Disclaimer: We own nothing except the original content... Caine what are you doing with a monkey? ... No you can't keep it... I said no... my penguin has nothing to do with this.


AN: We're continuing this line for now, mostly because I got ahead of my esteemed colleague due to bouts of insanity, sleep deprivation, and a general lack of common sense. That being said, take heart. More Tokka goodness is on the way. We swear. For now, enjoy some Maiko fluff, dreams of matricide, and a little bit of good old mayhem. Includes your daily requirement of angst too! Just what a growing mind needs!

-Caine

-

Co-AN: Knight here. Yeah, my newest Sokka chapter was encountering some troubles and going a little slow and since Richard had his next bit ready to go we decided to roll with it. The Sokka chapters continue in chapter eight... you have my word.

-Man in the Jade armor


-One last thing. I'm still a new user of the forums and i have no idea on how to make Moderators... can someone help me out?

Curtain Up!


Sokka; Master of the Black Sword

By: Richard Caine

Creative Consultant: The Jade Knight


-Tournament Saga-

Chapter 7

-

The Story of Mai

Chapter 2: Solaris et Lunarsa

-

I woke up moving from prone to bolt upright in a single motion. I glanced around quickly, trying to get my bearings. When I saw that I was in my own bed, I began to relax a little bit. Mother must have had the servants move me here after my little 'fainting spell'. God, what they must have thought when they found me wearing nearly nothing in the observatory on a cold night, I couldn't say. I was still dressed in the clothing from the previous night; or lack of clothing. I tried to clear my fuzzy feeling head with a slow shake, but that only made the world start to spin crazily. I cursed in a manner that Azula would have approved of and Ty Lee would have been scandalized by. The feedback was worse than I was hoping for.

Projection into the spirit world always took a toll on the user, no matter how good you were. If you were smart, it wasn't so bad. You just felt like you had cotton-balls in your brain for the next day or so. However, if you screwed up, you could end up bedridden for weeks. The only consolation I had was that my mother was having the same trouble; share the task, share the burden and all that. It was almost enough to make me feel better. That would teach the old hag to send me haring off into the depths.

It was all I could do to suppress the moan I felt coming on. Ugh.

With infinite care, I crawled out of bed and to my bathing chambers. I don't know how long I soaked, but it was at least an hour. After that I was starting to feel as close to human as I got. I had just gotten into my robes when I heard a single rap on my bedroom suite's door.

"Enter," I said.

A servant poked his head cautiously into the room. "Your Excellency has a visitor; the Crown Prince calls upon you."

I bit back another curse. Boys always seem to have crappy timing.

"Inform the Crown Prince that I will be along," I said, with a gesture at my unbound hair. "Leave us."

The servant disappeared behind the doors with a bang, and I hurriedly adjusted my hair, spending a precious extra few seconds in front of the mirror making sure it looked right. Hey, I might be a half alien monster that time forgot, but a girl has to look her best.

I came to the sitting room of my wing to find Zuko staring out at the palace grounds. He stood tall in his armor, with his hands crossed behind his back, surveying the great thoroughfare below. From that position he looked surprisingly regal. He turned his head slightly as he heard me come in, and he was back to being an awkward teenage boy.

"Hey," he said softly. There was a hitch in his voice as he said it, and his stance became looser and more informal.

"Hey to you too," I replied. I closed the distance between us until I was only a hand's breadth away. I looked up at him. "Good morning."

Zuko smiled at me. "Good morning. I was wondering…"

He stopped himself at that and shook his head. Whatever he was going to say died on his lips as his eyes unfocused. "My father welcomed me back; as a hero no less."

I cocked my head to the side. I decided to go with his random train of thought. "Isn't that what you wanted?"

Zuko looked pensive. "I don't know."

"Then why worry about it?" I asked. I genuinely didn't understand his obsession with whatever was bothering him. He looked back at me and for a moment I thought that he might actually tell me, but he just shrugged.

"For reasons you wouldn't really care about," he said. "If I told you, you'd just tell me to get over myself."

That was probably true, but the lack of trust stung a little. Of course, who was I to talk?

"Alright," I said after a moment of silence. It was strangely comfortable, just being silent in the same room with him. He was one of the only people I'd ever met outside my relatives who didn't mind the silences. The quiet wasn't empty around Zuko. It was tense, but in kind of a pleasant way. I gently lifted an eyebrow. "What were you talking about earlier? You wanted to ask me something?"

