Disclaimer: I own nothing but the healer. Pity him.

AN: Thanks you those who reviewed, you munchkins rock my munchy world. With this chapter I tried to throw in a few of the untold tales of Ba Sing Se; Aneko, Jin and Song. See what you think…

Chapter Two – Those Girls from Ba Sing Se

When he put the bag in front of her, she didn't know what to say. It was open, and spilling from it were the silken hems and sleeves of a noblewoman's clothes. Very slowly, she drew the first item from the bag and spread it cautiously before her. It was beautiful, as she had expected; the silk was dense and dyed a rich amber to emulate gold, embroidered with a pretty dragonfly and cattail design, while the buttons were elegantly made knots of black cord. She recognized the pattern; northern loveknots.

He couldn't have possibly realized the significance.

Song looked up at him, confusion plain on her face.

"Where did you get these? I thought…I thought we didn't have any money."

For some reason, he wouldn't meet her eyes.

"It doesn't matter where I got them. You'll need clothes; I wasn't able to save anything from the fire – from your house."

She pressed her lips together, the delicate gown crushing as her hands went white-knuckled around it. It didn't help, and the tears still found their way down her cheeks.

"Song…"

"It's okay. I'm okay."

His own fists clenched, and she saw the thwarted rage tense the line of his jaw, narrow the uneven shapes of his eyes. At first, she thought he was angry with her for some reason she could not fathom.

Come sunrise, he was gone, and she was left to face Iroh over embers of the fire.

"Why?" she asked softly. "Was it something I –?"

"No," he interrupted gently. "No you must never think that, my dear." The old General sighed. "He has left because he is frustrated. He has lost the power to affect change the way he used to." He leveled those wise, saffron eyes at her. "And I believe he is so angry because he now has someone he wishes to affect change for."

She hung her head, cheeks flushing. After a moment she murmured, "We'll have to go after him."

Iroh smiled and nodded. "Oh, I never intended otherwise."

The Tale of Aneko…

"So," Aneko said, bumping her hip against his as she brought her empty tray back behind the counter. "Jin, huh?"

Zuko flushed.

She turned to Iroh, "He finally figured it out?"

"No," was the response. "He thought she was a spy."

Aneko gave Zuko a flat, disbelieving look. "Seriously?"

The boy flushed harder. "She was always hanging around looking at me!" he defended.

"Which, in the normal world, means someone likes you."

Sullen muttering followed. Aneko smiled, face full of affection and slung an arm around his shoulders.

"You'll be fine," she told him.

He gave her one of those endearingly hesitant smiles. "Really, you think so?"

"Sure, and if you do screw up, we'll totally be here to pick up the pieces!"

---A---

The house was, as per usual, full of children.

When her mother had opened their home to the orphans of the world, things had instantly become markedly rowdier, and today was no exception. Aneko had finished her shift early when the foot traffic began to flag, and so headed home to see what the latest uproar would be about. The kids didn't disappoint.

"The Avatar built a ZOO!"

"Can we go?"

"Please, please, please, please, please, please, please?"

That about covered it.

And so, her tips fresh and jingling in her pocket, she took her allotted pack of ragamuffins and set out for the City wall, heading back through the lower tier with one littlie on her hip and six others trailing in a neat crocodile behind her. They all held hands, motivated to stick together and behave by the prospect of treats and animal encounters. Aneko chattered to the baby in her arms and when they arrived, spent most of the time answering questions about why hog-monkeys beat their chests, or why koi-carp spat, or what was making those squeaking noises coming from the rabberoo's pouch.

The later was answered when the rabberoo's own brood popped their fuzzy heads out to take in the world. The children's squeals of delight were deafening.

"'Neko," one small charge said, as the all sat down in the small zoo plaza to have peach juice and red bean ice cream, "who's the boy with the scar?"

Aneko blinked at the little girl, and then at the five other pairs of wide eyes fixed on her. "You all want to know?"

They nodded.

"Why?"

"He's nice," the same small girl, Tia, piped up. Then she blushed. "I couldn't reach a flower on the tree and he got it for me."

"Yeah!" added a little boy, Ryo. "He came home with you. You were all covered in stinky mud."

Aneko nodded. "His name is Lee; I work with him and his uncle in the tea shop."

"Ohhhhh," came the intrigued response.

"But why were you covered in mud?" interjected Ryo.

Aneko thought about it. How to spin it into something she could tell them that wouldn't give away her bending…? Ahh, of course.

"Well, you see, I was at the market when I heard a kerfuffle coming from an alley way by a well. And what do you think I saw? Four awful boys trying to beat up Lee! So I rushed over and said, Hey, bao-faces! Leave him alone!"

The children all laughed.

"But of course they didn't," Aneko continued smiling. "Two of them came towards me, looming like spirit monsters…"

"Oooooh…"

"And I was so scared I slipped in the mud…"

"Oh no!" they all gasped.

"But, I was in luck, for there was a mighty yell, and Lee broke away from his captors to save me!"

