Three Families Chapter 6: The Freedom Fighters, an avatar: last airbender fanfic

This is the longest single chapter I have ever wrote. Oh, and one more thing:

Jai.

"I won't forget this, Bumi," Aang said gratefully as he hugged the stooped-yet-musclebound super-centenarian. Aang had just about given up hope that he would find any link to his old life, and yet here one was, larger than life, and most importantly, still alive. Sure, he'd had to jump through some ridiculous hoops in order to figure that out, but that was just the way Bumi always operated. And they did enjoy riding the mail system again.

Although, if looks could kill, that one cabbage merchant would have committed regicide.

"It was nice meeting you... until you tried to kill us," Sokka said offhandedly, fidgeting with his clothing.

"Sokka, stop picking at it. People will think you've got a pox or something," Katara pointed out.

"This is why I always hated having to get new clothes. They're never broken in!" Sokka whined. Although, he didn't he didn't have much of a choice in the matter, since pretty much all of his clothing managed to get left behind on Kyoshi island, and there was no going back for it. Aang and Katara had likewise lost much; Katara only had the clothes on her back. Everything else needed to be replaced. It made it more than fortunate that Aang's old friend Bumi managed to spend the last hundred years becoming King.

And the story of how that happened strained the very bounds of narrative sanity. When Aang tried to sort out some of the more unlikely bits of the story with Bumi's 'advisors', they just shrugged and pointed out that yeah, it was kinda impossible, and yet happened anyway. So seeing Sokka muttering to himself in those green and brown clothes was actually something of a return to sanity. A bright grin came back to the young Avatar's face, because for a few days, he managed to put that title, which he had neither asked for nor expected to hold, aside, and be the person he felt he was supposed to be. Fun, lazy, and the best kinds of stupid.

"When I learn waterbending, I'll probably be coming back. I can't think of a better earthbending teacher than you," Aang said. But at this, Bumi shook his head lightly.

"I can think of twenty," he said gently. "Besides, I have a city to run, and you will probably need to keep moving so the Fire Nation doesn't land on you like a mail-cart on a cabbage stand," his smile was warm and genuine, and hopeful, though. "You just have to trust that you'll find the right teacher when the time comes. Somebody who has mastered the neutral jin."

"The what?"

"You'll figure it out when the time is right," Bumi said, patting Aang on the shoulder. "One more thing. If you see a crazy middle-aged guy living in a shack on the mountain, tell him 'lotus to Intercept 3'. He'll know what it means. Now get going. Your friends won't wait forever."

Appa let out a bellow as the two Tribesmen clambered into its howdah, and Aang lightly bounded up to its brow. He waved down at his – in both senses of the term – oldest remaining friend, and uttered the words which caused Appa to rise into the air. As Appa lazily paddled toward the north, he whispered a 'steady on' command into the big ear of the beast, then bounced up into the saddle himself.

"So, now that we've managed to escape the worst insanity that we're going to suffer on this trip, where are we going now?" Sokka asked.

"Yes, what about the North Pole? It's still really far away," Katara pressed.

"Well, as long as we're heading north, I figure we'll get there eventually, and having all this food and money can't hurt," Sokka pointed out.

"He's right. We're on the right course. We should just enjoy the ride until we get there."

"Says you," Katara muttered. "You can airbend whenever you want. But I'm pretty much hopeless unless I'm surrounded by an ocean."

Aang gave Sokka a glance. "If you want, we can stop at a lake or something, to get your bend on?" her older brother offered with a nudge and a grin.

"Sokka, not now," she said.

"What's wrong, Katara?"

She sighed. "I just feel... useless. I mean, even Sokka managed to be pretty useful in Omashu. But me? I was just..."

"Damsel-in-distress-y?" Sokka offered. She glared at him. "What? You wanted a word!"

"Well, have you thought about teaching me?" Aang asked. "I mean, I can't waterbend at all, and I need to learn in order to..." he paused. "What exactly is the Avatar supposed to do again?"

The two siblings shared a glance, then both shrugged in unison. "Something about bringing peace and keeping balance, or something," Sokka said.

"That's... kinda vague," Aang pointed out.

"Well, we're with you, when whatever happens, happens," Sokka said.

"But teaching you waterbending? I don't really know anything."

"Maybe you know more than you think you do?" Aang pressed. He grinned. "Come on, what's the worst that could happen?"

"I get soaked, dragged under and drowned."

Both turned to Sokka.

"What?"

"You need to lighten up," Katara pointed out.

"I just know how my luck tends to run when you play with the magic water," Sokka said. He leaned back, trying to find a comfortable position. "So how far do you think we'll make before we land?"

"Well, we'll probably cross Misty Swamp easily enough. But there's still lots of forests on the other side. We're probably roughing it for a few days," Aang said, scratching his bald head as he tried to call to mind anything more distinct. It had been a while, not just the century that passed in the blink of an eye, but also in his own youth, since he'd taken this precise path from South Air Temple to North. "I'm pretty sure that nothing can go wrong at this point."

At that, Sokka groaned all the louder.

He squatted in the boughs of the drooping, wavering willow tree. There wasn't as much footing as he was used to; but then again, he was also used to running around quite a bit north of here. Down here, everything was warm, everything was wet, and everything smelled funny. But he'd been through worse. He'd been through it longer than most would have believed. For all he was only sixteen years old, Jet had seen a lifetime of war.

A dark figure was perched beside him. Narrow, pale fingers passed over the spy-glass, which had been carefully stolen months ago, and kept meticulously safe ever since. There was practically no chance whatsoever that he could replace it. He accepted the lens with a grunt of appreciation, and brought it to his eye. "Yup, just like Longshot said. We've got Fire Nation in Hanyi."

His counterpart let out a weary sigh, but otherwise didn't weigh in.

"Yeah, I know, it's like they're everywhere these days," he agreed. He brought the lens up again, and began scanning the port. The entire town was built atop piles which had been driven into the bog, such that the streets were truly canals, and the whole thing seemed to perch like some really ugly and misproportioned birds, or drunken and leaning stilt-walkers.

"Well, we're going to have to do something about this, now aren't we?" he asked. His companion just cast a glance his way, a questioning look with those bright grey eyes. Not exactly the most talkative person, this one, but the most faithful and enduring companion that he had ever found. Hell, the two of them were the reason the Freedom Fighters even got started.

"Do you see 'em?" the voice came from below. It was so raspy and ragged that one could be forgiven for mistaking it for a boy with a throat infection. Rather, it was just the way that Smellerbee talked all the time.

"Yeah, we see 'em, Bee," he said, swinging down from the branch. His counterpart, all dressed in dark-patch work robes, remained above, almost becoming invisible as soon as he stopped actively trying to track. Bee, though, was fairly easy to spot. She wasn't very tall, but her hair made up the difference, sticking out in all directions all of its own accord. She was oddly proportioned, but quicker than anybody he'd ever known. "We've got our work cut out for us. There's an entire army out there. And some of 'em are coming this way."

"We've faced armies before," Smellerbee said confidently. The teenage boy with them, though, only gave Jet a look. That look said 'yeah, and when we did, we wisely ran the hell away from them'. Longshot's looks could contain entire conversations.

"It's not going to be like last time," he promised. "This time, we're going to run the Fire Nation out of this part of the Earth Kingdoms for good."

"Strong words, Jet," The booming voice of Pipsqueak sounded from nearby.

"What can I say? I've got a way with them," Jet said with a smirk, biting on a sprig of wheat that he held 'twixt his teeth. "This isn't going to be easy. But that's why it's going to be so much fun."

"I hope you're right about this, Jet," Smellerbee said, a tension in her voice.

Jet turned up to the tree. "Well, you haven't weighed in, Shadow. What do you think?"

Shadow's whole answer was to jump down from the tree, glance in his direction, and then give an ambivalent shrug. Of course Shadow would do that. Shadow cared about very little, besides the cause. Jet doubted that any believed it stronger. When Shadow walked back toward the encampment, Jet addressed the others.

"Alright, we all know what we've got to do. Take everything that ain't nailed down, and pry up the nails for the rest," he ordered. He might not have been the best warrior for the freedom of the East, but with the gods as his witnesses, he would see the Fire Nation gone.

Maybe then the dreams of fire would stop.

Chapter 6

The Freedom Fighters

"How is she?" Uncle asked gently as Zuko closed the bulkhead. Zuko could only shake his head, weariness practically the sole inhabitant of his affect. "That bad, huh?"

"She still can't even speak," Zuko said, leaning against that door. "She can barely walk, her hands won't stop shaking. It's like her first episode, all over again."

"We both know that was far worse. She couldn't speak for a month."

"It's already been a week," Zuko said. His eyes dropped to the deck. "What if this is it? What if she never recovers from this one?"

"Prince Zuko, I have known you to be many things," Iroh said. "But never one to surrender. You remember the message on the blade?"

Zuko idly tapped at his belt, to the gift that Uncle had sent him, so many years ago. It was a bitter gift, because by the time it arrived, Azula had already slipped into her illness. In a way, there was a good side; if Azula had been cogent, she likely would have burnt the doll Iroh sent her. "I will never forget."

"Good," Iroh said. "Take heart. She is a strong girl. Stronger than we give her credit. She will recover."

Zuko sighed, walking toward the stairs. "I just wish she'd be alright. Not just recovered, but healthy."

"This is something which you are going to have to face one day at a time," Iroh advised. "Just be the brother she needs. In that, you have no equal on this entire planet."

"Thank you, Uncle," Zuko said, as Iroh turned off toward the mess. While the older man was still wearing his mourning whites, he was ever-so-slowly returning to the habits he'd held before Auntie passed away. Chief among them? Walking the path his stomach set for him. Zuko had a small smirk on his face as he ascended up to the helm. When the door squealed open, Jee turned back briskly, leveling a long look on Zuko, before giving a peremptory salute, before returning to his charts.

"I didn't expect to see you up here," Jee said. Usually, Zuko would have been incensed that Jee neglected any even minor nod toward Zuko's nobility, but at the moment, he was just too drained to care. And too worried about his sister to bother.

"I could say the same of you. Why aren't we moving?" he asked.

"The straits are polluted with Zhao's ships," Jee said with a muttered curse. He turned to Zuko. "It was your orders to keep well clear of him."

"I'm aware of my orders," Zuko said snappishly. He'd momentarily forgotten them, true, but he knew why he'd ordered it. Zhao wasn't just hunting the Avatar, with far more resources than Zuko had at his disposal. He was also dead-set on 'collecting' Azula. That was something that would only happen over Zuko's cold corpse. "Has there been any sign of the Avatar?"

Jee sighed. "We wouldn't have the first clue of where to start looking. Occasional bison sightings, but they're all feral. I'm sorry, Prince, but we have nothing."

Zuko turned with a growl, an arc of fire flashing from his hand across the metal deck. He took a moment to collect himself, then turned to Jee once more. "Keep looking for a way out of this bay, nice and quiet. We can't hunt the Avatar if we're trapped in a hole."

"As soon as I've got a path, you'll be the first to know it," Jee said distractedly, as he began to flip between maps, before shaking his head with a frustrated grumble and kneading his brow. Zuko stepped out onto the balcony which circled the tower wherein lied the cabins. It was still cold here, but far warmer than he'd been for the last few months. Agni's blood, what he wouldn't give to be home again, standing on black sands, looking out on the harshly beautiful volcanic terrain. He ran his fingers over the mounted telescope, thinking of the friends he'd once had. They were actually embarrassingly few in number. Even Azula managed to outdo him in that. He wondered whatever became of bubbly Ty Lee, of somber Mai. He kinda had a thing for her, way back in the day. But too many years had passed. He likely wouldn't even recognize her anymore... assuming she wasn't dead with all the rest of her family.

Out of the corner of his eye, far to the south, he could see something descending. It was white as the clouds, but clouds didn't move as that thing did. Another bison? He sighed, wheeling the scope around and putting his eye to it. Big, white, fuzzy, like every other one of those great beasts that wandered the hard-to-reach places of the world. But there was also a flash of other color. Yellow, orange, green, and blue. Zuko's eye widened, and his head snapped up. He watched that tiny white blip sink into the canopy of trees.

Zuko turned back toward the cabins. Had Azula predicted this, too? Was that why she came here, to set some sort of trap? If it was, then it was a damned shame she sunk to the level she was at so critical a time. And it therefore fell to Zuko to salvage what he could from it. He looked out there, at the trees, and he took a moment to think. So many ways he could approach this. But which was the best?

It wasn't the most scenic of spots that Sokka had picked to land. Listening to his 'instincts' seldom ended well for anybody. It as a boggy bit of land, drooping trees rising up out of the marshland, and stagnant water lying between them in broad, shallow, still pools. If there was one thing going for it, though, it was that it didn't lack for privacy. The only way that anybody could see them would be if they were flying overhead, and nobody but Aang had managed to tame an air bison in the last hundred years or so. If one had, she probably would have heard about it. The sun set quickly, as the long shadows of the trees ate the ground and plunged the camp into darkness at a fairly early hour, but with all of the little tasks dealt with, it gave her time to train.

As much use as she'd be at training, anyway.

"Alright, this is the first one I figured out," Katara said, having doffed her thick and almost stifling parka in the howdah. Truth told, it didn't leave her wearing much, but with the insufferable heat the way it was in this bog, she wondered how bad it would get if they went any further north. She might melt into a pile of sweat. Oddly, the airbender seemed to be most put-off by it. Thus, she snapped her fingers, to get his attention. "Aang, come on, focus!"

"I'm sorry, it's just... you're almost..." he blushed furiously.

"Family does this all the time," she pointed out. "You're family. Now come on."

He looked a bit leery at the concept, but he turned his eyes to the water before her, since it was obviously easier for him to deal with than her. "Alright. Focused. On water."

"The first thing I learned was that if you're working with water, you've got to be aware of the push-and-pull of it. You can't just send it anywhere you want. You've got to coax it," She gently pushed forward, "and then, you can use its own reaction to you to get it where you want it," she continued, pulling back. As she repeated the motion, a wave began to form, small, but distinct against the otherwise still pond, moving to and fro with her motions. She released it, and the water grew still again. Aang nodded, and then cast out his arms. A wind blew across the surface, and ripples danced outward, forced by it.

