AN: So, I know it's been alluded to previously, but this is our first chapter where things are going to get pretty M rated sexually. So just a heads up there.And yet again, I can't tell you how grateful I am for the response last chapter got, these last two chapters have been incredible with the amount of reviews and feedback that were left, absolutely love reading all that! So than you guys again so much, and I hope you enjoy!!
Chapter 11: Deceit
Mai slowly felt her paralysis begin to ebb away as her eyes began to force her mind into believing what it was seeing. Despite the denial that had immediately swollen her consciousness at the sight of the man before her, realization that this was not a trick of the light, or a dream, or some other technique to fool her eyesight began to spread. The pounding of her heart seemed far too loud and oppressive to even be possible, and she counted it as a distant victory that her knees hadn't given out. For some involuntary purpose, she drew a closed fist over her chest as her nightgown fluttered gently in the night air and she found that she was quite immodestly dressed as any sort of company was concerned. She was covered up, but the think fabric probably didn't leave a great deal to the imagination.
Her mind buzzed in bewilderment then.
Company? Who the fuck am I kidding?
She stared forward, not even feeling willing to blink as though doing so would banish this reality.
It's him.
Her words seemed to wrench themselves from her mouth before she could even think about what she actually wanted to say to him.
"You came back."
It was such a bafflingly stupid thing to say; she finally was standing face to face with Sasuke again, something she would never have considered even so much as a possibility before it happened, and the first thing she had thought to say was nothing more than a ridiculous observation of the situation at hand. She half-expected him to turn and leave after such a remark, but he instead stepped out towards her from under the shade of the pavilion's awning, and Mai couldn't quite keep herself from taking a step back.
She had known it was him from his appearance and his voice, but he had been partially hidden in shadow, something she hadn't quite noticed. Now, as he moved forward to be under the light of the stars with her, there was slightly more relief from the heavens above cast on him.
He looked just as she remembered him, though taller. He wore the same clothes as he had the day he left, his hair still a mess of black. Even in the night, she could see the glint of his dark eyes as he looked at her with a slight tilt of the head, as though he were considering her curiously.
"You're frightened of me?" he asked quietly and Mai realized how it must have looked when she had just slightly retreated from him then. She couldn't even consider lying to him as her mind continued to reflect on how completely insane this situation was.
"I was always frightened of you," she practically whispered back to him.
Sasuke stopped moving forward and paused, looking down slightly and looking almost unsure of himself.
"Why?" he asked and Mai let a half-crazed laugh bubble from her throat, not sure that she could have stopped it if she tried.
"Why?! Sasuke, you left!! You terrified everyone with your power, and your abilities, and… and your fucking inhumanity, and you left!! Maybe you don't remember, but no one wanted you to!! Yes, I was scared, but I wanted to know you better, to try and figure out who you really were, to get to know you as more than what everyone saw you as!!"
She couldn't quite believe how honest and open she was being, but Mai found that with every word she spoke, it felt like a great weight was being lifted from her shoulders.
How long have I been wanting to say all this?
"I tried everything to keep you out of my head, but I guess I was never able to!" she practically cried, pointing a finger accusingly at him. She felt as though she were in the midst of some kind of fever dream, and she found herself growing furious on top of everything else, fury that she still wasn't able to believe what was actually happening. "You haunted me, you haunted all of us, and we've never been able to move on!!"
It was absolutely ludicrous how she was handling the situation. She should have started screaming, tried to run past him, do anything she could in order to draw attention to the fact that the very person who was currently being desperately sought after by the hundreds milling about beneath their feet was just above them, standing before her. He was a threat, he was dangerous, and she should have taken that completely as a whole and done all she could to ensure he was found and captured.
So why am I just standing here?
Mai still couldn't very well bring herself to move, let alone act on what she knew was the responsible thing to do. Why couldn't she make a move against him? Why was it that after a decade of being gone, he still seemed to radiate such power and intrigue? Is that what was holding her so still?
"I'm sorry," he said, and Mai's heart gave a tumultuous throb. His gaze was downcast as though he didn't feel able to look her in the eye. His posture wasn't something she remembered, almost like he was trying to let his body act contrite for him, instead of admitting his apology further through words.
"I didn't mean to hurt any of you."
Closing her eyes, Mai tried to keep from feeling worse than she already did.
Toph was right. He sacrificed so much to ensure that our world survived and he was cast out for it. Now, they want him dead more than ever, he's likely been wandering the globe for all the years he's been gone, clearly with no answers to his plight as he's still here now, and he tells me that he's sorry.
The injustice of it was infuriating.
"You might have been an idiot for what you did," she said bitterly, opening her eyes and looking at him intently. "But anyone with half a brain knew that you were doing what you did for the good of all of us. You could be cruel and you could be tactless, but I don't think any of us doubted in the end that you were doing everything you did with everyone's best interests in mind, not your own. And now, they hunt you like never before."
She moved forward, taking back the step away from him that she had just lain.
"Please don't be sorry," she said, her voice nearly cracking. "Not for what our world has done to you."
Sasuke slowly raised his eyes to look back at her and she saw the curiosity flashing there in those dark pits, and it made her realize just how ravenous for information herself that she was.
"Where have you been?" she demanded. "Where all did you go trying to find a way home? Did you actually find one? Why… what took you so long to come back if not? Was it actually you who attacked that outpost? Have you seen anyone else?"
She couldn't help but realize just how much she wanted the answer to her last question more than the others.
I'm really more worried about if I'm the first person he's gone to see before anything else… I'm pathetic, I really am just a—
"No," he said quietly. "You were the first."
Her self-destructive thoughts dissipated as though they were nothing but steam and she did her best to keep her breathing in check. In reply to that, she wanted very much to ask why, but realized that if she didn't get the answer she wanted, it might be very detrimental to her fragile mentality that she was already laboring under as a result of seeing him again.
But why? Zuko and I… we aren't currently… we're on hold, I've told just about everyone that. Why am I worrying about feeling this way when everyone knows I'm unhappy?
She grit her teeth and dug her fingernails into her scalp as she forced herself to look away from him, an act that took far more effort than it should have.
Why am I thinking this way at all?! He's wanted, he's a criminal, he's dangerous, and yet… I'm not thinking about any of that.
