Book 2: Earth

Chapter 15: Tales of Ba Sing Se


The Tale of Aang


Avatar,

Your favorite Pai Sho club is ready to give you your first job to prepare you for initiation. Go to the following locations throughout the city and say these words to the people you will find there and they will hand you packages - they may or may not be affiliated with the Pai Sho club. Time is of the essence. So is discretion. You are not to look inside any of the packages or else the club will know you cannot be trusted.

At the first location, tell the old man behind the counter: "Love is sweet until you bite your tongue, but don't lick the ice to soothe it."

At the second, "Let your worries hang out to dry and speak not of the words in the wind."

At the third, "The warmth of hearth and home keeps away the chill of winter, but a quilt made with attention and care even more so."

And finally, at the last, "The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest flower of all."

-Your doddering grandmother

Aang rolled up the letter, pondering the meaning of Kanna's words. He'd found the scroll at the front door first thing in the morning but he had been looking forward to relaxing for once and spending the day with Appa and Sabi. The second page of the letter gave him specifics for each of the locations and directions for the place he needed to deliver them to at the end.

He sighed and leaned against Appa. "Guess the White Lotus is going to keep us busy today, buddy," he said to the bison. "They want us to go all around the Middle and Lower rings." He leapt up on Appa's head and the bison grumbled in something that sounded like determination. He held out his arm for Sabi to perch but she flew into his lap instead, chittering at him until he scratched her belly.

They took to the skies, and despite the steady approach of winter the sun was bright and warm. He longed for the chance to fly around on Appa with nowhere to go in particular, but sadly that didn't seem to be his reality anytime soon. "We haven't had any time with just the three of us, have we?" he asked his companions. Sabi vocalized a response that he couldn't understand and nuzzled further into his lap.

He held the letter in his hands as he let Appa circle far above the city for a bit, trying to determine the location of his first objective. Using the palace as his guide for cardinal directions, he calculated a rough approximation of each of his destinations. Aang was thankful that he had Appa to traverse the city this time around - all four spots were as far away from each other in the Middle Ring as they could be, while the place he had to deliver all the packages was in the Lower Ring, not far from where he had to go the night before to meet Kanna and Piandao. He steered Appa into a dive.

The first location was down the street from a fountain with stone badgermoles standing sentinel around it, spewing water from their mouths into a pool. Children played around it, trying their hardest to reach the coins glinting at the bottom of the pool without their parents noticing. All eyes in the fountain square looked up at Appa as he descended, but Aang had him land on a roof while he jumped down and headed for the first location.

"Whoa, is that the Avatar?"

"No way!"

"He's a kid!"

"The rumors are true!"

"Look at that giant, fluffy monster! I wanna play with it!"

"Avatar, can you help me? No one ever comes to my shop and we need some publicity!"

Aang politely waved away as many people as he could as they crowded around him, trying to smile but not used to this kind of attention anymore. Once upon a time he would have thrived on it. "I'm sorry, I'm kinda busy right now…"

The first location in the letter, it turned out, was a bakery. He breathed in the fresh bread and other sweet scents, but had to remind himself that there was no time for distractions. He spotted a portly man with a tuft of white hair behind the counter who peered at Aang through thick spectacles and smiled. "Hello, can I help you?"

"Uh…" Aang scratched his head, trying to remember Kanna's proverb. "Love is sweet until you bite your tongue, but don't lick the ice to soothe it?"

The man raised an eyebrow and stared at him with confusion for a moment. Aang grinned sheepishly. "Oh! The order!" the old man said, snapping his fingers. "Yes, I'll go get it." He disappeared to a room in the back, muttering something Aang couldn't hear, and returned with a woven basket that had a wooden lid he held with two hands and a leather drawstring bag on top of it. "Here you go."

Aang took both, surprised at the weight of the basket when it made his knees buckle. "Uh… Thanks."

"You're welcome!"

