A/N: "Host" and "Guest" are positions each player takes. The Host can decide if they want to apply any special rules to the game. The Guest decides which tile they both start with, and the Guest makes the first move of the game. Technically, you're supposed to decide this before you choose accent tiles, but casual games between friends often ignore such minor rules.

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After leaving Jin with the firebenders, they continued along the river. The river shrank, went through a narrow bend that would stop Fire Nation river boats, then split into two streams. Aang chose the left stream. His choice turned out to be correct: a town soon appeared. Appa roared at the sight of it. This time, they landed directly outside the gate and walked in as a group of five (plus two).

Once Aang explained their situation, a virtual mob of foodsellers descended upon them. Aang managed to talk his way into a one-third discount on everything. Even so, most of their money disappeared. Sokka checked everyone's supplies afterwards. "And we're almost out. Again. That's it. Everyone, from now on, we have to ration ourselves. No more mindless gorging!" He turned to Momo, who sat on his shoulder devouring a mango, and pointed an accusing finger. "Starting with you!"

Momo looked up and blinked. His tail swished once. Then he went back to eating.

Everybody else had the same reaction. "Rationing's a great idea," Aang said. "For later. I'm starving!" They stopped to have a large, early lunch. Sokka protested the whole time but nobody cared. Appa snorted at him, covering him in wisps of newly-purchased hay that would not leave his clothes until they were next washed.

After lunch, it seemed that for once, they might have landed somewhere where the Avatar wasn't urgently needed. They looked at each other. As one, all five of them grabbed everything they had and got on Appa's back before that could change.

"How do you people earn money?" Zuko asked once the town was out of sight.

"People just give it to us in gratitude, usually," Aang replied.

"So you're mercenaries. 'Will fight off whoever you need us to for money.'"

"That's not true!" Sokka said. "Sometimes we do it without fighting."

"I'm traveling with a bunch of child mercenaries." Zuko looked unsure whether or not to laugh. "And I'm helping. That makes me a mercenary too." He looked like he was seriously considering laughing. "I hope this part of my life never makes it into the history books, Uncle."

That was too much! Aang and Sokka burst out laughing. Katara also laughed, her hands to her mouth. Iroh wiped a tear from his eyes. "It's good to see you using your talent again."

Zuko beckoned Momo into his lap and petted him. They all flew on, happy as a dancing dragon. It was wonderful. In the midst of all this wonderfulness, while Aang burned with optimism, doubt crept in. There was a cycle in place. Peace, then war again. When would this happiness end and the next fight begin?

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Not that day. They made good time. By nightfall, the air was noticeably chilled and Sokka had started to shiver in his short-sleeved shirt. They landed in a little hollow among grass, part of a widespread patchwork of grassland. There was no cover for miles to block the wind, which didn't help Sokka's situation. Katara went through their packs and brought out two garments. "It's time to wear our coats again," she announced, holding up two thick blue coats lined with fur. She and Sokka put them on. At the touch of the furs, they both sighed.

"It feels like I'm back home again," Sokka said.

"Soon we'll be back in the Water Tribe, with waterbenders," Katara said. "It might not be our Water Tribe, but it'll still be home, in a way."

Zuko brushed ashes off his knee. He had burned through a whole patch of cloth. "That's nice. Does anyone want to play Pai Sho after dinner?"

Sokka and Katara frowned at him. Really? Now? Right at the end of such a good day, he was going to start being a jerk again? Zuko looked away. I have to do this. I've been too relaxed. If I don't regain control of myself now, I'm going to do something I regret. He crossed his arms. "It's been a while."

They ate dinner. Katara whispered something to Sokka, and after that they both looked much more understanding. After dinner, Katara said, "I'll play you first." She got out the board and they chose their pieces. Zuko's enthusiasm for Pai Sho wilted as he looked at the accent tiles. I still don't have a strategy. He chose four at random, as he had every time he had played before. He laid his accent tiles next to his other tiles, the basic flowers and the special flowers. His enthusiasm wilted further as he looked at the Red and White Lotus. What kind of person am I?

Katara saw him looking at his tiles. "You still don't have a strategy, do you?"

