Author's Note: In case people prefer Ao3, I've begun posting this on that website as well! This dream scene should clear up what Aang knows of the White Lotus in his world - which isn't much.

Book 2: Earth

Chapter 16: Night of the One Hundred Revelries

"So… you all really knew each other from the beginning?"

Iroh chuckled, grasping his belly that really didn't seem like much of a belly anymore. "Not quite. We knew of each other's exploits and deeds within our society, but we haven't had the opportunity to all gather in person until now."

Aang nodded at the answer to his question, but more sprung up from that. He wanted to ask more, needed to ask more - what society? Is that what Bumi meant by "all old people know each other"? Why didn't anyone tell him? Why not gather earlier, during the Day of Black Sun that ended in so much failure and death? Why now, when the comet loomed only hours away?

They had made camp outside Ba Sing Se, where Iroh's secret society planned to take back the city. Based on Zuko's information, they had a rough idea of where Ozai and Azula would make landfall and begin their immolation of the Earth Kingdom. Team Avatar had come across Iroh's camp - a congregation of tents and people wearing indigo robes with white mantles, which Iroh himself wore even now - and the two of them sat together now in his tent, talking and going over strategies.

"Aang, your destiny - all of our destinies - will converge today. Everything will change from here on out," Iroh continued. "I can feel it."

Iroh. Bumi. Pakku. Jeong Jeong. Piandao. He was happy to see them all again, despite the circumstances, but dread broiled in his stomach and the fear of his impending confrontation with Ozai almost made him sick. "Iroh… I don't know what to do. Everyone wants me to end the Fire Lord but I don't know if I can."

"Trust in yourself, Aang," Iroh said. "I know you will make the right decision and save the world."

Iroh was right. From that day on, everything had changed.


"How am I supposed to fight in this?" Aang asked, his face twisted into a grimace as he looked at himself in his mirror. He had been given a mustard yellow robe with a hem that nearly reached his feet, open but tied together at his waist with a black satin sash. His sleeves were wide but with thick black cuffs bordered in gold trim. Underneath the outer robe he wore a plain robe of a lighter flaxen color that itched and reached his knees, making the whole thing feel bulky and heavy. The outer robe's hem had been decorated with swirling cloud patterns; he appreciated the level of detail which even included a miniature sky bison flying among them. Completing the ensemble was a prayer bead necklace and plain, black boots.

Mai gave an amused look to the necklace as he put it on. "I suppose they remembered that you're a monk, at least. But you're not supposed to be fighting in that. We're going to a feast, not a battle."

"We never wore anything so extravagant back then," he replied. Whoever had designed this outfit had no idea what an Air Nomad actually was, it seemed. He looked himself over in the mirror again, brushing his hand through his neatly trimmed hair, courtesy of Mai. "But that's easy for you to say. You don't have giant robes weighing you down."

The Roku Warrior, indeed, had managed to procure clothes for herself that gave much more freedom of movement. She wore black, as usual, with wide, billowing sleeves for concealing her multitude of weapons. Otherwise, she wore long boots and grey pants under a short skirt; Aang was used to seeing her in a longer dress, so it had the effect of making her seem taller. Combined with her sleeves that looked like wings, it gave him the impression of a sort of sparrow. Formal, but functional. Mai had the excuse of coming to the feast as the Avatar's bodyguard, not a guest like the rest of them. She shrugged at him and folded her hands in her sleeves. "Shall we go downstairs and join the others?"

He nodded and she led the way. Zuko, Azula, and Toph were already waiting for them by the door, ready to leave with varying levels of reluctance.

"Took you long enough," Toph said when they arrived. She wore a hanfu in a pale green color, with a darker green scarf wrapped around her arms and a headdress inlaid with pearls that sat lopsided over her short hair. Her sleeves extended far past her hands, nearly trailing to the floor. She stood with a lower posture than normal and Aang figured it was because this Toph hadn't dressed in anything like this in years. He couldn't read her expression, but the more he thought about it the more she seemed to resemble the way she did when Aang met her for the first time at the Bei Fong estate, or in his vision with the flying boar.

Zuko kept fussing over his hair through his reflection, trying to ensure it stayed in his topknot which Aang did a double take upon recognizing once he looked closer at it - he had Azula's crown in his hair, apparently borrowed from her for this occasion. His clothes looked the most familiar to Aang - a mantle in the Fire Nation style with pointed shoulders, all red and black and gold. He snapped to attention when Mai entered the room. "Uh, wow, Mai, you look nice!"

Her mouth twitched into a smile and he offered his arm, which she took as they marched out the door. "Thank you, Zuko," she said. "Well done - you remembered your courtesies."