"Oh!" he exclaimed. Then he looked sheepish. "I was, uh, wondering if you were free to go out this afternoon. I know you're probably busy and all but I have this place I'd really like tmph…"

I hate it when he rambles. But it can be fun to shut him up.

I broke the kiss and rocked back on my heels with a satisfied feeling. "I'd love to go. Stop by around four?"

"Sure," Zuko said, sounding a little dumbstruck. I loved doing that to him. Besides, he really did talk too much.

I turned to walk away, and I put a little sway into my hips. I paused at the door and looked over my shoulder. "I'm looking forward to it."

Zuko nodded dumbly, and I graced him with one of my rare smiles. Even though it was agony every time I did it, for the first time in a very long time, I actually felt like smiling.

Of course, after the rest of my day I was not in a smiling mood at all. The good news was that last night's extremely startling revelations had put off the Matriarchy's inquisition for awhile. News of this nature needed to be sent on with all haste, and it wasn't something mother wanted to leave to chance. Therefore she was taking it herself; praise be to Agni.

"The Elders are going to convene the Council for the first time in fifty years," Mother said. I stood, lounging in her doorway, and watched as she carefully packed away a few items that neither of us particularly wanted the servants to see. It's hard to explain why the supposedly helpless mother of an infant was packing away a barbed steel gauntlet that looked like something out of a campfire horror story; and that was the most easily explainable of the items in question.

"Then I'm to take care of family business in the Capital while you're away?" I asked. She made a clicking sound in her throat; sort of the Gel-Hassad equivalent of a nod I suppose. Crap.

"Don't worry about Tom-Tom," she continued. "I've taken measures to ensure he will be taken care of. The Vrai family has offered to take him in for the duration."

"You want them to think I'm not responsible?" I asked, trying to sound bored instead of furious at the slight. I mean, the little runt was annoying, but he was my brother.

"No," she said and she turned her head to blink three times at me with her inner eyelid. It was the People's version of a smirk. "I want you to have as much free time with your old… acquaintance as possible."

It was all I could do not to smack myself in the head. Even my cursed mother was trying to set me up. Of course, from her perspective it made a great deal of sense. Having one of the People close to the throne would be a major coup. She'd probably gain Elder status for that. Until I did something to displace her, that is. I wasn't about to let her guide my love life anymore than she already had. Of course, I wasn't going to tell her that either. She was smart; she'd figure it out on her own eventually.

"As you wish," I said flatly. It probably wasn't healthy to entertain fantasies of matricide, but I was far from perfect.

"Good," she said, finishing the last wrappings on her 'special' bundle. "Now, I believe the steward has the list of holdings to review with you. I'm sure it will be educational. Perhaps you'll even enjoy it."

In point of fact, it made me want to murder even more than I had before. I had known we owned a lot of property near the Capital. What I hadn't known was that my eel-spawn of a mother hadn't touched anything for over a month. This meant I had an awful lot of things that needed my damn seal on them. I think that the paperwork was actually taller than me when I sat down at my desk. At an even six feet, I'm not exactly short either.

Our solicitor, Jai Li, was a clever fellow, and he managed to help me find everything that I needed to take care of immediately, but that was still a stack taller than my forearm. I also never signed anything without reading it carefully. That was the road to ruin, especially in land deals with up and coming nobles who thought they were smarter than everyone else. The stupid bastards never considered that the rest of us had gotten here long ago for a reason.

I had lunch at my desk and continued working steadily. I had one of the servants set up a target against the far wall, and every time I had to read a sub-clause that began with the words 'Excepting in the following circumstances' I threw a dart into it. By mid afternoon, the thing looked more like a porcupine than it did a round target.

"Agni damn it, Jai Li," I said with my teeth clenched, hurling a dart that went so deep in passed through the target and into the wall. "You can tell 'Lord' Sai Jo that I'm not going to budge on this. If he wants a 'vacation' home for the price he's offering, he can go look in the bloody Occupied Territories; because he sure as hell won't find one here. If he wastes any more of my time with these ludicrous lowball offers, I'm going to have a talk with him; in my preferred language."

The dart quivered in the target ominously.

Jai Li smiled. He never said it, but I think he preferred my 'style' of management. "As you wish, my lady."