"I'll figure something out." But Zuko knew he was in trouble. He was going to lose the game. Without a strategy, he was all but guaranteed to lose every time he played, since everyone else seemed to have a strategy. I'm not an idiot. I don't need to be told that plans are good. I just can't seem to make any. I would make plans, if only I could.

Why did he even bother to play? But that's fine! It is fine. I'll make do somehow. I never give up! He stared at his tiles and thought as hard as he could about strategies. "Which one of us is the host this time?"

The game began. They both put out tiles that could form Harmonies, using those first Harmonies to plant more tiles. Then Zuko stopped and stared at the board for a full minute. Strategy. I need a strategy. Should I defend? Attack? He applied every piece of advice he had ever heard and everything he had ever learned to this question.

To no avail. The words were meaningless, wispy. They slipped through his mind like water through a sieve. He hopped from idea to idea, not able to settle on any. It would have helped if he knew what an attack strategy looked like in practice. Then he might have found something solid to hold onto. But that idea was just an idea, so he moved on. But all the ideas he could think of were just ideas. What did a defensive strategy look like? A "tricky strategy"? That didn't even make sense.

"Are you going to move sometime this year?" Katara asked.

Zuko made a move. He had no idea what the move was for. It was just something to do. He resigned himself to losing, again. I don't care. I'm not here to win. I just don't want to have touchy-feely conversations.

After she won, Katara did not put her pieces away immediately. "Do you need help making up a strategy?" she asked.

"I don't think it's possible to help someone with that," Iroh said. "Play styles are very personal."

"That's my problem: they're not." Zuko gestured down at the board. "These are just pieces on a board. How am I supposed to make up a strategy for a bunch of wooden flowers?"

"That's it! You're having trouble connecting to the game." Katara picked up a few pieces and held them out in her hand. "Think of them as soldiers."

"Those are wooden disks with pictures of flowers on them."

"No they aren't." Katara took her hand back. "You have to play pretend. Pretend they aren't what they really are. They're something else."

Zuko looked at all the pieces: the basic flowers, the special flowers, and each of the four kinds of accent tiles. But no matter what tile he looked at, they did not transform in his mind into soldiers or weapons. They were just wooden disks that he moved around on a colored grid. He shook his head.

Katara sighed and started to put the pieces away. "Keep thinking. There has to be something you can see them as."

Just in case anyone thought he was going to give up, Zuko asked the Avatar to face him next. The boy looked skeptical, but agreed. They chose their pieces, decided who would be host, and began to play without any expectation of surprises. It was only a matter of how Zuko would lose. He intended to put up a good fight.

While they played, Katara cleaned up after dinner. Sokka yawned. "Do you think we're ever going to have fun again?" he asked in a whisper. "Like we did before?"

"There's a limit to how relaxed we can be with a water spirit after us," Katara whispered back. "Remember what it did to the ship."

Zuko had brought out all types of flower tiles and deployed half his accent tiles by this time. He was studying the board, looking for his next move, when he heard this. The water spirit froze my boat. His eyes widened. Many separate things he had heard before became connected. New meaning was made. A new lens appeared before his eyes, and the board transformed.

He looked at the Red Lotus. It was called special, but it had never looked special before. Suddenly it did. The Red Lotus freezes pieces near it. The Red Lotus is the water spirit! If that was true, then his other pieces must be… Fire. Fire and Water work together. How had it never occurred to him? He knew ageless beings that were surely experts at Pai Sho, and he didn't try to copy them? Uncle said that the moves made on a board tell you things about the person making them. But he never said I had to play as myself. What if I pretend to be someone other than who I really am? I can't beat the Avatar, but the water spirit can. Water and Fire can beat anyone.

"Zuko? You there?" The Avatar waved a hand in front of his face.

Zuko looked up. "I forfeit."

Everybody stopped. Of all the ways he would have lost, nobody expected that.

Zuko swept the tiles off the board. "We're starting over. New game!"

It had been boring to watch a game where the outcome was already known. Sokka had started to yawn. Now he sat up, all boredom gone. Katara came back to watch. Iroh stopped drinking his tea. Even Momo looked up from his nap. The game was interesting again!

