so much and he had a bajillion of these—
Wait what?
"Am I?" Princess Yue asked, leaning forward. Leaning around Sokka. Raising a perfectly curved eyebrow, like a crescent moon sculpted 'cross her brow, a reflection of the half-smile that tugged at yonder lips—
"Stop sighing," Zuko elbowed him. "It's really gross." And that was when this conversation got away from Sokka, because his little buddy glared at Yue and proceeded to say, with almost belligerent earnestness: "Of course you are. Your eyes are a really nice color, like the sky when it's going to be a perfect day for sailing, and everyone else wears these bulky fur-robes like koala-wool-stuffed sacks but you make yours look like a silk dress, and your hair is—" He made some kind of really dramatic gesture to indicate what her hair was. Sokka had no idea what it meant, but it was clearly highly complementary. So complimentary, in fact, that his nephson had gone completely non-verbal with how wonderful she was, and Sokka looked at the sudden snowmelt fondness in Princess Yue's eyes and realized there were danger flags all over this interaction, and if Zuko had just sleeper celled into puberty Sokka was going to—
"Nephson," he hissed into Zuko's ear, making sure to smile for the lady through his gritted teeth. "It is not cool to block your uncle-dad—"
Princess Yue stood, and stretched out a hand. For one radiant glorious moment he thought it was for him—
"Would you like to dance, Prince Zuko?"
"No." Zero hesitation.
She laughed. And took Zuko's hand anyway, despite Zuko's tactically endearing protests of I don't dance and let go and I WILL step on your feet. But Sokka watched in growing despair as he didn't step on her feet at all during the first dance. Or the second. And… and… what was he doing.
"Oh," Katara said, finally clueing in that that there was something more interesting afoot than talking about girl stuff with that random noble lady next to her, like 'how many of your scouts are women' (none) and 'when do your girls start learning to fight' (never) and 'don't you want to—' (you are so darling, child, I remember when I used to chase the boys for waterbending tips, they really do like a girl who knows a move or two—) and 'this is not about boys!' (everything is, dear. Or are you telling me the Southern Tribe doesn't leave its women at home? Don't judge us, dear, our men aren't all off fighting the war; we can't run wild. You're lucky your brother is so indulgent) and the resulting angry huffs that had lead her to break off the conversation and look around in the first place. Girl stuff, and he was definitely staying out of it. "Is he teaching her the Dancing Dragon?"
"He said he couldn't dance!" Sokka had his own dramatic gestures that reduced him to non-verbal status.
"It's not a dance," Katara sniffed. "It's an ancient and noble bending form. And I think it's great she wants to learn."
(The noble lady smiled with genial affection and patted Katara's arm, and you could not bribe Sokka with meat to get involved in that.)
Zuko was similarly protesting the non-dance status of his dragon dance very loudly in the middle of the dance floor, as Princess Yue indulgently nodded along. His hood had fallen back somewhere during dance two, revealing the adorable lemur hat on his head. Around the room, a lot of the people who'd been in the know on his other princely title were shifting from actively glaring at him to looking vaguely unmoored in their cultural assumptions. A few others were shifting from glares to vague disgust, and Sokka took a moment to catch their gazes one by one and deliver firm eye warnings to each and every offender before returning to lamenting the tragic loss of his own romance, a spring flower shorn by frost before it could ever bloom—
The party at large politely clapped as the Dancing Dragon, Not To Be Confused With a Dragon Dance, came to an end with Yue and Zuko double-fist-bumping, what was he even seeing, this was the absolute last time he adopted a princess-stealing traitor son. He would try to be happy for them of course, but he would also get surly-drunk at their eventual wedding and they'd have to seat him at his own table off in the corner where the other guests could pretend not to see him.
Zuko rage-sat back down at the table. He grumpily crossed his arms, his face as red as a Fire Nation banner, but Sokka was not to be fooled. He patted him on the back, supportively. Definitely not hard enough to make his nephson almost faceplant the table.
"What is wrong with you?"
"Just wishing you the best," Sokka said. "Via physical assault." Master Pakku's term for it really was more inclusive than just hugs.
Princess Yue laughed, ah, a sound he remembered fondly from the time when he still could dream of their life together…
And she stretched out a hand.
To Sokka.
They did not dragon dance. Actually he couldn't completely vouch for that fact, since he didn't know what dances they did dance. But they did. The dancing. And it was… it was…
"I'm sorry nephson," he said, when he was sitting down again but his head was still spinning. Katara had asked if she could have the next dance, so Princess Yue was very far from hearing range. There was some quality princess-on-princess dancing going on (read: cultural subterfuge in the form of not-so-subtle martial arts training).
("Is this really a Southern dance?" Yue asked. "It looks like a bending form."
"Funny, that. Just follow me, this one is called the, uh, the Dancing Water Wall.")
"...Why are you sorry," Zuko asked, like he really didn't want to hear the answer.
"I have tried to remove the princess from my heart, but I fear we are going to be rivals in love. May the best man win." He offered a hand, for shaking over this solemn agreement.
Zuko glared at said hand, and did not shake. "Eww," he said, with a certain emphaticness that lifted Sokka's heart, and filled it with hope. But something remained to be clarified.