Aang turned around and readjusted his grip on the basket, peering out the shop window when he heard Appa rumble. The sky bison had joined the children on the ground, letting them climb all over him and slide off of his tail into the fountain while other kids tried grasping at Sabi's tail as she fluttered above them. Aang joined them outside, leaping high to place the basket and drawstring bag in the saddle and secure them as tight as he could. The bag had something soft inside, like sand. He resisted the temptation to open either package.

"Sorry, everyone," he said to all the people, waving as he jumped onto Appa's head for the reins. "I've really got to go! Avatar business!" Sabi screeched and fell into Aang's lap again in relief.

The following locations proceeded much the same way. Aang didn't know the purpose of the second location, which was a fairly dismal, empty building where a surly man with a scar on his brow sat on a stool and scowled when he came in. "Let your worries hang out to dry and, um, speak not of the words in the wind," Aang said hesitantly.

"I don't need no advice," the man growled. He gestured to a large burlap sack that bulged with its contents. "But there, take it. Weird kid."

Aang frowned but hefted the sack. He couldn't even wrap his arms around it the whole way and it was even heavier than the basket. "Er, thanks," he said before departing.

On his way to the third location, when Appa dove for the landing Aang happened to glance back and see something white spill out of the burlap sack and get lost to the wind and the city below. "Oh no!" he exclaimed, jumping back to the saddle and tightening the string around the top to seal it better. "I hope the White Lotus doesn't give me any points off for losing that," he muttered to Sabi.

He found a pretty woman at the third location working in a textiles shop; a seamstress. "The warmth of the hearth and the home keeps away the chill of winter, but a quilt made with attention and care even more so," he said.

The woman seemed taken aback for a moment but then she beamed at him. "Indeed!" She dragged out a wooden chest, plain except for a bronze clasp keeping it shut. She was kind enough to hold one end of it while he brought it out to Appa - this was the heaviest package yet.

"Thank you!" he called out to her as they flew off.

By the time he got to the fourth location, his arms ached with the knowledge that they'd be sore in the morning. He tried to piece together what sort of people the White Lotus Society could be, especially since the last place was a simple flower shop with a round-faced girl not much older than Aang behind the counter. Could she really be a member of the secret society? "The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest flower of all."

The girl tapped her lips in thought. "Strange request, but okay, I'll give it a go. You need a flower that blooms in adversity? Hmm… I'd suggest fire lilies - they're found at the mouth of a volcano! Oh! Or how about a snow pansy? They grow best in the dead of winter, even during snowstorms."

"Uh… The snow pansy, I guess," he said, shrugging.

"Just a couple stems or a bouquet?"

The letter didn't say anything about that. "The bouquet, maybe?"

"Okay, gimme a minute," the florist said. She disappeared in the back and returned with an armful of blue and white flowers, speckled with something shiny that shimmered like ice when held up to the light a certain way. "Are these for a girl?" she asked, looking at him with a conspiratorial wink.

"Er, kind of," he said, scratching the back of his head. "My grandmother."

"Oh! How sweet! I hope one day I have grandchildren who bring me flowers." She smiled as she worked at assembling the bundle into a bouquet. "I've always had a silly dream that the Earth King would come and bring me flowers one day," she said, giving a dreamy sigh to a portrait of King Kuei on the wall. Aang looked at it too - the bespectacled king looked exactly the same as he remembered. "But I suppose the Avatar would be the next best thing."

He felt a blush rise to his cheeks and the back of his neck. "Wh-what?"

"The Earth King never makes public appearances anymore so it's nice to see you show up here," she continued. "My name's Yin."

"Er, I'm Aang."

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Avatar Aang," she said, handing him the bouquet. "Have a nice day! Feel free to drop by anytime!"

Thankful that the bouquet, at least, was a light package, he journeyed to the final location to make the delivery. It was, indeed, the same neighborhood in the Lower Ring he had been to the night before, and despite the fact that Kanna had led him by the arm through a maze of streets and alleyways he was able to recognize the fact that the directions in the letter brought him right to Kanna's door.