Zuko soon saw a flaw in his plan. In order to play as them, he would either have to understand them very well or have them guide his hand through the whole game. Neither option was appealing. But allowing them to steer his decisions, the exact thing he needed to avoid at all costs, was downright intolerable. Zuko recalled everything he knew about the spirits that had tortured him his whole life and chose his accent tiles based on that. I've had to live with them for sixteen years. I know enough about them to play a game.

He was wrong.

Water freezes and Fire burns. I'll just use the Red Lotus to hold pieces still so I can capture them with the rest of my tiles. Zuko put out one of each kind of tile and started attacking. This did cause trouble for the Avatar. Because of that, he put out a Red Lotus and a White Lotus together and captured Zuko's Red Lotus. Then he formed a ring and won, since Zuko barely had any tiles out.

Zuko did not growl, "Rematch." He didn't need to. The Avatar immediately swept the pieces off the board and chose accent tiles again. Zuko did the same, but angrily. What did I do wrong? They freeze and burn. That's what they do. It's why they're so powerful. How could I have lost? He tried to think of what else they did. The water spirit had held so much power over him because it surrounded him, didn't it? But the Red Lotus was just one tile. It couldn't surround anything. Maybe he had lost because he was using the strategy of an ocean when he didn't have an ocean. What kind of water was small and mobile? A stream. Great. What can a stream do? Well, now that he thought about it, a stream could do some things. Streams could make people slow down and force them to find another place to cross. I shouldn't use it to freeze. I should use it to trip him up.

Every time the Avatar moved a piece that looked important, the Red Lotus was there. Meanwhile, Zuko tried to form his own ring. But the Red Lotus couldn't be everywhere at once. The Avatar used his other tiles to block Zuko's attempts at a ring. Trying to outmaneuver the Avatar and get his own pieces in place, he couldn't control the Red Lotus. The Avatar worked around it and won again.

They immediately started again. "Keep trying," Iroh urged from the sidelines. "This direction is promising." Zuko started thinking about Fire. A little stream alone wouldn't stop the Avatar. The rest of his pieces needed to be powerful, too. But how could they be? He'd already tried attacking the Avatar's pieces, and it didn't work. It would work even less well now that he couldn't hold them still. What am I supposed to do with fire if I can't burn anything? Burning is all it does!

He tried mimicking the movements of fire, the way fire curled around logs and other obstacles. To his surprise, that worked. Surrounding the Avatar's pieces stopped them from forming Harmonies. With the Red Lotus at work and Zuko's pieces tangled around his like brambles, the Avatar struggled to win. But how can I make him lose? This isn't helping me form a ring! Zuko tried moving towards a ring.

The Avatar retaliated. He moved his pieces in the same surrounding, blocking way. Now they were tangled together. Gah! It shouldn't be like this. Fire burns thorns. Zuko went on the attack. The Avatar did likewise. There was a great loss of pieces on both sides, until they had only pieces that were safely isolated inside their colored territories where pieces of the opposite color couldn't capture them. Unfortunately, neither could form a ring from that position because they'd lost the tiles that could form Harmonies across colors. Zuko tried to effectively redo the game, putting out his last reserves of said tiles and moving them into the safe territories. The Avatar did the same. They were both using the Red Lotus now. The game was like a dance, each trying to move just a split second before the other. Eventually the Avatar, with his greater skill, made a tricky maneuver and won again. But it had not been easy for him, or obvious.

The observers called out advice. "Capture his Red Lotus!" Sokka said.

"Use your accent tiles," Katara said.

"Pay closer attention to which tiles you're putting where," Iroh said.

Why. Am. I. Losing?! Zuko was furious. He was modeling his play strategy after the most powerful beings he knew, who he knew for a fact could pick the Avatar up and throw him around like a helpless little doll, and still losing! What was happening?! He cleared the board for another rematch. What am I missing?

He decided that his mistake had been trying to go for a ring. He should have kept up his attack, bringing out the White Lotus to empower his Red Lotus. When the White Lotus was in play, the Red Lotus was not water. It was…lightning. Yes, lightning. Fast, mobile, striking one place at a time. Zuko decided to use the same strategy as last game. But this time, when they'd both used up most of their tiles, the Avatar would be in for a surprise.