"Are you okay?" came his quiet, smooth and commanding voice. Mai heaved a sigh and moved to stand at the balcony, relishing the grip of the cold marble as she tightened her fingers around the railing.
"You shouldn't have come to see me," she said, even as her heart screamed denial at those very words. "You shouldn't have come here at all. They mean to kill you."
It was a tremendous relief when instead of heeding her words and retreating, Sasuke remained where he was; Mai had half a mind to think that even if he had turned to leave, she might not have been able to keep from running after him. There was so much she wanted to talk to him about, even as every rational part of her mind told her that what she was doing now was incredibly wrong and dangerous.
"They?"
She nodded slowly.
"Not Aang, or Toph, or any of us… but the whole of the military nearly is being rallied to pursue and hunt you down. The one time all these fucking cowards and backstabbers can come together is when they're actively looking for your destruction."
Sasuke let out a quiet noise of affirmation, almost like he was agreeing with this sentiment even as his own words confirmed that line of thinking.
"I can't say as I blame them. It's not like I've done a particularly good job of trying to clear my name."
Mai whirled to face him, her black hair whipping around her face as she glared at him.
"Because you put your own reputation and life on the line to protect us! We've had to stand for years and pretend like we didn't trust you, we didn't believe you, we didn't know you!"
He moved his head gently from side to side.
"Well, it's fair to say you didn't."
Staring at him blankly, Mai slumped her shoulders.
"So that's what this is about? You just came here to tell me that I was a fool for ever believing you were more than what they say you are?"
Sasuke inclined his chin towards her and even with the already dim lighting of the stars above, his face became further cloaked in shadow.
"What is it you think I am, Mai?"
Depression rose in her throat and she smiled humorlessly.
"No one's put much stock in what I think these days, Sasuke," she said; it was curious how much easier it was to stand hearing his name and speaking it now that she could see him again. "But if you want to know, here goes: I always hated myself for not trying to be better to you back then, when you were clearly so damn lonely."
He shifted his weight and frowned, looking like he was getting to interrupt, but she didn't let him, continuing to talk in a low, bitter tone.
"Don't try and pretend you weren't. I saw that look in your eyes, that feeling of being lost and not having anyone you felt you could turn to. I know that's what you felt because I saw the same look in the mirror as I got older and I started to realize just how much you had been suffering back then. No one gave you the time of day, not like you were a normal person, except for maybe Toph."
Toph… oh heaven help us, what's she going to say?
"I wouldn't say that excused your more… barbarous acts, but I know at your core you were just a broken kid who needed a shoulder to lean on."
She shook her head distantly.
"I should have been that person for you, offered that to you. But no, I was more worried about the psychotic bitch that I had grown up alongside to see that while she was a lost cause, you were hurting right in front of me. And you still gave it all for us even when we never treated you fully as one of our own."
She turned away and leaned over the balcony, taking in a deep breath of the cool night air, hoping it would somehow clear her head.
"I don't know what's happened to you in the past eleven years since you've been gone… but I want to think that if there was nothing wrong in the world, if you were just free to… to live. To be yourself. I think…"
Mai trailed off, trying to put words to how she felt.
"I think I would still want to be that for you, what you never had back then."
She could feel her cheeks flush even as a chill ran up her spine as she wrapped her head around what she had just said. Somehow, having not seen her for years, Sasuke was somehow able to get her to admit what she never would have dreamed of letting slip to anyone else at any other time. And they were feelings for him no less, not something said in so many words, but she hoped that what she had implied was enough that Sasuke—
Suddenly, she realized he was standing just behind her, though she didn't even need to look to confirm it. Mai could feel him, the space his body took up, the very aura that he seemed to perpetually emit. It was all she could so to stifle a gasp at how quickly he had closed the distance between them, him now standing just at her back.
"I know I wasn't very to easy to get close to," Sasuke mumbled. "And no matter what you say, I know I put you all through hell."
Mai shook her head just slightly, her voice as quiet as his; something inside her was making the idea of turning and looking at him seem an insurmountable task.
"We would have been put through hell no matter what. Even if you, and Obito, and Madara had never showed up, Ozai would have gone ahead and tried to kill us all no matter what. He probably would have had a much better shot at it actually."
She turned her gaze down and looked out over the lights of the city. Even with all the orange glowing beneath her, Ba Sing Se seemed so much more empty, so much more tense. There was a quiet, but not the usual quiet that came of night. It was a frightened quiet, an uneasy quiet, and all of it was caused by him, she knew.
And still, she had nothing but good to say.
"I should be thanking you, truly," she spoke out then, her voice raising in volume as though talking louder was all that was keeping her able to go on. "If not for you, I know I'd be dead. Ty Lee and I would have been killed trying to keep Azula from giving her life to her father, and she would have died as well. I know for a fact the three of us owe you our lives, at least once over."
Sasuke said nothing in response to this for a long while, but after near a minute of them just standing close to one another, Mai felt a chill run up her spine, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up straight, as his face gently lowered to nestle against her shoulder. She could feel the heat of his breath against the fabric and onto her shoulder, and she had to again remind herself to breathe.
"What are you doing?" she asked, her voice shaking. His face slowly moved from her shoulder to graze against her neck and when his lips brushed against her skin, she bit down on her lower lip.
"I never told you how I felt," he murmured. Mai nearly shuddered as she felt his hands gently grip her waist as the touch of his lips against her neck became a kiss against her. "I can't deny, I struggled with my feelings for several of you, but it was you… it was you who I had the most trouble wrapping my head around how I felt towards."
Her breathing starting to come in faster and more shallow, Mai couldn't resist tilting her head back to rest against his shoulder as he nuzzled against her neck.
I can't do this.
"I can't do this," she somehow managed to say. "This is wrong."
It was a heartbreaking dagger that found her insides as his head pulled slightly away from her, his breath and lips distancing themselves from her.
"I'm sorry," he said again. "I just… it doesn't feel wrong to me."
Mai sucked in a sharp breath that nearly became a gasp as he pressed his waist against her rear, and she felt him. Through his clothes, she could feel him, and her cheeks flushed even more so than they already were. Her grip was numbing on the railing before her, and standing still was about as torturous a thing as she could have felt, but her body didn't want to react to this, no matter which way she looked at it. Screaming was what she should have done, pulled free one of the knives strapped to her thighs and forced him away from her would have been wise too, but somehow, she could do nothing but stand still as he touched her.