"What's wrong, Toph?" Aang asked, frowning. "You look great!"

Her face softened for a moment but then settled back into unease. "Thanks, Twinkletoes. This just isn't really my thing."

"What about me?" Azula asked, her bottom lip protruding into a pout. "Don't you have anything nice to say about my outfit?"

"Of course I do!" Aang said, his face getting warm as he looked her over. Azula had been given a crimson hanfu, blooming out at her waist with a golden dragon dancing along its folds from hem to chest. It had detached sleeves that matched the crimson and gold, leaving her shoulders bare. Embroidered designs depicting a rainbow of flames and flowers painted the sleeves, revealing a whole scene among its folds when she extended her arms. Her long hair had been woven into an elaborate headdress in the Earth Kingdom style which Aang assumed weighed down her whole head. "You look… great," he choked out, fixing his eyes on a blood red orchid in the headdress. "Uh, well, it's a lot, we're all wearing a lot, but you both look amazing…"

Satisfied, she hooked her arm in Toph's. "See, Toph? We managed to make the Avatar twist up his words," she said, sharing an amused glance with Aang.

"Let's just go and get this over with," Toph said.

Aang let out a huff of air and took Toph's other arm, trying to force his blushes away with pure force of will. "I agree."


"You're just being stubborn if you think we should stay. You're not thinking straight."

"I hate it when you do that."

"Do what? Point out your recklessness?"

"No, just dismiss me and disrespect me as 'stubborn' or 'irrational.' You're unbelievable - after everything we've accomplished to get here you just want to get up and go?"

Suki, who had previously sat out of the argument with Ghashiun, took that moment to step in. "You two should really lower your voices," she urged. "If our neighbors hear you the whole thing's going to be pointless anyway - and one's a cranky old lady even without knowing we're the enemy."

Sokka clenched his fist but turned away and let out a deep breath. "But eleven men disappearing? Unless they managed to get lost down there, it means some earthbenders found out about us and are trying to pick everyone off. They know, Katara. We have to leave."

"Don't you think they'd raise an alarm if they knew? That the whole city would be in an uproar?" she retorted. The cramped apartment began to make her feel even more irritated.

"That would cause a panic," he shot back. "Of course they wouldn't do that. And they wouldn't fight us directly because they have the advantage. They know those tunnels."

"That's not how Earth Kingdom soldiers fight," Katara said. "I think you're just being a coward." She laced her voice with spite, striking where she knew it would hurt to get back at him for calling her irrational.

He glared and for a moment Katara had thought she managed to get him to back down, but he proved to be more stubborn than usual today. "Okay, if it's not soldiers, then what?"

"I told you. Yue thinks they're being taken by spirits."

He scoffed. "Even you're falling for her nonsense now?"

"Hey," said Suki, interjecting again, "if anyone would know about spirits it would be her."

And that was how their bickering circled back and forth the whole day - Sokka and Katara argued with increasing intensity as Suki tried to play peacemaker and Ghashiun stayed silent. Ultimately, it was Katara's decision because it was her mission, but when Sokka was finally willing to even consider the idea of spirits being the culprit he urged her to turn back anyway, because that had the potential to be even worse. Katara wasn't sure how much she believed Yue to begin with - even Yue admitted it was strange for so many spirits to inhabit an area below such an enormous city.

But it didn't matter. She wasn't going to turn back now.


"I will never, ever turn my back on people who need me!"


She went out into the night by herself to cool her head, her whirlpool of thoughts making her feel dizzy. Katara had made it behind the city walls. She had traversed the maze of tunnels to get here and now they could proceed with the original plan - map out access points to the tunnels all across the city and coordinate for a combined attack, but for that she and Ghashiun needed to find his sister Nagi and use her intelligence.

She breathed in the warm night air, spreading her arms as she felt the moon's power flow through her, remembering her grandmother's teachings of moonlight flowing through her veins. Hama's hoarse rasp that the moon was a crutch echoed in her other ear. Even when it wasn't full, it never left her, its power always there for the taking.

"Do you always come out to do breathing exercises by yourself at night in the middle of the road?"

Katara almost turned around with a wave of water pulled over her head, almost washed him away with it, but remembered where she was and stopped herself in time. She fixed her eyes on a boy with shaggy brown hair casually leaning against an empty fruit stand, a reed hanging between his lips. She hadn't noticed him before. "Do you always sneak up on girls by themselves in the middle of the night?" she asked, glowering. "It's none of your business what I do."