He knocked.

The old waterbender opened the door, beaming in delight when she saw him. "You did it! Now help me bring everything inside."

"What is all this stuff, anyway?" he asked as he began unloading the bison. He was hungry and kind of agitated now and he felt a weight in his stomach as his previous suspicions niggled strongly at his mind.

Kanna removed the lid from the woven basket. "This is flour for baking," she said. She placed the drawstring bag on the counter, opening it so he could see inside. "And sugar. I had hoped to make some cookies."

Aang opened up the burlap sack, blanching when he discovered all sorts of undergarments he absolutely did not need to see. "Guh!"

Kanna pouted at him and dragged the sack into her bedroom. "You only have yourself to blame for that. This is my laundry."

"And the chest?"

"Quilts and blankets. Winter is coming and I didn't want to get cold."

"The flowers?"

"So I could get a little color in here, obviously!"

"What about the codes? Were those proverbs?"

Kanna beamed. "All nonsense I made up!"

Aang scowled. "So wait… is any of this even for the White Lotus? Are you telling me that I spent my whole day running around doing errands for you?"

Kanna laughed. "Well, having a flying bison makes it so much easier than forcing little old me to run around the whole city. Thank you for the help, dear! Think of it as payback… the look on your face when you saw my skivvies was more than worth it!"

Aang groaned and turned around to leave without another word, Kanna's cackles continuing on behind him.


The Tale of Azula and Toph


Azula stretched her arms above her head, lacing her fingers together as she enjoyed the feeling of the sun on her face. A sigh escaped her lips as she walked down the road alongside Toph. The earthbender may not have been her first choice of companion for this beautiful day, but she didn't want to go shopping for supplies with Zuko, either. Instead, the two headed for a gazebo in the park where Azula had heard there would be an outdoor play. She hadn't told Toph about it yet - Azula suspected she would have no desire to go if she knew.

The Upper Ring bustled with people today; idle men and women who had nothing better to do with their lives than walk under parasols and admire the topiaries and titter to each other about useless things. These people had no idea what truly lurked outside the walls of their precious city…

A wolf whistle aimed in their direction pulled Azula out of her thoughts. It was a crowd of boys roughly the same age as her and Toph.

"Hey there, pretty lady!" one of them shouted at her from down the street. "How 'bout you come hang out with us today?" They didn't even spare a glance at Toph.

Toph huffed and blew her bangs up. "Oh, please," she said so only Azula could hear.

Azula put a hand on her hip. "And why should we?"

One boy - their ringleader, apparently - confidently strode up to them and brushed his windswept hair aside. "'Cause I think you're really pretty. And you think I'm good looking, right?"

"Yeah, you said that already," Toph said, scowling.

"Yes, you're going to have to do better than that," Azula added, one eyebrow raised. "But I suppose you are easy on the eyes."

The boy seemed taken aback at that, but quickly recovered. "Well, uh… your eyes are beautiful, like money! And your hair is like silk. And your clothes…"

"All right, all right," Azula said, holding back a laugh. She glanced down the limestone street at the noblewomen who walked by with their hair done up in plaits and lips painted in all different shades of red. "We'll come along with you as long as you treat us both like princesses today."

Toph blanched. "Wait, what?"

The boy glanced down at Toph and then shrugged. "Sure, I guess." He looked back at Azula, grinning. "Come with us to the park! Me and the boys got a bunch of vegetables to throw at some actors who are puttin' on a play or something."

"Well that sounds stupid and senseless and almost as fun as just watching it," Azula said. "I'm in."

He ran back to his friends, but before Azula could follow after him she felt Toph pull on her sleeve. "Wait."

"What is it? Don't you want those boys to fawn over us?" She figured it would be a good distraction to get her mind off of Aang, then wondered why she thought that. There was nothing about Aang that occupied her mind any more than usual. He was just Aang, as infuriating and confusing as always. "Or would you rather just see the play? Some people in my village used to put them on, and Zuzu, Uncle, and Mother liked them so I sometimes went…"

"No, it's not that," said Toph. "It's just… Those guys think you're so pretty and it's not like they're even gonna look twice at me."

