Three Families

by James Golen

Three Families seek the Avatar. Three Families find the Avatar. Three Families use the Avatar. The story of how three sets of siblings are changed by the Avatar, amidst an endless war. AU, Want of A Nail.

22. Walls and Secrets

The Tagline for 'Season 1' of Three Families - besides the obvious - would have been "Something's Not Quite Right..."

The Tagline for 'Season 2', on the other hand, is "A House Divided Against Itself Will Not Stand."

---

"That was entirely more complicated than it needed to be," Piandao said, giving the pantomime dragon costume one final shove into the stream which ran northerly toward the sea beyond the walls. Bato, though, seemed to take the whole thing in stride, and Beifong in particular seemed delighted with herself. Only Sati shared his annoyance.

"It worked," the Dragon said basically. Of course, she was half-naked in the stream getting the make-up off, so it lost some of its gravitas. "But that was only the first in a set of objectives which lays before us. You all have the people you're going to contact. I suggest you find discreet ways of doing so quickly. The less time we spend in Ba Sing Se, the less chance that the snake will prove wise to us."

"He's going to find us eventually," Beifong said. "That's pretty much certain. It's just a question of when, and in what context."

"How so?" Piandao asked, his attire finally squared away.

"He's not one to move openly, that much I know," she said. Of course, she made it seem like she had more memory of Ba Sing Se than she really had. Nobody in this party knew anything about Beifong's past, before they spent three weeks sneaking and skulking in the Outer Ring before finally abandoning their attempt as impossible. Even the woman herself did not. But in this, she was not wrong.

Sati threw back her hair, and it flicked away water as it moved. Piandao gave just a moment to look upon her, the beauty of her which withstood the years and hardships better than any woman ought. Then, his gaze shifted enough that he could see Bato, and that slightly wistful expression on his face dropped away. It was a cold hatred, there. An old one. "We should move quickly," Sati said with authority. "We've wasted enough time as it is. I only pray that the Avatar in the North is making better progress than we."

"I'll talk to some old friends," Bato said with a smirk.

"Meanwhile, I'll make sure that those who owe us favors remember it," Piandao one-upped.

"Boys, no need to compete," Beifong said lightly, causing a chortle from Bato and a glare from Piandao.

"Do what you must. If How still lives, he will be invaluable," Sativa said. "No matter what, do not forget that we hold the fate of the world in our hands. The snake has keen vision, but it is too close to the ground. He cannot see what we see."

Piandao took a deep breath, as finally Sati crossed the river, still somewhat wet, and the four of them started walking toward the somewhat less awe-inspiring Inner Walls of the largest city on the face of the planet. "Just like old times," Piandao said quietly. Old times, but two faces were missing. And he wasn't sure that it sat well with him.

---

"This place is amazing," Tzu Zi said upon the brilliant colors which surrounded her. Nila too looked somewhat uncomfortable being buffeted by such numbers and such plenty. "I thought you said that women were supposed to wear black?"

"I thought they were," Nila said, her eyes taking in the groups of women of many ages dressed in clothes as colorful as her own, even as much as Malu's once were. That thought drove a quite uncharacteristic spine of anger into Ashan's already grief-stricken heart. She'd killed his mother. Malu, his guest, had killed his mother, his grandfather, and everybody. He wanted to hate her so badly that it hurt, almost as much as knowing that Latifah was now dead, and would never recover. He would never hear her voice, know her kindness. And it was her fault.

"Only the mothers and sisters of soldiers must wear black," Ashan said unenthusiastically from the back of the pack. "They show mourning as they live for the fighters who may die."

"Then why was everybody back... there... wearing black?" Tzu Zi asked, turning to his attention.

"Because everybody living there was a mother, a sister, a daughter of a Sipahi," Ashan said. Everybody but Latifah.

"He knows a lot more about your people than you do," Tzu Zi pointed out.

That set Nila's teeth to grinding.

"It's been a while since I was here, hasn't it?" Sharif said from Ashan's side. He kept reaching behind him, as through expecting to catch reins or feathers. And the way that he talked about Patriarch, it was like he didn't even realize that the old bird was struck down. In all, they were a wounded host the whole walk north.

"I'm going to find some place to get some food," Nila said. "Or has Ashan managed to usurp even that capability from me?"

"Nila, please," Tzu Zi said in her usual gentle way. Her own burns had healed far better than Ashan would have believed, for all she had no balms nor healers. Nila sighed, and nodded aside, moving up through the wide boulevards sided with white-washed buildings. Ashan, though, took the opportunity to lean against a building. Unlike home, these buildings were made of baked mud bricks, and he knew that he'd be utterly unable to bend them if he wanted to. Right now, though, he just shifted a little bit deeper under a shadow from flapping overhead laundry, and tried very hard to keep from weeping.

"Is something wrong, young man?" an old woman's voice asked him after a few minutes. Ashan looked up, noting that Sharif was idly finishing a basket which had been abandoned before completion. The woman, on the other hand, was quite wizened, her face a map of furrows benoting hard living and hard decisions. Ashan looked away.

"I must not say," Ashan answered.

"Please, I insist," the woman pressed. "I see a young man in obvious pain, and I am to walk by? What Si Wongi would that make me?"

"Please, I would not burden another's heart with my troubles," Ashan said.

"Troubles spread are troubles lightened. What has you so stricken this day, young man?" the woman said, completing the little ritual of conversation.

Ashan sighed, his hands twisting at Aki's reins. "My family is struck down, and I am alone," Ashan said carefully, if only to control his voice. "I have no place, and I... It hurts. More than I thought possible, it hurts."

"When did this terrible thing happen, young man?" she asked him, laying a hand upon his head.

"Not a fortnight ago," Ashan answered.

"Have you had any chance for grief?" she asked. He shook his head. "Oh, you poor boy. What is your name?" he gave it. "Well, young sir Ashan, it is a cruelty of the Host to have visited such destruction upon you and your house. What unkind master would bear you here without thought to your grief?"

"I have no master. It is all gone," Ashan whispered. "And I have nowhere to return to."

The woman sighed, raising her hand from Ashan's crown. "Ubasti's fortunes turned cruel indeed for you. Come with me, please. I cannot sleep at night knowing that even a stranger suffers so cruel a blow. My granddaughter and her husband have more than the room for you and your... slave?" she gave a questioning glance toward Sharif.

"He is a freeman," Ashan corrected with half mind. "He is just simple."

She gave an 'ah' at that and gently tugged at Sharif and Ashan. Both got to their feet, although the former with a look of distant bewilderment. "Come with an old woman. Re is hot and Atum is less than forgiving. You need rest and privacy for your grief."

"You have my thanks, for what little it is worth," Ashan said. Then, he realized that there was something else he needed to deal with. "But there were two others, my traveling companions. They are somewhere ahead, and..."

"The short-haired one and the girl from the distant desert, you mean?" the woman asked.

"You have keen eyes," Sharif noted idly as he wandered behind them, the basket still in his hand until Ashan took it and set it aside. Sharif was right; his mind did wander some times.

"It comes part of my livelihood," the old woman said. "I'll send some of my great-grandchildren to find your woman friends. They will be in good hands."

Ashan just felt relief, that he would finally have the time he needed to grieve.

He desperately needed it.