"That was easy!"

"That was doing it wrong," Katara pointed out.

"She says that about everything," Sokka chimed in.

"He wasn't waterbending, he was just airbending!" Katara hollered at him. She turned back to her pupil. "You can't rush it. You have to be calm, centered."

"Calm and centered, fine," Aang said, but once again, he was a darker pallor than usual. If he blushed much harder, he might pop a vessel. Poor kid. This time, he moved his arms much slower. No wind, this time. He began to pull back, then forward again, but the water was still. Finally, he started to sweat, his tongue caught 'twixt his teeth, as more and more effort went into his slow, even motions. Finally, he let out a sigh, his arms dropping. "I don't get it! It doesn't want to work!"

"Do it again," She said, moving closer to him. To his credit, he was now so focused on his task that he barely even noticed her now hovering over his shoulder. When he began to bend once more, she finally saw his problem. It was in the wrists. "I see. You expect the water to flow away when you push, and to surge in when you pull. It's not that easy. You have to let the water do what it wants. It's coaxing it, not commanding it. Try it again, and loosen those wrists."

Aang nodded, and tried again. She didn't expect him to pick it up quickly. It had taken her weeks to get even the most basic motions down, enough to cause the water to spill over the side of a bucket. Of course, she'd apparently done more, entirely by accident, starting when she was two, but that was the first time that she was in control. She prepared to sidle back to the campfire and leave Aang to his lesson, but he let out an exultant cry. She turned back, and saw that he was, indeed, causing the water to flow in waves... and his waves were much bigger than hers were.

"I'm doing it, Katara! I'm a waterbender!" he said. But as the words left his mouth, his arms fell still, and the water splashed into motionlessness, as the ripples rebounded against the shores before reducing into nothing. He finally lowered his head, and let out a sigh, like a vast weight had finally, after such anticipation, dropped onto his shoulders. "I really am the Avatar. There's no getting around it, is there?"

"I don't blame ya'," Sokka said from the fire. "It's kinda depressing to play with the magic water at the best of times."

"Sokka, shut up!" Katara shouted. But he was grinning too wide for it to affect him. She turned back to her own pupil and laid a kind hand on his shoulder. "I know this isn't easy for you. But it's what you have to do at some point. At least this way, you get to be who you are around family."

"Thanks, Katara," Aang said distantly. He took a deep breath, and the looked up again. "Well, no point in moping over it. What's next?"

"Well, I call this next one 'streaming the water'," Katara said, pulling up on the pond, coaxing up the water into a tendril which wavered to and fro as her control grew tighter or weaker. "If you do it really carefully, you can even pull the water right off of the pond, and..." she concentrated hard enough that the sweat that she was already releasing redoubled, and with a grunt of mental effort, snapped the connection to the pond, holding up a sphere of water in the air. "The problem... with this... is that it's... hard to keep... a handle on it..." Katara said, as she struggled to keep the bending from slipping from her grasp. She then looked over, and saw that Aang had pulled one up, and was now actively playing with it. Her shocked glance caused her own water sphere to drop and splash her feet and calves. "Wow. You sure picked that up fast."

"I must have a great teacher!" Aang said. He held it before him, and then made a swift motion, whereupon the blob lashed out quickly and smashed into Katara, knocking her from her feet into the bog. "Oh! Oh, I'm so sorry," Aang blurted, rushing to her as she tried to blink away the stars and confusion which came in such an impact's wake.

"How did you do that?" she asked.

"I just kinda... did," he said. "It was like pulling on rubber."

"What's rubber?"

"I'll explain later," Aang muttered, idly tossing the water which he'd still, infuriatingly enough, held control over. "I didn't mean to do that."

"I know, I know," Katara said, getting slowly to her feet. She winced as she raised an arm, seeing the dark welt on her ribs which would probably darken further into a spectacular bruise. "Hey, you should try to figure that one out. I mean, it'd make a great weapon."

"Weapon? Why would I need a weapon?" Aang asked.

"Maybe because the combined forces of the entire Fire Nation army and navy both want to make you dead?" Sokka said idly as he poked his growing fire with a stick. Katara started to chastise him, but actually didn't disagree in the slightest.

"What my oaf of a brother lacks in tact, he makes up for in accuracy," Katara admitted. "Sooner or later, you're going to have to bring the fight to the Fire Nation if this war is ever going to stop. That means, you need to have weapons."

Aang just stared at her, such a tension in his form that he almost seemed ready to split himself apart. "That doesn't mean I have to like it," Aang whispered, before walking away, to enjoy the seclusion of the bog.

"That town was stupid."

"I know, Nila," Tzu Zi said, warmly.

"Everybody in that town was stupid!" the Si Wongi complained once again.

"I know, Nila."

"I hope that volcano blows up and burns that entire place down!" she said sourly. Tzu Zi rolled her eyes, shaking her head from her seat before Nila on Aki's saddle. She initially tried to convince Nila to ride up front, but she had absolutely flipped out when Tzu Zi tried to hold on after Aki started moving. Nila was either badly creeped-out by touch in general, or else just militantly and exclusively heterosexual to a point of parody. Tzu Zi, having been raised with her sisters as she had, was far less bothered by all that. And, of course, where she was raised probably had some influence as well.

"You don't mean that," Tzu Zi said, but from the tension of Nila's arms around Tzu Zi's waist – something Nila only agreed to after falling off the saddle five times in the space of an hour – told Aki's owner that she was angry enough to breathe fire.

"You heard what she said to me! Who says that to people?"

"What, the whole 'the path you walk will be filled with suffering and hardship, most of it self-inflicted' thing?" Tzu Zi asked. "You can't let that get to you."

"She didn't even read my palm or anything. She said it was written all over my face!" Nila spat. "I'd like to write something all over her face..."

Tzu Zi frowned at that. "Is that supposed to be threatening?"

"It's supp... Shut up!" Nila said. Tzu Zi just smiled behind her veil. The weather was growing steadily better, and by that, she meant wetter, so soon she would have to abandon the robe for the time being. But until then, let the little barbarian girl simmer. "Of course, it is going to explode."

"What is?"

"That volcano," she said. "Those people are all idiots."

"Be that as it may, it's no reason to get all worked up," She glanced back, and saw that Nila was starting to glare to the southwest. "What is it?"

"He's somewhere that way," Nila said with a grim sort of certainty.

Tzu Zi squinted, trying to make out what Nila was looking at, but couldn't see anything. "Wow, you people are excellent trackers if you can make out a trail in this," she muttered. "I assume you want off?"

"No," Nila said with a brisk shake of her head. "The angle of inflection is too small. He's not far to the south. Not yet. We're still better served heading west first."

"The what?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Oh, gods, don't tell me they never educated you in trigonometry?" Nila said. She muttered something probably blasphemous in her barbarian tongue, but just pointed on a tangent. "If that's the direction he went," she then pointed on a line down Aki's forward-facing beak, "and that's the way we're going, then there's no real disadvantage in keeping on this track. The hypotenuse will not be such a massive increase in..."

Tzu Zi's blank look stopped her dead.

"Gods help me, did you take mathematics at all?" she said, rubbing her shaven temple in frustration.

"That was more Zhu Di's thing," Tzu Zi admitted. "I was more into... practical things."

"You're not some aspiring housewife, are you?" Nila said, somehow inflicting 'housewife' with a degree of venom which Tzu Zi didn't think possible.

"No... I was groomed for military service, but I didn't like the looks of it," she said.

"Teenager in the military?" Nila said. "So you're a bender."

"What?"

"People waive age when applicants are benders. You're my age. Maybe even younger. People my age don't get groomed for military. By simple logic, you must be a bender."

Tzu Zi cast an uneasy glance back at her. She had a very precarious cover on this continent, and this barbarian unmasked it in five seconds and a puff of logic. So Tzu Zi took a lesson from another sister, and lied through her teeth. "That's some good logic, pity I was always a terrible earthbender, so I don't think anybody's losing anything."

"Yeah," Nila said. "There are so much better things to do with your time than play with magic dirt, or magic water, or magic fire."

"It's not magic," Tzu Zi said.

Nila was about to say something, but she paused, as though considering. "In a way, you're right. Bending's pretty much technology. Now shamanism, that's just magic and misdirection..."

Tzu Zi sighed with relief, now that Nila was on a tangent in a direction which wouldn't see Tzu Zi handed over to the army, or worse, the Cultural Authority. Suddenly, being the only bender of the Miracle Children weighed a lot heavier on her sense of security than had before. For all she was a barbarian, this girl knew things. Tzu Zi would have to keep her wits about her. Which was a shame, because when she wasn't being caustic, Nila was quite interesting.

Thus walked the disgruntled Ostrich Horse, and atop it, one girl from the desert bearing a dark secret, and the second girl from another desert rambling at length about things so complicated that most would have thought her making it up. Just another day on the road. Tzu Zi felt a smile come to her lips, the big, bright, overpowering smile of the bravest of them. This was her life, now. And to tell the truth, she actually rather enjoyed it.

"That's a lot of them, Jet," Smellerbee pointed out the obvious. "I don't like the odds."

Longshot gave the leader of his merry band a look, which said 'there are too many of them. We can't fight if we're that badly outnumbered'. To which, Jet nodded, and admitted "Then we'll have to find something to thin the herd a bit," Jet turned to the even-more laconic companion to his other side. Shadow was absolutely mum. "You haven't weighed in. What's your take on this?"

Shadow just let long fingers drop out of a black sleeve, knives held lightly between knuckles. Jet didn't really need to ask once to know Shadow's take on the Fire Nation. Between he and Shadow, Jet wondered which of them had lost more.

"Guys, I think I see something," Sneers said, waving Jet over. He scampered across the unsteady branch as easily as would a squirrel-fox. Jet grabbed the spyglass from his younger and pressed it to his eye. "There's somebody else out there. See the smoke?"

Jet let out a grunt, spotting, barely, that wisp that almost escaped all notice in the early morning. It was near a clearing, which wasn't so much a clearing as a pool. He turned to call to his companions, but Shadow was already right next to him, taking the glass and managing to lock onto the location he had struggled to find. Say what one would of Shadow, Jet strongly doubted there was anybody more perceptive. Shadow drew back, casting a glance to Jet. "Bison," Shadow uttered, voice high but somehow gravely, almost completely devoid of intonation, especially any which would be construed as passion. Shadow had three states of being, it seemed like; uninterested, disinterested, and enraged. Only the latter two came in handy.

"So? There's bison all over the place," Sneers said.

Shadow rolled bright grey eyes and pointed once more. Jet looked down the scope, as the gravely announcement of "Saddled bison," drew his attention to the relevant fact. Well I'll be damned, Jet considered. A domesticated bison. Never thought I'd see the day. He turned to Shadow, who was already gliding past as silently as a spider across glass. Jet turned, and he could see the movement in the trees, the bird-calls of the others as they tracked the force. "The Fire Nation is heading right for them."

"Somebody with a saddled bison?" Smellerbee asked.

"Yeah, that looks like something we could use ourselves," Jet said with a smirk, rolling the sprig along his teeth. "Come on. Let's deny the Fire Nation its prize. Move out!"

And with that, the Freedom Fighters became ghosts in the trees.

Aang still winced every time he looked at Katara. The bruise he'd given her now welled up a fantastic purple, the color of kings. But all things considered, it could have been so much worse. Nothing broken, nothing wounded except Aang's cockiness and Katara's pride. Although it grated on Katara that Sokka had managed to spend the rest of the night jibing them mercilessly. Aang didn't think it was right, either. She was having a really hard time with this waterbending stuff. Now she had to face facts that her student had gotten better than her over the course of one evening.

Katara was first up, and Aang not long after, but still he woke to a small fire cooking breakfast. Sokka, though, was fast asleep, wrapped in his sleeping bag and snoring like somebody cutting wood with a rusty cat. Aang got a grin on his face as he grabbed up a stick Katara was about to use for tinder, and crept up on the Tribesman. Katara started to ask a question, but when she saw what was afoot, she remained silent. Aang ever so carefully lowered the stick's point to the opening of the bag, right under Sokka's chin. Then, he let out a terrified scream.

"Sokka! Wake up! There's a pricklesnake crawling into your sleeping bag!" Aang shouted, making a slithering path down toward Sokka's covered belly

In a heartbeat, Sokka was bolt upright, screaming with girlish terror, bouncing around while still contained in his sleeping bag, a chorus of 'get it off get it off' repeating with amusing frequency, until he finally overbalanced himself and fell onto his chest. When he did, he finally fell silent. He twisted onto his side, staring at Aang. "I suddenly realize what it would have been like to have a little brother."

"Really?" Aang asked.

"I don't recommend it," he said bitterly, before letting out a yawn and starting to shrug his way out of his bag. He was still fully dressed, which was a broad departure from his sister. Well, dressed in a sleevesless green vest and brown pants, since all of his native blues were long gone, anyway. He stretched his arms over his head, and then returned to his usual slump as he sauntered over to the fire. "So, what's cooking?"

"Bacon," she said. Aang let out a gag at that. One of these days, he was going to have to get them to see the virtues of a vegetarian diet. Upon a second consideration of Sokka's eating habits, though, he amended that to showing Katara the virtues of a vegetarian diet. Sokka would stop eating meat five days after he died. "Oh, right, you don't eat meat, do you?"

"It's alright, I'll just have some of last night's soup," Aang said brightly, focusing anywhere but on the sizzling strips of dead animal. He pulled out the canteen that they'd stored it in and settled it onto the edge of the fire to heat up. Aang perked up. "You know, at the rate we're going, we'll probably be most of the way to the North Pole by the time the Solstice hits."

Katara gazed longingly to the north. "I never thought I'd even get this far. I'm finally going to be a proper waterbender."

"And I'm sure you'll make a great one, now could you please keep an eye on the meat?" Sokka begged. "Not all of us like it black as coal."