"Yaaaaay!" cheered the children.

"However, there were more of them than there were of us, so we had to fight hard and bravely, all slipping and sliding about by the well…"

"And that's how you got covered in mud!" cried Ryo.

"Exactly. And that, boys and girls, is the story of the Battle of the Well."

Little did she know, this tale would go down in children's history for years to come.

The Tale of Jin…

He was odd and sweet (after a fashion) and very, very confused. Having dinner with him wasn't really any hardship, but she wanted so badly to laugh at his awkward attempts at conversation

"You have… quite an appetite for a girl."

It was a wonder she didn't snort noodles out her nose. Poor thing, he really had no idea how to talk to girls…how on earth did he get on with the ones working at the tea shop?

As the night progressed, Jin smiled at the rather obvious fib of being a juggler, Lee got pottery and sweet chili oil in his hair, and the both of them muddled through the oddest date of their lives.

"So, your friends at the tea shop, what are they like?"

He blinked at her. "Song and Aneko?"

"Yeah, Aneko's the taller one right? And Song wears the peach hanbok?"

"Uh, yeah…" He looked a little suspicious at first, but gamely went on; apparently deciding her interest was innocent enough. "Song came with us to the City. She cured my Uncle when he tried to make White Jade into tea…"

Jin giggled. Lee smiled and continued.

"She invited us over for dinner. Uncle couldn't get there fast enough; her mother made this really amazing roast duck…" He trailed off, frowning and looking down.

"Lee?"

"She – Song's traveling with us, because her mother was killed in a raid that night. We had just left when we heard them in the distance. We ran back, but we were only in time to save Song. She had nowhere else to go."

"Oh, Lee," she whispered, tentatively reaching out to put the tips of her fingers against the back of his hand. He looked at her then. "That's awful."

He nodded absently. "Yeah…"

A soft, almost forlorn expression came over his face. His eyes were faraway, as though remembering something dear to him.

"Hey, I know it's not much, but I know a place that might cheer you up. It's my favourite place in this city."

And of course, the lanterns weren't lit. Yet he asked her to close her eyes and when she opened them…the square was filled with gold and amber, each lantern filled with a tiny brilliant light.

"How did you…?"

He just smiled. She felt a surge of triumph, even as he stepped away from her.

"It's complicated –"

Of course it is.

"I have to go."

And off he went.

Jin heaved a sigh and sat on the edge of the fountain. It was complicated, because even if he didn't know it, he had feelings for the girl he talked about, the orphan, Song. Jin didn't begrudge him this; this wasn't really a date and she wasn't just a girl. However, it bore reporting.

She let out a soft whistle, and from a nearby rooftop a charcoal-grey shape drifted down. The cat-owl perched lightly beside her, waiting with ingrained patience as she pulled a small piece of paper and a charcoal pen from her pocket and wrote a brief missive. With practiced movements, she rolled the note and slipped it into the tiny tube attached to the creature's leg.

"Home you go," she told it, carrying it the edge of the square and watching as it launched itself from her wrist. The white lotus dyed into the underside of its left wing caught the light for a moment as it swooped away.

Jin smiled, and slowly began the walk home.

The Tale of Song…

"Excuse me; I was wondering if you could help me?"

The woman behind the desk looked supremely bored. Song noted the name plate beside her blotter: Ling-Ling. "Did you now?" she drawled. "Why's that?"

"Well, this is the Public Listings Office isn't it…?"

Ling-Ling sighed. "Sure. What is it you want, honey?"

"I'm an apprentice healer, and I need –"

"You need a master to finish you training with, right?"

"Yes, please."

The Listing Officer's expression turned interrogative. "What happed to the last one?" She sounded almost accusing.

Song looked away, suddenly feeling angry and sad. "My village was burnt to the ground, a second time. I only just escaped, so my previous master – she's probably dead."

Ling-Ling looked contrite at that. "Oh. Sorry. Um, look, here's a list of healers in the area. There are addresses for each. You'll have to do the leg work, but the ones near the top are most likely to accept apprentices – though don't hold your breath. With the influx of people recently, most positions are full."

Song took the list, thanked her, and started walking. It was going to be a long day.

---S---

Song gazed at the blue door before her.

It was mid-afternoon; she had spent the better part of the day trudging about in the dry heat, going from clinic to clinic, healer to healer, only to be denied each time. Ling-Ling was right; the City was brimming with people right now, and each healer had at least two apprentices already. One ambitious man had taken on three, which Song had privately thought quite foolish. She doubted if she would have chosen to train with him even if he had had room for her.

This place was the last on the list. A relatively small clinic, run by one healer, a man named Shan. There was a small black star printed next to his name. When the previous healer she had been to had seen it, she had shaken her head.

"Don't bother, lovey, just go home. That one won't take anybody."

But she couldn't just go home. She had loved working with Iroh, Zuko and Aneko in the tea shop, but she was a healer at heart and she wasn't going to give up on her education.