---

Chapter 2

Walls and Secrets

---

Calling the public house a den of iniquity was an insult to dens and iniquity both. It was a hard, dirty wooden building full to the rafters with hard, dirty, debatably wooden patrons. Cheap whiskey flowed like blood, blood flew like teeth, and teeth were swept up with glass-eyes at the end of every night. The place stank of body odor and sour liquor, and other less pleasant fluids. Usually, the only women who would attend this kind of 'gathering' were payed by the hour. Which made it all the stranger to have a petite, pale, and delicate looking woman amongst them. More than a few heads turned expectantly as they beheld the ingenue moving through their unwashed midst. More than a few ideas ignited.

"Is this seat taken?" the woman with the bright green eyes asked.

"I can think of a seat you can take," a gruff voiced brute said from the bar. She sighed, and motioned toward the seat she'd intended.

"Aaah, I don't think she wants to play," the weasely voice of the brute's companion piped up. "That's such a shame. We were getting lonely."

"I'm just trying to sit down for a game," the woman said delicately.

"I've got just the game in mind for you," the brute said, heaving his foul-smelling body off of the bench and waddling toward her. He was about as broad as he was tall; that she could look him in the eye was telling. The weasel was far taller, and kept a step back, likely just to stay out of the stink. "It's called 'hide the eggroll'," he said lasciviously, or rather as lasciviously as he knew how. "Wanna know the rules?"

"I'm not interested."

The threatening humor went out of his face, leaving naked threat in its place. "Then maybe you should get a bit interested, woman," he said. "Woman like you ought know her place. Lower Ring's a touch dangerous this time of night. Bad things could happen to you. And that'd just be terrible... wouldn't it?"

"I don't appreciate your tone," she said.

"I think you might better come with us, lady," the weasel said with a superior smirk. The woman sighed, then tore her arms back toward her.

With a rumble of earth shifting, and the clatter of rattling cups, a hole opened up under the fat one, dropping him straight through the floor and into the sewer where one of his particular malodor belonged. From where the delicate woman stood, her fists clenched and drawn apart, it was clear what caused that little incident. Her smirk sealed it in any minds that were too slow to catch the obvious. The weasel got a shocked look on his face, but his visage presaged his nature, and he had a knife in hand almost instantly, and was lunging toward the woman, over the hole whence his superior had plummeted. With a heavy stomp on the ground, that hole sealed, and then bucked up, hurling that second cretin up into the wooden floor above, embedding him into the next floor's room, his arms pinned at his sides and his legs flailing. Up there, there was a prostitute's shout of alarm, then a shattering sound, before the legs fell still. With that, the woman took a moment to compose herself in the absolute silence which she'd created, gathering the wisps of hair which had escaped from her bun, and turned to face her other counterpart.

He was slender but scarred, and his bare shoulders showed the edges of tattoos which would have identified him as a member of some criminal organization or another. But he hadn't moved one whit while the violence had undertaken, nor when she sat down before him, and the din of revelry returned to the tavern.

"By all means," the criminal said. "By common courtesy, the guest has the first move."

The woman nodded, then reached not to the pile of rough cut tiles which lay on her side of the board, but into a sleeve, depositing a simple but well made tile at the very center of the board. Upon that tile was a white flower. "I'm sure you'll forgive an illegal if interesting move?"

"Perhaps," the criminal said, laying a similar tile aside, near the back corner, before countering with another move any player of the game would also recognize as illegal, a Bastion piece directly before the opposite player. "The white lotus gambit is not often seen these days. Interesting to see that some people still prefer the old ways."

She smiled, laying down her own piece opposite his. "Those who do can always find a friend," she said with a smile. He nodded. And then, they played. But it was no game, for any rule of Pai Sho which existed in this modern age would have been not only cast down but set afire by the wonton placement which followed, practically a flurry of hands and rough-cut tiles. But then, both stopped, their hands down at their sides. The woman raised a brow. He'd made an incorrect move. He looked down at the tile, then back up at her.

Then there was a knife at his throat.

"What game do you play, criminal?" Sativa demanded from behind his ear.

"Could you please put that away?" the criminal asked. "You'll draw attention."

Sativa gave a glance toward where Beifong had played her part beautifully. From out the horde came two others, dressed in the dirty local garb of hard workers and low lives, plunking themselves down on either side of the dainty woman. The smirk, let alone the blue eyes of the one on the left, was all the signal anybody who knew Sativa's ilk needed to know that Bato had arrived, and Piandao was of course no distance away from the Dragon of the East. Sativa glared at the man, but put her blade away, sitting back and to the side of Piandao. There was no more sneaking about today.

"Good to know some still follow the old ways," the criminal said. He gave a slight bow toward Beifong. "The White Lotus opens its arms wide to those who know her secrets."

"You will find she knows the least of them," Sativa said, but not insultingly.

"You should control your road-agent," the criminal said. "She has a sharp tongue and a too-quick hand on her knives. You should also consider changing your attire. You stand out here. The Lower Ring is not a place for the wealthy, even if the denizens do bathe more frequently than this lot."

"She's not my road-agent," Beifong said. "She is my teacher."

"A teacher? You are but an initiate then?" he asked. "Ah, but where are my manners? You may call me Eryu. You've come at a troubled time."

"How so?" Badesh asked.

"Does she always speak for you?" Eryu asked. Beifong rolled her eyes.

"If I do not, then the important things lay never said. Speak to me, gardener, or give words to empty air."

Eryu turned to her. "And who are you to make that demand of me?"

Badesh pulled a scrap of cloth from inside a pocket, something long stored for just such an event, and pressed it into his chest. He carefully half-unrolled it, and beheld its contents. A green chain against a red field. His eyes went quite wide, his face somewhat pale. He turned back to her abruptly.

"Grand Lotus, I humbly apologize," Eryu said in a worried whisper.

"Serve out your apology in brevity," Badesh recommended. "What is this great news which has the city in such a state?"

"It might be only a rumor, madam, but there is grim news in the North," Eryu said.

"What news is this?" Bato asked, perking up.

"The Siege of the North has ended," Eryu claimed.

"To what ending?" Badesh asked.

"Victory by the Fire Nation," he answered. The four of them all leaned back, exchanging glances. "Did you know somebody from Summavut or the other cities?"

"Yes," Badesh said simply. "Have there been any reports of refugees, or survivors?"

"Reports nothing, there have been hordes of them, moving in every direction but up," Eryu answered. Badesh let out a breath that she didn't know she'd been holding. So did all the others. "But this isn't happy news. I know that 'there is no war in Ba Sing Se', but the military is abuzz with the rumor that the Dragon of the West may be returning to the Outer Walls."

"I strongly doubt that," she claimed with a scoff. "You keep well informed."

"It keeps my head on my neck," Eryu said with a note of pride. Then, his eyes narrowed. "Why have you come back? My... predecessor... told me about you. What you did. Well, almost did. Why now? After all this time?"

"Our goals then and now could scarcely be more different," she said with a dismissive wave. "We are only here to speak to a few knowledgeable people, and then leave before unkind eyes fall upon us."

"They would be very unkind," Eryu said. "Who are you looking for? Besides the obvious?"

Badesh gave a look around the room, then leaned in, speaking more quietly. "There is a professor at the university. He holds valuable information that he may not be aware of. We must have it."

"The university is in the Upper Ring," Eryu said cautiously. "I have clout down here, and even some in the Middle, but I can't make any promises up that high."

"We need not your promises, just an open door and the right person not looking in the proper direction," Badesh pointed out.

"I'm confused as to why you don't just announce yourself," Eryu said, his arms folded before his chest. "You could be sleeping in the Royal Palace."

"And conveniently not wake up one morning not long after we arrive, and rumors of our arrival would be quickly squelched," she finished for him. "We both know which mind controls the eyes of this city, which will bids its hand. What we could have quickly in the open would only result in disaster and failure. So we work in the shadows to protect the light. As we always have."