"You'd eat it raw if you had to," Katara said snidely.

"Of course, it's got the best flavor when it's rare."

"I didn't say rare, I said raw."

"This coming from the girl who doesn't eat anything unless it's burnt. I swear, some days I wonder if you're not a firebender in disguise," Sokka said offhandedly.

"How could you say that?" Katara asked, hurt in her voice.

"Because you're entirely too easy to wind up," Sokka said casually. "You really do make it too easy."

Katara glared at him for a moment, and then raised a finger to make a point, but the point she was about to make was lost in the fact that five men barged into view fairly close to their campfire. All three teenagers turned, and took in the five in silence. They were grown men, quite large, and decked head to foot in blood red armor. The teenagers looked at the men. The men looked at the teenagers. The men then turned to look exclusively at Aang. Aang looked down, and noted that they were probably taking stock of the blue arrow tattoos visible on his brow and the backs of his hands. They then looked amongst each other.

"Is that... the Avatar?" one of them asked in Huojian.

"If he ain't, he's close enough. Get him!"

"What are they saying?" Katara asked. Her question was answered when first the five men, then another seven more came charging, swords leaving scabbards and fire wreathing fists. Aang let out a panicked yelp, bounding backward to avoid being split from crown to crotch by a sword, and when he landed, he hurled a blast of wind at the man, but he was well rooted, so only staggered back a few steps. Aang then reached behind him, feeling the motions come as naturally as if he'd spent decades learning them rather than mere hours, and pulled the water up out of the pool, snapping the wrists and sending the tentacle he created crashing into the staggered soldier, smashing him against a tree.

Katara bounded to her own feet, and clenched her fists at the treed soldier, and Aang was delighted to notice that the water flash froze itself, trapping the soldier. A firebender tried to hurl a bolt of flame at Aang, but if there was one thing airbenders excelled at, it was getting out of the way. The bolt missed him, narrowly, but enough, and it left the firebender off balance long enough for Sokka whip out the boomerang from his back and send it slashing across the distance, rebounding off of the firebender's head and sending him down in a heap.

The boomerang circled back to the Tribesman, but the three teens quickly found themselves back to back to back, as the overwhelming mass of the Fire Nationals pressed in, encircling them. Aang's first instinct was to flee. His second was to call Appa. But neither would work, since the first would abandon Katara and Sokka, and the latter might get Appa hurt. There had to be another way. Any other way.

There is always another way.

Aang quickly amended that to 'almost' any other way. As much as the power of the Avatar State could probably get him out of this bind, quite frankly, it scared him in a way few other things ever did.

"What do we do?" Katara asked.

"I'll take the ugly one, Aang, you get the big one," Sokka said.

"Which one's the ugly one?" Aang asked.

The one before Aang, who was fairly unattractive by most standards but hardly what one would strictly classify as 'the ugly one', took an aggressive step inward from that ring which encircled them, his fists thrusting forward... and then he spun down, his fire searing into the ground, as a black shaft appeared in the back of his shoulder. He pitched onto the ground, screaming in pain, and Aang had to share a glance with the others of his own group, trying to figure out how they – with Sokka being the most likely candidate – pulled that off.

The question was answered in a manner that Aang didn't see coming when a barrage of bolts shot out of the trees, pinning a man's boots to the ground. When he lost his balance, he bent down to pull the bolts, and when he did, a knife pinned his sleeve to the sod. Finally, he tipped over with a spluck of displaced mud, and a final knife hitched his shirt at the collar to a tree root. At the same moment, two other forms raced into the back of the circle, one of them too quick for Aang to track without trying harder, the other sweeping the legs out from under the soldiers with a pair of hook swords. Their introduction to the ground was abrupt and final.

"Looked like you could use a hand," the teenage boy said confidently. Then he ducked, and a log, hurled by somebody bare-chested and gargantuan, flew over his head. Aang used his own mobility and flexibility to hinge backward, and force the other two down with him, so that that same log spun above his nose on its way past him and smashing into the barely armored knees of the Nationals behind him. Sokka turned and spun, trying to meaningfully add himself to the melee, but at every turn, finding that youth preempting him and cutting off a chance for contribution.

"Come on, leave at least one for me!" Sokka said.

"Gotta be quicker, Tribesman," came the smug answer.

As quickly as the slaughter had begun, it turned into a rout. Twelve Nationals, once in every single position of superiority, now unconscious, battered, broken, and immobile. The wild-haired youth shot a smile at Katara as he shifted both blades into one hand. "I must say, I should save passing strangers more often," he said, taking her hand delicately in one of his own. "I'd get a chance to meet such... interesting people."

Oh, how Katara did blush at that. Of course, she probably didn't realize he was probably reacting to her relatively unclothed state as most teenagers would.

"We could have handled that!" Sokka complained.

"And now, you won't have to," the stranger said smugly. He gave a glance to his own companions who dropped from the foliage, before nodding to the black cloaked figure which was slipping back into the trees. "These guys aren't going to be out forever. We should get moving."

"Moving where?" Sokka asked, suspicion heavy in his tone.

"Sokka, he just saved our lives. It's gotta be better than here," Aang pointed out.

"I like your spirit, kid," he said. "Come with me. We've got a fairly safe camp pegged out. It's not much, but it has good views and you can't see it from any direction but up. And nobody sees from up."

"I can," Aang pointed out.

"And what are you, some sort of airbender?" the youth asked. And then, he fell quiet when Appa lumbered into view, giving a bare, unamused glance to the Nationals, before stomping close to Aang and giving his bald head a big lick.

"Yeah, something like that," Aang said. "I'm Aang. I'm the Avatar."

"Really? Well, I guess that means I'm Jet, and I'm the Earth King."

"Yeah, and I'm the uncrowned queen of Three Hills," an equally wild-haired, odd looking girl bearing face paint said. Aang frowned for a moment.

"Isn't Three Hills a republic?"

"And points for the bald one," the girl said, casting her thumb at him.

"He really is the Avatar," Sokka pointed out. "Bender of four elements and all that nonsense."

"Really? So you're a firebender, too?"

Aang scratched his head uncomfortably. "Not really... I don't even know how to earthbend, yet."

That seemed to placate this Jet quite a bit. "Well, then, there's no point in dawdling. Come on. Let's get some place where there are less people trying to kill us."

Aang liked the sound of that, and followed after. Behind him, Sokka stared at their departing backs for a moment, before saying "Less?"

As camps go, it was pretty piddly. Of course, Sokka would have been a bit more suspicious if this group of stragglers and youths had somehow managed to construct some sort of tree-top utopia in this low, damp, and crowded wilderness. Which wasn't to say that Sokka wasn't suspicious. Their timing had been perhaps a bit too fortuitous, their arrival perhaps a bit too lucky. The common saying was never look a gift Ostrich Horse in the gizzard, and Sokka was prone to doing exactly that.

One time he'd done it, back when he was barely more than two, it saved his sister's life.

The tents, if they could be called that, were all built under the drooping limbs of the willows. Most were little better than a piece of tarp pegged to the trunk, flaring out so that the water would roll away from the rains. But then again, in the entire time that Sokka had been inland on this continent, he couldn't recall a single shower, let alone a rain which would require so much effort. That was odd, because he had been told that they were on the tail-end of what was supposed to be a stormy season now that they'd actually entered the tropics. The 'tents' themselves were of many colors, their cloth from many sources. One of them looked to have been stolen whole from a circus, and it was their destination. Others looked to be nothing more than oiled tarps. One appeared to be a knicked tapestry. Yeesh. If its owner knew what it was being used for now, he'd probably die of an art-hernia.

"So this is my camp," Jet said with a note of pride. Sokka didn't see much to be proud of in the structures, but the rest?

Beyond the ramshackle tents, there was one other facet of the camp which was suspicious. Children abounded. They ranged from the ages of four to ten, and ran the gamut in apparent race and nationality. Some were almost as pale as Fire Nationals, others, darker than Sokka himself. Katara picked up on this oddity as quickly as Sokka had. "Jet, who are all these children?" she asked.

"They're what we fight for," Jet said. He pointed out one dark-eyed boy, maybe six, talking with a few others around his age. "See him? We call him The Duke. We found him stealing our food one day. And her? That's Irene; she's Whalesh and she lost her family last year when the Fire Nation occupied. I still don't think she can speak our language, yet. Some of these kids never really had a family," he finished with a bitter tone.

"So what do you do with them?" Sokka asked.

"We get them food, some place safe to sleep," Jet gestured around. "This isn't much, but it's more then some of them have ever had."

"See, Sokka? Jet's a good guy," Aang said brightly. But Sokka already had his head inside the beak, and was tapping uvula with his nose. He wouldn't let this go easily.

"So what is it you do, besides taking care of the children?" Katara asked, warming up to him fairly quickly.

"We fight the Fire Nation," Jet said. "You've already seen some of my Freedom Fighters."

"Not really, there was a lot going on," Aang admitted. Jet let out a grunt, then turned, pointing behind them.

"Well, then I should introduce you. This one's Longshot. He's a chatty one," The dark eyed lad with the big ears and conical hat nodded, but remained silent. "Smellerbee's beside him."

"What kind 'a name is Smellerbee for a boy?" Sokka asked. At that, Smellerbee scowled darkly.

"I'm a girl!" she exclaimed, but neither her appearance nor her voice seemed to support that exclamation. Jet just chuckled and pointed to the next one, a squat fellow with a weird hair style.

"That's Sneers. I've seen him punch a house down before."

"Hey," Sneers said neutrally, before breaking off from the path and heading under one of the tarps.

"And the perky one is Shadow," Jet said, as the black-cloaked figure glided past without making so much as a sound. So quiet was Shadow that Sokka actually started away with a yelp when he realized that the fairly tall figure had sidled behind him without his noticing. "Yeah, Shadow doesn't really say much. Do you Shadow?"

Shadow paused, half turning from the circus tent, and sighed wearily. "I say enough," the voice was high, but had a bit of rasp to it. Seemingly having exhausted the reservoir of words for the day, Shadow departed.

"And the last of us is Pipsqueak," Jet idly waved behind him. Aang sauntered up to a kid who was tugging at the belt loop of a massive individual, a huge grin on his airbender face.

"Pipsqueak? That's a funny name," Aang declared. The kid tilted his head, but the massive person turned slowly. He was easily taller than Dad, and weighed considerably more as well. If he was a teenager, Sokka hated to think of what he'd look like when he was twenty.

"Are you saying there's something funny about my name?" The giant inquired, his voice deeper than most grown mens'.

"Yup. It's hilarious!" Aang said brightly. The horribly inaccurately named Pipsqueak glared at the Avatar for a long moment, before bursting into raucous laughter, which Aang joined, until a 'light' pat on the back from the giant sent Aang face first into the muck.

"I like this kid, Jet," Pipsqueak announced. "Can we keep him?"

"That's entirely up to him," Jet said, before turning back with a hand toward Sokka's sister. "If you would accompany me?"

"Alright," she said a bit too quickly. Oh, this wasn't going to end well. And it fell to Sokka to make sure that nobody did any sort of funny business with his sister.

"It wouldn't hurt to see more of your operation," Sokka offered as he invited himself along with the young anarchist and his besotted sister. If Jet was put off by this, he didn't show it.

Well, aren't you smooth?

Upon ducking into the tent, Sokka actually took a moment to just stand there, in a bit of awe. Far be it to claim that he was uncultured, Sokka probably had a much better education than most people on this continent, let alone back home. So he recognized what lay within this tent as an absolutely priceless collection of art from everywhere in the world. Painted vases, carved figurines, paintings, portraits, Si Wongi carpets, such treasures that had Sokka trying to run calculations in his head. One could sell a trove like this and live like a king.

"Wh...wh..." Sokka stammered. "Where did you get all of this?"

"The Fire Nation," Jet said as he ducked in. "They steal everything they come across, so we do the world a favor and steal it back. It's not worth anything to us, but everything we pry from the hands of the Fire Nation is a victory for the cultures of the oppressed, the conquered, and the destitute," he gave a glance toward the Water Tribe girl. "And if nothing else, then it means the little ones always have something nice to look at."

"Oh, wow," she said. "You're so sensitive, Jet."

"Sensitive, yeah, he's a sensitive petty thief," Sokka said.

"What was that?" Jet asked.

"Nothing," Sokka said innocently. Jet shrugged, and sat on a chair which lay in the middle of that hoard. It looked nothing less than a king lounging on a throne.

"One day, we'll drive the Fire Nation from this continent once and for all, and maybe then, we'll start to show them what it's like being conquered, being in fear," Jet said, an edge entering his voice. It departed quickly, and the smooth, slick persona he was showing slid back into place. "But until then, we just find ways to make their lives miserable enough that they don't feel like fighting anymore. We managed to drive the Fire Nation out of Gaipan, up in the north, a few months ago. It cost us, but it was worth it."

"You're so brave, Jet," Katara said. Sokka raised a finger to start prodding away at this facade, as his worst instincts demanded that he must, but was interrupted by a pale, dark haired, green eyed girl ducking into the tent.

"Jet, we found something in the train of that patrol you flattened," she said enthusiastically.

"What is it, Bug?"

"Bug?" Sokka asked.

"She eats them," Jet said idly. Bug, though grew a bit red, though with either embarrassment or anger, Sokka couldn't immediately tell.

"That was one time!" she said. After a moment to recompose herself, she pointed into the center of the camp again. "They had a bunch of those glass barrels with them, you know, the ones that have that burning water in 'em."

"Burning water?" Sokka asked. "Like 'on fire' burning or 'ow what happened to the skin on my hand' burning?"

"The second one," she answered. Sokka rubbed his chin.

"What would the Fire Nation be dragging Aqua Regia through the woods for?" Sokka asked.

"It's acid?" Jet asked. Sokka gave a cautious nod, and he broke out into a smirk. "Good haul, Bug."

"We also found some Aqua Vitae," Bug pointed out.

"Also a good haul. Keep it away from the kids, though," he mentioned. "Guys, I'd love to stop and chat some more, but I'm pretty much all that's standing between the Fire Nation and uncontested victory in Hanyi. Oh, and Sokka, keep yourself free. I think I've got a mission that you'd be perfect at."