"Well, I am pretty," Azula said.

"I am so glad that I can't see your face to confirm or deny that." She shrugged. "I mean, growing up me and Smellerbee never really cared about that kind of thing. And all the boys were too afraid of us to say anything. It never mattered."

Azula frowned but put a hand on Toph's shoulder in her best effort to be comforting. "Well, my mother used to tell me there are more important things than just being pretty. You're strong and brave and you always speak your mind. You're annoyingly stubborn but fierce. I couldn't stand you when we first met but now I suppose you're a friend."

Toph tilted her head. "Uh… Thanks, I guess." She lowered her voice almost to a whisper. "But… am I pretty?"

Azula finally realized the crux of the issue when she spoke as if admitting to a great secret. She thought Toph had never looked so small, so vulnerable, with her bangs covering her eyes and her face fixed on the ground. "Hmph. I never would have thought you'd have an insecurity like that, but if you must know… Yes, I think you are pretty. And you can tell when people are lying so you know I'm being honest."

"Yeah, you totally lied to that guy about being easy on the eyes," Toph said, grinning. She rubbed her palm at her eyes and Azula realized with a start that she had let a tear fall. "But… thank you, Spicequeen."

Azula clasped her hands behind her back and leaned forward, eyes glinting with mischievousness and a smile as poisonous as white jade. "Now, what do you say we both go use our considerable powers of intimidation and make those boys slaves to our every whim?"

"That sounds like a great idea."


The Tale of Zuko and Mai


"It's still kind of hard to believe," Mai said, balancing atop a fountain with the ease and grace of a deer-lynx. Looking at her from behind and below, Zuko couldn't help but admire the image of her standing in front of the sky at dusk. Orange and red and pink and blue all bled together like watercolors on canvas, like she swam in a sea of fire. Even though she only ever wore black and red he thought she looked beautiful surrounded by so much color.

"Yeah," he said, transfixed. "It is…"

She leapt down and landed on both feet seemingly without any effort and it took Zuko a moment to realize the spell had been broken. "You still have a hard time believing the Avatar, too?"

"What?" Zuko asked. He shook his head, banishing the fog around his mind. "Oh, no. It's, uh, kind of a crazy story but I do believe him." The image of the scarred man who had given him firebending rose to the forefront of his thoughts, but Zuko shook his head to banish him, too.

Mai crossed her arms and sat down on the edge of the fountain, staring up at the sky. This part of the Upper Ring was quiet and empty of people, as if it had been reserved only for them. "It's weird to think that your sister killed me in that world."

Zuko sat down next to her. "She's not the same." His voice came out in a low rasp. "You're not… afraid of her, are you?"

It took Mai a moment to answer. "No. But I suspect the other me was."

"Azula took it hard when Aang told us the truth," Zuko admitted. "But… can I tell you something I haven't told Aang?"

She locked her eyes with his. "What?"

"Some Guru told us that we have some spirits that kind of latched onto me, Azula, and Toph," he explained. "But I don't think they're spirits. I saw him. He looked like me, but a bit older and with a scar over his left eye. And Aang said our two worlds are being forced together."

"You think it's that other Zuko."

"Yeah," he said. "And that Zuko was a firebending master. I think he was the one who gave me the ability to firebend."

"And how does this spirit version of you manifest otherwise?" She looked away. "Not that I'm an expert on spirits or anything."

"I don't know," Zuko replied. "I feel things sometimes that aren't me. Sometimes I have weird dreams. I heard his voice in the back of my head a few times, too, as if it was trying to tell me what to do."

"Well, I haven't heard any voices," Mai said. "I guess the other me didn't care enough to hitch a ride."

Zuko felt a tightness in his chest. "Or maybe…" He trailed off.