Sasuke's hands slowly slid up her waist and moved towards her chest.
"I've been lost," he whispered. "But this is the surest of something I've felt in so many years. I wasn't expecting this, but seeing you now, talking to you now… there's such a freedom I haven't felt in so long."
His grip reached the point just beneath her breasts and Mai closed her eyes, feeling tears leak down her cheeks. She wasn't entirely sure why she was crying, but she couldn't have held back the wet tracks down her face if she had tried.
In a similar sense to what Sasuke said, this was the first time in a long time that Mai had felt something like this. She and Zuko had regularly had sex when their relationship was in a more stable place, and when it wasn't, Mai would often slip to the brothel closest to the Royal Palace to partake in group efforts with the girls there, as Ty Lee had caught her doing. Intimate contact was something that she had grown quite used to, but as she felt Sasuke's touch behind her, she realized just how different this was. When she had known him before, had his presence always been so… suffocating?
Mai swallowed and shook her head against him, trying to muster up the willpower to deny this from moving any further than it already had.
"That's enough," she said, and was both surprised and pleased at how steady she had been able to make her voice. "Sasuke, please stop, I know… I know that we might have had some… feelings for each other or something, but that doesn't mean—"
With excessive speed, his hands moved up to cup her breasts over her nightgown and she couldn't keep herself from trailing off in a whimper. Immediately, she felt disgust at herself for reacting so pathetically to such a touch, even as her midsection throbbed as he gently massaged her chest. She needed to cut him off now, he was taking things much too far, and Mai was stunned at how much she was letting him get away with.
"Sasuke, I said stop, we can't do this, not when—"
The pointer fingers and thumbs on both his hands found her nipples and tightened on them, and Mai let out a full, feminine moan.
Oh no… what is he doing to me??
Unable to stop herself, she reached back and drew a hand behind his head, to cradle it and hold him tight against her as she felt her body begin to softly rub itself against his. It was pure insanity, the fact that she was even considering going along with this, let alone actually allowing it to happen, but as his right hand drew along the fabric of her gown and pushed it aside to grope her breast without anything in between his grip and her body, she turned her head to look at him.
Their faces were so close, his expression calm and composed, while Mai could feel her heart pounding in her throat as she tried to keep herself from outright panting. Her mind was a blur of emotions and confusion; had she really not only finally gotten a chance to see Sasuke again, but on top of that, was very nearly being intimate with him?
While he continued to hold her breast in one hand, his other hand slowly slid down her taut stomach and towards the front of her waist.
Even as in complete denial of morality as she already was, Mai saw Zuko's face flash in her head a moment and it gave her the will to try one last time to wriggle free of the grip that she found she desperately wanted to remain in.
"Sasuke… I'm begging you…"
Fresh tears streamed down her face. Why was it that this was the most whole she had felt in years?
"Please… please don't make me do this. If you keep going, I'm not going to be able to resist you."
He moved his face close enough to brush against hers, his eyes darker than the night sky above.
"Why?" he whispered and as his hand moved over her sex, she groaned, her lips very gently touching his.
"Because I want this more than anything right now," she said, letting honesty guide her words, and she closed the distance between them and kissed him.
There was a great swelling in her chest as she kissed Sasuke as fiercely as she could, a warmth that was spreading from her heart and waist all throughout her body. Her hardened nipple sent waves of excitement through her the more he fondled it, and as he held her tighter to him, she couldn't help but slowly gyrate her hips against his grip, hoping desperately he would do more than just hold a hand over her womanhood.
Sasuke drew his lips back from her a moment and when he spoke, Mai felt her head spin with ecstasy.
"I want you."
Finding the strength that she hadn't seemed able to find when trying to force him away from her, Mai pulled free of him and turned her body around in order to throw her arms around his neck and kiss him full on again. For minutes, they simply pressed their lips against one another, breathing deeply and letting the heat of their bodies make the cold air of the night irrelevant.
Finally, Mai couldn't help herself and she drew a hand down his chest, dragging her nails against his exposed skin before reaching his midsection. She smiled against his lips as she felt him stiffen at the nearness to him that she was achieving.
"I want you too," she practically mewled to him, and she was again struck with a ravenous distaste for how aroused and weak he was making her. Even in her most intimate moments with Zuko, she had never surrendered herself so… openly. Never had she exposed this much vulnerability, but these thoughts of her own self image faded into forgotten memories as she slipped her hand down his front to wrap around him.
Her throat constricted as she realized just how sizeable he was.
Forcing herself to stay as in control as she could, she began to stroke him gradually and took great joy in listening to his breathing become as labored as hers was. Mai found her head spinning practically as the reality of what she was doing started to set in. Her conscious was long since past the idea of denying the absolutely overwhelming primal urge that was sapping its way through her veins though, and as she felt a familiar wetness starting to spread from between her legs, she was both surprised and strongly disheartened when Sasuke pushed back from her slightly. They remained close, her hand still gripping his length and him with holding tightly onto her breast as they looked one another deep in the eye.
"What's wrong?" Mai asked, breathless with lust and worry. Sasuke said nothing for a long enough period to grow her anxiety tenfold before he finally replied to her, reaching up with his other hand to gingerly cup the side of her face. She leaned into his touch, rubbing her face gently against the palm of his hand.
"I need to know you want this. That you really truly want this," he said, and she blinked at him in confusion.
"Do I… ?" she repeated back to him, and he nodded firmly.
"I need to know."
Mai looked to him for a long moment before delicately leaning forward and pressing herself against his exposed chest, giving the skin several passionate kisses as she did.
"Sasuke…" she said, her throat feeling tight and restrictive. "I want this more than you could possibly know."
She pulled her head back to ensure that he understood her meaning and found him staring at her with a look that made her pulse quicken even further. Hunger and thrill flashed in his eyes, and Mai's blood froze as a memory came crashing to the front of her mind.
She was standing on a beach at night, the warm air cloaking her in its comfort as Ty Lee gripped at her hand with tightness that only came from genuine fear. Behind them, the black of the sea made the sounds of the waves rolling onto the shore seem unpredictable, but the fire before her was what had Mai's attention.