"Yeah, it's a miracle they didn't attack us sooner," Bug said. "I can't think of the last time the Earth Kingdoms won a battle."

"Ba Sing Se," Sokka and Katara managed to say as one.

"Besides that one."

At that, both children fell silent, both trying to rack their brains for the history – and current events – that Hakoda and Gran Gran had taught them. And both came up empty. Aang, though, didn't have to ponder long. "Well, there was some guy named Chin who almost took over the entire continent, there was Yuan Hai, who invaded the West a couple hundred years before that, and there was Chatatong Hu, and he drove the Water Tribes out of Omashu a few centuries before that.

"We took over Omashu?" Katara asked.

"Yeah," Sokka said. "For a long while, we were kinda the bad guys of the world. Funny how quick that changed, eh?"

Sokka's mind, having drifted off its tack, and with the oh-so-unbearably-smarmy Jet no longer demanding his absolute and scrutinous attention, started to wonder about the really big, really important question. Namely: What would the Fire Nation need concentrated acid for, all the way out here?

To say Sharif was enraptured by the sea was doing it disservice.

He had passed water on his way here. He had seen water as he grew up. Sentinel Rock was still, even with all of those other oases drying up throughout the desert, home to a pool roughly a bison's-length across, pure and fresh as it erupted from the ground and was capped before it could run off, wasted on greedy sand. As he journeyed he saw other waters. The surging rivers. The tranquil ponds. But there were two things which those lesser waters lacked which made the ocean so spellbinding. First, was that even if a river flowed, it did not wave. The sounds of the waves, breaking against the rocks was a symphony, played in the most valuable substance a Si Wongi would hold dear. Well, if it wasn't salty to the point of poison, anyway.

The other was that it was vast. Until this day, until this hour, Sharif had never seen a body of water for which he couldn't perceive the far side. But this water, this ocean, reached out its blue-green body until it touched the soft blue of the sky at the horizon, two lovers forbidden, but finally reunited. And it brought a smile to Sharif's face, watching as the water flowed, and as the spirits flowed with it. Patriarch let out another snort, dragging Sharif's attention away from the absolute in the distance, that line where ocean met heaven.

"That's not the point," Sharif said patiently, idly patting the old bird as he took a deep breath of that salt-air. "You have never seen the sea either."

The bird practically rolled its eyes.

"Well, that's a bad attitude to keep," Sharif pointed out, mildly annoyed. "If you're like that all the time, who knows what you'll overlook?"

The bird let out what would have been a chirp if it was about one tenth its current size. As it was, it was a geriatric bleat.

"Who else ever has?" Sharif asked. "You have probably gone farther than any ever have. Is that not an accomplishment?"

It just stared at the Si Wongi shaman.

Sharif sighed. "You're right," he admitted. "Priorities are important. But it still shouldn't jade you like that. You're not too old to have an adventure. There's still more you can pass along."

Patriarch's derisive snort didn't require a shaman's mind to translate. In fact, just about anybody with working ears would have figured it meant the exact same thing. "Oh, very well," Sharif said. He turned, and he found he couldn't sense that presence. After the buzzing stopped, there was another flare of it, far to the south, telling him he was still on the right path. But since then, he might as well be deaf for all it was telling him. "Well, we've gone about as far west as we can. No reason not to head south now."

The bird blinked slowly.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear you say that," Sharif said. He pulled himself up onto Patriarch's back once again, and the great bird began to saunter south, toward the faint shapes and colors which lay on the horizon; a town, almost out of view, pressed up against the sea. As Patriarch confidently stomped his way forward, Sharif started humming that song again, as he always did when nothing else occupied his time or attention.

The day pressed on, but without bird nor shaman, it passed unnoticed. Until it came, at least.

It was not a sound, but there was a tearing. Like shoving an entire arm through a hole the size of a finger in a bolt of cloth, less auditory and more visceral. Without the boundary edge of a shadow to ease the transition, it had to brute force its way. The thing inside Malu appeared seemingly out of nowhere. To a lay observer, in one heartbeat the vista was vacant, and the next, there was a teenage girl in tattered nun's robes overlooking the sea. Hard grey eyes swept around. Things weren't as vibrant as they had been last time it descended from its dying world into this starving one. Not as teeming. But there were spirits, and that meant it could feed.

Malu's maw opened, and the spirits of tide and ocean, of fish and sand and death, all flew into her, and she trapped them inside. She could speak the words, but it didn't feel a need to start digesting. Not yet. As terrible as its hunger was, its feast was coming. Malu's gaze turned first one direction, to the north. There was a morsel up there, a powerful spirit who could sate it... for a while. But to the south? To the south lay treasures. Treasures it would collect.

Malu's gaze once more turned upon the sea. Deprived of its spirits, the waters ceased their crashing waves, now lapping listlessly against the sand. Where the girl walked, she left in her wake a dead sea, a parched land, a stilled sky. And its hunger was everlasting. But the edge of the water was an efficient opportunity. Malu tilted her head back, and tilted forward, letting gravity carry her off the cliffs and toward the packed, wet sand where the surf lapped at it. But rather than impact, with a heavy thwap and a displacement of sand, she simply vanished, the instant she touched where the sea met the land.

Malu opened her eyes to a dead and hopeless world. All things were grey, and silent, and dark. But this time, there was light. Malu had a shiver of hope run through her. But the hunger, that remained as wary as a beast, and it pulled control tighter.

That tree wasn't like that before.

It had a tenuous grasp of concepts, like 'before', 'now', 'alive', 'dead'. The only things it knew with absolute certainty were 'edible' and 'not edible', and much of that came from the fact that almost nothing lay in the latter category. Its memory was clouded. But it knew that this place hadn't looked like that. Malu's body slunk across the imported structure, and glared at the silver light beating down at her. Malu's hand reached forward, to touch the bark, even as it demanded she stop. And when she touched it, it seared with brutal pain. It forced itself back into absolute control, as Malu's entire being twisted away, a feral growl erupting from her throat, as it clutched a wounded hand. Not edible.

A new fact stored in its mind, it walked to the edge of this place, where it floated in a sea of chaos, and cast Malu over it. There was another way, a better way. It would feed. That shaman would feed it well.

The sun was starting to set when Tzu Zi finally called Aki to a halt, and she was visibly starting to wilt. Nila could have gone for hours longer, but that would have meant Tzu Zi all... pressed against her. From behind. And as much of a rapport as she was developing with her fellow desert-dweller, she didn't feel that was anything like appropriate. And Tzu Zi wasn't hearing about longer hours. Apparently, for all the vitriol she showed to the Ostrich Horse which bore her along, she cared deeply for it, and would not see Aki taxed.

Which is why with the sun barely touching the horizon, they were putting up camp. It was getting colder every day, which made her thankful that she'd brought proper robes. It was like the further west they went, the colder and damper it got – even if it didn't get very damp. Nila let out a yawn, feeling the weight pulling down on her shoulders until she finally sat and let it spread. One of these days, she'd shed this weight. Likely against her will. She gave a glance toward her companion, who was fumbling around with spark rocks.

"You're not doing it right, you'll never start a fire like..." Nila began, but was cut off when a healthy flame started to grow in the tinder, despite her expectations. "W...How did that happen? You weren't using them right."

"Things happen," Tzu Zi said. "And I must have been doing it right, because otherwise, there'd be no fire."

Nila hated the simple logic of it, but had to admit it was valid.

"You know, you never talk about your family. Why is that?" Tzu Zi asked.

"You don't talk much about yours," Nila said off-handedly.

Tzu Zi stared at her like Nila said that the Avatar was filled with chocolate and cookies. "That's pretty much all I talk about."

"Yeah, but you don't say much about them,"

"What?" she asked. Nila just shook her head. "Well, I'm interested, so spill it. What's up with your family, anyway? Who's your father?"

"Haven't got the first clue," Nila said without a hint of shame or guilt. She was a bastard, and that was the end of it. Mother made no bones about Nila's conception, so Nila didn't either. "He had a fling with Mom about sixteen years ago, and she hasn't made any attempt to contact him since, so I figure he's got to be some kind of loser or another."

"That's a harsh thing to say," Tzu Zi said, itching at herself.

"Well, that's the way it is," Nila said.

"What about your mom? What was she like?"

"Hard," Nila said. Tzu Zi stared at her for a moment. "Everybody in Si Wong is hard. We have to be. It's how we keep the desert from wearing us away. Mother was hard. She taught me to be hard. And that's about it."

"Wow, from the sound of it, you and your mom don't get along at all," Tzu Zi said.

Nila shook her head, staring into the growing fire. "We have never seen eye to eye on practically anything. She liked that I was educating myself, but then got annoyed that I bothered beyond basic mathematics, calculus, and integration. She pushed me toward plant lore, I study biology. She never complimented me on anything I did. Nothing was ever good enough for her. Gods, but I just wanted to punch her in the nose, if I didn't know for a fact I'd break my fist more likely than her nose!"

"You can't mean that! She's your mother!"

"I can mean it if I want to!" Nila said harshly. "You didn't grow up with a woman who... who..."

She trailed off, because Tzu Zi had pulled off her robe and was now scratching herself between the shoulder blades. While Nila was not one to partake in the sentiment, she suddenly understood why Sapphicism existed. Nila was fifteen years old, and Tzu Zi claimed to be a year younger. Nila wondered what fourteen-year-olds ever got bodies like that. She was a study in feminine curves, nimble and supple and – Nila, stop staring!

"What was that?" Tzu Zi asked, confusion plain on her heart-shaped face. "You kinda trailed off there."

No big surprise. Nila shook herself. She wasn't a man. She shouldn't be distracted like this. And yet she was, by the open and genuine features, the wide, expressive mouth that always seemed to twitch toward smiling, the big, melting chocolate eyes, the dark hair pulled back into a low tail... Nila, you're a girl and so is she! Think about something else!

"I'm just saying that Mother was cold and distant and heartless, and the less said about her, the better, because that's about the kindest that I can think of," Nila said.

"That's really sad," Tzu Zi said genuinely. "I mean, having no dad is bad enough, but not even getting to have a mom? That just isn't fair."

"Life is seldom fair," Nila said.

"What about that brother?" Tzu Zi asked, lounging. Nila once again found herself watching the way the girl moved. It wasn't lust, though. More like... envy. Which the rational part of Nila instantly railed and thrashed about, claiming that this girl had nothing that Nila didn't. She had all the same parts, the same organs, the same functions, the same dimensions... it's just that Tzu Zi's were better. The last time Nila was called anything feminine was back when she still had baby fat. After that...

"He's an idiot and one day he's going to get himself killed," Nila said. Well, unless she did something about it, which was her intention.

"Nila, he's your brother!"

"Yeah, well, siblings exist to push each other's buttons," Nila answered. She pulled her knees as close as she could against the hard bulk under her robes. "But the shame was, I used to be able to talk to him. Yeah, he was dumb, but we could still talk. Now, it's like talking to a door. He's just... not all there anymore."

"What happened?" Tzu Zi asked.

"We were in Ibn-Atal, about four years ago. Mom had gotten back from Ba Sing Se, and she was trying to use that clout to sort out some petty rivalry or something. But things went south in a hurry, and what was a regional squabble turned into a blood feud," she took a breath. "Bad enough that she had to drag us along. She should have left us at home."

"Why?"

"Well, one side thought it'd be a dandy idea to bring in some mercenaries," Nila continued. "Things had been tense, but not exactly violent, so we were still left to our own devices. I was ransacking the library as I usually do, and Sharif was wandering around the oasis, and then I started to hear a noise," she paused, looking up at Tzu Zi. "Do you know what it sounds like when hate turns to rage? There's a sound to it. I can't quantify it or categorize it, but there is this moment, so pristine and clear that I will probably remember it for the rest of my life, where that shouting and those angry words, they turned into blood, and violence. And you can hear it, like breaking glass in an empty house. I didn't even know what it was, and I knew it was bad news. So I dropped what I was doing and ran out. Just as the violence was spilling into the streets."

She shifted her weight, letting the silence fill the void as she pulled up the harsh memories of that day. The day the Sharif she actually cared about died. "As I hear it, the mercenaries got antsy, since some of them couldn't speak the language. They started to look for a sign to shed blood. And they found one... or imagined one. So they started attacking anything on two legs with testicles. Any man is a viable target, apparently. And Sharif? Sharif was close enough. I remember his face, his skin dark as wood, eyes blue as the sky. And his expression was so calm, so indifferent. He could have been putting away cutlery for all the c-care he had, as he bu-buried a hatchet into Sharif's face."

"That's terrible," Tzu Zi said, sadness plain on her face. "Are you alright, talking about this?"

Truth be told, Nila wasn't sure why her lips fluttered, why her tongue felt like lead. This happened a long time ago. So why were her eyes burning? Why did tears threaten to fall? Damn it all! She would not weep! Si Wongi do not weep! It is a waste of water! She took a deep breath, forcing the unwelcome and unpleasant emotions aside. Whatever made her this way would have to be looked at later, dealt with later.

"We survived. Sharif... the parts of Sharif which mattered... didn't," she said. "He got a bad infection; not surprising really. Mother and everybody was sure he was going to die. But he didn't. He lived, despite the wound and the infection in his brain. But he wasn't himself anymore. He's... he's essentially a child who will never grow up. He used to be my brother. Now, he's just my burden."

"Nila," Tzu Zi said, but didn't follow it up with anything. Which was probably for the best, because Nila didn't want anything else said on the matter. "I'll... I'll just let you rest."

Tzu Zi flung out a bedroll and crashed atop it, curling a blanket over her and fairly quickly falling into sleep. But Nila stayed awake, staring at the fire. Come to think of it, this was probably the first time she told anybody about Sharif. Everybody she grew up with just knew about him. Scorned him and spat on him as well. Silently, she wiped her eyes against the tears she didn't want to shed. Sharif, her Sharif, was long gone. And nothing would ever bring him back. So she would have to do the next best thing, and bring back his shattered husk to the family... as much of a family as Nila ever got to know.