The boy removed the reed from his mouth and brushed its fronds between his fingers. "Sorry 'bout that. Honestly, I'm not really used to being able to sneak up on my friends at all." He stepped closer but still kept his distance, which was just fine to Katara. "Let me start over. Hey, I'm Jet, and I'm an idiot for startling you."

A mental image of actually assaulting him with a wave of water flashed through her mind; an intrusive thought just like the echo of a voice she heard sometimes, like a memory. "June," she said. "And yes, I'd say so."

He shrugged, offering a crooked grin. "Guess I deserved that one." He slouched and tilted his head, hooking his hands on his belt where she noticed a pair of blades he kept. He followed her line of sight. "What brings you to Ba Sing Se, June?"

"I'm a refugee," she said, keeping her voice measured. She considered bloodbending him into an alley and leaving him there, but something about him intrigued her. "Just like everyone else."

"I don't think that's true, June," he said, stepping closer. Katara stood her ground. "You don't have the same defeated look in your eye that everyone else does. I think you're a fighter."

"Maybe I'm just new at this."

He put the reed back between his lips and she watched it bounce there as he spoke. "No way. You're like me, June."

Classic manipulation tactic. Repeated use of her name, slowly edging into her personal space, relating to her, distinguishing the two of them from everyone else, and giving her something to fixate on. He might not have even realized he did those things but she was a master. All he was missing was the compliments.

She hugged her arms to herself and looked away from him, trying to look small. "But my eyes, they're…"

"Blue," he said, finishing for her. "And I think they're really pretty. But I can assume what happened… and they're not who you are, June. Lots of people have a similar story."

There it is. Not bad.

"Thank you," she said, looking back at him.

He shrugged. "I'll let you get back to your breathing exercises. Sorry to bother you, June, but I'm sure I'll get the chance to make it up to you." He turned away, waving a hand in goodbye as he left. "See you around."

She watched him go, almost pitying him. Katara wondered if this was a game to Jet, if he often tried to manipulate people to his own ends. He was correct on one account, though: she was a fighter, so she pondered what he could need fighters for. Her anger at her brother had evaporated away only to be replaced by the riddle of the boy who seemed to think he could be as charismatic as she was. She could use that…


"Oh, a girl has her ways…"


Grand Secretariat Wu spread her arms wide, addressing all the guests in the grand hall with a sweeping gesture of her long, billowing sleeves. "Welcome, everyone, as we celebrate the auspicious return of the Avatar to the world! Let us forget the worries of war for just a night as we partake in feasting, music, and dancing." A chorus of applause rose up and she turned to Aang. "Avatar Aang, would you like to say a few words?"

His breath caught in his throat when she put him on the spot. "Oh, uh… Let's not forget to be humble through all of this. Uh, like the monks used to be."

Wu smiled and Aang wasn't sure if his statement was lost on her. "Eloquently put, Avatar," she said. "Never refrain from showing gratitude for the simple things in life. Wise words! Now… enough talking - let the night of one hundred revelries begin!"

She sat down on her cushion at Aang's right hand while he had the place of honor at the center of the table. Azula was at his left and Toph sat at her other side, with Zuko further down. The Council of Five, lacking only the stern General Muku this time, also occupied their table, along with a handful of ministers, sages, and dignitaries. Thankfully, Aang had his back to the wall, giving him a full view of the rest of the banquet hall that reminded him of the Earth King's throne room.

The only person who had their own table was the Earth King - or rather, the puppet they placed behind a veil on his palanquin so only his shadow could be seen. He remained silent as Dai Li flanked him and wellwishers doted upon him while his silhouette occasionally made gestures at the people. Aang kind of wished they had a bear present, too, whether or not it was really Bosco.

Dancers in elaborate costumes, elevated shoes, and heavy makeup performed in the center of the hall, bells jingling from their sleeves and hats and headdresses as they tossed bolts of silk like water and twirled among them. Some swayed with fans that made him think fondly of the Kyoshi Warriors. Music resounded through the hall from a band that played in a far corner; he heard sounds from a tsungi horn, a bamboo flute, and a string instrument he didn't know the name of.

Servants brought out several courses of meals through the evening, their feet light as spirits. Dishes soon covered the entire table and Aang had never seen so much food in his life: roast turtleduck, seared saltuna, pork, and vegetables simmered in a sauce that smelled tantalizingly of ginger. Sesame chickenpig sizzled in front of Azula which she politely dug into with Mai's lessons in mind. Another set of porcelain dishes and bowls held deer tail, soups, meat buns, and pastries he didn't recognize. Aang stuck with rice and vegetables and foods he knew. Toph, he noticed, barely picked at anything.

Wu pulled back her silk sleeves and turned to Aang. "Avatar, would you mind if I did a reading for you?"