The entire treeline before her was ablaze with an oppressive orange glow as various shouts and shrieks filled the air, mingling with the crackle of burning timber. Mai could swell the stifling scent of smoke and the biter smell of iron as blood was spilled in excess. Men before her were falling as the blade of a single man passed through their forms, never more than a single strike needed for each one. They scrambled and tried to run, regroup, and fight back, but every effort was as hopeless as the next. Bit by bit, their numbers were thinned by what surely seemed like a demon working its way through them untouchable and unrelenting.
That demon was a boy that Mai had not only been traveling with, but who she was actually finding aroused very strange feelings in her; protectiveness for Azula had initially overridden these emotions, but she had slowly found herself slipping into curiosity over him. But now, seeing him properly unleashed before him, she felt a stab of terror that she felt ashamed to admit had nothing to do with the slaughter happening before her, and much more pressed by who was committing it.
Was this the same person she was developing feelings for?
Now, in the present, Mai looked into those wild eyes, seeing that hunger and excitement, and that drowning fervor and felt a similar terror to what she had felt all those years ago starting to rise up. He twitched in her grip and he moved with blinding speed, grabbing her by the shoulders and spinning her around. Mai gave a soft cry as he pushed the top of her back down, forcing her to bend over, her chest pressing against the railing and she heard the rustle of clothing behind her.
Wait. Stop.
She wanted to yell these words out as the reality of what was about to happen started to settle around her like ash from a volcano, but her mouth couldn't manage more than the hushed whimpers and moans she had been letting out for the past several minutes.
What are you doing? the voice of reason in her head shouted. If you don't want this, then tell him! He'll understand!
But as Mai felt the bottom of her nightgown being pulled up and hung over her waist, exposing her bare ass to the evening air, she knew that wasn't the problem. She wasn't trying to plead with Sasuke, she was trying to plead with herself, to come to grips with the idea that she perhaps didn't actually want what was about to happen.
She wasn't strong enough to deny him.
She didn't even want to try. Not even her fear of him was powerful enough to achieve that end.
As she felt him press his length up against her, she gave a gasp and grit her teeth. Sasuke's hands moved to run themselves over her ass, squeezing at it before coming to grip her waist firmly.
This isn't happening, this can't be happening, this has to be a dream.
Mai's thoughts started to work overtime to try and process her denial as she couldn't wrap her head around just how near she was to being—
She arched her back and gave the loudest moan yet as he entered her, clapping a hand over her mouth to stifle her sounds. Her vision blurred with fresh tears and she took fast, and intense breaths in an effort to keep from getting too worked up. Behind her, she felt Sasuke lean over her, kissing the back of her neck as he did.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
No, Mai wanted to scream, we can't be doing this. This was all happening far too quickly, and so little of it made sense to her. But, feeling shame burn behind her ears, she said nothing of the sort.
"Do it," she whispered and moaned again as Sasuke's mouth moved to bite at her ear. He leaned off of her and straightened, making a low and pleasured sound as Mai lowered her gaze and pressed her forehead against the railing, feeling spite towards herself that couldn't quite overcome the wildly intense lust that was causing her whole body to quiver in anticipation.
Rather unbidden, another memory flashed in her mind, something much more brief and much more recent. She saw herself getting up to leave the room where she had been sitting next to Zuko, bitterness and anger in her heart. He didn't make to follow her, but she stopped to listen to the last words he had for her before she stormed from the room.
"I'm sorry about this Mai. Because it's my own selfishness as much as anything that's made things so difficult for you, I know it has. I want so badly for you to be happy and I think you deserve someone better than me because of that… but because I love you so much, I can't bear the thought of letting you go."
The tears burned their way out of her eyes, a moment before Sasuke thrust, pressing his waist against her rear and pushing his entire sex inside of hers. Mai qjammed her eyes tightly shut as her mouth opened in a silent scream and he began to obey her command, making love to her in the quiet and dark of the night. She felt him stretch her open as her breasts swayed in rhythm with his movements and she threw her head back in ecstasy.
But even as she surrendered to the pleasure of the moment, the comfort that was being provided her ailing and overwhelmed mind, she couldn't help but feel a single, cohesive thought swirl in her head before she lapsed into her own lust
I'm sorry, Zuko.
Yue sat near the small divot that was the camp's firepit, absently prodding with a stick at the glowing embers within and the flickering fire that crackled up from it. She glanced around at the tents that were scattered across the plateau they had made camp on, and could see no activity. Yue supposed she hadn't expected anyone to be up that early and she rather preferred the quiet, despite how tired she felt. Two of Ursa's crew were doing watch loops a kilometer or so from camp, and as such were well beyond her sight.
It was still mostly dark, though on the horizon there were the faint hints of the lightening sky indicating that dawn wasn't far off. All in all, it had been a long and anxious day for her, and despite her exhaustion, sleep wasn't something that was coming to her that night. She felt she had to stay up evening, keep watch for something she couldn't quite put a finger on.
That's a lie.
Yue let go of the stuck and put her hands over her face, tiredly rubbing. She knew exactly why it was she was feeling such an urge to be vigilant. It was the same reason that she kept looking up at the motionless shadows of the tents, apprehension dripping in her veins.
They had reached the capital that morning and while she had been hesitantly maintaining distance from Sasuke ever since that evening in the town, she had felt the tug of a smile at her cheeks as she had seen the clear relief that Sasuke had been feeling. He had nearly bound into town on his own before Ursa had pointed out a flyer tacked to one of the posts lining the road leading the remaining kilometer or so leading into the city. Yue had looked along with everyone else and had felt a throb of anxiety as she looked at the flyer; the caricature had been rough, but the name scrawled underneath it cast aside any doubt on who it was supposed to be. Yue had slowly turned to look at Sasuke to see him staring almost blankly at the visage of himself, though she could tell his mind was working overtime. The crew was respectfully silent as well, twenty plus armed mercenaries all quiet as mice in the face of something so personal and intriguing. Ursa was the only one with the courage to raise her voice.
"Perhaps this was from when you were here before."
Sasuke had shaken his head in a quick gesture.
"Can't have been," he said. "It's a hell of a lot newer than anything else nailed to the post."