Eryu nodded with a sigh. "You have taken a place to stay?" he asked. Beifong nodded for them. "Abandon it. Come with me. I know a few places which our mutual friend doesn't know about."

"Should we leave now, or when the horde is pushed into the street?" Badesh asked.

"I also happen to know another way out," Eryu pointed out. "Come on, I've lived here all my life. What I don't know about the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se would scarcely fill a pamphlet."

"Then we should leave at once," Piandao said with a nod. "I'm not comfortable here. There are too many eyes."

"There are that," Badesh agreed, rising as Eryu rose, and moving staggeredly through the din and mess toward the spot which Eryu indicated in his passage. Badesh's mind was awhirl with considerations, thoughts and schemes, plans and contingencies. Of course, scandalously enough, not a one of them was a wonder for the fate of her children. She could be a decent mother for them, after this was settled. There just was never enough time! But still, she walked out, trying to be unseen yet see everything.

And not quite succeeding. Because after she slipped out of sight, one set of eyes of that great pandemonium turned to note her passage with an oddly shrewd look, and a self-satisfied nod to himself, before turning back to the others at the table and continuing the conversation as though nothing had happened. Because, according to anybody who believed in Ba Sing Se, nothing had.

---

The sun was setting in the west, and as it did, she felt a cold settling into her which nobody else around would appreciate. It wasn't bad enough that the desert got so very cold after the sun fell; after Agni slid from the heavens, a very real aspect of her soul left with it. While it still managed to drive sweat out of her skin, it would chill quickly. She knew that from the weeks she'd spent in this desert, let alone the cities upon it.

"You don't look like you're from around here," a young man said, most shockingly in a tongue which Tzu Zi could understand. She turned to find a tall, dark, and lithely handsome man leaning against the framework of a stand abandoned for the late hour. "You're looking about with far too much wonder to be a local."

Tzu Zi smiled at that, somewhat ruined by the veil covering most of her face. "I'm from a long way from here. I've never seen a city in the middle of a desert before."

He gave a chuckle. His voice was oddly accented, but she could still make out his words. "The oasis is vast and feeds much. How could we refuse its call?"

"It's a lovely city, though," she said. It was oddly lacking in colors, she had to admit. The cities which she'd gotten used to, on Grand Ember and other places in her native Fire Nation, were all bright scarlet and shined with brass amongst the poor, and gold amongst the rich. It was almost enough to make up for the dreary, rain-beaten weather which the Fire Nation had to withstand. Here, the buildings were either white-washed, or left in the color of whatever sandstone went into their construction. It was most prevalent in the grand wall which cut off the edge of the market where she stood to a grand palace, all great domes and shining gold beyond it. Of course, almost as though intentionally to create the greatest contrast, against the great wall was a midden pit. She pointed through the agape gates to the great domed palace beyond. "Who lives in that building, anyway?"

The man gave a laugh at that, before cutting himself short. "You're serious, aren't you?" he asked. She nodded slowly, somewhat confused. He pointed down the way. "That is the palace of Sultan Wahid the Cautious. You must have traveled very far very fast not to have heard of him."

"I'm... a long way from home," she repeated, deciding not to expand on it.

"The Divide no doubt," he said with a shrug. "You certainly don't look like any of those bird-worshipping morons to the south."

Her brow drew down slightly at that. But she would not let herself get off track. "So... what's up with this Sultan? Is he a king?"

"He is a king of kings, the master of the Sheiks and Caliphs of Si Wong," he said. He then let out another chuckle. "Strange how the most basic of lessons sound when needing saying. You have a wanderer's look about you. Perhaps if you visit, you might be able to speak with him. They do say that our Sultan is a bit... odd."

"Odd? How?"

"Please, I cannot say," he said, shaking his hands before him. She then shrugged, and looked back, leaving the teenager somewhat caught out. After all, she was supposed to press him for the information. That was how etiquette worked. Of course, Tzu Zi knowing none of this, began to rock on her heels, keeping an eye down that long boulevard. The Si Wongi youth finally cleared his throat, getting her to refocus her attention on him. "So... why are you here, anyway?"

"Oh, just waiting for a friend to get back," she said.

"Then you have an odd direction to be waiting for him," he pointed out.

"Her," Tzu Zi corrected.

"Alone? She must be a brave girl. At nights, these streets are far from safe," he said. "You never told me your name, strange flower from a distant desert."

That brought a renewed smile to her face. "I'm Tzu Zi," she said.

"Khaled," he answered. "I would hear of this friend of yours, who is so brazen and fearless that she would brave the night."

She gave a chuckle, trying to think of the right way to describe Nila. "Well, she's smarter than anybody I've ever known, and that's including two of my sisters, so that's something," she said, "Tough as iron, and stubborn as rocks. But she's got a tender side that she doesn't like to show. Almost like she doesn't want to admit it's there."

"She doesn't sound very... feminine," Khaled said carefully.

"I'm pretty sure being called 'feminine' would make her puff with rage," Tzu Zi answered. He laughed outright at that.

"They always fight hardest, her kind, before Izes' register sorts them true. But enough of her. Where are you staying this evening?" Khaled asked, leaning slightly toward her. She leaned slightly back.

"Excuse me?"

"You are a proper lady and I would like to know you better. Surely you can agree to a fitting meeting? Or do you plan to leave this city by starlight as the caravans go?" Khaled asked.

"Well, I'm flattered, but I'm not sure if now's the best time. I mean, Nila probably needs me, even though she would never say so, and..." she said, stammering slightly. He was very pretty, after all. But he started to lean back.

"Nila?" he asked.

"GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME YOU SNAKES!" a roar came from above, causing both teenagers to turn and crane their heads upward, to the top of the wall. From out a tower on its length, several soldiers, great burly men wearing yellow and blue armor, were bearing a struggling, much smaller figure between them. While Tzu Zi's eyes couldn't make out the identity of that figure, her ears definitely could. Even as she lapsed into wrathful, spiteful Si Wongi, it was obvious even to Tzu Zi's ears that Nila was both up on that wall, and not very happy with how things were going. The two below, and a great many others on the street, paused and watched the spectacle on the wall.

Tzu Zi's eyes went very wide, and her hands flashed to her covered mouth as the four soldiers turned, and faced the market below. "Oh, don't you dare," Nila swore loudly. One of the soldiers laughed, and then all four swung her off the wall, causing the Si Wongi girl to let out a shriek less of terror and more of disbelieving outrage. She even managed to spew forth something which Tzu Zi in her disfluency could recognize as a vulgar swear. Then, with a wet thwap, she landed back first into the muck of the midden.

"Nila!" Tzu Zi shouted, running toward her, pausing momentarily at the edge. When the stink wasn't quite as bad as she'd feared, she tendered a delicate step past the pit's sloping edge. "Are you alright?"

"I'm going to kill that smarmy bastard," Nila muttered, staring upward for a moment. Tzu Zi sighed with relief at that, then leaned forward, catching Nila's hand and hauling her up to a sit. "And no, I don't believe I am injured. They were aiming, after all."

"But... why'd they throw you off the wall?" Tzu Zi asked.

"I might have said something... untoward," Nila admitted. Then she rose, and felt at her back, which was now covered in unpleasant leavings. But something made her green eyes shoot wide. "Wait," she said. She turned, and scanned the area she'd impacted. "Wait..." she repeated, and then she stepped away from Tzu Zi, digging frantically at the muck. "No, now that isn't even fair!"

"What is it?" Tzu Zi asked.