Sokka watched from the foliage as the rest of Jet's gang spread into obscurity. In a way, it was impressive. He hadn't seen cohesion of this order since Bato's hunters left the South Pole. They knew their business, and with the Fire Nation on their doorstep, business was good. A part of Sokka was just glad to be part of the action again. Omashu had left him feeling particularly useless, since all he did was almost die, get captured, almost suffocate inside candy, and then wander back out at the end. This time, it was Sokka's turn to shine. Yeah, he pondered to himself. Maybe if I repeat that enough times in my head, I'll start to believe it. Of the initial corps, only Shadow still remained within Sokka's ability to notice, and mostly because she was very close by.

"How long are we going to be here?" Sokka asked. Shadow just turned and regarded him with a cool stare. "What? It's a valid question."

"Until the enemy shows up," Shadow answered. Terse as always, Shadow was. There was an excitement running through Sokka, though, and when he was excited, he tended to get chatty, much to the dismay of those around him. So he went back to fiddling with his club for a long moment, picturing in his head another battle against the many as they had fallen upon the Avatar's camp a day ago. Kicking butt and taking names, Water Tribe style.

Sokka resisted for all he was worth, but his nature couldn't be denied. He was a carnivore, he was a sarcastic twit, and come hell or desert, he was chatty. "So, Shadow, you got a girlfriend in that band of yours?"

"Why would I?" Shadow's voice took on a somewhat annoyed tone, grey eyes flat as usual.

"Well, I just figured that you'd want to... you know... do the kind of wild rebel things that young men do."

"Young men. Right," Shadow answered. "Wrong assumption, Tribesman."

"What is?" Sokka asked. "That you are a wild rebel? That you like girls?" Sokka broke off. "Ooooh, are you one of those guys who likes other guys? What's up with that, anyway? Don't you realize the parts don't match up?"

Shadow just stared at Sokka for a long moment, expression exasperated, before releasing another sigh. "Moron."

"Who's a..." Sokka began, but he broke off when a whisper of sound pulled him away. Quickly, he leaned back into the knife he'd buried into the trunk of the tree, listening for the vibrations through the earth. It would have been more effective in a drier climate, but here, it would work well enough. And he could hear walking. Not a steady gait, so it had to be more than one. "We got movement... coming this way."

Shadow turned and let out an owl-pigeon's hoot-coo, which was answered by a different 'bird call' in the distance. Clever system. If there were more – or in fact, any – birds in the South Pole, it could have been useful back home. And with that, Sokka felt a wave of homesickness. It still felt so surreal, that he was banished from his home, cast out like that. All because he got tricked by a firebender, who later attempted to murder him. Life just wasn't fair some times. But as the voices started to reach through the foliage, as those words in the language of the East, but accented from the West, reached out, his mind cleared. The Fire Nation was here. And it was Sokka's job to take them down.

There was a last chirp of bird-call, and then, Sokka was jumping out of the drooping boughs of the tree. He landed at a roll, bringing up his war club before him, expecting an army. What he got was two people. Two people who were now surrounded on all sides. Jet landed last, pulling those hook swords from his back and brandishing forward at the man in the red armor, and the woman in green dress. "What are you doing in our forest, you murderer?" Jet demanded of the National. The National reacted exactly the way that Sokka expected him to; with fear and violence.

The National surged forward with a pair of short blasts of flame, which Jet nimbly dodged around, but as he moved, he drew closer, until he finally brought up his two blades, their hooks catching around the wrist and heaving back, sending the National off his footing. The Westerner tried to answer his loss of accuracy by kicking a last arc of flame at Jet, but as he tried to bring his foot up, an arrow pinned his boot to the ground, and he wobbled. He tried to push himself off the ground with his free hand, but Shadow's hand whipped forward, and two knives now held it in place as Longshot's arrow did his foot. Jet wrenched harder, and the National let out a cry of pain, before Jet kicked him hard in the face. The woman's eyes went wide, and she backed away, right into a hammer-lock by Sneers.

"How do you like that?" Jet shouted. "Do you like destroying towns? Destroying families? How does it feel now that you're on the other side?"

"Jet, what are you doing?" Sokka asked. "We beat him, now let's get on with it."

But Jet seemed to be in his own world, now. "And you," He turned, leveling the hooked weapon at the woman in green. "What are you doing here? A slave would have run away, would have kicked him while he was down, but you? You were running for help, weren't you? WEREN'T YOU?"

"Stop this, she's just an innocent girl," Sokka said, trying to get between Jet and the object of Jet's anger. Jet just shoved him aside.

"Don't hurt him, he's a good man!" she begged, as the National groaned groggily from the head injury on the ground.

"There's no such thing as a good Fire National!" Jet declared. At that, Shadow turned to face Jet, a glare plain in bright grey eyes. But he didn't notice. "You're not some innocent bystander in this. You're the scum of the earth. You're a collaborator. And there's only one punishment for collaborators."

Jet raised a blade, ready for a lethal blow, but Sokka was quick. It was a talent he nurtured from a young age, which more than likely explained why he was still alive, considering his luck. As Jet swung down, Sokka swung up. In a way, it was much like Suki had taught him. Use the enemy's strength against him. So he didn't even need to have power in his blow to cause a painful, numbing strike to Jet's wrist, forcing him to drop one of his blades before it could cause drastic and irreparable harm.

"That's enough!" Sokka declared. "She's not hurting anybody! She's not even Fire Nation!"

Jet was obviously fighting off a curse as he shook feeling back into his hand. He leveled the other sword at Sokka. "Really? And you're just going to ignore all that the Fire Nation has done to me? To you? Do you even remember how they murdered your mother? This woman might not be Fire Nation, but she still betrayed us."

"Who's us?" Sokka asked. "People do what they want to. As I hear it, Hanyi isn't the nicest place at the best of times. Sure, she could have picked better, but that's no reason to kill her!"

"I don't care what you think."

"But you care what I think," Shadow interrupted. The glare shifted to Smellerbee, who had pilfered the fallen firebender while the Tribesman and the renegade were arguing. "Is that everything? Good. We're leaving."

"But..."

"Don't think you can order me around, Jet," Shadow answered coldly. That gaze turned to the others, and Sneer twisted her away, tossing her to the ground but otherwise leaving her unharmed. Jet shot one last glare to the National and the lady who he'd taken up with, but that glare withered under the chilling intensity of Shadow's.

"Fine. Whatever. Let's go, Sokka," he said with a bitter tone, stomping away without any joy left to him, for all his tone. Sokka turned to Shadow, and the latter gave the former a single, solemn nod. Approval, perhaps. Whatever its meaning, Sokka followed after the rebel, but only after everybody else, and not before casting one last, regretful glance to the Easterner who was now tending to the Westerner, and kept looking up at him, as though asking 'why? Why did you do this to us?' And Sokka had no answer to that.

What he'd seen just now, was more than a little disturbing.

From what he could see, the harbor town wasn't very big, clinging to the strip of low land with cliffs reaching behind it. While many ports in the Earth Kingdoms were by simple necessity of this formation, it struck Sharif as odd, like a man hunching over a candle to contain its heat and light, rather than sitting back and enjoying the glow. The wash of people was quite dull and low, for this wasn't a major port by any means. It was just a place where the beleaguered fishermen of the East could moor their crafts between the storms, hoping to eke a living upon turbulent seas. There was a hardness in their eyes, those seamen, that even Sharif could see. They had made their choice, and damn it all, they were going to stand by it. And even if a boat or two didn't make it back sometimes, at least they weren't starving, which was more than they could say about some of their more continental counterparts.

Still, the sound of people drew out Sharif, who now looked around the relatively pitiful structures and landscape as though it were the Upper Ring of Ba Sing Se. Patriarch let his displeasure be known, both in its body language and in the grudging way it clacked along the cobbled roads. More than a few askance glances were levied at the odd paring, the distant-focused youth on the old, grizzled, and obviously wild Ostrich Horse. "Don't worry about it, we won't be staying here long," Sharif offered, and Patriarch's response was as dull and lusterless as his plumage.

Sharif spotted what he needed; food. He pulled out the purse of coins that he now kept dangling from his neck and extracted a few of the gold bits, marked only by their center hole, the strike-date and ruling Earth King, and let the rest fall back into the leather bag. In truth, the amount he had in his hand was enough to outfit a decent sized ship for months, but of all Sharif's faculties destroyed by his wound, monetary sense was worst afflicted. He knew that gold was what they wanted, so he gave them gold. And often, he forgot to stick around for them to make change. The purse was far lighter now than it had been when he left Sentinel Rock, and also far lighter than it should have been. The only deal he'd made was when he inadvertently haggled for the light saddle that he now rested upon Patriarch's back, and that was by simple measure of him offering half its price, then slowly working up until the vendor handed over the goods at a reasonable bargain.

"Don't worry, I'll let him know about your stomach," Sharif said as Patriarch lowered himself. Sharif shifted out of the saddle and walked up to the provisioner. "I need food."

"Really?" the man said, leaning to one side to look at Patriarch. "If it was me, I wouldn't bother. That old cockerel has seen the last of its running days."

"He has a sensitive stomach, and he prefers rice and millet to barley," Sharif continued, placing a couple of coins onto the bench before him. It never occurred to Sharif that he was bigger than quite a few of the people around him. While still growing, he already had a build which some would attribute to either earthbenders or the most brutal depictions of Water Tribesmen. So it was with a sense of unease that the provisioner moved a glance from bird to nomad.

"I guess he does," the man answered, green eyes flitting. He obviously thought there was something more to this conversation, that Sharif was only approaching through innuendo and vagueness. In truth, Sharif meant exactly what he said. So when the man accepted one of the coins and laid a bag each of millet and rice onto the desk, he did so with the obvious desire to have this transaction be done quickly. Of course, Sharif was just glad that he didn't have to haggle again. That was time consuming, and he needed to find what he was looking for.

"Thank you," Sharif said, before taking the bags under one arm and lugging them over to where Patriarch was lying on his belly. The bird turned to him. "Yes, he had millet. It'll take a while to get the rice ready, so it'll be dinner for that," Patriarch seemed somewhat mollified by that. "Don't worry, I won't be keeping you forever. I just need to go a bit further. I think it's coming north, so we're bound to meet each other sooner or later."

Patriarch let out a snort, before nimbly pulling the string out of the top of the millet bag, and chowing down for a moment on its contents. It turned to Sharif, and Sharif frowned. "I don't like the sound of that... But it's something I'll have to deal with when it happens. It's not like that sensation's never going to happen again. And when it does, I'll have a direction."

Sharif took the strand which Patriarch had pulled and resewed it. It was one of the few talents that remained from before his injury; he had dexterous hands before and now. He was much like his sister in that respect, but where she had turned her fingers to science, to making things catch on fire, eat through metal, and explode, he was always more interested in making things whole. He'd made the robes he was wearing. And Nila's as well, but he didn't know if she was wearing it or not. It was just an impulse he had. If he saw something broken, no matter what, he was compelled to make it whole.

In his dreams, he sometimes even felt that way about himself.

"Sir, sir!" the vendor shouted, coming out of the stall which had overgrown itself and become a building. He looked between bird and youth again, before pointing west, toward the horizon. "I felt I should tell you, you'd better find some shelter. They say a storm's due in from the ocean."

"That's good to know," Sharif said. "But it won't bother me."

Quite true. He got along well with both air and water, so they didn't feel any need to assail him.

"What do you mean by –" he began, but to Sharif's mind, the world slowed. He could feel a tearing in the fabric of what was real, as something too large shoved its way through. The vendor had the worst of it, though, because one moment, he was speaking to Sharif in a zone of otherwise unpeopled street, but the next, there was somebody else there right in front of him. Sharif saw the truth of it though. This thing, this unspeakable thing, had shoved its way through, from a place that was far away and unfamiliar. "Where did you come fr..."

The intruder raised a hand, and a blast of wind slammed into the vendor sending him through the closed door of his stall-shop, sending it crashing down under his weight. Sharif's eyes told him that this thing was a girl, maybe a year or two older than he was, with black hair and grey eyes, and tattered clothing of a make he couldn't place. His sense of smell, taste, said otherwise. And even his eyes, fed through that shattered mind, could see something else behind her, like it was trying to conceal itself behind her form, waiting to leap out and show its whole and horrific majesty to him.

"You don't belong here," Sharif said, taking a step back. Patriarch bolted to his feet as well, backing away with that same animal wariness which all fauna possessed, that intrinsic understanding when something was fundamentally wrong. She answered by opening her left hand.

RAVAGING BEAST, DESPOILER OF LANDS, BATH OF BLOOD, WANDERING HUNGER

GEAR OF CHAOS;

DARK VOICE IN THE BACK OF MENS' MINDS, HEED!

OBEY THE COMMAND OF THE DEADLIER PREDATOR.

STRIKE DOWN THE OBJECT OF ITS HUNGER AND PREVENT THE GAZE OF DESTRUCTION FROM FALLING UPON YOU.

Her voice was a girl's voice, but as there was something hiding behind her body, there was a voice hiding behind her's as well. And it was terrible, great and wrong. Sharif turned, and saw that a cloud had fallen over Patriarch's eyes, that the fish, long dead and hung in the shops nearby, began to twitch and flail. That the cats and hounds began to circle, hissing and growling in turn. She was a shaman, like he was. And she had just opened The Beast into her left hand.

But Sharif was a shaman too, and he was not defenseless. He opened his right hand, and began to intone.

Patriarch, oldest of the proudest brood. Walker of the Long Path. Defender of Youth

He of Wisdom and Endurance

Shake off those cruel bindings and remember yourself.

Proudest ancestor, wisest adviser, surest talon, strike!

Cut through the horde of that which would demand your slavery!