Yue had seen Ursa watching Sasuke with a fresh layer of curiosity and interest, surely as a result of this being yet another piece of the puzzle that was Sasuke now uncovered, though only more questions had been raised now because of it. In her own head, Yue's mind was racing at the potential reason for this; asking Sasuke about it was something she was sorely tempted to do, but judging by his demeanor, this was not the time.
You ever think there's going to be a right time? Yue had thought angrily at herself, a moment before Ursa spoke up.
"You going into the city first is out of the question then," she said, her commanding persona taking over what had become a rather tense situation. "Yue, would you be willing to go with Siado into the city?"
Yue found herself looking in polite confusion at the captain, as did the hook-handed first mate, but she had already moved past the point.
"The rest of us can move off the road and wait for you to return. We just need to know where the Fire Lord is, then we can wait for the cover of night and Sasuke can get into the city and deliver his message."
"You know this city though, don't you captain?" the musically oriented crewmate Djura asked; the songs he had plucked at on his biwa had been one of the few sources of comfort Yue had been able to find whilst on the long crossing over. It was clear that, while Yue didn't believe Ursa had spoken to her crew much about the fact that she very clearly had a past here in the Elemental Nations, some of them were surely picking up on the possibility. Ursa had looked to him with an expression that suggested he continue, and he gave a humble shrug; there was no fear towards his captain, but the respect that she clearly commanded was apparent in his gesture and tone.
"I just mean, would you not be the best suited of any of us to take the lead on this?" he clarified and Ursa smiled, despite the ice in her eyes.
"Let's just say they might recognize my face."
She has to be Fire Nation, Yue thought. Her beautiful and imposing form with the sharp features and long dark hair, as well as the twin blades she wore at her side, these were all clear indications of her ancestry. And that statement made things even more apparent.
Nothing more was said on the matter however, and Yue had dutifully followed Siado along the coastal road into the Fire Nation capital. Yue had never been to this particular city before as during the time she had been growing up, the state of war imposed on the Nations made it so that the Fire Nation was nothing short of entirely off limits, but as she looked around at the tall buildings and bustling city streets, she found herself feeling rather immersed by the place. In her head, she had been picturing a city of dark towers and iron factories spewing smoke into the sky, but in reality, it was just a regionally different reminder of her own home city, and the thought made her heart pang.
After a period of walking through the streets, she and Siado had tentatively started asking around as inconspicuously as could be. Initially, they hadn't a great deal of success as they walked the streets, Yue couldn't help but notice a great many posters of Sasuke's face dotted about them, on the sides of buildings, on notice boards, on wagons, just about everywhere she looked.
What's this about?
Finally, they found an answer, but when they heard it, both she and Siado had exchanged glances, both apprehensive. They had worked their way through the crowds of people until they had confirmed this answer with a dozen or so other people, all of them answering their query exactly the same. Understanding that there was nothing more to be done, they had left the city in silence, walking back down the road a kilometer or so before turning abruptly off and into the twisted and black crags and hills that made up the landscape. The camp had been made where Ursa had indicated, and Yue had felt her heart leap into her throat with nerves as Sasuke saw them and ran up to them, his expression urgent.
"Where is he?" he had asked, in a tone that was almost a snap. Yue had looked to Ursa's first mate as the captain walked up behind Sasuke and the crew looked on a dozen meters behind her.
"He's…" she started, before mentally cursing herself and getting ahold of her fear.
"He's not here. He's in Ba Sing Se."
She had waited for Sasuke's face to clench with anger, for him to shout and rage angrily, for him to react in any way whatsoever to her bad news. But he had merely stared at her, breathing in a measured pattern before turning and marching a distance away to stop a few dozen yards from the group where he stared at the city in the distance, thinking who knew what dark thoughts. Yue had found herself staring at him so immersed and attentive that it took Ursa putting a hand on her shoulder to snap her back to awareness.
"Yue? We're getting set for the night."
Somehow, hours had gone by with her staring at Sasuke's back and him standing there unmoving a distance away. In that time, Ursa had sent several of her men into town to secure some tenting equipment to set up a more appropriate camp and dinner was being prepared as they spoke. Yue swallowed through a very dry throat and had gone over to eat, though her eyes never quite left Sasuke's form.
Siado, at Ursa's orders, had set up a tent specifically for Sasuke first, and when he had walked tentatively over to the young man to inform him of his evening dwelling space, Sasuke had looked to him, given a curt nod and slipped through the flap of his tent to retire for the night without a word to anyone else. Slowly, everyone else had slipped into tents or lain on their sleeping rolls and fallen asleep.
All of them except for Yue.
She had tried to lay down and close her eyes, but every time she did, all that occupied her mind were Sasuke's intense and piercing black eyes. In her head, she heard herself repeat the same disappointing news and watched her eyes look back into his. Finally, she hadn't been able to take it anymore and had gotten up to sit at the fire that had dwindled all through the night.
This was where she sat now, letting the hours roll by one after another as she waited for dawn to break. Sighing softly, she placed her forefingers against her temples and ground them aggravatedly into the skin on the side of her head.
Sasuke had somehow managed to become an even more unmanageable enigma in recent days, something she wouldn't have thought possible before they had boarded Ursa's ship. But Yue was becoming more and more of the mind that the more work she did to try and understand and know him, the more the rabbit hole of his past was pulling him away from her. During their month long trek to the eastern archipelagos, she had learned his boundaries fairly well but had always been able to confront him when she needed to. Yet now…
She looked toward his tent and closed her eyes.
Now, I can't so much as say a word to him without feeling nervous.
"Don't tell me you haven't slept a wink."
With it having been so completely quiet and undisturbed for what had now been many hours, it was only instinct for Yue to leap to her feet, reaching over her shoulder for the handle of her sword. As she turned, she drew in a long calming breath as she set eyes on Ursa who had fairly silently managed to walk up behind her.
"I didn't know you were up," Yue said evenly; she wasn't unfriendly, but knew her tone carried the weight of caution in a hint. Ursa seemed to have caught onto it instantly however, subtly be damned, and she sighed as she walked around Yue to sit on the other side of the firepit.
"It's become habit to wake this early for me. When you have people you're responsible for, closing your eyes around them feels like a betrayal of their trust."
Yue blinked at such a rather blanketing statement and she watched the captain warily as she too slowly sat back down, wincing at the stiffness of her legs from how long she had been sitting there. Ursa looked at her with a sympathetic smile.