"GIVE ME BACK MY GUN YOU THIEVES!" Nila roared up at the wall. One of the soldiers laughed at her, and walked away. To the firebender's left, the great doors to the palace began to grind closed. Nila seethed for a moment, surrounded by filth, and then stormed out of the pit.

"This is your friend?" Khaled said nervously. He offered a hand, palm up, toward her. "Hello, friend of a friend. I am Khaled, and..."

"Who is this person and why should I care what he's saying?" Nila asked, obviously in one of her fouler moods. But then again, considering she'd just gotten robbed by the regional government then thrown into a garbage pile, she could understand that reaction completely.

"I was trying to be polite," Khaled answered for her. "I begin to see why the Yeniceri would feel obliged to defenestrate you."

"It was a wall, not a window. I was demurated, not defenestrated," Nila snapped.

"His name's Khaled," Tzu Zi said.

"And yours is... Nila," Khaled said. "You know, I should probably get back home... Mother might need me."

"Go, run back to your mother," Nila said with a dismissive wave. Khaled did so, walking down that street, muttering to himself in Si Wongi, thus outside of Tzu Zi's understanding. "That he would not hear me is galling. That he would also steal from me is unforgivable. I will have my firearm back!"

"Nila, don't you think there's been enough trouble for one day?" Tzu Zi asked.

"I have scarcely begun to create trouble," Nila promised. "Now, where are the others?"

"What do you mean?" Tzu Zi asked. Nila finally glanced around, and realized that Nila and Tzu Zi were alone of their companions in the quickly clearing streets. "Nila... I haven't seen Sharif or Ashan in hours."

"What?" Nila asked flatly. Then she shook her head. "How could that happen? They were right behind me!"

"No, you told them to stay behind!"

"And I knew Ashan would never listen to me!" Nila contended. "He's as contrary as a rattlesnake in a boot!"

"Nila, he's in a lot of pain. He just lost his mother," Tzu Zi pointed out. That caused Nila to come to a sputtering halt. "He's been hurting for a while. Maybe he just wanted to be alone, so when you told him..."

"There are days where I truly believe that Sharif is the smarter of us. And those days make me quite angry at myself," Nila said at a mutter. Ahead, Khaled was intercepted by a girl of about seven or eight years, wearing baggy clothes, who yammered something excitedly up to him, before clapping her hands in delight then running off into an alley. Khaled halted, turning back toward them, his face oddly pale for a Si Wongi.

"Come on, I'm sure we'll find them. After all, it's not like Sharif's going to run off again, right?" Tzu Zi asked, eliciting a mournful groan from Nila.

"You just had to say that, didn't you?" Nila complained.

"Excuse me?" Khaled said again, as the two girls reached him.

"What what what!" Nila demanded.

"You are sometimes called Nila Bedesh, yes? You are from Sentinel Rock, yes?" Khaled asked.

"Who asks?"

"I'm... supposed to find you," Khaled said. Nila's hands flashed toward her bow-case,which was futile, because even though the bow was still within, Tzu Zi was well aware that she'd run out of arrows back when Sentinel Rock was still a sane and worldly place. Lacking that weapon, Tzu Zi quietly started moving her chi into place. She knew it'd just be a matter of a moment to set it alight and give it direction. But only if she needed to.

"Speak fast, stranger," Nila snapped.

"My eldest niece," Khaled waved toward the alley, "just told met that Grandmother has two youths called Ashan and Sharif, and they were bade find a girl named Nila."

"Why?"

"I cannot say. You would have to talk to Grandmother," Khaled said.

"Pass," Nila said.

"But... what about Sharif?" Tzu Zi pointed out. Nila sighed. Then, she thrust an angry finger at Khaled.

"If you're lying to me, I will make you regret it," she said.

"You aren't a very pleasant person," Khaled answered. "Izes help you if you ever decide to find a husband."

"Just start walking, stranger," Nila said.

"See, Nila. Now we've got a place to sleep tonight."

Nila only muttered to herself at that. Once again, it was probably for the best that she didn't know what she was saying.

---

"This place isn't what I was expecting," Sativa said as she looked around the bastion of the order in Ba Sing Se. It was delapidated, with neither care nor currency put toward its upkeep in quite some time. Still, she could see logic behind the affront. While Ba Sing Se was home to the largest and best appointed university on the planet bar none, there was a strong desire by those in the upper echelons of power to keep the educated and the uneducated as separate as possible. Well meaning philanthropists could spend all the money and time they wished trying to build schools and libraries in the Lower Rings of Ba Sing Se, but somehow, against all expectation and belief, they would inevitably fail, fall, crumble.

She knew whose fault that was.

"It wasn't this much of a dump last time," Bato pointed out the obvious. Then again, only he had been to this one in their last misadventure in Ba Sing Se.

"Nobody's interested in educating themselves," Eryu said with a note of distaste. "My children, smart as whips they are, but if I hadn't fobbed them off on my ex-wife and shuffled the lot of them to Burning Rock, they'd probably be soma-dealers, cutpurses, or addicts by now. This is a layered society, and moving between layers isn't just difficult, it is by design practically impossible."

"I'm glad we gave up the Caste Society madness six centuries ago," Bato agreed. "There couldn't possibly be a worse way to live."

"Some would disagree with you," Sativa pointed out, "and the snake is not alone in them. Rigidity gives people a sense of stability, of endurance. The reason the Storm Kings ruled as long as they did was because they brooked no crimes against them, and they enforced a sort of law, which the people responded positively to, even if it was harsh to the point of cruelty. I can only imagine the stability the Monolith gave to be a global monoculture in its day."

"Should we be talking like this out in the open?" Beifong asked. "We're not alone."

Eryu gave a turn toward the other inhabitant of the library, sitting with his boots up on a table, a book in his lap. "Don't mind him. He doesn't bother anybody. Just comes in and reads."

"Have you thought that he might be a spy?" Piandao asked.

"Him?" Eryu asked with a scoff. "He's too literate to be a spy."

"You forget the power which is arrayed against us," Sativa said. She walked on, past the shelves of dusty books, in some places far more gap than filled shelf. As she walked, Bato looked back at that stranger, and that stranger gave the slightest of glances up. Blue eyes met blue eyes, and a nod from the reader, who turned back to his book. At the end of the stacks, Eryu kicked twice at the base of the wall. A sliver of light started to shine through it, as a panel had been slid just a touch out of place.

"Who dares knock at the garden gate?" a whisper came from that crevasse.

"One who has eaten the fruit and tasted of its mysteries," Sativa said impatiently. There was a click, then the panel opened more fully, as the lot of them were quickly bustled inside. The panel gave way to a stairwell, which slowly turned down and to the right, its walls lined with scrap iron, tin, and bronze. Sativa raised a brow at that.

"At least you've invested where it counts," Bato muttered.

"The ranks of the Cultural Authority swell every day. We can never be too cautious," Eryu said. Finally, the path opened into a hall, roughly the size of a dinner room, and covered completely in metal plates. And in that room, besides the nondescript, housewife looking woman who'd opened the panel, there was one other who arrested Sativa's gaze.

He sat, hunched forward, his fingers interlaced and his brow pressed upon his thumbs. A pale-gray cape draped past the edges of the chair he sat at, and for all its royal finery, it looked to have suffered greatly in recent times, as many tears as sequins. She had heard nothing from this man for quite a while, so when he turned to her, and those utterly unnatural orange eyes caught her green, she felt a shiver running through her. She did not believe in any divine force, not for a moment, but despite that, there was something about this man which set off a niggling doubt, which she had to forceably crush.

