I would apologize for missing a day, except I'm not hubristic enough to expect dedicated fans on my first chapter, so it's quite likely nobody cares and I am absolved. At any rate, another chapter goes up tonight, just to keep neatly on schedule. I admit I'm a bit surprised there are still so many Avatar fics being posted, what with the fact that the show's over an all... or maybe that's why they're being posted so prolifically.

~Taidine

Chapter Two : Of History and Hairstyles

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, does not go away."

Katara. Aang. Sokka. Suki. Toph. Zuko. They were sitting in a dark room with high ceilings, the shadows cast by a flickering torch dancing across their faces. The room had the graceful, open architecture of the air nomads, but it still managed to be dank and close, as though underground. The six were studying a stone wall carved with strange, contorted designs – pictograms, or calligraphy in some language Zuko had never seen before.

"…the Amulet of the Four Elements," Aang was saying, as he traced one finger along the upraised carvings. "It's a powerful bending artifact, hidden in… the spirit world?"

"You don't sound too sure," said Zuko, disgruntled.

"I'm not," Aang admitted, letting his hand drop. "It's an ancient dialect – even for me. I can follow this map, but I can't be totally sure what we'll find at the end." He waved the torch he held in his off hand along the wall, revealing, beside the words, a map, carved in elegant detail.

"I'll make a copy," Katara volunteered, producing a roll of parchment and a stick of charcoal.

"I don't know if we have time to go chasing after something like this," said Aang anxiously.

Sokka held up a finger and straightened, adopting his lecturing mode. "It's true that we only have a few weeks before a big hunk of space rock shows up and makes a bunch of uber-powered firebenders for us to deal with," he said, putting down his finger and resuming a more typical expression. "Which is all the more reason for us to get help from whatever we can, so if the basement of the air temple – or is it the attic?" No one answered. "If the basement and or attic of the air temple has a mysterious map to a powerful bending artifact that gives Aang a fighting chance of taking out the Firelord, it sounds like a good idea to me."

Silence. A hermit crab scuttled across the floor. "That was a rousing speech," Sokka added. "You're all supposed to cheer or agree or something."

"Done," said Katara, rolling up her sheet of parchment into a neat scroll. "Well, I think the decision has to be Aang's."

"Umm… okay," said the Avatar cautiously. "But I do want to know what everyone else thinks."

"I say we do it!" announced Sokka.

"Yeah, we know," said Toph. "But I guess I don't see any reason not to. You can work on your training on the road as well as anywhere. And I'm getting a little bored around here anyway."

"Suki?" prompted Sokka.

"Oh! I don't think I get a vote-" At least three people in the room were giving her looks that suggested she hadn't thought that statement through before she said it. "Okay. I say we go after it."

"Agreed," said Katara.

"Then it's settled!" said Sokka.

"Wait," Zuko broke in. "I don't think we should."

"Why?" asked Aang. "You're the one who's in such a hurry to defeat the Firelord. Seems like you'd be the first to agree."

"I dunno," he admitted, staring off into darkness. "But I'm getting a bad feeling about this."

I woke up the next morning more or less convinced that I had dreamed the whole thing. It wouldn't be the first time. Besides, in dream logic it all made perfect sense – that I would meet Zuko in math class, that I would talk to him, that he would immediately trust me and follow me home like a lost puppy. Surely in reality Zuko would be more skeptical and suspicious of a girl who knew his name for no good reason in a world where everyone else thought he was some honors student called Zen.

Well, I guess it was a good thing I got up early to make tea, then.

I've been a tea drinker since long before Avatar, because frankly, coffee is disgusting. But no one else in my family is too enamored with it, so if I want tea, I generally have to make it myself. Which, since I have to be on the train to school pretty early anyway (school's in Manhattan, I live in Brooklyn, you do the math), means I'm up well before the rest of the household, even chipper cousin Emma, who likes staying up late and sleeping in until the very last minute. Today was no exception; I roused myself from bed at an ungodly hour, tucked my feet into a pair of slippers, and padded downstairs to put the kettle on.

He was lying on the couch in my living room, right where I had left him, looking uncharacteristically serene in sleep. Long hair hid most of his scarred eye, while his whole one was closed and uncreased, and if he wasn't quite smiling, at least his expression was relaxed. I watched him for a second, suddenly realized I was reaching out to smooth back his hair, jerked my hand back and held it firmly with the other. He didn't stir, to my vast relief.

Is this turning into a love letter to Zuko? I'll admit I'm a bit of a fangirl, as I've said before, but I'd like to justify myself now: it's not because of his clear golden eyes, the cut of his hair, or even the way his scar makes his face, which would have been blandly handsome to begin with, honestly beautiful (a thing need to be flawed to be beautiful, you know, perfection never is). It was his unmitigated, if sometimes misplaced, sense of honor; the hint of conflicted vulnerability; and perhaps most of all his reckless passion. I'm not a very passionate person myself, and being around Zuko is the emotional equivalent of standing in front of a bonfire to get warm.