There were rules. Sharif had never been taught them, but he knew them for they were a part of his very bones. If one invoked the general, than one could do much. If one invoked the specific, one could overrule. The specific always trumped the general insofar as control of that same specific. The cloud which had fallen over Patriarch's eyes parted, and the bird dropped its head, its vestigial wings flaring out as it glared across the circling, flailing, gnashing beasts which now sought to do as this thing demanded. The first of the hounds threw itself at Sharif, only to be kicked away by Patriarch's clawed foot. There was a look, almost like frustration, in the enemy's eyes. It opened its right hand.

IRUKANDJI, GOD OF TERROR, CHAOS OF THE MAELSTROM, PRINCE OF MADNESS

HE OF SIGHT AND MIND,

BOW BEFORE THE WILL OF THAT WHICH BINDS YOU!

There was a flash of light, and a crack of thunder. Even as Patriarch tirelessly pounded away the beasts that encroached, now stood a new figure between the shaman and that thing hiding behind the teenaged girl. This figure was a man-like shape, but composed entirely of lightning bolts, which snapped and hummed electric as it glanced around, confusion plain on its lack of a face. Then, it spoke. "Whoa, wait a minute. How did I get here?" Irukandji asked.

BODY THUNDER, MIND LIGHTNING, TWISTED AND INSANE, BEAR AGAINST AN UNFAMILIAR FOE.

"Hey, I'm not insane, what are you..." Irukandji complained, but then it dawned on him, and he contracted inward just a little bit. "Oh... oh, this ain't good."

OBEY!

HEED THE WARNINGS OF THE MESSENGER, VOICE TO MY HUNGER;

STRIKE THE LIFE FROM THE ENEMY'S BODY, STRIKE THE LIGHT FROM HIS EYES.

That Irukandji turned to Sharif. "Look, kid, I probably want to be doin' this as much as you do, but if I don't listen to ugly over there, I'm..."

CRUSH THE RESISTANCE OF THE ENEMY, AND SEE HIS WILL SHATTER, HIS WALLS CRUMBLE,

HIS HOPE, BURN.

"Oh crap oh crap oh crap," Irukandji said, as now his body was obviously obeying commands not his own. "Please don't eat me! I'm too old to die!"

In the area, every bit of metal began to surge with cruel electricity, and the thruming of pulses climbed up Sharif's feet with every beat of his heart. A crack in the heavens, a bolt from blue skies, slamming down near Patriarch, but the bird was unfazed. Luckily. Irukandji would continue this barrage, though. It was not his purview, but it was his nature. That was actually to Sharif's advantage. So Sharif opened up his right hand, and intoned his own. Irukandji was a creature of thunder, of lightning. And that meant it had one obvious weakness, even to Sharif's wounded mind. He opened his left hand amongst the lightning.

Indomitable Earth, invulnerable shield, scale of the dragon, bone-breaking pressure;

Gear of Perseverance.

Pure as silver, heavy as gold, reach down to this humble supplicant

Withstand!

When mine foe sets blade upon thine barrier, let him shatter

When one beats against thine majesty, let him break

When one seeks the flaw in thine protection, let him falter

When one cleaves to strength, let him be buried.

As the words spilled unbidden by any but instinct from Sharif's lips, the ground began to shift. But it was not earthbending, or anything like it. The soil, baked and dry brown, became dark as coal, lush and vibrant, and iron ore began to mass upward, pushing through that suddenly fertile soil and snatching the lightning out of the sky harmlessly. Irukandji was straining, both against his captivity and from his strength being sapped by the unforgiving and indomitable earth. He was flagging, and that thing knew it. The girl began to sweat, a shudder passing through her. A rumble of a monster in her stomach. She hungered. She came hungry, expecting easy food. She was not prepared. And with a voice that spoke in storms, it roared.

CAPRICIOUS AIR, BEARER OF THE HURRICANE, RIDER OF THE VORTEX'S EDGE, GAPING WOUND;

GEAR OF EMPTINESS.

SEND FORTH YOUR FURY UPON THIS SLOW AND PITIFUL FOE.

CAST A STORM TO BATTER HIM.

CAST A CALM TO STIFLE HIM.

STEAL HIS BREATH AND HIS WILL, AND LEAVE HIM HOLLOW AND AFRAID.

Even as the wind began to rip at Sharif's robes, he could feel that the prayer she invoked in the throat wasn't nearly as effective as it could have been. The wind here was already prone to storms. It resented being ordered. And that gave Sharif an opportunity. He turned to Patriarch, as the great bird was casting off a hound who had managed to catch ahold of one of its flanks, and gave it a good stomping to dissuade it from further aggression. "How are you holding up?" Sharif asked.

I am weary and old. But this is a fight I know well.

"Can you keep it up?" Sharif asked.

Not for long, Scarred Child. Not for long.

That sealed it. Sharif hoped he wouldn't have to call on them, but the situation was dire. He tilted his head back, and invoked the throat, the last of his weapons, and intoned.

Silent Void, unspoken question, infinity of paper's-edge, arbiter of balance, pain of death

Gear of Soul.

Seeker of the lost and arcane; whisper.

Penetrate!

As thine cunning fights the wicked and unfamiliar foe, be wise.

When the foe, blasphemous and insane strikes, be swift.

When his weakness rises to the surface, be true.

When he falters, be ruthless.

When he is crippled... be cautious.

To all outside observers, nothing new happened. But that thing started screaming, pain tearing through the girl's body as the quiet of the void began to settle onto her. The emptiness chewed at her. It dug deeper. It asked the questions that thing could not bear asked. It learned the things it wanted never learned. It shot through to the deepest parts of that thing, and the girl shared in its pain. Finally, the scream changed its aspect, as control drifted, as the reins slipped, and as the girl slid a little closer to the fore.

"This is not a victory," the girl said, her voice hosting a terrible reverberation, the rattling of an avalanche of bones. "It will return, and next time, It will not be unprepared."

A new tearing in the world, and the girl pushed herself out of the inner sphere, through the outer sphere, and into what lay beyond. To a lay observer, she just vanished in a blink. And the instant they did, the animals bolted in every direction, freed from its profane influence. The winds grew dead, the lightning stalled. That Irukandji looked up to him, from where it was being pulled into the ground by the lodes of raw iron. Something like a grin flashed on its face.

"Whew. That was a close one. And I'm outta here," he said, regrowing his lost legs. "And I am never leaving my meatsuit EVER AGAIN!"

A crash of thunder, and Sharif was standing almost alone in a ruined street, Patriarch battered and a bit bloody at his side. He turned to Patriarch, as the void slipped out of his throat. It wasn't good for anything but passing invocations anyway. At the same time, he released the prayer to earth, and the soil stopped spreading in its rich blackness, but didn't revert. Soil didn't work that way. But for a moment, he held onto Patriarch.

They are afraid, and will lash out at you.

"They don't understand. If I explain to them..."

Humans are all like that. You will discover this in time. We should leave.

"But what about that feeling?"

You can feel it as we move to the south. Either we ride into the hot wind this hour, Scarred Child, or you walk it alone.

Sharif sighed, and nodded. He opened his hand, and let the invocation slip, causing a shudder to pass through the old Ostrich Horse. The vigor of the prayer faded quickly, unlike the soil. Around, Sharif could see people, many people, staring in wary fear. Like they were waiting for him to attack them at any moment. He wanted to tell them that they were safe, now. That he wasn't going to harm them. But Patriarch was right. And he felt a need to walk again. Just like he had for years, his feet demanded south. And this time, he had old and powerful feet to bear him there. Sharif threw his leg up over the saddle and pulled himself up onto Patriarch's back. With a bag of rice riding over his shoulder, he gave a last look at this village on the coast.

He somehow knew he would never see it again. And so it was, and so he rode.

Katara followed the sound of Yqanuac profanity until she finally located her brother, who was swearing and muttering to himself as he angrily threw his things into a bundle. Since he neither had many things, nor cared about their placement in that bundle, it was a very fast task. Katara, though, leaned against the doorframe. "I assume your little mission with Jet didn't go so well," she said. Her tone far too honey-sweet, she prodded. "Did you lose a fight to a crack in the ground?"

Sokka turned to her, and her sarcastic smile took a knock from his expression. She'd seen Sokka angry. Enraged, even. But this was a new animal. He glared, then turned, heaving the sack onto his shoulder. "That 'boyfriend' of yours is a thug and a psychopath," Sokka said.

A reddening came to Katara's cheeks which she studiously ignored. "He's not my boyfriend! And he's not a thug, he's a freedom fighter."

Aang, who had been listening in, dangled himself from the branch supporting the tent, making it look like he was standing upside down outside the flap. "Yeah, we can't judge him just because he's got a different way of life than we do," Aang said.

"He's messed up, Katara," Sokka stressed. "He almost killed a couple out on a stroll in the woods, in cold blood!"

Katara knew he wasn't one to lie except when it made him look like less of an idiot, but she couldn't conceive of how that applied here. And besides, she didn't like his tone, his implication. Sokka had a tendency to fly off of any handle in the area, sometimes twice. There had to be more to this. "And I bet there's a perfectly reasonable explanation to what you think you saw," Katara said tersely. Aang, though, dropped down, and looked between the two Tribesmen.

"Can we not fight about this?" Aang said. "I don't like it when you two fight. It get's scary."

"WE'RE NOT FIGHTING!" Both siblings managed to scream at once. Aang practically folded into himself like a hermit crab.

"Don't yell at me!" Aang said tentatively, backing away from both. Katara sighed, then turned on her brother.

"Do you see what you did?" she demanded.

"What I did? You were screaming too!"

"Maybe Katara's right," Aang broke in, physically interposing himself between the siblings. "Maybe we should hear Jet's side of this."

"See, the Avatar agrees with me," Katara said with a deserved degree of smugness. Sokka, though, just glared darkly, before shrugging that bag onto the ground.

"I don't see what he could possibly say which would explain that," Sokka muttered. The march into the large, lavish tent which Jet was using as his command center was as funereal as a death-march.

The older of Jet's group, his Freedom Fighters, were all arrayed around the tent, listening as he outlined some plan or another. He looked up and flashed that slick smile that he had, and Katara instantly couldn't see what Sokka was so worked up about. He couldn't be a bad guy. Jet just couldn't. She took a moment to give her brother a derisive look before turning to Jet once again. Oddly, one figure was absent, the tall one in the dark cloak. She shook the distraction away. "My goony brother says that you tried to kill some people in the woods."

"Yes, and?" Jet said. She stared at him for a moment, slack-jawed. He sighed. "Sokka, didn't you tell her they were Fire Nation?"

"Only one of them was!" Sokka said.

"See, there's my point. It was fight or die," Jet said, before turning his attention back to the task at hand. But Sokka had a bone in his teeth and he wasn't letting it go, even though the problem had already been sorted.

"So you conveniently forgot to mention that the people he 'almost murdered' were the enemy?" Katara asked.

"One of them was an Easterner, a girl from the town a few miles north," Sokka stressed. "Was she secretly Fire Nation too, or was I imagining the green eyes I saw?"

"She was an assassin," Jet said without bothering to look up. Sokka sputtered outright at the allegation. "She was likely conspiring with the soldier to kill me."

"Are you insane?" Sokka asked.

Jet shrugged, then reached back and set a cruel dagger onto the table. He pointed at a crust on its blade. "It's coated in contact poison. One nick and that'd be the end of me. You saved my life, Sokka."

Katara crossed her arms before her chest. "See? I told you there was a reasonable explanation for this?"

"There was no knife!" Sokka shouted. "She wasn't an assassin! Why are you believing his lies?"

"She was concealing it."

"You never checked her! Shadow and I were the last ones to leave, and she didn't have a knife!"

"Maybe you just didn't notice when they found it?" Katara asked. Sokka just growled.

"You know what? Fine. Believe him. Follow him wherever he goes like a loyal little puppy. Believe every cockamamie thing he tells you just because he says it. I'm done. I'm heading home before your rock-headedness gets me killed, most likely by somebody like him," Sokka said, jabbing a finger toward Jet. Jet raised an eyebrow in either alarm or consternation, probably the latter, as Sokka stormed out.

"Sokka, wait, don't go," Aang pleaded. Sokka paused. "We've still got to get the Fire Nation out of the town, and then we've got to reach the North Pole. I don't want to do that without you."

"And if it were up to me, you wouldn't have to," Sokka said, staring at his sister. "But it isn't. So I'm gone."

And with that, he slipped away. And even as a portion of Katara said 'good riddance', the far greater part felt like it was making a monumental mistake.

A few minutes after the outsiders departed, Jet halted his line of thought in mid-track and turned to Smellerbee. Of those present, she had been with him the longest. Only Shadow could claim a longer tenure, but only because they had founded this little organization. And Shadow probably wouldn't be willing to do this. "He's going to calm down and come back. Make sure that doesn't happen," Jet said. Smellerbee nodded grimly, then she darted out of the tent. He turned back to those that remained, and a smirk came to him.

"And for the rest of you, rest up this afternoon. After dark, we've got a lot of hauling to do. Forty barrels of acid aren't going to move themselves."

Aang paced endlessly, wearing a rut into the peat of the bog as he wracked his brain for a way to somehow make this all better. Sokka couldn't be leaving! He was the meat and sarcasm guy! To Aang's terrified and irrational mind, it felt like he was suddenly losing his family again, and the feeling burned at him in a way that few other feelings would. When he was in the Southern Air Temple, he might not have known whatever siblings he might have had, but he always knew Gyatso. Gyatso was a constant to his life, as sure as a father. It had been the sure and horrible loss of Gyatso which catapulted Aang out of control into the Avatar State. And he was terrified he might do it again.

"You're overreacting, Aang," Katara said, which was of no comfort. "Sokka gets like this all the time. He blows up over something stupid, claims that he's the victim, and then storms off until he's willing to admit he's wrong. It's just the way he gets sometimes. Frankly, I'm a bit surprised he hasn't done this sooner."

"But what if this time's different?" Aang asked. "I mean, he looked really angry, and really sure of himself."

"That's my brother, master of self delusion," Katara said off-handedly.

"You shouldn't talk about him that way," Aang said. "He's your brother. He's probably the only one you're ever going to have. And even if he wasn't, he's the only Sokka you're ever going to have."

"And thank Tui and La for that," she said lightly.