Stifling her nerves, she reached up and knocked on the blue door.

Whoever she was expecting to see on the other side, he wasn't it.

Shan was a tall man, but made to look shorter by his limping left leg. When he reached up to still the door chime, she saw that two fingers were missing from his right hand. His weathered skin was dusky, a warm brown that along with his near auburn hair and long face marked him as Water Tribe. His eyes were blue, obviously, but they were darker than the usual startling hue Song had seen in a traveler that have once passed through her village. He frowned at her, blinking in the sunlight, and his gaze was ancient.

"Can I help you?"

"Um, Master Shan?"

"That's me."

"My name is Song; I'm an apprentice and I –"

Thunder filled his face. "No," he said, and she barely managed to slip through the door before he slammed it and turned away.

Inside, it looked a lot like any other hospital or clinic. There was a small waiting area with a few benches and beyond that the patient rooms, shielded from view by two painted screens. Both screens were black paper with bright arctic designs on them in blue and white paint – skua-hawks rising over a glacier on the left, narwhals dancing beneath the ice on the right.

Song watched as Shan disappeared between them and trotted to keep up.

"Sir…"

"Still here?" He paused and looked over his shoulder at her, dark eyes narrowing. "Don't you listen? I said, 'no'. I don't take apprentices."

"I know," she blurted, then flushed.

Shan frowned at her, deepening an already ingrained groove between his brows. She squirmed, but prepared to state her case.

"Sir…Master Shan, I admit you were not my first choice to finish my apprenticeship with –" He snorted. "– but, you're all I've got right now. It's a terrible reason to choose someone to help one finish her education…but, again, this is my education. My mother helped me get my first apprenticeship and I refuse…"

Tears threatened, wetted her eyes, but she fought them down…

"I refuse to fail her by simply giving up when there is something I can do, when I've found someone who can teach me." She shook her head. "We didn't give up when they took Dad and burnt the farm and I won't give up just because they burnt down my house again and killed –"

She cut herself off and looked fixedly down at her feet. There was an almost full minute of tense silence before she heard the master healer sigh.

"Look at me, girl," he said softly.

Song swallowed and forced herself to look up. That terribly ancient gaze drank in her face, and she could almost see some decision being reached behind his dark blue eyes. She wondered a little desperately what he was thinking.

"Where is your mother, Song?"

Her voice was very faint. "The raiders killed her, almost two months ago. Two friends saved me. I live with them now."

He nodded. "We are all refugees from something these days, it seems." He sighed again, weary. "Come with me."

Tearstained, but hopeful, Song followed him through the patient rooms to another blue door. Beyond it was a flight of stairs that lead to a lobby with a third blue door and another flight of stairs. She thought the door might lead to his apartment over the clinic. She continued to follow him up the second flight of stairs. These seemed to end at the ceiling, but Shan pulled a brass key from his sleeve and slide it into a small white-enameled keyhole, shaped like a lotus, and pushed. Two panels of the ceiling flipped outward on unseen hinges and hot sunlight fell onto their faces. Then a breeze tousled her hair, and she realized they were climbing out onto the roof.

Up here, the air felt clearer, cooler. The roof was mostly flat topped and at the centre of it was a small rotunda. She trotted after Shan, his limping stride still longer than hers, and gazed at what lay beneath the rotunda's eaves.

It was a pond, its sides built from stone and mortar like a well but oval shaped. There were white lotuses floating over its still waters, and below them she could make out two little koi fish, one black, one white. At the western end, closest to the roof entrance, was a bench curved to follow the shape of the pond. At the eastern end was a shrine, incense that smelt of lavender and sea salt burning in a censer, the smoking sticks framing a picture on waterproofed canvas.

The girl depicted was Water Tribe; the only points of colour in an otherwise monochrome canvas were her brilliant blue eyes, and despite those eyes and being several years younger than him, she bore a striking resemblance to Shan. Her name was written in bold characters down the side of the picture: Shaya.

"My sister," Shan said, taking a seat at the bench. Song carefully sat beside him. "She died in a white out when I was sixteen." He held up his right hand. "That was when I lost my fingers, and when the frostbite made a club of my foot. I left after that. Went south and ended up here."

He turned from the image of his dead sister, and looked at Song. "I understand loss, Song. But damaged doctors are no good to anyone. They only get distracted and spread the damage around." His eyes gentled. "You need to heal yourself, inside and out, before you can begin to heal others."

Song looked away, closing her eyes. After a moment, she nodded, got to her feet, bowed to him and began to walk away…

"Song?"

She looked back at him. He had not turned from the shrine.

"I open the clinic at the half-eight candle-mark in the morning. I'll expect to see you here at eight."

Song closed her eyes again, a smile filling her up like fine hot wine, and finally let the tears fall.

AN2: Who hearts the Shan? Go on, admit it, he's awesomesauce. Anyway, see you next chapter, or should I say, interlude; Run, Kitten, Run.