"A reading?" he asked, placing his chopsticks back in their holder.

"Yes," she said. "As you may remember, I was once a royal diviner for the king before becoming Grand Secretariat. And many years ago I used to be a simple fortuneteller."

"I do remember," he said. "And I don't mind."

Wu smiled. "Wonderful. Your hands, please."

He held out his hands, palms up, and noticed General Fong eyeing them from the other side of the table. Their previous conversation where Aang had agreed to spy on Wu flashed through his mind. "I don't think you'll be able to see more than an epic battle of life and death in my future," he said. "I am supposed to fight the Water Emperor, after all."

"You may be surprised," she said, pursing her painted lips. She traced her forefinger along his palm. "How curious… you have a strong life line, indicating vitality. But your head line is faded and split, as if you are caught between two major paths, two decisions that weigh on your mind. And it holds you back."

Aang rolled his eyes, but she didn't notice. "Only two?"

"There are contradictions here. Despite your strong vitality I see a life cut short - but it does not feel like yours."

"Death and doom," he said, his voice flat. "Great. But how can you read someone else's fate on my palm?"

She frowned. "I am not sure. I may have to consult the bones later… I have never read an Avatar before. Perhaps the rules are different."

"Could be," he said.

Her features softened. "Do not be disheartened. If you lose hope for the future, then the people who look to you for guidance may lose it, too."

He sighed. "I know. I try every day to hold onto it." For him, Katara was that symbol of hope. But he didn't have her anymore.

"It's harder than it sounds," Wu said, smiling. "But that is why we need to have nights like these. An opportunity for the people to forget the despair outside these walls. I know you frown upon the extravagance here, but the enemy outside isn't the only thing we fight to keep away." She leaned in closer to him, her voice dropping. "We live in constant paranoia, you know - various groups vie for power here in the city. The Council of Five fears the Si Wong Desert and the sandbender tribes' growing influence. I worry over the Creeping Crystal. And we are both concerned for the day when the Water Nation will make their move, or when Long Feng retaliates in revenge. Not to mention… other societies."

"What do you mean?" he asked. "Who are they?" He had never heard of the Creeping Crystal. Was that a proverb, a code, or something else?

"Now is not the time for that discussion," she said, and he suspected Fong had been trying to listen, even as he spoke with one of the sages. "But, as I said, the people need this."

"I guess you have a point," he admitted, folding his hands in his lap. "Though I'm sure there are other ways to hold onto hope, too." He was starting to feel like he was in over his head. There was too much he didn't know and it frustrated him.

"Maybe so," Wu replied. "But this is what the people know. They need a symbol and you could fill that role… and I must admit, I had hoped you would shave your head for tonight to show off those arrows of yours." She chuckled into her sleeve.

"I can't be just a symbol," he said, glancing toward the shadow king behind his veils. "I have to fight."

"Not for this night, at least," she told him, turning back to her food. "Relax. Mingle with the sages and the nobles and the generals you haven't had the pleasure of meeting yet." She gestured to a man with an impressive white beard who had been introduced to him earlier as General Yo Gan Jin, neatly pecking at his food with chopsticks. Next to him sat a burly woman, General Zhu Zhang, who ripped into a boarpig leg with her bare hands. Aang had a feeling he had met them in his world but couldn't place them.

He was saved from a response when Azula put a hand on his arm. "My legs are beginning to fall asleep," she said, leaning in. "Let's go dance."

Aang stood with her at once. "Okay." He bowed to Wu. "Thank you for the reading, Aunt Wu." The overly familiar address escaped his lips before he could stop it, but the Grand Secretariat didn't seem to mind.

He was so glad to be saved from the prospect of mingling with people that he didn't even register the fact that Azula had asked him to dance. By this point, the professional dancers had gone. Azula turned to him once they reached the dance floor and lowered into a curtsy, spreading her arm out as if to display the work of art on her sleeve. "I'm beginning to get bored," she said. "This party isn't really what I had expected. Mai is still off doing her thing, isn't she? I'm thinking of going to join her."

"Sorry," he said, because he didn't know what else to say. "Can you… even dance?"

"I can't imagine it's that difficult," she replied, giving him a haughty smirk. She began by imitating a slower version of what the dancers had done earlier, gesturing and weaving and ducking behind her sleeves. He tried to follow, but he felt stiff and awkward. As they continued and she noticed his discomfort, she frowned and accidentally stepped on his foot. "All right… I suppose I stand corrected."

"I have a better idea," he said, and a wonderful memory bloomed in his mind of a different dance in a cave with a crowd of people watching him and Katara, so long ago. "Follow my lead."