"Who is this?" Beifong asked, alone not caught in gawking, for both Bato and Piandao both recognized the figure before them.

"I see my reputation does not precede me," the man said, his accent the lilting tone of Great Whales, "And I thought the eyes would have been my standard."

"How could you possibly be here?" Sativa asked. She had come here seeking allies, true, but she had never expected that this one would be here. In fact, she was so shocked by it, there was no place in her plans for him.

"Exile and ignominy," he said. He rose, pulling a heavy-headed cane out and stamping it against the tin, a purely symbolic gesture, for what she had seen of him before, he had much improved. "You look surprised, Dragon of the East. Did you think I was going to curl up and die?"

"From what I'd seen of you last, it seemed a likely thing," she admitted. "You know who I am, and I know who you are, so..."

"I don't know who he is," Beifong repeated.

"You are rude as your reputation prepared me," he said with a cutting look toward Badesh. He gave a slight nod toward Beifong. "I am Emperor Zeruel the Second, Lord of Whales, Kad Deid, and Pulse, and last legitimate ruler of a conquered nation."

"Emperor..." Beifong said with confusion. "But... why are you in Ba Sing Se?"

"A better question is how you are not dead," Sativa changed topics quickly. "Your wasting illness looked to have claimed you in all but name. And yet you stand restored. How?"

"God restored me," he said with the simplicity and faith that made Sativa's teeth grind. "When I was struck lowest, my faith brought the mercy of Adam upon my brow and restored my frail body to health and vigor. It is nothing less than a miracle."

The glance shared between Piandao and Bato showed what they thought about that.

"But enough of my standing under heaven," Zeruel continued. "What do you want with Ba Sing Se? I came here as a matter of inevitability. That there would be protective hands to shelter me is surely Adam's mercy, but I have to wonder at you. You are frankly a heathen and His aegis would not extend to you. So why would you dare come where so many hands would turn against you?"

"You know of the Avatar?" Sativa asked. The man scowled. "Yes, how annoying it must be to your faith to have an agent of the divine who has no place in your cosmology. Nevertheless, he has returned, and with him comes an opportunity which I have never known in my lifetime. Not just an armistice with the Fire Nation, but an end to the World War entirely."

"No man has so much power," Zeruel contended.

"The Avatar does," Sativa said. "But he cannot see in all directions, nor suffer a thousand stings and not bleed to death. When he is prepared to defeat the Fire Lord, he must not go into that fight alone, or he will surely fail, with or without your strange god's blessing."

"Sati, a word," Piandao asked in one of their secret languages.

"What what what?" Sativa hissed.

"Could you please stop antagonizing the leader of one of the largest contiguous religions on the world?" he asked.

"No," she answered.

"Then consider this advice from your second that having the Adamites on your side is an invaluable boon, even if you do find his religion distasteful," he altered. She stared up at him for a long moment, then sighed.

"Of course, if you had anything that would help the Avatar, it would no doubt be appreciated," she said, with all the ease of pulling out her own teeth.

"Pride is your downfall, child of the east," Zeruel said measuredly. She scowled at that. "So tell me of this Avatar you go on about?"

"He is a child who attempts to become a man. A good age for our purposes. Malleable, but resilient enough not to break when pressure is applied. I worry that his heritage as an airbender will cripple him, though," She shook her head. "There is a day for words and a day for blood. He cannot seem to admit that the latter even exists. It will be a painful day for him when he receives that education."

"Airbender?" Zeruel asked. "Their kind have not graced this world for decades! Even the last exiles from Da-Aer died when I was a lad of less than ten."

"He was suspended from time somehow," she said with a dismissive gesture. "It is a thing of Avatars for Avatars. Simply that he lives now, despite a century's pass since his birth, and has not aged the interim."

Bato, though, began to glance about. Sativa broke off, turning to watch him. The Whalesh ruler did likewise. "What is this barbarian of yours doing?" he asked.

"Quiet," Bato said. He glanced around. "Where's Eryu?"

"He..." Piandao began, glancing about. He was nowhere in sight, and this room was the end of the line.

"He must have gone back upstairs," the woman said from near the doorway.

"You've a chill in you, that is obvious," Sativa said. "What do your keen ears hear?"

"Something is wrong," Bato said, head turning about.

He moved to the wall near the stairs, first leaning past the housewife, then flattening his cheek against the tin walls. Sativa stood quite close to him, waiting as his eyes pressed shut, and his mouth moved. He was hearing something, but what, she could not say. Then, his eyes snapped open fast, and set into a tone of anger.

"They're upstairs," Bato said.

"Who?" the Emperor asked.

"Who do you think?" Sativa snapped. "Do you think we can get through them?"

"I'm not sure."

"Eryu sold us out?" Beifong asked. Bato nodded grimly. "Why?"

"I should have seen it when he made his mistake," Sativa kicked herself mentally. "It is a simple thing! I am a fool for not seeing it sooner!"

"Don't blame yourself," Piandao said, a hand on her shoulder. Then, on her cheek. She stepped back away from him, shaking her head. "But..."

"No, this is not the time," she snapped. Bato's ear was to the wall once more, but his face was angry focus.

"He's coming back down," Bato said.

"I've got some good news," Eryu said as he came back into view. "I've managed to find somebody who can get you up into the Middle Ring tonight, but it'll still take a while to..."

Sativa didn't want to listen to him any longer. And since she still had her bow at her hip, she didn't have to. The instant Eryu came into sight, she drew the bow from its case, had an arrow nocked, drawn, and fired. It slammed into his chest, forcing him back a step, his eyes wide, and a question clear on his face. He let out a strangled sound of pain, of expiration, as he slid down that wall, the metal tip of the arrow grinding a narrow furrow against the tin as he went. She spat down on his foot, as Zeruel looked on with distaste. "Repaid as a traitor deserves," the fanatic muttered. "Do you intend to fight your way out?"

"They're coming down," Bato said. "Whatever we're doing, we're going to be doing it in the next thirty seconds."

Sativa looked toward that passage, weighing the options. She didn't like how they weighed out. There was no cutting through, not without losing somebody. But then she turned slightly, and looked at the tin panels on the wall. A smirk came to her face. "We will flee," she said. "Bato, Piandao, strip that panel. Beifong, make us a path."

"They'll follow us," she pointed out.

"And when they do, we won't be fighting earthbenders in a basement," Sativa agreed. She turned to the Emperor. "Will you fight with us?"

"With what?" the Emperor asked flatly. "My charming wit?"

"Hrm. Never mind," Sativa said. Bato and Piandao both set to tearing the paneling from the wall, but there was a disconcerting sound coming down those stairs with a fast tempo, the clatter of metal and stone. Finally, with a great heave, the panel came loose, and Beifong thrust forward with both fists, opening a short stretch of tunnel out of this death trap.

"Everybody in," Beifong said, sweat on her brow as she she glanced toward the doorway where Eryu was slumped. It was because of that glance that she had the reflex to hurl herself to the floor. It was but a black streak to Badesh's sight, but it slammed into the tin opposite the lady earthbender with enough force to cause the entire wall to buckle inward slightly. The still unnamed woman gave a scream of terror as the first of them became apparent. To say that his appearance was immediately followed by an arrow from Badesh went without saying, but unlike Eryu, these were not men to be caught unawares. A stone-gloved hand struck the arrow from the air in a heartbeat, then with a thrusting punch, slammed that other woman to the ground. The scream turned to a gurgle as the stone fist, animated by earthbending, began to constrict 'round her throat.