"Or maybe it's because she's dead, you were about to say?" Mai huffed, her voice stinging like a buzzard-wasp. "Yeah. Maybe."

Zuko remembered how the Guru had said Teo, the Astronomer's son, had some kind of spiritual presence around him, too, and wondered if that meant the Teo from Aang's world had tried to merge with him as well. But what about everyone else in the world? How far did this go?

"Why do you think that Mai ended up turning against Azula?" Mai asked suddenly. "Why the sudden show of morality after letting her princess commit all kinds of atrocities?"

"I can't say for sure," Zuko admitted. "Even Aang doesn't know. You had a best friend named Ty Lee who betrayed Azula along with you. But he did tell me that in the other world, you and I were kind of… dating. Together." He cleared his throat, deciding it best to leave out the fact that Ty Lee was something of his ex-girlfriend in this world, and for the first time he wondered if he had that kind of relationship with her in Aang's world, too. Heat rose up around his neck and he searched for any change of topic he could grasp for, landing his eyes on the unlit lantern posts that dotted the outside of the square. "Uh… Do you want to see how much I've practiced firebending?" He stood up.

Mai remained seated, folding her hands in her lap with an unreadable expression. "Sure."

Zuko took a deep breath and pointed at each of the posts in turn with two fingers, just like Azula had taught him. He felt the warmth rise to his fingers and let it out, thin bursts of fire shooting to the lantern wicks with pinpoint accuracy. He had Mai's training to thank for that part.

He stood for a moment to admire his handiwork, the flames dancing like stars in the blanket of night that had fallen around them. He looked back at Mai, loving the way he saw her dark eyes reflect the firelight that made him think she had absorbed all the colors of the sunset into them.

She stood up and walked over to Zuko, putting a hand on his lower back. "It's pretty," she admitted. "And in light of what you just told me… no one can say for sure what was going on in her mind, even Aang. But I think I'm the one in the best position to make a guess." She brought the fingers of her other hand gently to his chin, turning his face to look at hers. "And I think she did it because the other me might have loved the other you."

Mai kissed him and he felt himself sink into her touch, pressing his body against hers in a deep embrace. He felt all the warmth in the dusky sky flood into his being, in his lips and hers and in the hands that he pressed against her back and arm, and the acrid smell of smoke…

"Zuko! Stop!" she exclaimed suddenly, pushing away from him. For a moment he was too shocked at the way she had raised her voice to do anything until he saw her batting furiously at her clothes, her long sleeves trailing black smoke. In a panic, he dove at her and they both fell into the fountain in a splashing mess of water and limbs. When she surfaced, black mascara had run down her cheeks and her face betrayed no amusement. "You need to learn to control your firebending better."

"I'm sorry!" He pushed himself to his knees and in his haste he slipped and fell, splashing her all over again. "I'm still new at this!"

But that time she had finally smiled, just enough that it made all the tension leave Zuko and he couldn't help but laugh.


The Tale of Sokka and Suki


Sokka couldn't believe that Suki managed to drag him to a poetry house.

He thought it a dinky establishment in the Lower Ring, and expected it to be full of high-strung, stuffy noble types, but it felt like a tavern that had been repurposed into something new, with all the bawdiness and charm that had entailed. He found it too dimly lit for his liking and the smell of old liquor and pipes permeated and settled into the wood over the years, but people of all types had come here, taking turns to spin their craft up on the raised platform they used as a stage. All of them added a certain amount of theatrics to their performances that even made Sokka - for one wild, brief moment that he quickly stifled - want to jump up and say something himself. Neither he nor Suki performed and listened in silence instead, not wishing to draw unwanted attention to themselves.

Afterward, they walked along the winding city streets, their wanderings eventually taking them away from the Paper Lantern district. The wind carried music to them from some distant part of the city, flutes and strings weaving a melody that, for the first time in this city, made him feel at ease. "So… did you like it?" he asked Suki, speaking for the first time since they had left the poetry house.

"It was all right," she said with a noncommittal shrug. "It sort of reminded me of the haiku nights they used to have at my village. I thought I'd like this more."