He stepped forward into a jab, circling his arms back into a stance and circling around her. She smirked, sliding into the forms for the Dancing Dragon, but they moved faster than the standard as the band's tempo picked up and they skipped the last step to cycle again and again, locking eyes throughout the forms. Aang felt heat circling between the two, their faces flushed, as more and more people stood to watch them, clapping along with the music. They leapt and ducked and laughed when her headdress went askew, but Azula didn't bother to fix it as they continued through the forms. At last, they ended it in the final form, with bodies bent and fingers touching to form a circle with their arms.

They faced each other, panting, and for a moment their fingers did more than brush against each other until Aang ended the dance with a formal bow. Azula looked at him with a smile and half-lidded eyes, sweat beading on her brow, and returned the formality.

Azula adjusted her headdress, but it was for naught because her hair had fallen out of place - not that she seemed to mind. "Well, that was fun."

"It was," he agreed. "From experience, waterbending forms are probably more suited to dancing," he admitted. "But the Dancing Dragon worked great!"

"Waterbending," she said, and her face fell. "So you got that idea from Katara, didn't you?"

He frowned. "Well, we did that once. What's wrong?"

"I need some air." She turned away without another word, pushing through the revelers and ignoring his shouts to come back.


Zuko felt so out of place sitting at the table with sages and ministers who discussed matters wholly unrelated to him that he mostly sat in silence. At one point, he tried bringing up the subject of the war with General Fa Lan, but the man simply curled his long mustache in his finger and returned to a conversation about the military budget with the Minister of Coin. He felt a glimmer of hope when the uptight General Yo Gan Jin tried for some polite small talk with Zuko and asked how he knew the Avatar. Before Zuko could reply, General Zhu Zhang made a comment about how Yo had gotten some sauce on his pristine white sleeves and he glared at her in distaste before excusing himself to clean it up.

Toph was no help, either. Most of the other people at their table gave her a wide berth after she told off one of the sages when he offered her a dumpling. Zuko was glad Mai hadn't been there to see that outburst.

"So you're not going to eat?" he asked her, pushing a half-eaten pork cutlet around his own plate.

Her response came out in a low mutter. "How can these people eat like this when so many others are starving outside the walls?"

"It's not fair," he agreed. "But we're not like them."

"Wanna know the crazy thing?" she asked him, tilting her head in his direction. "I was. When I was really little. So much that, if my parents were still alive and escaped from our home, they could have probably been right here. At this very party."

Zuko pictured the sight of his own mother, her body floating just under the surface of the water. Her eyes closed as if sleeping, her favorite flowers splayed all around her when they spilled out of her basket. "Yeah," he said. "It's hard to think about what could have been."

"I wonder if this is where I would've met you guys for the first time instead," she said. "If my parents had managed to drag me to this party." She lowered her voice even further, barely more than a whisper. "Since coming here… I've wondered why that happened. Why Gaoling fell. Did the Council of Five abandon them, just like everything else outside their walls?"

Zuko furrowed his brow. "You can't think like that. My uncle always said we can't let ourselves get lost in what we cannot change and focus on what we can."

Toph uncrossed her arms. "You're close with your uncle, huh? You talk about him a lot."

"Heh. Closer to him than I am with my father. Always was."

She smiled. "Well, one day, I hope I get the chance to meet him."


By the time he escaped the crowd, warding off requests and questions and well-wishes, Azula had managed to lose Aang. He wandered out into the palace halls, empty except for the occasional guard or drunken partygoer. He wondered briefly if the Roku Warriors had managed to avoid the Dai Li in their reconnaissance around the palace, but pushed the thought from his mind when he thought he saw Azula far at the end of the hall, but it was a different woman. His stomach fell.

He had hurt her. He didn't know how or why, but he knew he had to fix it.

His search had brought him out to the palace courtyard, past a sculpture of an ancient queen and topiaries of badgermoles and bears. He found the king's gardens here; a maze of painstakingly maintained waist-high hedges and brick paths, ponds and streams and waterfalls, paper lanterns lighting the way and a rainbow of flowers. On the far side of the garden he found a flowering plum tree by a pond, its gnarled roots clinging to the earth littered by its petals. Azula sat upon them, her dress pooled around her, and for a moment he thought she was firebending sparks through the air until he realized they were fireflies. Her headdress had been discarded and her hair fell loose and free.

Aang approached on hesitant feet. "Azula… are you okay?"

She had her back to him. "Go away, Aang."

"I want to know what I did wrong." He sat down cross-legged by the pond and peered at her with concern, noticing that she had wiped all of her makeup onto her sleeve. The distant sounds of chattering and the party had faded far behind them.

