Disclaimer: AVATAR IS NOT MINE! Shucks... Corn! Haha... whatever. Keep on reviewing! And of course, I'll keep writing...

And just to warn y'all... I haven't been writing new chapters this past week 'cause of school and getting into 'the groove' of things. Hopefully I'll get used to it quick and start writing as fast or nearly as fast as before. This means, that once I get chapter 22 updated here, the updates will start slowing down. But it will keep on! Just at a slower pace. Thanks for the encouragement, and I don't want to ENTIRELY deprive you of distraction from your homework. :-)

After only a little debating, we agreed on a price to sell my drawings at. Actually, the men agreed. I stood back and let them since I didn't know what type of money they used. Iroh led me around to a few vendor stalls and asked if they were interested in buying some of my work, then showed the drawings to them.

Quite a few were impressed, and wanted to know how much I was selling them for. I told them the price agreed on, and most of them nodded their head in agreement.

The first drawing sold was one of a fox with wings, twisting in mid-air. I loved drawing foxes and was glad the guy liked it enough to buy it. After that, it seemed like all the vendors wanted to buy one, or two in one case, and I was very quickly left with an empty sketchbook and a full purse.

"Thank y'all so much! Alright, now I'd like to buy these things on my own. Think you can leave me be for a while?" They all agreed and turned to walk away. All of a sudden I remembered it was almost that time again for me. "Ah… Iroh?" He stopped and came back. "Um… where would I find… uh…" I blushed and whispered, "feminine products?"

Iroh burst into laughter, making me blush even more. He in turn whispered a reply to me. "I believe I saw someplace that sells things like that down the third street on the left, you can't miss the place."

I got away from them as quickly as I could, and went straight to the third street; I wanted to get this over with as fast as possible. When I found the store, I got what was necessary and left. I wasn't exactly comfortable with all that girl stuff and I never have been.

After wandering around for a few minutes, I remembered Zuko's black clothes and mask.

He must use them to sneak out sometimes… I wonder if he's done it while I've been here too. I highly doubted that.Then an idea came to me. I'll bet if I got something similar it would come in handy someday, you never know.

I set off at once to find someplace I could buy a mask, and black clothing. The clothing was the first thing I found. After looking around in a store I purchased some slightly baggy pants, and a form fitting black top that was fastened along the right side of the body and diagonally across one shoulder. I was on my way out of the store when I spotted a black head covering that would sufficiently keep my hair out of my face if I wore a mask, and a large black hood that I could wear over my head that covered my shoulders as well, so I got those too.

Next I looked for a mask. It took a while but I eventually found a metal toy maker who had a good selection of masks. Most of them were pretty freaky, but I didn't want something with an actual face on it. One caught my eye; it was an outline of a face, no mouth, with thin slanting eyes cut into it. The entire mask was black except for a small portion on the left side of the face from the nose over that was white: almost like the black paint had been peeled from it. It was perfect.

I tucked these 'secret purchases' into my bag so the guys wouldn't see it, and kept shopping to see if I could find anything else. Eventually I found myself back where I left the rest of the crew, so I decided to call it a day with my feminine products and 'ninja' outfit.

We all packed up and headed back toward the ship, but Iroh spotted some heat springs along the way through the trees and slipped away. It wasn't long before Zuko noticed his uncle wasn't there and he called a halt. He looked pretty furious.

"Where is he!"

"Um, Z- Prince Zuko, I think he went that way a few minutes ago." I pointed back through the trees.

He glared at me, almost aflame in anger. "And why didn't you mention this earlier?"

"I'm sorry, I just thought he would be right back."

"Show me where he went."

I took him back to where I had seen Iroh disappear through the trees, and pretty soon we found his clothes hanging from a tree branch. Zuko groaned. Then we caught sight of Iroh relaxing in a hot spring. I looked away quickly, I wasn't sure if he was wearing anything and I didn't want to take the chance. (A/N: I haven't seen this entire episode so I don't know the exact words… bear with me as I improv.)

"Uncle what are you doing? We're closing in on the Avatar! We don't have time for this."

"Ah Zuko! Come relax in the springs, they are very warm." I almost laughed.