"I can't believe you'd talk like this," Aang said, resuming his pacing. Yes, while Sokka sometimes made a fool of himself, he did so with a transparent heart. But Katara by times could just be mean. And with very little reason, too. "You know what? I'm going to to find him."

"Aang, you don't need to do that," Katara placated. "In a couple of hours, he'll realize how far from home he is, that we're the only ride around, and come crawling back."

Aang just stared at her. "You're a bad sister," he said simply, and Katara gaped outright at him. He pulled his staff to his hand and moved to the door, flicking the glider open and preparing to launch into the skies, surveying eyes be damned. Before he did, though, he heard Katara calling his name. He turned to her. "What?"

"If this means so much to you, I'll come with you," Katara said, her eyes somewhat downcast. Aang looked up, noting the indigo stain of the sky, of a night soon approaching. "It might be good to keep him from tripping over a root and knocking himself senseless. I'll go get Appa."

"We can't take Appa," Aang stressed. "The Fire Nation is only a few miles away. If they see Appa, they'll come down on us like... something that comes down really hard. Rocks or something."

"I see your point. More or less," she said. "But then how are we going to find Sokka?"

Aang turned around, and held out an arm. "Hold on, and don't let go."

She locked her arms around his waist. With a bound empowered by his airbending, and a gust of gale wind under the cloth wing, he was soaring through the sky, seeking a needle in a haystack. Or worse, a splinter in a woodlot.

The slog was every bit as horrible as Sokka imagined it would be. He wasn't an idiot. As much as he hated the very thought of walking amongst the Fire Nation, the only other alternative was to trek for weeks, maybe as much as a month, back through the bog towards the southern Earth Kingdoms, and then another week to find civilization. With a town so handy, he would have to be an utter idiot to pass it up. It was just finding a way to get away from it quickly which was the problem which currently beset Sokka's brain.

Well, one of two problems. The other regarded why the Fire Nation needed so much acid, delivered secretly.

It wasn't for the tenth time today that he thanked Dad for showing how to oil boots properly, to keep the water from getting into them no matter the conditions. It was probably the only thing preventing a nasty case of trench-foot. Why they called the affliction trench-foot was a question lost to history, since it would take a special kind of moron to fight in a trench during a battle. But still, his legs pulled the familiar strain of walking against inclement condition. A year ago, it had been groin-deep snow and brutal wind; now it was sucking mud and vines. He was going to have to whittle a machete one of these days, especially if he ever ended up in conditions like these again.

Sokka paused, looking toward the north. It was a fool's errand, heading for the North Pole. Of course, sticking with the Avatar was putting the world's biggest bull's-eye on his back, and that didn't bother him very much. No, the North Pole bothered him because he knew that, in a few days, he would be getting farther away from Dad again. It was irrational, he knew that; since Dad could be just about anywhere in the East Continent, Sokka had no way of knowing when he would stop approaching the man, but he just felt like he was missing a chance to see family again. And it grated at him.

"Well, then I guess that's where I'm going," Sokka said to himself as he set out again, shaking off the moment of paralysis. "He could always use another warrior."

Yeah, right. Sokka the warrior. For some reason, ever since Kyoshi Island, that image was harder and harder for Sokka to hold in his head. Had they humiliated him that badly? Or was it just that he was finally seeing himself without his pride clouding the lens? In either case, there was a world out there, and he had a fair degree of certainty that he was going to be seeing a goodly chunk of it before this wild misadventure was over. It wasn't like the universe was going to keep his life simple and pleasant, after all.

Sokka kept walking, wishing once again that he'd brought money to arrange passage. But he'd left it with Aang and Katara. Yes, they were working with a thug, but they'd see what he saw sooner or later, and when they did, they'd need it much more than he did. After all, Katara was a girl; people didn't hire girls for coolie work. Sokka paused. Tui La, this was going to get unpleasant. Sokka enjoyed coolie work about as much as most people enjoyed having their hair ripped out, one strand at a time. He turned back, contemplating whether he should just try to make peace. But even as that thought came to his head, his jaw set and his eyes darkened. No. There was no working with Jet. He was a murderer waiting to happen and Sokka didn't want to be anywhere near him when he snapped.

"No point waiting," he said, turning one last time toward the north and preparing to walk. But when he did, he heard something. A creak of wood. Instantly, his body went still. There was no followup. That was actually worse. Natural things happened in patterns. A gust of wind might blow a branch, make it creak. An animal might step on a limb. But silence, especially silence like this, this was deliberate. Somebody was stalking him.

Sokka tossed his bag over a limb to keep it out of the water, and pulled his club and boomerang in a practiced and fluid motion, turning in a slow circle, trying to spot his would-be assailant. He wasn't getting captured today.

"I know you're out there," Sokka said.

The response came in the form of a knife. With a yelp of alarm which was only a little bit unmanly, he managed to hurl himself into the muck so that it didn't embed in his person. He looked back up, and saw something darting through the underbrush, in the darkness of the approaching night. Sokka pushed himself out of the mud and ran. "I'm onto you, Shadow!" he shouted. Shadow was the knife-thrower, after all. He ran, and almost lost his head for his trouble. Only a fortunate placement of his boomerang, a twist of metal against metal kept the sword's edge from slashing into his throat. Sokka quickly twisted away, and found himself facing not the black-cloaked form of Shadow, but the wild-haired, face-painted visage of Smellerbee.

"Alright, killers coming out of the woodwork," Sokka commented.

"Jet said you can't go to the Fire Nation. You're a liability. We don't take liabilities lightly," she said quietly.

She rushed forward, a sword in each hand, and Sokka found himself falling back fast. He couldn't match steel with what he had. Not for long, anyway. So he flailed and he stumbled, saved only by the fact that while Smellerbee had more experience fighting than he did, it was against opponents who would never fight as Sokka needed to. She kept aiming for openings that Sokka didn't give, expecting counterattacks that never came. It bought Sokka time, but that was just deficit spending. Soon, either by his exhaustion or by sheer bad luck, the debt would be called due.

And the question of when and how was answered when Sokka's backswing, which sent Smellerbee staggering back as it clanged off her crossed blades, suddenly found itself pinned to a tree-trunk, a barrage of short arrows caging it in place. Not so much emerging as materializing from the shadows came a black-cloaked figure.

"What's this?" Shadow asked.

"He's going to betray Jet to the Fire Nation," Smellerbee said. Shadow frowned at that.

"Why?"

"Don't know, don't need to. Jet wants him out of the picture."

"And you don't ask questions," Shadow pressed.

"I don't need to."

"Then you're a fool," Shadow turned to Sokka. In approach, the hood caught on a branch and Shadow was caught up for a moment, before finally throwing back the hood in annoyance. Sokka suddenly realized why that voice sounded high. Shadow was a she. A very fine-featured, very pale she. Her hair might have been quite short, almost boyish and ragged, but the rest of her features made it seem quintessentially girly. "What's going on?"

"Jet tried to kill somebody," Sokka said. "An innocent woman and a soldier he'd already beaten. You saw it! You were there!"

"I was," Shadow answered.

"Come on, think about it! If he's going to do things like that in front of you, imagine what he'd try when your back was turned!" Sokka stressed.

"Jet heeds my advice," Shadow said. "But he has been... unstable lately."

"Shadow, come on, just do it and let's go," Smellerbee urged. Shadow answered Smellerbee with a flat glare, before turning back to Sokka. She seemed to be thinking, deep. Finally, she let out a weary sigh and shook her head slowly.

"The Tribesman is right. He's going over the deep end," Shadow briskly glided up to him and yanked the quarrels from the trunk, freeing his arm. She turned to Smellerbee. "Where is Jet?"

"What? You're taking his side?" the other girl sounded outright betrayed.

"Answer my question."

"No. I'm loyal to Jet, you... you bimbo!" Smellerbee shouted, before rushing forward again. Shadow darted to a side, letting the attack carry Smellerbee against the same tree that Sokka had just pulled himself off of. Then, with a flick of long-fingered hands, Smellerbee was entombed in a cage of metal blades as Sokka had. The Tribesman let out a low whistle of respect at the spectacle.

"Gotta say, it seems like all the most effective people I meet nowadays are women. Suki, my sister, that Princess Azula chick..." he muttered to himself.

Shadow gave him an aside glance. "There's a name I didn't think I'd hear again," she said.

"What?"

"Nothing," she corrected. "Where is Jet?"

"I don't know," Sokka admitted, pondering to himself against the background of Smellerbee promising brutal and bloody retribution upon both Shadow and Sokka for what the former had done. Finally, the second of the two riddles didn't so much as fall into place, so much as rise into focus. "Wait a minute, Shadow, if you were Jet, and you wanted to wipe out a Fire Nation garrison, what would you do with more than three dozen barrels of concentrated acid?"

Shadow pondered for a moment, before a moment of alarm alighted on her face. "No. Damn it, Jet!"

"What is it?"

"The river," she said. "It travels slow. He's going to dump it into the river and eat the hulls of the boats."

"That's a good thin..." Sokka trailed off. "But it'll eat the pylons that the town's built on, won't it?"

Shadow just stared at him, letting the answer sink in slowly.

"We gotta move."

She nodded, then the two of them were sprinting through the underbrush. In their wake, Smellerbee let out one last good thrash, and then became still. She still muttered to herself, but she knew that for the time being, she was well and truly stuck. So it was that she was unable to stop a parrot lizard from scampering down the tree trunk and roosting in her hair. Oh, the Tribesman was going to pay for this.

"I don't see him," Katara shouted against the winds as they flew. It was bloody uncomfortable, and her arms were getting extremely tired, but they covered far more ground than they ever would have afoot. Only Momo, who had been flapping along side of them, seemed to be having an easy go of it, but then again, it was a lemur, and lemurs were natural fliers.

They hadn't been flying long, but the only reasonable thing to do was to circle out, so they weren't very far from where they started. It was when they'd circled north again that Aang saw something, and began to bring the glider down without saying a word to her. Not surprising, considering the level of concentration that he was showing just to keep this thing airborne. As tired as her arms were, she imagined that his exhaustion outweighed hers fourfold. That he didn't complain was a testament to his desperation.

It never occurred to Katara how much he valued having Sokka and Katara with him. And it hurt to think that she'd so cavalierly cast that aside. It wasn't just herself she was dealing with anymore, now she had to look after Aang, too. The trees approached with somewhat alarming speed, and Katara found herself tugging at the collar of Aang's kavi. "Aang, are we supposed to be going this fast?"

"Hold on!" Aang answered, before pulling up, but even so, it only slowed their decent, rather than reversing it. And it was the trees which broke the fall, rather than Aang's airbending. After a few moments shaking the stars from her eyes and pulling the vines off of her face, she looked around to see a fairly astounded looking Pipsqueak with a barrel under his arm. The massive youth gave a nervous glance aside, and Katara followed it to where she could see many other such barrels, stacked on the side of a stream, Jet perched atop them.

"Katara, what are you doing here?" Jet asked, hopping off.

"I'm looking for my brother," She said, rotating some pain out of her arms. She then frowned at the freedom fighter. "What are you do..."

"I had a talk with Sokka a little while ago," Jet said, sweeping an arm over her shoulder and turning her away from the barrels. "He just needed to blow off a little steam, so I sent him and Smellerbee out on recon, to make sure the Fire Nation doesn't have any surprises lined up for us."

Katara wanted to believe him. But she knew her brother. She pulled that arm off of her shoulder and stared at the man. Yes, he was attractive, and brave, and dashing, but it was all too... slick. "What are you doing with those barrels, Jet?" Katara asked.

"Burying them, where the Fire Nation will never find them," he said. This time, she felt no urge to believe him. Aang came stumbling out of the foliage, dragging a somewhat tattered glider behind him. He let out a moan upon noticing its condition, and snapped it shut. He looked at Jet, then the stream, then his eyes grew wide.

"Katara, this river runs into that town," he said.

"You can't know that," Jet said. Aang gave Jet an expression of such derision that Katara couldn't believe Aang's face capable of it.

"I've been gauging terrain while your great grandfather was in diapers," Aang said with a level of confidence. He pointed at the river, at the barrels. "Anything that goes into that water will get swept right out into the bay. I'd bet my arrows on it!"

"Jet, what are you doing with those barrels?" Katara continued, taking a step back toward the airbender.

Jet's mouth pursed, his eyes narrowed, and his fists clenched. "I thought you'd understand. You know how much I've lost. We're the same, you and I! We both lost our families to the Fire Nation!"

"No, I lost my mother and my sister to the Fire Nation," Katara shouted back, her hands spreading out and urging the water in the boggy terrain to obey her. "But I'm beginning to think you lost your mind."

"This is a victory, Katara! We're freeing them from the Fire Nation once and for all!"

"Who will be free?" Katara shouted. "That vitriol would bring down the entire village, kill hundreds of innocent people!"

"So you'd leave them in slavery?" Jet asked, his hands creeping back to his blades. Katara surged her hands up, and water leapt up in a pair of waving tendrils from the damp peat and tepid pools.

"How is death better?" she demanded.

"Jet, you can still stop this," Aang pleaded.

"There's no stopping this," Jet said, and he cocked a hand to hurl his hook-sword at the nearest of the barrels. Only Aang's swift blast of airbending knocked the weapon aside before it could rupture the barrel and begin leaking its deadly cargo into the waters. The others, though, took the attack and parry as a signal to attack in force. Instantly, she had to twist and inexpertly catch the cask that Pipsqueak had been lugging with the water she was streaming. All of those months of practice now finally paid off, because she was able to drop it inelegantly, but without breaking it, against a tree-root. She then had to send the whole lot of it against the massive youth, because otherwise, he would have simply bull-rushed her and pinned her.

Aang wasn't faring as well as would be hoped either. Without his glider nor any significant high ground, he was forced to fight on Jet's terms, and he was obviously the worse for it. While he could keep Jet away from the barrels, and keep those cruel, razor sharp blades from gashing him open, Aang couldn't slip out of complete defense for more than an instant without Jet surging forward once more.

