Teo slept on the way back to the Fire Nation. Azula visited him, telling him that she was proud of him. That he'd stalled the Avatar long enough for Zuko to kill him. By the time they reached the palace, Teo felt clear headed again.

As he sat in his father's workshop, it seemed so much smaller than it had before.

"Teo? Is there something wrong?" his father's voice shook him out of his thoughts.

"Huh? Oh. Sorry. I was just thinking," he looked at the small powder scale in front of him and shook his head. He pushed away from the work table, the wheels of his chair rolled smoothly along the floor. That was a luxury he didn't think he would miss. "Where does your family come from?" There was a distinct line. Teo had never associated his family with anyone other than his Father.

The man known only as the Mechanist stopped tinkering with his latest project and sighed. He sat down on one of the benches to face his son. "I had a feeling that this day would come. Especially when I heard that Azula had gone to Omashu." The Mechanist sighed again, "My family comes from Omashu. I had seven older sisters. I don't remember my Mother too much though. She died when I was young."

"Oh," he didn't want to point out the similarities, so he reached for the first question that popped into his head. "Were... any of them benders?" Teo's voice was soft.

"No, my Father is an earthbender. But none of us children were. It was... quite a scandal at first. Until... until our Father, your Grandfather, encouraged us to use our own unique talents."

"Bumi? King Bumi is your Father?" Teo looked at his Father, placing the similar features. "But... why? What happened? How did you end up here?"

"After Sozin's war failed to die with Sozin, several of the higher raking leaders of the Earth Kingdom began striking deals with the Fire Nation," the Mechanist started. He moved to a high cabinet and pulled down a bottle of fire wine and, after some consideration, two glasses. "As you probably figured out, the Earth Kingdom isn't as organized as the Fire Nation. It exists as several small territories and fiefdoms, ruled by local governments that all tithe to the Earth King in Ba Sing Se," he sat on the workbench and poured them each a shot of the spiced wine. "When I was eighteen, my father, the King of Omashu, gave up hope that the Avatar would come and end the war. So he made a deal with Azulon."

"What was the deal?" Teo gripped his glass, cold dread settled in his stomach at his father's next words. The old man in the metal coffin coming to mind.

"Me. It was me, son. It was a very old tradition. Royalty would 'foster' another king's child. It was supposed to teach another point of view, but nobody cared about that. It was all about power. It was just a form of kidnapping. As long as I stayed here, in the Fire Nation, then Omashu would stay out of the war." The Mechanist looked down at his glass. "As part of the terms, I was to give up my name. Here, I was not the son of a king. I was just... nobody."

"What about my Mother?" Teo asked. It had always been a forbidden question. All Teo knew about her was that she died in the flood that crippled him.

"Azulon didn't know what to do with me once he had me. So he tried to make a soldier out of me. That... that didn't work. I had no head for it. No discipline. I would sneak off and hide in the forge. Eventually I was put to work there. Though when I managed to make the worst sword in the history of swords, I kept myself to tend the machinery. That, I was good at. I had those furnaces running more efficiently than ever."

"After the forge, I was sent to the Navy. Working with their engineers to get a faster ship. It was... fun. The engineers didn't mind me, and I didn't mind them and we all worked together. It took us... years. But on our first test voyage, we hit a storm up around the Northern edge of the Earth Kingdom. I'm not so sure what happened. I was swept overboard. And I ended up in a small village at the base of the mountains. I waited for weeks to be picked up. And nobody came."

"They just... left you there?" Teo asked.

"At the time, they thought I just drown. But I didn't know. So I waited around like a fool. Eventually, I had to find somewhere to live and feed myself. I ended up as a farm hand, plowing fields and cutting hay. And that's where I met your Mother, Ela," the Mechanist poured himself another glass, drinking it slowly.

"Ela was brilliant. Not like the other women in the village that were only concerned with looks and status. We first met when she caught me tinkering with an automatic plow. She would sneak out of her bedroom at night and we would spend hours working and talking. After a year or so of that, she told me that I'd better marry her," the Mechanist looked at his son. "When you were born, it was the happiest day of my life."

"So what happened then?"

"It seems that my tinkering got noticed by a Fire Nation spy. It wasn't that I was deliberately hiding from them. I just... wasn't about to travel the whole length of the Earth Kingdom in order to present myself back to Azulon. And it seems that my father had his own spies around. He didn't believe the rumors of my death. He thought that it was a ploy in order to break the deal."

"They both came after you?" Teo clutched his untouched glass.

"Yes. The Fire Nation soldiers got to me first, as I was heading back into town. I was questioned. But before I could be taken back to their ship, my Father attacked them," the Mechanist's eyes stared off into space. He was no longer in his workshop.

"My Father fought off seven men by himself and freed me. But during their battle... Father destroyed the dam. He didn't care about the town. He didn't care who he destroyed so long as he was right!" the Mechanist slammed his hand down hard on the table, needing a moment to calm himself before continuing.

"Once I realized that the flood was going to destroy the village, I ran. I couldn't get there fast enough. Our house had been destroyed. Ela... your Mother... you both were trapped under the fallen roof. But I couldn't.. I couldn't get to her in time," finally the Mechanist looked up at his son. "I thought you were dead too. Until I picked you up. I don't know how long we sat there in the ruins of our home. But... my Father was there. He realized what he'd done. So he gathered up all the survivors and told us to leave. Leave before the Fire Nation comes back. It was the least he could do."

Teo's mind reeled. It was even worse than he'd imagined. His own grandfather. The bargain, he could almost forgive. But to destroy a village... to kill so many innocents with pointless posturing. It made him sick. "How... how did we get here?"

"Azulon heard about the skirmish with King Bumi. It was... strange for the King of Omashu to cross an entire continent for just a raiding party. We were tracked to the Northern Air Temple. And I was taken into custody. I... I couldn't let them leave you behind."

Teo pushed his chair forward so he could wrap his arms around his Father, hugging him tightly. "I love you, Dad."

"I love you too, son."