Sativa was trying to get another arrow loose, but she found her drawing arm caught, and with a flash, she was back-handing a knife behind her, only to halt herself upon seeing it was Piandao who'd caught her. Just an instant of pause, then she allowed herself to be pulled out, leaving Beifong the last in the room. The first of those men, in their dark green robes, was joined by a second, then a third, all of them moving with perfect coordination and precision. They knew instinctively where the others would be. Beifong glanced between them, bright green eyes flicking wildly. Then, the first one struck.

She brought up a wall, pounding up the tin of the floor and sending the attack wildly off target. As one, all three agents paused, stock still. "GET IN THE HOLE, YOUR STUPIDNESS!" Beifong shrieked, which was the prompting that Zeruel needed to finally cross the scant distance and join Badesh in their evacuation plan. Then, the spell of their confusion broken, the three agents of the Cultural Authority moved again, trying to encircle Beifong, to cut her off, to wear her down. She reached behind her, drawing stone out of the roof of their tunnel, forming it into a disc upon her arm, a shield against their aggressive earthbending. Their fists flew, their feet flew, but every time Beifong managed to deflect or block one, they simply called it back to themselves, from the dust if need be.

"This is not the time for heroics! Come!" Badesh shouted.

She nodded, and started to retreat, but as she tried to step over the threshold between torn, one of the agents caught a moment, an instant of vulnerability. And he was striking already when it came. The blow took Beifong right in the kidney, a cruel, blunt handed blow which slammed her to the ground, her eyes bugged and wide, her face a rictus of pain and her mind obviously anywhere but aiding escape.

Badesh looked down, just outside the hole, and saw what would save them. The panel of tin which had been torn loose was now on the ground outside the hole. With a desperate lunge, she grabbed the panel and dragged it through the hole. It was telling that Bato and Piandao knew without words what needed doing. They both flipped the panel 'round and began to press it against the edges of the hole she'd made, barricading themselves on one side, and the Cultural Authority on the other. "Don't just stand there you ape, put your weight into this!" Bato shouted at the Whalesh royal. Zeruel shot the Tribesman a glare, but did lend a shoulder to the panel, which was fortunate, because the spanging from the other side told that they were putting all possible effort into breaching their little fortress.

"Beifong, can you breathe?" Badesh asked.

"Yes... yes," she said, wiping away the involuntary tears, and breathing in shallow pants. "Gods that hurt."

"Kidney shots always do," Sativa said sagely. "We need to go further."

"Just a second. I need a second," she said, trying to catch her breath.

"How did you do that?" Bato shouted back. "How did you bend the metal? Metalbending's impossible!"

"I didn't," she said. "I bent... the stone under... it," she pressed her eyes shut.

"That shouldn't have been possible either," Sativa pointed out.

"Knew it... was there..." she finally opened her eyes. "Step back!"

All three of the men retreated almost as one as Beifong took her feet and stomped on the ground. They had good reason to. A pillar of stone leapt up to take their place, securing the tin. Then, a second stomp, and a motion rather like hurling down a soggy sack of cotton, and the tunnel roof where that panel had been pressured up collapsed entirely, securing the barricade permanently, if plunging the lot of them into absolute darkness.

"We're saved," Zeruel said flatly. "Three cheers to the Dragon of the East."

"Shut up and follow us if you value your freedom, mind, and life," she said, tapping her way to Beifong. "We need an exit to somewhere far from here."

"Coming right up," the earthbender said.

---

It was a dump, obviously a tenement housing, but that didn't tell the whole story. Much like Sentinel Rock was a hive which extended downward in an unmanageable stack, this architecture seemed to take the same cues, but heading upward rather than down. It was built with little care toward aesthetics, and expanded with equal contempt toward the inevitability of gravity. Less a building than a neighborhood gone cancerous, the complex now played host to the unspeakably massive family which roamed its innumerable hiding holes and sneak-paths which constituted both a perfect hiding place, and an obvious fire hazard.

"You look hungry, young lady. Have you been taking proper fruits?" the old woman said the moment that Nila's eye shifted away from the rat's nest of a building and toward the inhabitants of said nest. That drew an immediate frown from the teenager.

"What a pleasant introduction," she said sarcastically.

"I was told that you have no tolerance nor training in proper etiquette, so I'm being blunt," she said plainly. "Would you rather I work in the exchange? Or point out that you still smell somewhat like garbage?"

"Anything but that," Nila muttered with a roll of the eyes. The brief bathing and changing of clothes had only gone so far to undo her landing in sewage.

"The exchange?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Si Wongi social foolishness at its finest," Nila said.

"Foolishness? This is your culture you're talking about," the woman said with a note of disapproval. She tutted, then shook her head. "But where is my tact? Just because my guests are uncouth does not mean I may be. I am Ibtihaj al'Adin. This is my home."

"This whole thing?" Tzu Zi asked with a note of surprise. "How did you afford all of this?"

"Oh, I tucked away my pennies for a while," she said.

"Doubtful," Nila said. "Adin. I've heard of that family before."

"Have you?" the woman asked.

"They are the most ubiquitous smugglers in Ibn-Atal," Nila said. "If it is illegal and for sale, you have your fingers in it."

"That's an unkind thing to say to your host," Ibtihaj said with a tone of disapproval.

"But is an inaccurate thing?" Nila asked. Ibtihaj gave a chuckle at that.

"So you know of me, and you do not run to the guards or the Yeniceri. My opinion of you improves."

"I don't care how you make your money. Where is my brother?" Nila asked.

"Such a focused one, is she not?" Ibtihaj asked Tzu Zi.

"Tell me about it. I had to drag her kicking and screaming into shopping for shoes!"

"Scandalous," the old woman agreed, and Tzu Zi nodded.

"I like you. You remind me of my grandmother."

"Hasn't anybody ever told you? All old people know each other," the old woman said with a wave. "Come in, come in. Yes, even you, workaholic traveler. I've had my grandchildren leave some dinner aside. And your brother is safe... for the moment."

"Is that a threat?" Nila demanded.

"So tense she is," Ibtihaj said with a shake of the head.

"Tell me about it!" Tzu Zi agreed.

"Could you please side with me against the old stranger you just met?" Nila asked flatly. Tzu Zi winced at that and moved away from the old woman and toward Nila.

"Please, there is no call to polarize friends. Come. Eat. You will be the better for it," Ibtihaj promised. Tzu Zi shrugged, an obvious 'what's the harm' communicated clearly. Nila sighed, but followed after the old woman as she headed through the complex. The buildings which had once been separate now grew together, so there was no cutting chill of cruel wind, only passage from one building into another as they headed for the heart of this beast, and then slightly past it, down and to the right, which Nila accounted roughly the duodenum of the beast. It was a courtyard of sorts, in that it was probably once a garden, but had since been so overgrown that only a shaft of night-sky scarcely broader than Nila's shoulders peeked down past the overgrown balconies and expansions. At the base of that courtyard, though, was set out a table, and upon it a well appointed meal of roasted meats and dates and other such familiar dishes.

"Oooh," Tzu Zi said.

"Go right ahead. It has been left aside for you," Ibtihaj said genially. The firebender moved off, and dug in with gusto. "Are you not going to join her?"

"In perhaps a moment," Nila said. "I know who you are. That much is obvious."

"That you don't care surprises me. I would have thought you as self-righteous as any of these pompous fools who parade their 'protection of society' as an excuse to break down my doors and steal my things. And not even the illegal things; things I bought with honest money! It is they who are criminals, not I."

"Impressive acting," Nila said flatly in her own tongue.