The Avatar had also decided to change things up a bit. He brought out his Red Lotus, too, and used it as a stream the way Zuko was. Zuko snarled. Wait a second! He's doing what I do and betting that his experience will let him do it better. No way. Nobody has the understanding of those two that I have. He paused to think very very hard about what he knew that the Avatar could not know. The Avatar knew how to burn people. He knew how to freeze ice. Any bender knew those things. What didn't he know? What things could only be known by understanding the spirits behind the elements and not just the elements themselves?

I understand what makes the elements different from each other. Air spirits don't care about things. Fire changes its behavior based on how big it is. Earth doesn't react no matter how you provoke it. And water… Water's weird. You think it's one thing, and then it's something else. It's different things. You never know what it is. I thought I knew what it was. I thought it cared about me, that it was my only friend. But it was just trying to worm its way into my life to keep me from my destiny the whole time!

Zuko looked all around the board. How could he be as tricky as Water? He couldn't even lie. I'm prince of the Fire Nation. I shouldn't try to be like Water. Fire is what I am. He knew that small fires were calmer and easier to control than bigger fires. The bigger a fire, the more likely it was to get a wonderful new idea out of nowhere and do exactly what he didn't want it to do. At his current amount of pieces, Zuko estimated that he was on the verge of going out of control, but there was still a chance to rein himself in. Like a fire that had only consumed one tree. Did he want to go out of control like he had last game, or stay orderly? Is that even a question? Fire burns. I'm going all in.

Now that he had remembered it was a question of size, he put out more pieces. He and the Avatar tangled around each other. They started to capture each other's pieces in all-out war. Zuko managed his pieces more carefully this time. In order to stay wild and fast and powerful, his fire had to stay big. He tried to keep his pieces from being captured for as long as he could. The Avatar's tiles dwindled to the point where they couldn't easily reach across the board anymore, while Zuko's were still strong. Now! He brought the White Lotus into play. Lightning. Lightning. What personality does it have? He guessed that lightning was a combination of fire and air. It danced around carelessly like air, right up until the moment it decided to commit its whole heart to something. Zuko sent the Red Lotus drifting around the board, capturing two tiles that were far enough away from reinforcements that it couldn't hurt. The Avatar started to try to make a trap for it. Now! Quick as a flash, Zuko had it cross the board and take out one of the Avatar's pieces. It could be captured in retaliation, but that didn't matter. Zuko needed that corner of the board to make a ring. With his fast, largish, bonfire-sized fire, he was able to do it faster than the Avatar's little campfire could. Zuko won.

He traced the ring with one finger and cried out in victory. "Ha! Who's the expert now?" The Avatar's expression of disbelief was priceless. Zuko delighted in every twitch of his little face. He'd won, with the knowledge and expertise that was his and his alone that the Avatar could never match. Zuko felt capable and strong and competent. What a relief it was! The mere idea of being tormented by shaming and guilting voices seemed an impossibility.

Iroh got up to slap him on the back and congratulate him. Sokka babbled in confused outrage just like the Avatar did. Katara looked back and forth between the two players, watching them closely. Zuko felt both warmth and coolness rippling through him in a pleasant way. The spirits were happy.

He tried not to think about how he didn't want them to be happy as he went to bed that night. Their happiness didn't have to mean anything. It didn't have to mean that he should stop playing Pai Sho the way he'd played this night, the way that made him feel competent and strong. No, he didn't have to stop that at all. How could something that felt so good be wrong?

He wondered what else he could do with this new way of playing. Could I play as Air? I know things about air. Let's see, what does air do… He drifted off to sleep in the middle of an activity he'd never seriously tried before: understanding. Katara appeared in his dreams.

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A/N: In order to write this chapter, I actually played Pai Sho. Online, against the computer, three times. It transformed my understanding of the board, how pieces can move around it, and how long a game realistically lasts. This play scene owes a lot to that experience. Unfortunately, playing strategy-based games is very unpleasant for me. Those three games against the computer were nerve wracking. I don't think I will ever obtain any real expertise at Pai Sho. I hope the Uncle Irohs out there in the audience forgive any mistakes I may make in my game descriptions because of this.

Also, I have gotten some reviews expressing minor impatience that it's taking so long to get to the next plot point. Well, um... No. It isn't. In case it wasn't clear, this story is not a rewrite of canon. Canon episodes may be happening, for now, but the real story has little to do with them. Abandon expectations based off of canon now. This story is not that one.