"You haven't, have you?"
Looking down to the smoldering embers at her feet, Yue propped her arms on her knees and rested her chin in her hands.
"Couldn't sleep. Felt like I had to be up and aware in case… in case something happens."
Ursa nodded knowingly.
"With Sasuke?"
Sighing, Yue rubbed her eyes.
"How do you read people like that?"
Giving a soft laugh, Ursa replied, "Well, with you, it wasn't difficult I'm sorry to say. It's clear you and him have a bit of a complicated relationship and after the snag we hit today, it's no wonder you're a bit on edge about him."
"He's impossible," Yue muttered and Ursa inclined her head.
"Are you sure that you're looking in all the right places?" she asked and Yue looked up quickly to see Ursa looking quizzically at her, and she felt some defensiveness rise up in her gut.
"What's that supposed to mean?" she snapped, unable to keep herself from maintaining a passive tone. Ursa's face tightened slightly as though she regretted what she had said. She turned her eyes down from Yue to look somewhat sadly at the fire before her and Yue couldn't quite keep herself from firing off another question, her frustration from the day finally hitting a boiling point.
"Why are you still here? You and your crew got us to the Fire Nation capital as was promised; shouldn't you be looking to collect on the rest of your payment and part ways?"
At this, Ursa's expression hardened and she looked up to Yue who immediately felt her blood run cold at the fire in the captain's eyes.
"Don't sell our integrity short. Our deal was to escort Sasuke to the reigning Fire Lord and that has yet to be achieved."
Her expression softened slightly then.
"Besides, I think we both know this frustration isn't about that."
Yue bit the inside of her lip, looking away from Ursa; somehow, she was still reading her without flaw and she didn't want to show any signs that she was getting to her. Though, how the conversation was going, Ursa probably already had her read like a book.
"I owe you an apology, Yue."
Yue looked up to see Ursa looking up towards the night sky, a strange wistfulness on her face as she seemed to smile sadly.
"I don't think I had quite considered the full consequences of what I did the other night."
Feeling her cheeks redden, Yue looked away, her voice an embarrassed mumble.
"I don't know what you're talking about…" she managed before Ursa gave another quiet laugh.
"Don't play dumb with me, Yue, I know Sasuke and I weren't exactly subtle."
For this, she had no response and just kept her eyes on the ground while she waited for Ursa to say something else. When the captain spoke again, her tone was more serious than playful.
"While I obviously won't say more than I have to, I will say that what happened between him and I was nothing more than a… an indulgence."
Though she kept her gaze resolutely facing elsewhere, Yue continued to pay very close attention to what was being said.
"I won't deny I find him… quite intriguing. Quite attractive, both physically and otherwise. I… pushed myself onto him in a spur of the moment sort of thing, and he reciprocated my approach. But you should know that I have expected a relationship to blossom between as a result of the situation that evening. I assume you know what I mean by that."
Though she still found herself somewhat suspect of Ursa, Yue couldn't deny that the words she was hearing weren't giving her some semblance of comfort and relief. She decided to offer some honesty in return since she hadn't any reason to assume that Ursa was withholding anything about this specifically.
"I had been avoiding him because I thought there might have been," she said quietly. "I… I didn't want to… I don't know, do anything to make it seem like I might have been trying to intercede. On anything that was happening. And I guess… I guess I just thought that maybe he had found someone to be truly open with in you. Or whatever it is that love does."
Ursa smiled but Yue could see the very sad shadow there on her face.
"Sex doesn't mean love, Yue. And if you believe anything I say tonight, believe that he told me hardly a damn thing about himself."
Somehow, this was the most relieving thing Yue had heard yet. She felt some weight lifted from her shoulders and Ursa gave her an understanding nod.
"I can tell you've been trying so hard to get through to him. And I won't deny that while I still would like to foster some kind of relationship with him, I will not stand between you and your efforts."
She looked back up to the sky that had lightened significantly since they had started talking.
"Almost dawn, about time we get everyone up. How about you go let Sasuke know it's time to get up and at em?"
Yue locked eyes with her and as she saw in Ursa's eyes what it was that she was truly saying she met the captain's smile with one of her own. Getting to her feet, she stretched blood back into her stiff legs and walked over to Sasuke's tent, already thinking about what she was going to say to him. She supposed she could apologize, maybe he would too if she did.
Mostly, she just wanted to tell him that she was with him through this, and if he was angry or frustrated, she could vent to her as much as he wanted. She was with him through this entire journey and he needed to know that she—
She pulled back the flap of his tent, her mind still racing, but as she looked inside, all that thinking ground to a halt. It would be several long stunned seconds before she turned and ran back to Ursa, shouting that Sasuke was gone.
"Your highness, it is good to see you. Are you with—"
"Have you seen my mother??" Soza barked energetically. The royal guard she had just snapped at who was about six times her size gulped and stiffened at her demand; even before he spoke, Soza could tell just by his reaction that he not only knew, but he was under orders to keep her whereabouts an unknown.
"I'm afraid not, your highness, I just know that—"
"What about the Avatar? Or Suki of the Kyoshi Warriors?" she tried instead, dulling the aggression of her tone slightly, in the hopes that it might make the guard more inducive to honestly respond to her demands. He technically was at her whim, barring that her mother hadn't given him orders otherwise, but in regards to Aang, he was under no such reservations to keep things like that to himself.
"I'm sorry, I have not seen either of them."
"How about Mai or Ty Lee??"
"I believe the latter is still in the city with her two friends and the former… I saw her early this morning making her way through the palace looking quite rushed. I haven't seen her in the time since."
Unless of course her mother had ordered him not to speak on the whereabouts of anyone who might have been able to give Soza some answers. Gritting her teeth, she stormed past the guard without another word, able to find only the slightest amount of satisfaction in how quickly he jumped back to be free of her path.
For well over a day now, Soza had found herself in the dark far more than she'd like to be. Her entire life she had been privy to information even top military people didn't have access to, and now, not only did it seem as though her mother had completely changed her tone on being open with her, but it seemed like everyone in the palace knew what was going on, save for Soza.