Katara focused on Pipsqueak to such an extent that she completely forgot that he might have been the largest, but he was hardly the only of Jet's goons. She quickly felt one of her arms begin twisted up painfully, her eyes watering as she could feel her shoulder tearing in its socket. Tui La, she never knew a hammer lock could hurt so much. She didn't need to look back to see Sneers behind her. She could feel him. He was soaking wet. And that was to her advantage. She stomped downward onto his foot, which didn't release his painful lock but did give Katara a bit of maneuvering room. She then reached forward with a foot and pulled back hard, similar to when she emulated the tide, but utilizing a different part of her body. The water surged up out of the pool just as Sneers' lock hoisted her off her feet again. She then clenched her fingers and toes, forcing out a breath despite her pain. The water that surged over Sneers' ankles flash froze, and she finally had leverage now that he couldn't move with her.

Taking the opportunity Katara's immobility gave him, Pipsqueak began to rush forward, but a streak dropped from the heavens and smashed into his face, screeching and clubbing for all its twenty pound body was worth. Pipsqueak's battle-cry became a chorus of 'get it off get it off' as he fell to the ground and flailed, trying to dislodge the protective lemur which had decided to make itself useful.

Katara reached with her remaining arm and slammed a ball of water up out of the damp soil and into Sneers' face. It was enough to knock the both of them backward, with was a pain all anew, but since she'd landed atop him, he lost his grip, and she was able to pull loose and use the water which saturated his clothes to freeze him to the forest floor. Of course, rising to her feet only had her see Longshot's paddy hat rise up out of the woods. She reflexively pulled water to her, but there wasn't enough nearby. So she dove past a tree, an instant before an arrow split her. He might be good at range, but for moving targets, thankfully not as much. She needed water, but between smashing Pipsqueak down and freezing Sneers' to the ground, she was running out.

She peeked aside, and saw that Aang had taken a place atop the barrels themselves, and was airbending furiously, a stream of wind so profound that she could see how it flowed by the twisting of the trees. But Jet was rooted through it, his blades dug into roots and peat, his face a mask of concentration and anger. Almost outrage. If only she were closer to that stream. She set out another glance, and saw that hat again, this time a split second's warning to move or be feathered. She ducked to a new position behind the tree, and once again cursed herself for not preparing more completely. But she could feel something. There was still water. She couldn't see it, but she knew there was still water in this bog. She couldn't deplete it so quickly. It was just deeper.

Putting faith in her perception, because it was all she had at this point, she bolted out of cover, catching a glance of those flaring ears, that paddy hat. His gaze snapped to hers, and his arm drew back, an arrow nocked and drawn. But she pulled up, her hands tearing as through trying to rip a sheet out from under Sokka while he was still sleeping. And water obeyed her. A substantial body rose up as the arrow loosed. Her eyes widened with a yelp as she quickly slammed her fists shut, and the water turned to ice in a heartbeat. The arrow was half-way through it, and now, was stopped dead. She smirked, then shoved forward with both fists, and the entire frozen mass snapped away from its base and smashed Longshot against a tree, pinning him there under its weight, where he would remain until it melted.

She turned, prepared to help Aang, but after a single step, she felt her legs twist back of their own accord, and she face planted onto the muck. She looked back, and saw Bug whirling the other end of her poi, focus on her face. "Just try it, Tribesman," she said. Katara twisted, trying to break free, but the effort was too much, and she was quite handily caught. A glance toward Aang showed the worst had come to pass. Jet, having slogged ahead through that maelstrom, had finally lashed forward with both blades, hooking them behind each of Aang's ankles, and heaved, managing to pull the Avatar off his feet with such vigor that his head bounced against the ground, and the great wind stopped as his consciousness parted for a moment.

"Jet, don't do it!" Katara screamed.

"It's already done," Jet said, then he turned to the barrels, all lined up on the side of the river. He took a breath, cocked back a hand, and swung that hooksword down...

Only to be interrupted by a boomerang to the face.

Jet staggered back, clutching his forehead, which now had a rivulet of blood streaming down where the weapon had cut him near his hairline. He leveled his one still-held blade at Sokka as he stomped out of the woods, club to his hand and thundercloud his expression. Even having the angry lemur land on his shoulder didn't break the impressiveness of Sokka's display. In her entire life, Katara had never been so happy to see her older brother. "You can't stop me, Sokka. I have control here!"

And his statement was proved patently false when a barrage of knives and quarrels slammed him to the ground and pinned him there as though a specimen in a scientific exhibition. Gliding out of the woods behind Sokka was the last of Jet's gang, and at this moment, Shadow was staring murder at Jet just as Sokka was. Shadow turned her glare to Bug.

"Let her go," Shadow ordered.

"But Jet said..."

"I don't care," Shadow countered. "Let her go, now."

Bug glanced between both of her 'superiors', but seeing how one of them was now immobilized and helpless, and the other was angry and without-a-doubt still armed, Bug made the wise decision of letting the strand which had caught Katara's legs loosen, and the Tribesman quickly shrugged free of bondage. Shadow walked a bit closer to Jet, shaking her head in dismay. "What were you thinking, Jet?"

"I was going to drive them away!" Jet answered. "Put the run to the Fire Nation!"

"And what about all of the people in the town? You know, the people who just got invaded by the Fire Nation?" Shadow asked. She seemed a lot more vocal now, since anger had slipped into her voice.

"Acceptable casualties," Jet's tone was grim.

Shadow rolled her grey eyes and let out a long profanity in Huojian, which made Katara's eyes bug out a bit. "I thought we were past this, Jet," Shadow said harshly. "We attack the Fire Nation military. Not their civilians, and not the people they enslave."

"What do you care? They're just Fire Nation!"

"So was I!" Shadow screamed. "And yet, here I am. You lost your parents to the Fire Nation? Mine were personally killed by Fire Lord Ozai himself. You have no home? I was kicked off of my own continent! Damn it, Jet, we have to be better than them! If we sink down to their level, then what's the point, Jet? If we look into that abyss, and we see ourselves in it, then what good have we done? I've seen the face of the enemy, Jet, and his eyes are golden, not green."

Jet tipped his head back, and let out a groan. A sigh, then he looked back up at her. "I messed this up, didn't I?"

"Pretty badly," Shadow answered. She turned to Katara. "You should thank your brother. If it wasn't for him, there'd be a lot of dead innocents today."

"You're right," Katara said with humility. "You were right, Sokka. Jet was off the deep end, and I wouldn't listen. I'm sorry I ever doubted you."

"Nice to know I'm appreciated," Sokka said, but without his usual smugness. "Now if you all don't mind, I think we should probably leave. I've had enough of this bog to last two lifetimes."

"Yeah," Aang said unsteadily as he limped over to Sokka, who took an arm over his shoulder and helped him. "This place is no fun anymore."

"Go with them," Shadow said, tilting her head toward Sokka and Aang. "They need somebody to fight for them, now more than ever."

"I'm not much of a fighter," Katara said quietly. Shadow looked past Katara, to the three men Katara had put down using nothing but her will and her waterbending, with an assist by an angry lemur.

"Then I'd hate to see what you consider a good one," Shadow said.

"What are you going to do now?"

"Go south. Maybe see if we can get the children dropped off some place safer," Shadow responded, kneeling down toward Jet. "They've already seen enough war. They deserve to have childhoods."

Katara could empathize with that. She gave a nod to the dark, grim woman and slowly set off after her brother and Aang. As much as she'd like to beat a hasty retreat, she hurt, pretty much everywhere, and moving would be slow or nonexistent.

As she walked, the voices of Sokka and Aang got a bit more distant, fading into the din of the bog, and she took a moment to stop, leaning against a tree. She'd been in a real fight, and she won! Dad would either be proud, or horrified. She was wagering on proud. She let out a crooked, tired smile at the thought, at the memory. Two years since she last saw Dad. Tui La, how long would it be now? What if he was already back, and now they were gone?

No, there was no point thinking like that. She'd see Dad again. Possibly sooner rather than later. But she would keep going, to the North, toward the sister Tribe, toward a teacher. She pushed off of the tree, straightening her now hopelessly soiled dress, and took about three steps before she noticed that she was not alone in the gap between five trees. She turned, her hands spread out, and when she saw the other party, she paled a bit. "No... Impossible."

Golden eyes stared back at her.

He opened his hands to his sides. "I'm not here to start a fight. I just want to talk," Zuko said calmly.

"About what? How you're going to kidnap the Avatar?"

Zuko gestured toward his belt, and then slowly pulled out a scroll from the loop. With a caution akin to trying to domesticate a feral animal, he took a step closer, then gently tossed it toward her. She caught it, but her eyes never left him. "What is this?"

"You're looking for a waterbending master, am I right?" Zuko asked. He shook his head. "You're not going to find what you're hoping to in the North. Believe me on that."

"What do you want, Zuko?" she demanded. He gestured toward the scroll now in her hand.

"There are other ways to learn. Uncle had this in his things, I don't think he'll miss it."

Katara finally looked down at the scroll. The ends were capped in the blue wave of the Water Tribes. Her eyes widened in shock and amazement as she quickly unfurled it, hearing that subtle creak of oiled skin, rather than paper, and the images carefully burnt on rather than inked. The figures on the page showed forms of waterbending, things she had never even thought of trying. She looked back up at him, confusion plain. "How did you find this?"

"I wasn't lying about what Uncle did," Zuko said. "There are more. I know that much."

"Is this a... a bribe?" Katara asked.

"I'm not asking you to betray him. I'm just telling you there is another way. He is not your only option. He's not even your best option, if you're really heading north," Zuko said with a chuckle, but cut it when he noted that it drew a darker expression from her.

"I'm not betraying Aang. And I'm not taking your blood-money either," she said, preparing to throw the scroll, but he made a placating gesture.

"Wait wait... Just keep it," Zuko said. "And remember, there is another way. I'm not doing this for myself, Katara. I'm trying to help my sister. She needs help, and the Avatar is the only way she's going to get it."

"Your sister's a piece of work, Zuko!"

Zuko's calm expression faltered at that, rage leaking through his placid veneer. "Yes, she is. She had another fit a few days ago. This one was so bad that even today she hasn't regained the capacity to SPEAK! You have NO RIGHT to insult her!"

The two benders glared at each other, but it was Zuko who backed down first. "You have nothing I want, Zuko," Katara said coldly.

"Maybe, someday, you'll find that I do," Zuko said, taking a step back. She clutched the scroll, her eyes pulling tight in her effort not to simply lash out at him. But when she opened them again, Zuko was gone. The only evidence that he had ever been here was the scroll in her hand. She wouldn't trust him. He was Fire Nation, and that made him her enemy.

But then again... so was Shadow, and she had saved Earth Kingdom lives. She stared at that scroll. This whole thing just got terribly confusing.

Jet watched as the bison lifted off over the trees, keeping low under ominous clouds. He shook his head. "I can't believe that kid's the Avatar," he said.

"I can't believe you almost killed all those people," she answered him. He sighed.

"Are we still on that, Shadow?"

"Are the kids around?" she asked lightly, sitting close to him.

"No, why?"

"Then why are you still using my pseudonym?" she asked with a smirk.

Jet shook his head. "You know, it's a damned lucky thing we met. Can you imagine what would have happened if I never met you?"

"Well, you would probably still be farting around in Gaipan, trying to get the Fire Nation out of the woods," she offered.

"At least I wouldn't have killed a bunch of people," he said.

She turned a glance toward him. "Really, Jet? Are you sure you wouldn't get desperate enough?"

Jet shrugged, as the two of them overlooked the rest of the camp going about their business. What she did with the barrels, Jet didn't know, and the better for it. "I don't think there's any point looking at what might have been. This is what we've got now. So we've got to make the best of it," Jet said, waving toward the children.

"You do have a way with words, Jet," she said, resting her head on his shoulder. He smiled, taking her cool hand in his.

"And you have a way with me, Mai."

I promised you crack pairings, and I deliver crack. In this case, it's carefully considered crack. In canon, Mai's parents got relocated to what most considered to be a bit of a hell-hole (Omashu, naturally). Not exactly the plum of assignments. That indicates to me at least that Ozai had very little regard for Mai's parents. And justifiably so, considering the bungling that they made of the management of the city. But that was because Ozai was secure in his rule. In 3F, he wasn't. And the first rule of taking leadership, lampooned by Machiavelli in his satire The Prince, is that an ascendant monarch must take the first few weeks of his rule to kill all of his political enemies. To do so after that would set the tone of his rule as a bloodthirsty monster, but at the beginning? That's just the tides of succession. So Ozai had his political enemies (including the aforementioned parents, and a few others that may get mentioned) lined up against a wall and shot. Not kind, definitely. And has the added butterfly that Mai is very much an only child: They died long before Tom-Tom would have been born.

Why have Mai hook up with Jet? It amused me. They both have reasons to hate the Fire Nation, but each serves as a mirror to the other, a check and a balance. So Jet doesn't get quite as crazy, and Mai doesn't get quite as cold. Of course, we've got a jealous Smellerbee to worry about but... well, let's just leave that for (the entirely hypothetical at this point) book 2.

Now, regarding Shamanism. If a shaman fights another shaman, or a spirit, the way they do so is through prayers. As Sharif will eventually explain (complicated), the prayers are invocations of the spirits in question. If you're powerful enough, you can just demand that a spirit does something, and it will... begrudgingly. And you don't want the spirits begrudged. If, instead, you butter them up a bit, then you can get them to do things you wouldn't believe, things which are strictly outside the circle of possibility with bending the elements alone. This is mostly because spirits are much more varied; while there are spirits of the bendable elements, there are also spirits of life, death, greed, luck, and many other concepts, each with their own particular strengths and weaknesses. Void is a wildcard, because it's so rare that somebody can sucessfully invoke them. Now, if a shaman invokes the same spirits as a bender, if the bender is in any way competant, then s/he can press through fairly easily, since technology trumps asking nicely most of the time.

Why are spirits so much more powerful in this 'verse than in canon? Well... Yeah, I'll get to that in due time. And if anybody feels like Troping me, go right ahead.

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