Not, you know, that I'd spent any time actually around him up until now, but it came through in the show.

The whistle of the kettle roused him, groggy and disoriented; I killed the gas and leaned around the divider between kitchen and living room. "Do you want some tea?"

"Uh… sure," he said, looking around as if trying to decide where he was all over again.

I use tea bags. So sue me. I put two in a pair of cups, dumped hot water over the top, and grabbed the honey.

"I think I'm starting to remember why I'm here," he said as I handed him a cup. I took a seat across from the couch and began liberally pouring honey into my tea.

"That's good. Care to elucidate?"

He took a sip and grimaced slightly, but was kind enough not to comment. I offered him the honey. "Okay. We were looking for some kind of artifact, something that would have helped Aang." He said it easily, obviously expecting me to recognize the names. I did, of course, but that seemed an odd assumption to make. "We were heading out on a roadtrip to find it. After that… I'm not sure. But that must have something to do with…" he gestured impatiently around the room with the teacup, causing some to slosh over onto the couch. "…this. Oops. Sorry about that."

"Don't worry about it," I said, and hurried off to get some paper towels before the teastains could set on the couch cushions.

There wasn't much time for bonding anyway; someone in my family was bound to wake up pretty soon, and Zuko couldn't be there when they did. So I gave him hurried directions to the train station and told him to meet me there; he agreed, all too passively, but I guess when you don't know where to begin, some drifting is to be expected. My mom heard the door open and shouted something from her bedroom; I told her I was letting the cat out. We do have a cat, more or less, although she has been known to eat and sleep in every apartment on our floor. The codes in our building are fairly flexible.

I met up with Zuko at the train station; he hadn't had too much trouble getting there. "So, you going to hang at school today?" I asked, for the first time glad I didn't have any friends whom I normally took the train with. Today was Friday, by and by; we'd have to work out something else to do tomorrow.

"I guess," he said. "There's a chance that if I showed up there, someone else might have too. And… I don't have a better plan."

I nodded. Not complaining.

I was nervous about asking Zuko if he knew which classes to go to, but he had made it through yesterday, and he set off confidently as soon as he entered the school building. I had more important things to worry about – like being accosted by Kat on my way to my first class. "Hey, Liz. About yesterday."

"What about it?" I asked.

"You said you saw Zuko in your math class." Given her response to me yesterday, she seemed uncharacteristically concerned now.

"I did," I answered. "I caught him after school and wooed him and he slept over my house."

Kat actually stopped dead in the middle of the hallway; I pulled her to one side so she didn't get stepped on, and was forced to fake a laugh. "I was kidding," I lied.

"Look," said Kat, sounding far too serious. "If you know who Zuko is, I really do need to find him."

Okay… weird. For the first time, I took a really good look at my friend. She was wearing her hair in a pair of loopy things that attached to a half-bun in the back.

The bell rang. "I gotta go. Meet me after school," I directed, and ducked into the classroom.

When I got to math, Zuko was in Zen's chair. I slid into the seat behind him. "I think Katara's here," I muttered.

"Where?" He rounded on me fiercely. I looked pointedly around the classroom; several of them had turned to look. He eased back into his seat, which he had half-risen out of.

"She'll meet us after school," I said.

She did. I think I was getting the hang of it, because when Kat emerged, I made a small mental adjustment, expecting Katara; and lo, she was Katara. Same height, hair, and olive complexion as my friend, but her wide, pale eyes never belonged to Kat. But wait – this didn't make sense. Kat was someone I'd known for years, not like the boy Zuko had replaced. And despite the fact that I would have cast her as Katara if we were, say, cosplaying the show, she was indubitably a different person, or had been.

She was already in conversation with Zuko when I arrived. "Where are Aang and Sokka? And Toph?"

"How should I know?" Zuko asked impatiently. "I can't even remember how we got here."

"We were going after the Amulet," said Katara, haltingly. "We followed the map to a… portal of some kind… Suki was injured… your sister was following us…" She stared past us, as though straining under the recollection. "We must have gone through and wound up here. The rest of them must be around somewhere."

"Azula's here," said Zuko darkly. "She found me yesterday. I think she had a better idea of what's going on than any of us."

"Yesterday," said Katara, sounding just as worried. "I couldn't even remember who I was until this morning. This is bad, this is very bad. We need a plan."

I broke in for the first time. "Sounds like you need Sokka."

They looked at me. "Are you…" Katara began.

"Just Liz," I answered. "Sorry. But I know as much about this as anyone. And since you need a plan, and Sokka's the idea guy, we might want to focus on finding him."

"How do you know?" Katara asked.

"Come on, Kat," I said flatly. "You watch the show too."

It wasn't much of an explanation. We set ourselves up around the door of the school and waited to see if any more fictitious characters emerged.