She scoffed. "Nothing you can change, so don't worry."

"Just tell me. Let me try." He frowned. "Everything seemed fine when we were dancing."

"For you, maybe," she said. "You weren't dancing with me. You were somewhere else the whole time, weren't you?"

"What are you talking about? I was right there with you." He leaned toward her, his face twisted in disbelief.

She still avoided looking at him. "Maybe, but you can't share moments that you had with her and… replay them with me. I'm not Katara. I'm not a replacement for her."

He reached out his hand to grasp her shoulder in a comforting gesture but stopped himself halfway. Azula couldn't replace Katara. No one could. "I don't - I don't think that. I never intended that. Katara is…"

"I know," she cut him off, her voice sharp. She finally looked him in the eye. "You love her. You've said it before and you don't need to say it again."

He put his hands back in his lap and looked down at them. "Well… then I don't know what to say. You've been acting so strange ever since I told you my secret." His eyes widened and he looked at her again. "It's that spirit! It has to be. Azula, I've got to do something about it. You can't keep living with that!" There'd been so little time, too much happening to really focus on a way to handle that. Guilt gnawed at him for letting the issue sit for as long as he did.

"It's not a spirit," she said, her voice maintaining its edge. "She isn't a spirit. Do you want to know what you've been blind to, all this time? It's your Princess Azula. The murderer. The monster."

He turned to her, on his knees, mouth dropped open in shock. The amber in her eyes almost seemed to shine with something wild that he noticed before and somehow overlooked and he knew it to be true, the certainty of it ringing in his head with such strength that he couldn't believe he didn't consider the possibility before. He looked at Azula from head to toe, as if finally noticing her for the first time - as if she would morph and change into the young woman who had killed so many people he cared about right then and there. He tried to reach out and touch her but recoiled like she was… contaminated. "But… how?"

"I don't know how, or why. It must be the merging." Her voice sounded higher, strained, and she flexed her fingers. "But I've felt her for weeks now. Clawing at me. Burning the back of my eyes, fighting and screaming and laughing and whispering. Trying to get out. Trying to hurt you. Trying to hurt Zuko. And she's getting stronger and it's been harder and harder to hold her back." She looked him straight on again and he saw so much vulnerability and so much pain behind her glistening eyes.

At that moment he hated himself for recoiling away from her as if she had burned him and he grasped both her hands, his eyes fixed on hers. "I'm going to fix this, Azula. You don't have to do this alone. You're not like her. And you're so strong for being able to fight her off as long as you have been."

Her tears fell, sliding down her cheek, but she locked her fingers with his instead of pulling away. A ring of fireflies hovered around her head like a crown. "One thing has worked so far, helped me keep her away." She let out a breath, her shoulders falling. "It's… thinking about you. Thinking about how much I love you." She smiled, then, and the tension left her eyes and he knew without a doubt that she spoke the truth.

He dropped his hands and looked away from her, his gaze falling on a plum that had fallen by her feet. Emotions whirled inside of him that he couldn't identify and words failed him.

"You don't need to say anything," she said, her eyes downcast. She rolled a plum blossom between her fingers which smoked and fell in cinders. "I know you don't feel the same way. You never will. I've accepted that a while ago, I think even before I knew how I felt for myself."

"Azula, I…"

He got cut off when he sensed a light vibration through his earthbending and turned to see one of the Roku Warriors in a three-point landing behind him, a cloth mask over her mouth and nose. "Avatar Aang," she said, head bowed. "Mai wants you to see something. Follow me."

He exchanged a glance with Azula, who nodded and wiped her eyes. "I'm coming," she said. He nodded in return and followed after the Roku Warrior, keeping to the shadows and avoiding any people they came across - especially Dai Li. He weighed Azula's confession in his mind, repeating the memory over and over again; the fear and the desperation and the hope in her eyes refused to leave him, making him sick with guilt. The warrior led them outside the palace and to a pagoda within the palace gates, the moon looming over it and casting silver light that made Aang feel exposed to anyone who might be looking outside the palace windows. He spotted Mai on one of the tiered roofs, almost indistinguishable in the shadows.

"I will stand guard out here," Mai's warrior said.

"I suppose I will, too," said Azula. She rolled her eyes in vague annoyance, but gestured up to Mai. "What're you waiting for? Jump up there with Mai."

"Are you…?"

"I'm fine," she said in a harsh whisper. "Go!"

He nodded and leapt, his robes fanning out as the winds carried him up to where Mai waited for him outside a shuttered window. "This is Wu's residence," she said. "Her private study is through this window."