"Not now Uncle! Get out, now. We need to get back to the ship before we lose too much ground." I heard a sloshing sound and Zuko turned away from facing Iroh and looked at me instead, I grinned at him, slightly embarrassed; I had a feeling that would happen.

"Just meet back at the ship in thirty minutes, or we're leaving without you." I heard more sloshing, but no wet feet on the ground and I assumed it was safe to look. Sure enough, Iroh had submerged himself in the water again. Zuko was fuming, and turned to head back to his soldiers.

"I'll stay here, make sure he leaves in thirty minutes." I didn't want to be around an angry Zuko just then.

"Fine." He didn't even look at me as he stormed off through the trees.

I sighed, and went to sit down beside on of the pools. I let my fingers dangle in the water and relaxed. Maybe a little too relaxed.

It wasn't long until I started dozing off. A slight chirping awoke me and I saw a little furry creature, almost like a mouse, peering at me from a few yards away. I sat up and it scurried further down the hill toward Iroh.

I smiled. He was sleeping! I watched as the mouse-thing climbed to the edge of the spring and squeaked loudly, moving around frantically.

What's it doing? Trying to find something?

All of a sudden, the earth around Iroh shot up in jagged spikes, trapping him in the spring. I leapt to my feet and ran down to him but someone caught me around the waist and dragged me down the rest of the way to where a group of soldiers in brown and green armor had surrounded the now awake Iroh.

Hanging around in the background, I suddenly spotted Hue.

No…!

I started struggling frantically to get away, my eyes locked on him, but the soldier holding me only tightened his grip until it was too painful to move and I hung limply.

"This is no ordinary soldier. He's the Fire Lord's brother, the Dragon of the West. The once great General Iroh. And now, he's our prisoner." The man who'd spoken looked pretty smug, but Iroh just glared at him. "And what's this?" he turned to look at me now. This unfortunately brought Hue's attention to me too. "Are you from the Earth Kingdom, girl?" He looked my clothes up and down.

"No." I forced the words out as best I could, past the soldier's crushing arms. He signaled the soldier to let me go and I wobbled unsteadily, breathing in big gasps of air.

"Then where are you from?" he was circling now, peering down at me.

I tried to put on a brave front. "I'm not from around here." I unconsciously did the hand on hip thing. Unfortunately, I put my hand on the hip my sword was on, and as soon as they saw my hand come to rest on the hilt the soldiers leapt into action.

I let out a yelp and leapt to the side as a chunk of earth narrowly missed my head. Then, just as quickly I avoided the swipe of one man's sword and another rock thrown at me. I lost my balance however, and stumbled to regain my footing.

Just then something hard struck the side of my head and I dropped like a rock to the ground. I lay dazed a moment, before I looked up to see Hue standing over me with a club in his hand. He reached down toward my belt and I panicked.

Frantically, I attempted to scramble away; I tried swatting his hands away and kicking him but he pinned my hands above my head, and my legs were pinned under his own. When I couldn't move, I completely froze, looking up at him scared to death.

Hue grinned sickly at me, then yanked my Katana off my belt and fastened it to his own. He turned me over onto my chest and used the black rope to bind my hands behind my back, then pulled me up roughly. I was scared out of my wits and was almost shaking. Iroh was watching anxiously, while his hands were being locked in metal chains.

The leader whistled shrilly and some ostrich looking creatures with armor walked up. Iroh was placed on the back of one, and Hue gave me to another soldier who set me down behind him.

"Thanks for the tip-off. Are you coming the rest of the way?"

Hue betrayed us to the Earth Kingdom! He's Fire Nation! My eyes widened, and I looked at Iroh. He was glaring at Hue angrily. Maybe they should have just killed him.

"Actually, I think I will. I'll be needing a new job anyway now." He looked at me. "And there's something I'd like to have once I get to the city." My heart felt like ice all of a sudden.

He mounted one of the other ostriches, then the leader led us away through the woods and onto a small path. I couldn't really hear the discussion between Iroh and the captain, but I did hear one familiar word. Ba Sing Se…

We're in trouble now…