It was starting to reach a point where she wasn't sure how much more she was willing to tolerate. Of course she should respect her mother's wishes to maintain this to her as a secret, but since she had arrived in the dirt and peasant infested city of Ba Sing Se, there had been a massive aura of celebration and pleasant uproar that had all but disappeared overnight following the visit of that half-mad soldier. Not that Soza had been allowed outside the palace since the time she had spent with Toph, but it was no secret just how much the attitude even just within the castle had changed, as had the atmosphere. Many of the larger chambers had become completely off limits to her, and there was now a fair amount of military activity within the palace walls, groups of high-ranking officials bustling about and muttering in hushed tones, falling completely silent whenever they saw Soza watching them.
She had very quickly reached the conclusion that everything was being kept a secret just from her and she was just about fed up with being snubbed on this.
That morning, after a full day of not being told anything, she had woken up with a mind set on hunting down some form of explanation however she could. She was fairly sure she could have coaxed something out of Auntie Ty, but she had been absent from the palace since the night everything had started to be with Toph, who had fallen ill Soza had been told. She didn't believe that in the slightest.
So, she had been marching her way around the palace, hoping to find her mother, Auntie Mai, Suki, or anyone who she might have been able to persuade into telling her at least a little of what was going on. Truly, the curiosity was starting to eat her alive.
Sasuke.
She had found herself repeating the name in her head, even unconsciously at times. Soza knew that was what this whole massive affair was about, this man who was apparently enough of a threat to cause a full scale emergency status. She had caught herself realizing that even were she able to find someone willing to talk to her, she didn't even know where she wanted to start as far as questions went.
Who is Sasuke? What did he do? Who knew him? My mother? Toph? Where has he been? Is he an enemy? Why all the fuss over him? Are we trying to find him? Who is Sasuke?
It was almost despicably cruel, enough to make her smile bitterly; everyone knew who this man was except her, and she didn't even know why his mere mention was cause for such chaos.
I'm going to find something out today. I have to know what it is that's made Sasuke such a… such a legend of sorts.
Perhaps legend wasn't the right word for it, but the reverence and overall reaction that his name seemed to provoke was more than a little curious on its own. Soza shook her head firmly as she made to round another corner of the palace halls, still steady ahead on her journey.
When her body had fully rounded the turn, she dug her heels into the orante carpet beneath her as she caught sight of who was before her.
Katara was standing a few dozen feet ahead of her, looking over a scroll that was being shown to her by some member of the Water Nation military. They seemed to be having some sort of dispute about whatever it was that was scrawled on the parchment.
"…and it's foolish that they would even think otherwise," Katara seemed to be saying. "A completely open capture order could result in more deaths than they realize, if you offer the chance of reward to his capture on top of everything else. Gung-ho militias and local mercenary groups, maybe even the rebel groups, the Talons and the Dwellers, maybe they catch wind of this, and there's no telling what they'll do with either the idea of a reward, or knowledge that we're on the hunt for someone clearly so—"
She looked up and caught sight of Soza staring at her at the bend in the hall and the waterbender's lips pursed tightly. Soza kept her gaze, not willing to back down from Katara's gaze as the woman turned her head slightly towards the man showing her the scroll without taking her eyes off of Soza.
"Pass my reservations along to the chief, I'll be along shortly."
The military officer flicked his eyes between the woman and girl before nodding without a word, bowing and walking off briskly as he rolled up and tucked the scroll away. Her attention now undivided, Katara crossed her arms and shifted her weight onto her right foot, looking Soza up and down as she did. Soza hated the way that Katara looked at her with such open disrespect.
"You shouldn't be out wandering the halls at a time like this," she finally said, walking over to her. "You might hear something your mother would rather you didn't, and we wouldn't want to upset her, right?"
And that too, that way she talked to her like she was some stupid child, it made Soza all the more angry. Still, she knew that Katara didn't particularly care for her or her mother, and for the time being, she didn't want to say anything to exacerbate that dislike.
"Have you seen my mother?" she asked in as passive and amenable a tone as she could manage with the waterbender. Katara cocked her head ever so slightly as she stopped just ahead of Soza.
"I don't make it my business to know where your mother is; have you lost her?"
It didn't sound like it had been posed as a jab, but Soza couldn't help but start to feel riled up on her insides, a burning anger that she had spent years learning how to control.
"Yes," she managed to say through tight lips. "I… no one's been willing to tell me what's happening. I thought maybe she would be okay telling me something now that a day's passed."
As much as it pained her, she lowered her gaze in a show of submission. It was a way to not only show respect, but also hopefully put Katara in enough of a state of surprise to get her to open up about where her mother might be. There was no immediate reply and Soza started to think that this had been a foolish waste of her dignity, and she was about to turn on her heel and march away without a word when Katara finally did say something.
"She hasn't told you anything?"
It was asked as a simple question, but Soza could hear the layer of incredulity beneath it; apparently, Katara was just as surprised that her mother would have so totally kept her in the dark on this.
"I don't know why," she said quietly. "She's never been one to hide things from me, always saying that knowledge is one of the best weapons I can arm myself with. I'd even just like to know at this point why it is that everyone is so intent on keeping this from me."
Another pause and she wondered if she had just gone and so vulnerably stated her feelings for nothing.
Then, "What do you want to know?"
It took Soza a moment to even comprehend what she had just heard before she looked up with widened eyes. Of all of the adults that Toph and her mother spent time with, Katara was always easily the one to look on her with the most dismissal, the most disdain. There was always a clear sense that she either resented Soza or at the very least didn't care for her presence, and she had certainly never gone out of her way to be of any notable help, or shown her that much kindness.
But here she was now, looking down at Soza with crossed arms and that deadpan look on her face, but there was no denying what she had just asked. Soza pounced with her questions before this miracle of an opportunity so much as started to slip away.
"What's going on?" she demanded. "There's been a bunch of military activity here; are they using the palace as a staging grounds for something? What's the scale of this? Is this all for this Sasuke person?"
And then last but not least, easily her most burning question.
"Who even is Sasuke?!"
She became aware of how heavily she was breathing as apprehension that she might actually learn something about all this bubbled in her gut. Katara regarded her for several painfully long moments before speaking, her voice steady and quiet.
"I can't tell you any of what's actually happening as far as any operations are concerned… but you want to know about Sasuke."