A knock at the door interrupted the next idiot's proposal. My eyes were burning so much that I covered my dual blink with the palms of my hands. I didn't even bother to restrain my snarl.

"What?"

"Paperwork?" a rough voice commented. Zuko stood in the doorway with an expression that tried to be neutral, but looked suspiciously on the verge of becoming a full blown grin. Probably complete with maniacal cackling. He'd never actually do it, but I knew he was thinking it.

"Leave us," I said to my solicitor. Jai Li bowed with a smile and walked out, shutting the door behind him. I slumped back in my chair.

"Aargh!" I growled. "That's it. I'm going to kill them; all of them."

"Who?" Zuko asked, stepping lightly over to stand behind my shoulder.

"I'm going to start with the Fire Nation," I said. My voice was dangerously flat. "And then, I'm going to work my way out."

His arms wrapped around me from behind. "You're pretty when you're angry."

No matter how hard I tried, with his arms holding me like that, I just couldn't hold onto my bad mood any longer. I relaxed backward, leaning my head on his bicep and closing my eyes. Agni, I'm such a sap.

"Take me out of this place. Before I start to bleed ink."

Zuko seemed happy to oblige.

"I hate the orange of the sunset," I said. Something about it reminded me of my vision. Not in a good way, either.

"You're so beautiful when you hate the world," Zuko said mildly. We were sitting out above the Caldera, looking at the descending sun in the west. I looked up at him.

"Well, I know one thing I don't hate," I commented. "I don't hate you."

He grinned ever so slightly. "I don't hate you too."

You know, I don't think I'll ever get tired of the kissing. As I mentioned before, for a trained killer, I'm kind of a closet romantic; and I think I've gotten worse at hiding it over the years. Or maybe it was just Zuko.

"So there you are brother. I needed to talk with you; alone."

Azula. Great.

Zuko turned to look at her with a look of disinterest that surprised me. "I'm busy."

He quite deliberately ignored her and turned back to give me his full attention. Wonder of wonders, Zuko was growing a spine. I think I liked it on him.

"Mai," Azula said, in that saccharine tone that means you're seconds away from a world class ass kicking. "Ty Lee needs help untangling her braid."

I went through all of the forty different responses that came to mind, decided that not a single one of them wouldn't result in a beat down, and nodded. I squeezed Zuko's hand, and got up to leave. I managed to restrain my irritation until I was past her line of sight; but I knew that she knew anyway. We'd been friends so long I didn't have a hope of hiding that from her.

The walk home was long enough that my anger at being interrupted had faded to a sort of coal-like heat at the core of my stomach. She was probably just doing it to tweak us; she loved those little games. I guess they were just there to show us that she was in charge. I had put up with them when I was younger. I didn't know better at that time, and I certainly didn't have many friends. She was the first person to ever value me for my own virtues instead of my family connections. Azula would always be my first friend. I didn't know if she was my best friend though. I wasn't sure she even had friends anymore and for some reason that thought made me sad. Still, it would do no good to get angry at her. She probably wouldn't have me decapitated in the dead of night, but I wasn't exactly ruling it out.

The servants seemed suitably mortified that I had covered the distance by myself on foot from the edge of the caldera. They probably didn't realize I'd been stuck further from home for longer. This time there weren't hostile soldiers that reduced speed to a crawl in order not to alert them of my presence. This time I could actually run. In my human form I can run as fast as any soldier in the army; and due to the difficulty of having most of my training in a more limited state, I was pretty sure my true form was a heck of a lot faster than that.

I wasn't even winded when I reached the gates. One of the servants held the door open for me and I gave them as dignified a nod as I could muster with my hair slightly wind-blown.

"Young mistress," he said. "Representatives of the Vrai family have arrived. They said they were to pick up the young master. I informed them to wait until you returned… they seemed off somehow."

"Off?" I asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Yes mistress," the doorman said. "There were several of them, and they seemed rather well armed for moving a child around in the city. The guards have them under watch right now."

"You spotted them?" I asked. The doorman bobbed his head in acknowledgment. I nodded, satisfied. "That was well spotted. Talk to the master of the household. You are due a raise. However, you will do me this one task. Tell the guards to take my brother to my quarters and seal the door. He should be safe there."

Finally, some heads to break.

They were an oddly mismatched set. I counted five guards with swords around a single table. They stood with a wary alertness that spoke of real combat experience. They were probably veterans who were too old for the strain of continuous active duty but still wanted to use their skills for something. They were the most dangerous kind of soldier. Most of these men had probably been in combat situations for thirty years or more.