"If you don't like her," he asked, "what was with that dramatic speech about how pretty she is?"
His little buddy was growing alarmingly red. And there was a visible heathaze around him that had Fire Flake eyeing him from her perch by a brazier, clearly debating which location would be warmer.
Zuko… muttered something. That Sokka was not entirely certain he'd heard correctly. He cleaned his ear with one finger, and leaned in closer. The better to hear.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"...She has hair like Appa's."
Sokka's heart lifted, free and easy, completely clear of the presence of a romantic rival. The Sokka suave. Was back on.
"Would you like to do an activity?" he asked, when next Yue returned from the dance floor.
" 'An activity'?" she laughed, and he knew she was laughing at him. And he knew he didn't care, because that smile of hers was agreeing even before her words did.
%%%
"—train my friend, too—" Avatar Aang was saying.
Pakku waved him off. "We begin at sunrise. Don't be late."
"Great!" the boy raced away on a gust of his own wind, already shouting at the head table in a display that made their Southern visitors look well-mannered. "Katara, Katara—!"
Pakku ignored the boy's antics, and followed the guard who had been beckoning him. Out of the banquet hall, down a corridor, into the small sitting room Chief Arnook liked to use when he was being discreet. Inside the Chief sat, and a scout with him. The man wasn't from the ship that had brought the Avatar in.
"Another scout ship returned," Arnook said, somewhat needlessly. "Their leader took initiative, when Avatar Aang's group told him of the invasion."
Arnook nodded to the scout; the man took his cue, and spoke. "We pushed as hard as we could to the south. We didn't find the fleet, but we did find a scout ship. On our side of the border. We took their captain alive."
Their captain, as it turned out, was a surly man with a natural inclination to notably disrespectful silences. A firebender, naturally; far be it for them to acquire an easily managed prisoner, though a dunk in the ocean had rendered him more manageable.
Not as much as expected, however.
Pakku had only known one man who practiced the breath of fire. That man wasn't the sort to spread his secrets about; particularly not certain techniques developed while training clandestinely in the arctic. Techniques to keep himself warm in a cold that made others of his kind lose their fire completely; techniques to control the flow of energy, and turn their mutual enemy's greatest attack into his greatest weakness.
Of course, provoking Ozai into shooting lightning would have been far easier if Iroh hadn't holed himself up on a ship with his nephew. Having met the boy, Pakku failed to see the allure. It was understandable for Iroh to teach the child his techniques, though.
Far less understandable was how some low-level captain on one of the Fire Nation's smallest ships—more a boat, really—had stumbled across the Dragon of the West's breath of fire.
Unless...
%%%
Lieutenant Jee. Was freezing his un-armoured under-clothed ass off, in this ice cell. The North Pole was exactly as terrible as the South, except with less children shouting at him.
He crossed his arms, focused on his breath, and successfully convinced himself that the shouting child wasn't the part he missed.
The ice wall parted, with a crack like a splitting iceberg. Some gray-haired old waterbending master with more frown lines than Jee stood outlined in the door, like that was supposed to be intimidating.
Jee pushed himself stiffly up the wall. "Round two?" he asked.
Which was the point where one of the punks who'd been working him over earlier brought in a pai sho table, and Jee started wondering if they'd hit him on the head and he'd just forgotten it.
The old master sat down on one side, and closed off the ice behind him with a flick of his wrist once his helper had scurried off. "The guest has the first move."
...Prince Zuko had been right. Pai sho really was just another form of torture. Jee held in a laugh, for the sake of both his bruised ribs and his dignity.
Slowly, watching for whatever trap this was, Jee sat down. What would the General have done?
Jee reached for the white lotus title.
The man's blue eyes followed his every move, like a wolf-piranha just waiting for an opening. "I see you favor the white lotus gambit. Not many still cling to the ancient ways."
Jee shrugged noncommittally. He didn't really know how to play despite the General's best efforts, and he wasn't invested in winning so much as in figuring out what the man's real game was. So he just copied what the other guy did. And together, they… made a flower?
%%%
It was hard to tell, at the end of the game, which of them was more confused.
"The White Lotus opens wide to those who know her secrets?" Pakku tried, not really expecting much by this point.
"...Are you seriously telling me," the prisoner deadpanned. "That the General is part of a secret international pai sho association?"
Which answered Pakku's questions much more succinctly than the game had.
%%%
AN: White Lotus. Hey White Lotus. Your secret code really shouldn't include a symmetrical design that looks nothing like two dudes just playing a game even if it was a hella cool design that looked great visually in the show so I totally get why the writers did it.
Zuko: *accidentally Omashus*
Jee: *accidentally White Lotuses*
Pakku: *accidentally freezes Iroh into a solid block of ice the next time he sees him and yells at him for awhile, what was he teaching on that ship*
Usual reminder that Tumblr is a thing. Fanart tag continues to grow, it is so good. Also I am currently soliciting Ba Sing Se police procedural ideas for an upcoming accidentalGuard!Zuko story, so feel free to chime in (search the Community Service Zuko tag).