"Your village?" he asked. "You remember?" She had rarely spoken about Kyoshi Island and her time there before he knew her. Due to its proximity to the Southern Water Tribe, it had been one of the first Earth Kingdom territories to fall to their side in the war, long before either of them were born. But Suki had lived there until around the age of five or six, when her people had rebelled and Sokka's grandfather swiftly crushed it. Sokka vividly remembered when his father returned home with Suki, adopting her as a ward of the royal family. It wasn't until years later that he had learned she was little more than a hostage to keep the village chief from rebelling again.

It was Sokka's grandmother who had convinced Hakoda, when he became emperor two years later, to let her begin her Kyoshi Warrior training - a part of their unique culture Gran had enjoyed (though his father thought it was little more than a style of dance, as did Sokka at the time). Suki was the last of them who still practiced the art. That train of thought led him back to his grandmother and he pushed it from his mind.

"A bit, yeah," she said, with a hint of finality that told Sokka she was done talking about it. "Did you like it?"

"The poetry?" he scoffed. "Dumb girly stuff."

She raised an eyebrow and smiled. "Yeah, sure. You were so transfixed on everyone that spoke I thought you were gonna cry at one point."

"No way!"

"Uh-huh. Your eyes looked all watery and everything."

He was about to retort when he realized they had unintentionally walked into a square with a brick well tucked away from everything else against the wall to the Outer Ring - one of the potential rendezvous points with Katara. He shivered when a chill breeze blew through the empty square. They still hadn't heard anything from her and he knew Suki had begun to worry about her and Yue.

Suki walked up to the well and brushed her finger along its rim, gazing down into its depths. Hundreds of them dotted the entire city, an integral part of their plan. "Do you wish Yue was here with you in the city, while I was down there with your sister instead?" she asked him without looking in his direction.

He frowned. It was so like her to say exactly what was on her mind instead of letting it churn and stew into something greater. She was blunt and direct, a trait he admired about her that the women in his tribe tended to lack. "Why would you think that?"

"Well, I don't know," she said. "You don't seem like you enjoy my company."

"We're here on a mission," he said. Something stirred deep inside him, the same part that urged him to rescue Toph as she lay in the middle of a dusty road, unconscious and dehydrated. A part that wanted nothing more than to hold Suki, an ache that felt like loss, hollow and biting. He pushed it down. "It's not the time to enjoy anything."

"You and Yue were once betrothed," she said. "Does it have to do with that?"

"Just because our dads said so," he responded. And he had liked the idea, once upon a time. She had even come to live with his family (as another ward, though less of a hostage than Suki; Katara had been delighted to have two "sisters") after that had been decided, giving the two the chance to know each other before they turned sixteen. But they had both been children, only twelve years old. He thought Yue had liked the thought of it as well, at least until she decided to become an acolyte at Avatar Kuruk's Water Temple with all the other women sages. It had been her choice to null the betrothal. "Listen, I don't know where this all came from. Why are you bringing up Yue?"

"It wouldn't kill you to talk about your feelings sometimes, you know, instead of deflecting!" she said, turning to him with her hands on her hips.

The same strange feeling of loss bubbled up inside him when he thought of Yue, leaving Sokka confused more than anything. "It's being here," he said finally. "In this stupid city. It's the thought of my Gran and that she did what she did." The thought of what their people had done, forcing half of the Earth Kingdom to cower behind these walls. Emptying out forests. Drying out swamps. The thought that some inexplicable part of him even liked it here, the poetry and the lanterns and the shops; the smell in the air of something cooking at all hours of the day or night, whether it was just some gruel or a meaty feast with scents of spices he could almost taste on his tongue. The music and the crowds had a warmth to them that his own city lacked. Or perhaps it wasn't the South Pole City that lacked all that, but just his palace. His old home.

"Do you hate her?"

"Yes," Sokka said at once, but then he amended it just as quickly. "No. I don't know."