"And the Dai Li?" he asked.

"Some are downstairs," she replied. "Most are patrolling the palace. We have to be quick."

He nodded and she opened the window, sliding in without a sound. He followed right behind her into a room lit by dim lanterns and heavy with an acrid smell of incense. Wu's study was surprisingly small, crowded with bookshelves and strange astrological instruments and star charts. He saw a pile of bones that he knew from experience she used for divination. He and Mai shuffled through the documents she kept in an orderly pile - reports from various ministries and businesses throughout the city. He found a scroll next to a brass bell that explained the basics of directional geomancy, a journal she used for cloud reading, and an open book titled The Four Auspices. They dug through drawers and Aang started to feel like they would find nothing useful - nothing to determine where her allegiances lay, or anything about the Council of Five or King Bumi - when his fingers brushed against a wooden tile. A white lotus Pai Sho piece.

He picked it up and examined it. Could Wu be a member too? Was this something Kanna and Piandao had kept from him? Did this hint at a connection to Bumi, if he was also a member? He was about to point it out to Mai when the Roku Warrior that had led them there appeared in the window. "Quickly," she said. "We must depart. The Grand Secretariat is returning."

"Already?" Mai asked. "But she should still be at the party." She turned to Aang. "Ugh. Inconvenient, but we have to go."

Aang clenched the white lotus piece in his palm. "No," he said. "I'm tired of everyone's secrets. I need to know."

Mai buried her face in her hand and shook her head. "Fine."

They had waited for scarcely a minute when a pair of Dai Li agents came into the room, eyes wide with the surprise of seeing Aang and Mai there. They held out their fists. "What are you doing here?" one of them asked.

"What's going on?" Wu's voice called out from the hall. She appeared between the two agents a moment later, her hair in disarray. "Avatar Aang! I've been looking all over for you - what are you doing in my private quarters?"

"I found this," he said, holding out the lotus piece. "Tell me… are you a member of the White Lotus Society?"

She put a hand on her chest. "The White Lotus Society? Those insurrectionists? Heavens, no!"

Aang lowered his arm, faltering. "Insurrectionists?"

"I've been investigating them for many moons now," she said. "The White Lotus, the Creeping Crystal, all of it!" She narrowed her eyes at him and Mai. "Are you allied with them? Is this attack your doing?"

Aang's heart spiked. "Attack? What attack?"

Wu flailed, her sleeves flapping as she gestured to the palace through the window. "The assault on the palace!"

He and Mai locked eyes. "Zuko and Toph are still there!" Aang exclaimed. "We have to go and help!" The questions that flooded his mind fell away. Now was the time for action. "It's not the Water Nation?"

Wu shook her head. "There are no waterbenders. But they're already holding hostages within the banquet hall."

He would have leapt out of the window right then and there but he didn't have his glider, so he turned to Mai again. "We need a plan."

"A sneak attack," she said. "I am sure my warriors are fighting but we'll need to coordinate with the Dai Li." She looked at Wu, who nodded after a moment of hesitation, apparently accepting that they were not the culprits. "Come on, we have no time to waste."


Zuko was glad to be a firebender now, but nothing could beat a good pair of swords.

Toph had sensed their assailants coming before they had struck, raising an alarm that allowed them to fight back before getting overwhelmed. They didn't have enough time to get all of the guests to safety - most had gathered together in the center of the banquet hall, with Toph and Zuko and the generals and the Dai Li forming a defense around them.

The attackers all wore nondescript brown clothes and hoods; some used earthbending and others used conventional weaponry, which was where Zuko had pilfered twin blades after disarming the assailant with firebending. Generals Fong and Fa Lan tried to keep order among the panicked masses, especially since Wu managed to escape with some of her Dai Li in the initial confusion and another circle of Dai Li escorted the fake king to safety.

General Zhu Zhang punched a fist into her palm. "I'm not sitting around here and waiting for them to close in! I say we go on the attack!"

"We need a plan," General Yo Gan Jin urged. Both he and Zhu were nonbenders, so they gave the orders while Fong and Fa Lan worked on the defenses. "These insurrectionists will rue the day they've attacked us while we're all together!"

"I dunno," Zuko said. He pointed at Toph, who had already gone ahead and wiped the floor with a dozen of them. "My friend is fighting a lot more than you guys are." Zuko stood with his blades crossed in front of him, shooting blasts of fire at any foes that came near the panicked party guests. His robes didn't give him much mobility.

"I like her spirit!" Zhu Zhang exclaimed, and she lifted a whole table in her muscular arms and hurled it into the fray, leaping after the assailants with her bare hands.