By contrast the other three who were talking amongst themselves in the center of the room were dressed in foppish finery. With ring bedecked hands and well maintained beards, they didn't really look like much. That was likely why they were also the deadlier of the two groups. They didn't wear their clothes quite comfortably enough to really be natural in them. It was a seeming, and they weren't the best actors I'd ever seen.

I stood for another moment in the shadowed alcove with my eyes closed clearing my mind and settling my thoughts. Slowly, the noise from the day's annoyances faded, and even my anger at Azula vanished after a time. When I snapped my eyes open again, there was only information before the senses.

"Gentlemen," I called, walking into the room. My mind was already calculating the necessary spread to catch the five guards as the turned in surprise. I adjusted the darts in my hand as they spread out, mimicking their movements with my fingers. They were still clumped together; easy meat. Primary dispersal was calculated in a few seconds. Either they hadn't heard of me, or they were stupidly overconfident; and either way, advantage to me.

"Mistress," said one of the fops with an exaggerated bow. He swept forward, and performed a deep swish with his right arm in front of his body. My eyes caught the motion of his hand. In the Void state I saw the tiny tattooed markings on his arm as if he had waved them in front of me.

"Is it the Vrai family's habit to send an Order of the Hawk hunter team to pick up a child? Or do you have another reason for being here?"

Either they didn't know a damn thing about me, which I was considering more likely ever second, or they were better actors than I'd given them credit for previously. The guards looked nervous, but the transformation of Team Fop was extreme. From one moment they went from bored noble retainers to blank eyed killers. Nice trick, really.

"You are well informed for a shut in," one of the well dressed men said.

I nodded, not bothering to speak. My secondary calculations were running in my head, and I didn't have the brainpower to spare.

The three moved to flank me quickly and professionally. Since I was standing in the middle of an open ballroom it wasn't really that hard. Two to either side in the front, and one circled behind.

"Well miss, since you've spotted us, I believe the gig is up," said the speaker. He nodded to the one behind me. "Now, you can give us the child, come with us yourself, or die."

"Did you wonder?" I asked quietly. Secondary acquisition; a six degree adjustment vertical, five degree, six minute adjustment horizontal was required.

"Wonder what?" asked the speaker with an indulgent smile. Secondary acquisition completed; dispersal pattern calculated. Suckers.

"Why there aren't any guards?" I asked mildly. The look of realization on the Speaker's face was worth the wait. I didn't intend to give him a chance to realize the full weight of his mistake.

Before he could shout I went active. Both my hands moved instantly. The second fop to the front was blocking my primary dispersal, so I released the secondary with a swing of my right arm. I released a pattern of six lancet darts on the Speaker. As predicted he dodged the first four, but in doing so put himself in the path of the final two. The neurotoxin on the back of those needles would kill a komodo-rhino in twelve seconds. It would take him until his body hit the ground to completely die. Good thing it didn't work on Gel-Hassad physiology.

With secondary dispersal achieved, I placed my right hand on the ground and pushed up as hard as I could. I wasn't Ty Lee, but I did manage to do a one-handed cartwheel. The Void state slowed my perception as the Primary calculation lined up again. All five of the swordsmen were still clumped together. The shot being upside down made the math a little dodgier, but I released the spread anyway. Seven small knives bracketed the target group. Five hits, five probable kills.

Combat time was eight point four seconds and counting.

The other two reacted predictably. Their bending was both instinctive and professional. Four lances of fire struck out at me. I could judge the angle of their arms. Input processed, I twisted my hip three degrees left and bent backwards until my hands touched the ground behind me. All four blasts passed within inches of my body; one of them underneath the arch of my back. Any one of them would have been near fatal, if they'd made contact. It was too bad I could see it coming before they'd even fired. As the third blast passed underneath me, I let myself fall backwards, tucking into a roll.

The two remaining benders would have three more shots at me, in total, before I could stabilize enough for another attack. The calculation stated this was an acceptable margin; adjustment was not difficult. I sprang up from the roll and went from standing to a full split.

As anticipated, all three blows went over my head, one close enough to singe my hair slightly. It transferred down my nerves in a very painful way. I raised my right arm and released another three dart rounds at the one who'd been behind me. Apparently he was the more talented of the two. He incinerated two of the darts with a blazing kick, but the third buried itself in his calf. He lived another six seconds of excruciating pain.