"Well, I think you need to decide if you do or not," Suki said, crossing her arms. "And what you'd do if you ever saw her again."

He ran a hand through his loose hair and let out a breath that seemed to take all his stamina with it. "I guess I do."

Neither of them said anything after that. His head spun. Midnight had come and gone but he had no desire to meander back to their apartment yet only to toss and turn in his sleeping roll through the night. The faraway tune finally died off and everything became unnaturally quiet except for the running water below them, deep inside the well. But now that he heard nothing else it sounded as if the water rushed faster, louder, rising up to meet them.

"Sokka?" Suki asked, drawing away from the well. "What is that?"

The water churned up from the shadows, bringing with it his sister who stood at its crest and stepped off it, letting the swell wash around the square. She stepped out of the well, brushed dust off of her green dress and took a deep breath. "Ahh," she sighed, closing her eyes. "My first breath of fresh air in days." Sokka knew she had taken the moment to relish the feeling of being under the moonlight again; he, like any waterbender, felt invigorated whenever his blood thrummed with its energy.

He drew in close to her with grit teeth. "Are you an idiot? What if someone saw you? You coming up here wasn't part of the plan."

Katara narrowed her eyes at him. "That's the kind of hello I get?" She put a hand on her hip and glanced into the darkness of the well again. "Nothing's been going according to plan since this whole thing started."

"That's your own fault," Sokka told her.

"Maybe so," she admitted as Suki hugged her in greeting. "But I needed to get out of there for a bit."

"What's going on?" Suki asked, brow furrowed in concern when Katara seemed unable to remove her gaze from the bowels of the city. Something about the way she looked down there unsettled Sokka, too.

"Well, since yesterday… some of our men have been disappearing."


The Tale of Kanna


Kanna hummed to herself as she worked, shaping the dough and red bean paste together with her fingers. There was so much to be done, but baking gave her a measure of comfort and familiarity that she sorely needed. She felt alone in this city.

She had Piandao, sure, but he was more of a colleague within the White Lotus. She had known him for almost as long as she had been a member. In that respect only, she was his junior. Besides, after the White Lotus set him up with his calligraphy job he had spent most of his days there, providing a cover for them while she sat at home; his old mother who spent her time alone, the Avatar's secret liaison with the White Lotus.

She hadn't always enjoyed baking. It was a hobby she had rediscovered during Prince Sokka's exile due to many nights at sea with nothing else to do. Before that, though, she loved cooking. Kanna didn't care that preparing food meant she dallied beneath her station - she was the queen consort and later the Moonlit Mother (a flowery title meant to convey some sort of importance as the Emperor's mother, she always thought, but it was essentially no more than that), not a common servant. But her husband and later her son allowed her that fancy. They often partook in the fruits of her labor, after all - they had loved some of her signature dishes like seared seal meat glazed in a sauce made from ocean kumquats, arctic fowl stew, or the plates of filleted fish with hardy vegetables imported from Kyoshi Island and beyond.

Cooking was always something she could be proud of, something that was hers - not like the waterbending she had shared with Hama. It was a link to her memory of a distant home before she was shipped off to the south to marry a prince. She had loved another, back then, and had been loved in return. Pakku, too, had treasured her cooking. So when she found herself in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people, cooking was all she could turn to at first.

For many years, it was hers. At least until later, after she had her own child, and another girl had been brought to the palace. Another girl in a situation just like hers, though from the southern Penguin tribe instead of the north, like Kanna.

The sweet smell of her mooncakes wafted through the air and she had not realized she had gotten so caught up in her thoughts and reminiscing and pulled them from the wood burning stove when they had finished baking. She left them to cool on the window sill and went back to arranging the bouquet of flowers that the Avatar had brought her into a vase. A few minutes later, she noticed tiny, grubby hands reaching through the window and plucking her warm cakes right from the plate. More hands followed shortly after, so she walked over to the window and peered out of it.

"Now, now," she said. "You could have just asked, you know."