"We need to get these people out of here," Zuko said to the three generals left.

Another Dai Li agent, a young woman in a cowl she wore under her conical hat with a thick, black braid over her shoulder, stepped forward with rock gloves covering her fists. "They can escape through the palace's lower levels," she informed them, opening up a hole in the floor. "They should be safe."

"We don't know if these insurrectionists have infiltrated those parts of the palace," Fong said.

Someone hurled a huge boulder above their defenses that Fa Lan managed to break before it hit anyone. "I do believe that is the safest course of action for them right now," he said. "Everyone, go below!" General Yo Gan Jin led the way.

Zuko helped shepherd the people underground, eager to join Toph so they could split and search for Aang, Azula, and Mai. He caught signs of other Roku Warriors fighting - discarded needles and knives that had pinned their targets to various surfaces - but had no idea where his friends could have gone. As soon as he confirmed that the generals had the situation with the party guests under control, he ran to Toph's side, taking out an ambusher with a stream of fire before he could attack her.

"You okay, Toph?" he asked, standing back to back with her.

Despite her long dress and sleeves, she seemed none the worse for wear, throwing a backhanded blow that ripped up a pillar of stone and launched an enemy far away from them. "You know it," she said.

Zuko caught an enemy's spear between his blades and disarmed the man, and immediately turned to strike another when someone so huge he thought they were Zhu Zhang appeared and smacked his assailant out of the way with an enormous log. A little boy leapt off of the newcomer's shoulders, jabbing at anyone he could reach with his spear. Zuko recognized them with a start, but Toph was the one who exclaimed their names.

"Pipsqueak! The Duke! What're you guys doing here?"


Aang found himself thankful for the sheer number of pillars lining the palace halls as they made their way toward their destination. He, Azula, and Mai crept by the palace assailants unnoticed, fighting only when they had to so they could avoid detection. Aang tried to get a good look at them as they passed, but couldn't identify any of the attackers or their affiliations. They could have been anything, but Wu's words about the White Lotus being insurrectionists echoed in his mind.

Kanna had said she was fairly new to the society herself. How much could she really know about it? What about Piandao? Even though the organization had the same name in his world he couldn't rule out the possibility that they'd have very different goals.

They had split off from Wu and her Dai Li, planning to encircle the banquet hall from both of its entrances and cut off the assailants there. When they reached the south entrance - their target - Aang launched himself forward in a corkscrew motion, the air circling around him, and hit a group of them right where they had gathered tightest, bowling over several of the assailants. His robes almost caught on his legs but he managed to right himself just in time to duck under an earthbender's blow and retaliate with an arc of fire that Azula added to right behind him when she jumped into the fray.

Aang used earthbending to trap as many of them as he could, hoping to question them later, but more enemy earthbenders came. Their motions were oddly quick and precise, light-footed and familiar, and it struck Aang suddenly that they fought just like Dai Li.

"Who are you people?" he asked them, but none deigned to answer. More enemies came to fill their ranks and Aang wondered where they had all come from - it seemed as if they had been in the palace all along and his mind raced with the implications.

Just as the three of them seemed to be on the verge of being overwhelmed, a rain of arrows whistled through the air and pinned several of the assailants to the walls, while another quick figure darted into the battle with knives in her hands. A third figure followed right after them, hooking his swords around the ankles of one of the assailants and flipping him up to land on his face, taking out another by launching himself forward with a kick.

Aang recognized their rescuers at once. Longshot, Smellerbee, and Jet.

He realized he shouldn't have been surprised.

"What're you doing here?" Azula asked them, wiping her hands once their enemies were taken care of. Her tone of voice indicated no surprise or anger, just curiosity.

"We came to save you, of course," Jet said, removing his reed from his lips with an easygoing grin. "And don't worry, the Freedom Fighters are riding with a group called the Creeping Crystal now. Your friends are safe."

That name again. How many of this game's players had converged tonight? "And now what?" Aang asked, on guard. He wanted to trust Jet - truly, he did - but he didn't know if this Jet had been through the same experiences as the other Jet in Ba Sing Se.

Jet rested one of his hooked blades on his shoulder. "Come with us and you'll see."


Author's Notes: Phew, these new chapters are all getting really long! Sorry about that, but I'm sort of cramming a lot into them. It's one of the detriments of trying to work with what I previously wrote ten-ish years ago while trying to incorporate where I want to bring this story now. A lot has changed since then. Pieces will start to come together for Aang - and hopefully, the readers - in the next chapter so things might be less confusing. It might be obvious who is in the Creeping Crystal, but after I named that group I learned of a similarly named organization in the Legend of Korra comics. There's no relation!

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