I released four knives from my left hand at the remaining flunky. They weren't poisoned; and this one was younger. He only got out of the way of one. The other three hit home. One went through his left bicep, the other through his right forearm. The final knife buried itself in his chest, two and a half inches below the heart. As predicted.

Time came rushing back to me as he fell over with a disbelieving screech. Combat time elapsed was a total of thirty two seconds. Just as I left the combat state I deemed this satisfactory. I pulled myself painfully out of the split and I smelt the strange odor of my own burnt hair. The nerves were still raw from the strike; having hair that can be used as a sense organ has a downside sometimes.

The would-be assassin moved away from me, trailing blood on the floor. I looked down at him and exhaled slowly. My muscles were going to kill me for that in an hour; but it had been worth it.

"Stop squirming," I said in my most natural tone of voice. I've found that my usual flat tones did more to disturb people than any display of rage or anger. He either didn't hear me, or was still deep in denial. He continued to writhe towards the door. With a tired sigh I straddled his back and drew out my up close and personal knife. It was about a foot of curved blackened steel, weighted towards the tip. I placed the inside edge underneath his neck and pulled up slowly.

"Who sent you?"

There was the usual blubbering and excuses. I tightened my grip.

"Now," I said. I was loosing patience with the fool.

"I didn't know his name," the assassin began hastily. "But…"

"What did he look like?"

"He was well dressed and… I don't know why, but he was playing a game of Pai-sho when we arrived at the Iron Dragon. The other man was a guard of some kind; quiet killer guy. While we were talking he kept fiddling with one of the tiles. The white lotus tile, I think."

"More description please," I said, this time my blade drawing some blood. "Any features you can remember."

He went on to describe a man in his late forties, well dressed and in good shape. He was probably a noble from the upper quarters or a master merchant from the docks. He claimed that they'd been sent to either apprehend Tom-Tom or bring my corpse back to the merchant. The principal had mentioned something about wanting us for 'study'. The thought of my baby brother on a dissection table made my blood run cold.

"…And that's it," he cried.

I buried my blade beneath his scapula, and the man cried out in agony. Reaching down I pulled up and shed the disguise on my forearms and back, releasing extra muscle power. I imagine his eyes went wide when he saw my bony hands wrap around his head with a vise grip.

"Thanks," I said. "You've been a real help."

"Demon," he choked out. I leaned down, twisting his head painfully so he could see what I truly looked like. The look of utter terror in his eyes as he met mine gave me a surge of furious anger. I hissed at him through my needle teeth, and my sense tendrils flared up tike the fur on a cat that had been threatened. I imagine I looked like I had a halo of serpents.

"Close enough."

I snapped his neck like a twig.

I stood up quickly to avoid the horrible mess that happens when a person dies. It isn't glorious like they say in the ballads. It's crude, ugly, and above all, messy. I carefully pulled my knives and darts out of the bodies and wiped them clean on my robes. I locked the darts back into my wrist launcher and put the knives into my forearm sleeve. As I went, I used my chopping knife to sever the spines of each of them in turn. Not all of them were fully dead yet and I don't take chances.

I felt numb inside. I'd killed before. The Order of Kiyoshi could tell you that in detail. They were damn good for humans, but in the end that's all they were. Azula and I were not, really, and Ty Lee was only barely. She pushed the human limits of ability so far that she was almost something else entirely. However, never had I raised a blade in anger inside my own home. It felt like a violation of some kind. Like something sacred had been taken from me.

Oh well. I suppose growing up in the Fire Nation means assassination attempts in your own home. I might as well get used to it now. When I finished, I called for a pair of guards who were specifically on my personal payroll.

"Dispose of these bodies," I said quietly. "Make sure that none of them are seen; they won't be missed."

Once the two fire benders had reduced the offenders to ash, they carefully swept up the remains. Other than the awful smells and the stains of blood and offal, there wasn't really a sign a fight had even taken place. The two men I'd assigned would take care of that last detail. I went through the main atrium and over to my wing of the building. I opened the door carefully, and found a line of household guards ready to strike. They relaxed only slightly when they saw me. Good to know our men were professional.

"It's been taken care of," I said quietly. "You can move my brother. Keep him in my parent's wing under full guard at all times. After this, it's too dangerous to send him anywhere."