A handful of children scattered but one remained, staring down at her toes with a sullen look. "I'm sorry," the girl said. She wiped some of the red bean paste off of her hands onto her plain frock, dirty and tattered in places. "But they smell good."

Kanna looked her over, knowing a hungry child when she saw one. "Don't be, my dear. Go find your friends and tell them we can all share - I can't eat all of these by myself!"

The girl beamed and ran off, returning only moments later with the same children who devoured the plate in seconds. "Thanks, old lady!"

"Those were yummy!"

"Just call me Gran-Gran," she said with a smile. "I guess I'll just have to make more, won't I? But it'll take some time, so go and play and come back later."

Most of the children did just that, except for the one who stayed behind in the first place. She stared up at Kanna with wide green eyes, wringing her fingers together. "Can I help?"

"Of course you can," she replied, and went to work to gather the ingredients in a bowl again. The girl propped herself up on her elbows, hanging on the window sill with feet dangling outside. "Have you ever baked before?"

"Yeah," she said. "Daddy used to let me mix."

"Then that'll be your job again," Kanna said, handing her the mixing bowl and spoon. "You must be an expert."

"Yeah!" The girl's tongue poked out of her mouth as she worked, eventually sitting up on the sill completely to hold the bowl with her legs. "He never does it anymore," she said. "He's always so tired after working all day in the Middle Ring like Mom. That's far away from here."

"Oh, I bet," Kanna said, offering an understanding smile. She figured most children in Ba Sing Se had a similar story, if they weren't orphans. "He must work hard."

The girl turned out to be a chatterbox, rattling off about all kinds of topics and concerns of a seven year old in the Lower Ring. Perhaps it was due to the memory being fresh in her mind, but Kanna had been reminded of the girl - a teenager at the time - who came to the ice palace from the Penguin Tribe, whom she had taught to cook. Her son's betrothed, Kya.

Kya had been alone, too. Afraid. A girl, like Kanna, caught up in her tribe's traditions that had uprooted her life and made her decisions for her. Quiet and kind but eager to learn, braver than Kanna had ever been. Over time, Kya had become something like a daughter to her. Cooking had become their tradition, a skill and hobby they had nurtured together. They had built a rapport with each other and found the strength to withstand the South Pole's harsh environs.

The old woman had often wondered what destiny could have been in store for them had they been free to choose a life for themselves. What destiny Kya could have had if Kanna had done what was right instead of remaining idle. But it was too late, and now Sokka and Katara had no mother.

She saw Kya standing next to her, cooking with her, the girl she was when she first came to live in the palace. Then as a mother, her two children pulling at her skirts, both cherished despite Kya's own sad circumstances. She smiled at Kanna and an icicle of guilt twisted in her chest.

"Old lady?" the little girl asked, pulling her back to reality. "What's wrong? Why are you crying?"

Kanna hurriedly wiped her eyes. "Don't worry about me," she said. "Go on, run along and find your friends again. The second batch should be ready soon."

She frowned with concern brimming in her eyes but did as she was told, hopping off of the window sill and disappearing into the city. Kanna turned away from the window, her eyes falling on the snow pansies, and remembered the night she saw them last.

The blizzard had raged and the wind howled that night as the tundra reclaimed one of its own.


Author's Note: Didn't mean to exposition dump some Suki and Yue backstory there, but I had already visited that earlier in the story so there wasn't much of a chance to do it again. Honestly, it's a bit of a retcon. Probably one of the only actual retcons I'm going to make, but ~ten years ago I hadn't thought it out as much as I did now and I realized the original story I had (Kyoshi being invaded and falling to the Water Tribes for the first time while Suki was a child and Kya picking her up to adopt her) didn't make much sense. In this version, Suki (and to a lesser extent, Yue) is a ward of the family, pretty much just like Theon was to the Stark family in Game of Thrones. Yue was a higher status version of that until she joined the Water Sages.

Also, you may or may not have caught a little cameo from a Legend of Korra character.