"Not buying what lays on the blanket, eh?" Ibtihaj broke off her tirade in an instant. "You have a cunning eye and discerning ear. Not surprising, given your heritage."

Nila raised a brow at that. "And what do you know of my heritage?"

"That Badesh may be a common enough family name in the Far East, but since Nassar, it has dwindled. And only one that I know of would approach from the south with such a name. The Dragon's Daughter herself, under my roof."

"People say that name as though it has weight. It has none," Nila said with annoyance.

"Oh, but it does," Ibtihaj disagreed. "Fortunate, fortunate that I discovered your nature before those fools at the Dome did. Who knows what politics they would ensnare you in. I never met your mother, for why would she associate with one such as I? Never, obviously. But you, you have a purpose here. Am I wrong?"

Nila shook her head, annoyed that she'd been so thoroughly weighed out. "You are not wrong."

"So tell me, younger Dragon, what has you under the glowing of the city?"

"I had intended to do them a kindness and inform them of what happened a fortnight past."

"The Eye of Terror?" Ibtihaj's knowing smirk dissolved at that, and she gave a superstitious prayer and gesture. "What did you know of that unholy thing?"

"Less than you assume. More than others know," Nila said. Her stomach made a compelling argument toward her, and she sighed. "If you will permit me. I must eat."

"Please," Ibtihaj's visage had degraded into something more desperate than Nila had yet seen. "What of the Eye?"

"You will hear after I eat or not at all. Take your hands off me," she said. Ibtihaj took a moment, and composed herself.

"I apologize for allowing myself seen so. It was unbecoming," she said. Nila rolled her eyes at that, and stepped away from the old smuggler. She took her seat opposite Tzu Zi, and began to eat as the firebender did, and in the same order. If there was to be any drugging or poisoning, she'd see it in Tzu Zi before it came to her, that way. Yet another unkind lesson Mother had taught her.

"This stuff is really good," Tzu Zi said. "I mean, Ashan's food was good, but this stuff..."

"This is a temporary accommodation, nothing more. I would have no more from her type."

Tzu Zi gave a slanted look at her.

"Dealers in contraband like her also deal in more dangerous goods."

"Weapons? Drugs?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Information," Nila corrected. "The deadliest weapon of all. I have no intention of being a parcel for another person's delivery. In the morning, I will concoct a way back into the Sultan's palace, I will reclaim my weapon, leave a gods-damned note with a servant or something, then we will leave."

"But we just got here," Tzu Zi said with a note of disappointment.

"We are heading to Ba Sing Se, yes?" she asked. "Do you not wish to see your sister?"

"Yeah, but getting there, and what we do while we go, that's important, too."

Nila scowled. "By what possible standard?" she asked.

"Wow. You really gotta learn to lighten up," Tzu Zi said innocently.

Khaled broke into a grin as soon as he spotted the two of them, laying out a platter of soft biscuits beside the firebender. "I thought you'd like something sweeter to end your meal. You seemed to have that sort of character," he said.

"Oh, thank you so much," Tzu Zi said.

"It is my distinct pleasure," Khaled answered. He turned to Nila. "So is it true? You are the Dragon's Daughter?"

"That seems to be an oft-repeated question. Yes, for what it matters," she said with annoyance. It was her hair. That was where the stink was hiding, she just knew it! Well, it was never too late to shave it all off again. Even if she was starting to like it. "Do you ask to know the mind of my mother, perhaps? I can tell you little enough of that."

"Is she always so tense?" Khaled asked.

"Yup," Tzu Zi said brightly. She paused for a moment, then leaned aside, glancing through the warren of hallways at something Nila couldn't see from her own vantage point. "Khaled, could you explain something to me?"

"I shall do my best," he answered. Tzu Zi then grabbed Nila's hand and held it toward Khaled.

"What's up with these? I thought that they'd all have them, but it turns out the only woman with them I've seen was Nila."

Khaled's eyes widened somewhat at that. "May I?" he asked, indicating her sleeve. She sighed, and rolled it up for him, showing how the black lines which were inscribed into her dark skin started from just behind her fingertips, then moved back in an ever-more complex pattern until they reached her wrist, where the whole arrangement exploded outward, a vessel under too much pressure finally giving way. The last of the lines faded to nothingness just around her elbow. "This is an uncommon thing, which was once a part of the South. There were two cities there, to the east of Sentinel Rock, but each of them a fortress which put that sentry post to absolute shame. One of them fell to the Dakongese heathens when I was but an infant. The other, Nassar, was lost early in my mother's time."

Nila nodded when Tzu Zi turned toward her, since the question was obvious. "Yes, that is the same Nassar indicated by my name. It is a lost city, even if we yet do not know how it was destroyed, by what hand. Only that the destruction was great and the living were vastly outnumbered by the dead."

"An old story, but a valid one. In the south, it was a womanly right of passage to take the marks onto them," Khaled explained. "Each girl would design her own, and her father would inscribe them, unless they were not physically capable."

"I had mine done by a tattooist from Ember while visiting this city," Nila said sotto. "An understandable consequence of having no father."

"All people have fathers. I do, even if I have never seen his face, worthless wretch he may be," Khaled pointed out.

Nila smirked at that, and raised a cup. "To the bastards of Si Wong, then."

"You have no couth," Khaled said, before raising Tzu Zi's cup himself. "And that is the better part of you."

"Nila?" she turned at her name being spoken, to see Ashan standing off to a side.

"Ashan. You seem..." Nila began.

"Are you alright?" Tzu Zi interrupted her.

"I am... less unwell," he said. He sighed. "She's really gone. And I never even got to know her."

Khaled sighed at that. "We share a pain, he and I, but his is far the greater for he never had his mother, either. What say you take my bed for tonight? It is comfortable and private. I'm sure I can find somewhere else to sleep tonight?" he said, giving a glance toward Tzu Zi, who giggled lightly.

"Please refrain from seducing my companions while we're beholden to you," Nila said sternly. "It is in bad taste."

"And you would know the limits of bad taste, having so thoroughly pressed against them. You are right. I will withdraw for now," he said, waggling his eyebrows toward the firebender. "But perhaps later...?"

"Go," Nila said, pointing away. He let out a regretful sigh, and departed without complaint. She turned to Ashan. "Where is Sharif?"

"He is sleeping," Ashan said. He shook his head lightly. "It is so cruel, to know that he could be the Sharif I once knew, but at the same time that he could never be. You have brought a madness into my life, Nila."

"The madness was already there, I just let you see it," she answered.

---

There were a hundred things he could have been doing. After all, once a person reached his level of affluence and power, it wasn't a question of whether one could do something, but rather, one of simple logistics. If he'd so desired, he could have bathed in the blood of virgins every day. It was not impossible, just messy and counterproductive. It was not a passion for reading, though, which saw the Fire Lord, the most powerful mortal being on the face of this planet, in the belly of the Dragon Bone Catacombs. He was worried. And when Ozai worried, people around him tended to die.

He reread the scroll before him, simple history from his grandfathers time. The testament of a man who was so wrathful against an Avatar's slight that he'd spent the last forty years of his long life trying to kill two of them. It must have been a terrible slight that he'd been shown. After all, Sozin had flown all the way to the last Avatar's home just to watch it burn. There was not so much as a whisper to announce the approach of a second, but Ozai would not let the surprise reach his face. He had to be in absolute control. Anything less would see his undoing. He'd come entirely too far for that.

"I have copied the book, as you asked," Hisui said with a bow. He turned to her. She was a ropy girl of perhaps seventeen years, gaunt of face and dull of hair. But her eyes, behind those black lenses, were amber and bright. All of the Children were Fire Nation, but some more than others.