"What of you, mistress?"

I arched an eyebrow at the guard. "I will be fine. I have seals within my chambers that are quite hard to break, and as you know, I'm far from helpless."

The guards and I shared that private joke quite often. They had good humor about my superior abilities. In fact, one had even been bold enough to make a comment (he thought he was outside my hearing) that the next time something happened, he should hide behind me. I had almost laughed at that. It was one thing to think it, but another to say it out loud.

The guard in question said nothing, but gave me a smile and a respectful bow. "As you say, mistress; we will move your brother now."

I looked down at my stained clothes and the singed tips of my hair. Another expensive outfit ruined. Oh well, I figured. I went back to my room and sorted myself out. I honestly wasn't expecting anything further that night. No one knew exactly what I had done to those assassins save for my two flunkies; but everyone suspected the truth of the matter. I didn't really mind, in point of fact I encouraged the rumors in a small way. Nothing scares off the kind of superstitious bastards that became hit men more than the mystery of an entire strike team of assassins just disappearing one night with my name associated. After all, from their perspective, if you're dead, you don't get paid.

Not only were the servants nervous about my presence, they also all knew that when I shut myself up in my room I was to be completely left alone. Only my mother was usually allowed to call on me, and she was usually smart enough that she chose not to. Therefore I wasn't expecting a knock on my door at midnight. I got up from the chair I'd been snoozing in and walked towards the door. I listened for a moment, straining my senses. Only one person was breathing on the other side of the door.

"This had better be good," I muttered, unsealing the door and opening it cautiously. I had almost expected someone from the authorities, or some other urgent business regarding my brother's safety, so I was in a less hellish mood than usual. I hadn't expected Zuko to be standing there, balancing a tray of food and tea with suspicious proficiency and looking wonderfully awkward.

"Uh, do you mind if I come in?" he asked. I think I was too surprised to actually make a normal facial expression. I nodded dumbly and stepped aside. He swept into my room and with a deft maneuver, placed the tray on a side table and shuffled his feet a little. "I wanted to apologize for this afternoon. Azula was…"

"Azula," I finished with a nod. "I understood but this…"

"Oh," he said. He smirked a little. "Well, I had some business in the city, and when I was done I thought that I ought to see if you were still awake. A little bird told me that you didn't have any dinner so I thought, hey, why not?"

I blinked, taking in the sight of the food on the tray. That and the tea smelled divine. "Thanks."

"No problem," he said. I know he had no idea what had just happened here, but for a moment the absurd normalness of the situation made me feel unusually calm. I walked over to him and hugged him close. I didn't want him to see the tears that were forming in my eyes.

He didn't say anything, he just held me for awhile. After I got my composure back, I released the hug. My voice felt husky and raw. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he said. He seemed to be picking up on my distressed mood, even though I hadn't mentioned it, and probably hadn't even given away my feelings with an expression. I figured he thought he was making up to me for the interrupted picnic. However, at that moment, all that I felt was that even though someone had tried to kill me less than five hours ago, there was still someone who cared; and that meant more to me in that moment that anything else could.

I watched as he poured me a cup of tea and placed a few different cakes on a plate he handed to me. I accepted it and sank back into my chair. It was at that point that I noticed Zuko's eyes moving towards rather indecent parts of me and then snapping back towards the food. I blinked when I realized that I wasn't wearing anything more than a very flimsy silk night robe. I looked down at myself ruefully.

"Sorry I didn't put anything more on," I said as I walked over to my closet and pulled out a much less revealing dressing gown.

"Uh, I don't mind," he began. He stopped as soon as he realized how that sounded. "That is…"

Most men eyeing me the way he had been would have disgusted me. From him it was cute more than it was anything else. He was trying so hard to preserve some kind of dignity.

"I don't mind," I said quietly. He blinked and looked over at me. Decent aim this time; he was actually looking at my face.

"What do you mean?" he asked in that choked voice that teenage boys have when they run into something awkward.

"I don't mind you looking at me," I said. I walked over to him, more dressed now, and ran my hand along his jaw line. Of course, it never hurt to get the point across. I curved my hands so that my very sharp nails could dig into the soft skin under his jaw. "Of course, if you look at another girl that way, I might have to get… creative.'

Zuko gulped, and seemed to scramble around for a recovery. "Long day in the office, huh?"

I thought back on what had happened today.