Watching Katara carefully for any sign of a tell, Soza saw Katara slowly straighten her back and regard her carefully. She finally gave a gentle smile that was a surprise in and of itself, but there was a dark glow in her eyes that told Soza the smile was anything but indicative of a pleasant emotion.
"Sasuke was… impossibly powerful," Katara started, her eye glazing over slightly as memories swathed over her consciousness. "There was so much he was capable of that you wouldn't even believe if I told you. Have you heard any of the stories?"
Soza shook her head aggressively. "Mother never lets me out of the royal grounds except on rare occasions. I did… well, one time I walked past the kitchen area and I heard some of the servant girls… well, they were talking about… did he destroy Sozin's Comet?"
It was such a ridiculous question, that a cosmic body could be obliterated by a man, but when she saw the look in Katara's eyes, her heart slipped as her throat swelled in amazement.
"What kind of bender was he?" she breathed, assuming that only bending would allow a person to manage something so implausible. Katara gave her head a small shake.
"No, not a bender. He's not from our world, Soza."
It was hardly any information at all and still it seemed too much for Soza to wrap her head around. A man not of their world who had the power to destroy comets? Why had her mother never told her about such a person?
"Is that what this is, then?" she asked excitedly. "We're trying to find him? Did he disappear? Did you know him?"
The question came out naturally, but as she asked it, Soza realized that the woman before her might actually have known this impossible being. And when she saw Katara's lips tighten and her eyes flash with pain, she knew she has hit the nail on the head.
"What was he like? Did anyone else know him that I know?"
She thought to how Toph had reacted when she had asked her about Sasuke several nights back and she had the realization that Toph must have known this Sasuke too. Had she and him been together? Is that why she didn't want to talk about him? Was this why she had gone to Jin's house for a while?
Katara licked her lips and began to open her mouth to say something in reply to this bombardment of queries, but it was a male voice that Soza heard before anything else.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa now, what do we have here?"
Soza flicked her gaze behind Katara as she saw a younger, well dressed man striding their way with two robed women on either side of him, beautiful and with sharp eyes, swords at their sides. It took her a moment, but she realized that she had seen this man walking the royal grounds back home before, but she hadn't ever reached a point where she had gotten to know his name. He had held the same smug air of self importance that he did now, but unlike her mother, Soza didn't know what if anything he and done to warrant it.
"Who are you?" she said, her tone not becoming rude, but the slight wrinkle of her nose might have been enough to indicate otherwise. The man raised his eyebrows at her before smirking at Katara; Soza noticed the waterbender was suddenly looking extremely on edge.
"Little ball of fire this one, isn't she?" he said with a smile before looking to Soza.
"I'm Lord Gilbert, your highness, it's quite the honor to meet you, the daughter of such an incredible woman."
This attempt at flattery wasn't anything Soza hadn't heard before.
"Yeah, she is," she said, somewhat impatiently. Gilbert turned to look at Katara and then back to Soza and despite his very causal and laid back expression, Soza could see the coldness in his eyes.
"Just wanted to make sure we weren't discussing things that… well, perhaps shouldn't be things tossed around lightly."
Soza had garnered more than enough experience with reading the connotations in a person's words, and she could tell instantly that Gilbert was not just hinting that this wouldn't be a wise choice, but that Katara had better not have been talking to Soza about anything that had been going on the past couple days. Soza found herself struck by the total control he seemed to have over Katara, who have him a short respectable bow and straightened, the jaws in her muscle working intensely, but she only replied with a very courteous and polite lie.
"Of course not, I'm just as aware as anyone else that discussing the matters at hand with anyone not with a need to know is strictly forbidden."
Gilbert narrowed his eyes a fraction at her and nodded slowly.
"Yes, yes, good…" he murmured and waited; Soza realized he was waiting for Katara to excuse herself.
"I'd better go find the Avatar," Katara said rather automatically, and she turned and walked past the lord and his bodyguards not even bothering to look back at Soza. Disappointed and angry, the young firebender watched her go and only looked back to Glibert as he addressed her again.
"You really ought to tread carefully, young lady," he said, and Soza found she hated how he was treating her with such an air of familiarity, and how too he was talking to her like she was just another stupid child, another one of these dirt sniffing idiots that she shared the same age group with. It was clear based on how Katara had reacted to him that he was not a man to be trifled with however, and Soza kept her tongue. "There are a lot of things going on right now that I don't think it would be in your best interest to get caught up in."
This was by far the most unbelievable of anything he had said thus far. It almost sounded like a threat, how he dared suggest her business to her. Soza fixed with a livid stare before turning and marching off, hating how she had been forced to look up to meet his gaze. She made her way up several flights of stairs and down several long hallways before thoughts to this impudent man finally started to fade away into a much more aggravating kind of frustration.
Katara's information, while certainly exceptionally intriguing, was brief and tantalizing as anything could be, and her questions had only grown in number as such. Sasuke wasn't from this world? Where could he possibly have been from then? Had Katara been speaking metaphorically perhaps? What was his relation to anyone Soza knew? What sorts of powers did he wield? Why was he being hunted? Had he done something wrong? How long had he been away? Why had he just come into the light now? What had he been to Toph to make her react so badly to hearing his name? Why had her mother cried when she had heard of him? And why was she being so completely sheltered from this?
When the door closed behind her to lock her in her room, alone and with her thoughts, Soza realized she had angry tears un her eyes. She reached up to wipe them away, feeling a numbing shock at the weakness of her own reaction. She was Soza, daughter of Azula, and she had absolutely nothing that should have brought her to tears.
But when she thought about it, it made an infuriating amount of sense. For the first time in her life, she was being denied, and left by the wayside. And not just by these locals and military hotheads and political figureheads. Her own friends, Toph, Auntie Mai and Auntie Ty, Suki, and her mother, her mother who had never denied her any information in her whole life.
Except once.
"Mother, do I have a father?"
"Of course you do, dear."
"What happened to him? Why haven't I met him?"
…
…
"He's not with us any longer, Soza."
That was all she had been told about her father, and she had long since learned not to ask more about it. And now here again, this Sasuke person whoever he was, he too was being denied her.
So in the quiet of her own room, Soza let herself cry silently, trying to shake the feelings of inferiority and abandonment that she couldn't quite avoid.
What have I done, mother? What have I done to deserve not knowing? Why are you keeping this Sasuke such a mystery to me?