"Yeah," I said with a nod. "How about you? What kind of business did you have to conduct at midnight?"

He said nothing for a moment, and I felt an invisible wall slam between us. "I had some negotiations that couldn't wait until morning."

"Okay," I said, knowing fully damn well that the Crown Prince just back from exile probably had no damn business at all. Ozai wouldn't let him near anything; not without proving himself further. I wondered what he was playing at. However, even showing up was a measure of trust that he probably couldn't have afforded with anyone else. I let the matter drop. It wouldn't do any good to nose around in his business. Besides, he might start doing the same to me, and I couldn't afford to have that happen for a lot of reasons. I couldn't help but wonder why he would have even told me anything. Even the fact that he had come here… it was strange to me.

Dinner was pleasingly quiet, but there was still something nagging at my senses. I had operated in such a heightened state just a relatively short while ago that my perception was still magnified in the strangest of ways. I felt the agony of my injuries multiplied by my awareness. The bitter tang of the tea was enhanced, and the pleasant wind from the windows felt like a hurricane on my skin. I watched Zuko from the strangely surreal state that had settled on me. It appeared something in the window had caught his attention. He placed his cup down with an exaggerated care and turned to look up at Luna. He stood up, and moved to the window as if in a dream.

It was then that I chose to use the Void Sight upon him. Some say that the Sight is a gift given from the Gods of the Old Ones. Others say it is merely an induced state of Void clarity; a perfected moment of probabilistic calculation. I honestly don't know, and probably never will. What I know is that it can at moments give an unrivaled insight into what you're looking at. The only downside of using such a technique is that it is impossible to forget what it was that you saw. There is a level of self-honesty that the technique required that means forgetting or denying is impossible. It's why hardly any of us use it unless we have to. I honestly didn't know why I did it. Maybe I was trying to bridge that gap of understanding between us, to resynchronize us at some level. To the day I died, I suspect I'd never fully know.

Whatever the case, in the moment when he turned back to look at me I saw something change in his stance as the moonlight played over him. Under her shining halo I saw something in his face; an incredible sadness, and the core of compassion he tried so desperately to hide with his rough exterior and his furious anger.

I don't think he even noticed the way my eyes widened, but in that brief moment I saw something in his soul. An inner fire flared so bright in that moment it was almost blinding. It was all I could do not to leap backwards panic as a troubled teenage boy was transformed into a Seraphim of Agni. A thousand blazing eyes saw deep into my essence and its flaming wings pierced the vault of the heavens.

The room faded from my sight until I was only a broke demoness kneeling upon the bodies of those I had slain looked up into the terrible gaze of the flaming angel.

"Behold," its voice echoed in the nothing. "The Last of the Four is called to serve. He shall be named 'The Flame Which Renews as it Destroys' the will of Agni and Solaris, my chosen son. He who would restore the world walks beneath my gaze, and woe be unto any whom bar his path for they face My Wrath."

The judgment of a foreign Divinity scrutinized me, and I'd never felt more naked than under its blazing gaze. Then the angel was gone, and I was staring blankly at Zuko. It must have been for only a second, because even when I tore my eyes away in an instant, he didn't react.

A sick emptiness begin to spread through my stomach as I felt the weight of the Angel's pronouncement settle upon my shoulders; because I realized in that moment that Zuko was a truly good man. Good in a way that I could never be, pure in a way that I had denied myself the luxury of being, despite his scars and bloodstained hands. Perhaps it was even because of them. I had seen the real Zuko in the inferno of the manifestation of Agni's will, a flashing instant of the years and experiences that separated us more than distances of his long exile ever could, and that terrified me in a way that I had no name for. My near-mindless dread could only focus on the greatest thing the burning gaze had transferred to me; he still felt the guilt- a weight that would and had crushed lesser men. I closed my Void sight before my mind was blinded forever.

After he left that night, I cried myself to sleep for the first time in years because I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Zuko was a real prince; the kind out of fairy tales. I had never believed before, never understood. My entire life had been filled with charades and secrets. It was what I expected of life; but when I really saw him, saw that man I'd been trying so hard to see, all my pessimistic illusions were shattered. I'd found out that fairy tales really did exist. But that knowledge was bittersweet in my heart, because I also knew that a prince, a real prince, could never love a monster.


Richard Caine - The Jade Knight

Please Read & Review

Check out the forum