"And I assume you were not spotted," Ozai asked.

"I would not be here had I," Hisui answered, her eyes still down.

"Rise," Ozai said. "I was told there were others."

"He does not write all he knows. He holds some back, surely in his memory. I could not take what does not exist," she said, worry entering her tone.

Ozai gave a harrumph, and dismissed. "It is sufficient. Rest. You must warm yourself after your... arduous trip... to the north."

"Thank you, Fire Lord," Hisui said, before vanishing once more. The Children had many skills. Most were benders, of fire and earth, but some were not. Some had... other gifts. Ozai ran a finger along the ridged spine of the notebook the shaman girl had replicated. He didn't doubt that this thing was a perfect replica down to the notches in the corner of the cover. How she created that miracle, he could not say. He could always get her to tell him, but since he was no shaman himself, it was pointless. She knew how, and that was what mattered. He flipped the book open, and read the first page, which had been completely scratched out and rewritten in the margins and wherever space would allow. What he saw there unsettled him.

"Oh, is the Fire Lord starting to worry?" a mocking voice came through the quiet and the solitude. In an instant, the book was slammed shut, so quickly that its paper cut into his finger. "And here I thought you were supposed to be impressive. Majestic. Authoritative. But you're hiding in the dark, looking at one of your underlings words to save you."

"How dare you speak to me like that. Do you know who I am?" Ozai shouted. There came the clack-clack of footfalls against the stone, until a feminine figure appeared from the shadows of Ozai's lamp. Not just any, though.

Azula.

"I know you better than you would dare believe," Azula said, her face amused, but her tones ruthless.

Ozai flinched back at that, and his hand knocked over the lamp, which fell to the floor, plunging the room into a momentary darkness. Ozai instantly brought up his other hand, and above it burst a flare of fire, casting the Dragon Bone Catacombs in a flickering orange light. But there was no Azula. Ozai stared at the path she'd taken. She couldn't have escaped, not so quickly. If she'd been there at all.

Perhaps he'd just been missing too much sleep. He set the book down on the table, forgotten for the moment, leaving a red streak across its cover as he left. Missing sleep. That was all this was.

---

Nila awakened with a clipped shout of pain, which still tingled through her arm where that cloud of lightning touched her. If nothing else, it was a lesson that no matter how often she went to that place, that Spirit world, there were always fresh lessons to be learned. Now, though, since she obviously wasn't going to be sleeping again for a while, she gave over a moment to consider just how the hell she got lobbed into the Spirit world to begin with.

"Are you awake?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Did the scream not make that clear?" Nila asked. There was silence in the darkness for a moment.

"I was just asking a question, there's no reason to be mean," she said.

Nila sighed. "I apologize. I had a... troublesome dream."

"Scary?"

"Physically painful," she answered, still trying to flap some feeling into her hand. The night got pushed back as Tzu Zi set fire upon her palm.

"One of those, huh?" she asked.

"Indeed," Nila answered. She sat in silence for a moment. "I have a question that I don't know how to answer."

"Really?" Tzu Zi asked.

"It is outside my area of expertise," Nila admitted without shame. There were things she just wasn't good at, as much as fish tended not to fly and any given human could only bend one element. It was an understandable shortcoming. Tzu Zi motioned her forward. "I find myself thinking often of... Malu."

"You do?" Tzu Zi asked.

"It is madness. The girl was possessed of something which I – I! – can only call demonic. Her actions caused the destruction of my childhood hometown, and innumerable other deaths besides. But every time I look back and see that we number four only because Ashan is with us... it just doesn't feel right."

"I know what you mean," Tzu Zi said.

"What happened there... It shouldn't have happened," Nila said. "It makes no sense, and yet perfect sense. There is no proof or logic to it, but I know that this shouldn't be. Malu is supposed to be here, making insulting jokes and granting levity, not... whatever did happen to her?"

"I don't know," Tzu Zi said.

"This isn't the way it's supposed to be," Nila said quietly.

"You're right about that," she said. Nila shook her head, then got to her feet. One of the great things about the pants she'd bought from those Adamite Dakongese was that they were comfortable to sleep in, so she didn't bother taking them off until the morning redress. She grunted to herself, easing at weary muscles. "Are you getting up now? The sun won't rise for hours..." the firebender complained.

"You don't need to get up," Nila said. "Sleep until your precious sun appears."

"Don't mind if I do," she said, turning over and pulling the blanket back over her on her cot. It wasn't long before her even breathing was lost in the sounds of the many other people snoring in the house. There had to be at least a hundred of them, stacked in this house like milled lumber from basement to the roof. She carefully, quietly picked her way across the wooden floors, if only because she knew one spot squeeked terribly.

The whole place had the look of age to it. Not that it was as singularly old as Ba Sing Se, or even as historic as the lost temples of Hui, but it seemed settled and worn. Every sharp edge had been smoothed by long contact with hands or feet. It even smelled worn. Not filthy, not by a long shot, but the smell of human habitation was at its apex here. She didn't mind of course. The Natural World was just a matter of study for her, not something to be emulated. After all, emulating the natural world would mean that Nila would probably already be part of some thug's harem, probably pregnant even though she was only half-way to sixteen years, be illiterate, stupid, and expect to live no further than her twenty seventh birthday. It was good that those 'naturalists' got smashed flat as they had as a side effect the Dog Rebellions. That kind of thinking should never be unleashed upon an uncritical world.

"You're awake," Ashan's voice came from nearby. Nila leaned around to see him sitting before a shrine to the Ennead.

"No, I'm sleepwalking. Can't you tell by my sleep-snark?" she asked flatly.

He gave a chuckle, and turned his attention back to the shrine. "I'm just amazed you haven't opened with a salvo against the gods already."

She gave a glance to the shrine. Most of the figures of the High Host were represented, even if Ubasti seemed to have a great deal more care taken to her. The one who Ashan was referring to, though, was obviously Inpu, the black skinned Host of the dead.

"I'm not going to poke a wounded Platypus Bear. I've learned better," Nila answered.

"And I appreciate that," Ashan said, turning back toward them. There was a moment of silence. "Sometimes, I wonder if you're not right about them. That they do not listen, or that they do not care."

She tilted her head. "Personally, I'd be happier if people stuck to dealing with things which exist, things of the natural world."

"When did you become an atheist, Nila?" Ashan asked her, an edge to his voice.

"I wouldn't call myself an atheist," she answered.

"Then what gods to you believe in?" he pressured.

"Archeophthese is about as close as I would come to worshiping something," she said with a chuckle. Ashan stared back at her, obviously not getting the joke. "He's a scientist, from back before bending swept across the globe? Invented scientific physics?"

"I was being serious," Ashan said.

"And so was I," she countered. "I believe in what can be proven or disproven. There is no place in my life for faith. At least, if there is, I have not discovered it yet," which was itself a lie. There was one place of faith in her life. That Spirit world.

"I don't think you're the right person to talk to about this," Ashan said.

"Very well," Nila agreed. There was silence again. "What will you do now? Open a butcher's shop here? Get a wife, start a family?"

"I can't," Ashan said quietly. "It's too raw. Too painful. Everything I see here reminds me that my family is gone," he fell silent for a moment, then turned to her. "Would... Would you be averse to me going with you? If only for a while?"

"You wish to go to Ba Sing Se?" she asked.

"I just need some time to think, time away from places like this," he motioned around him.

"I cannot say what torments you will suffer on this journey," Nila warned. "Both from without and within."

"I've 'put up with' you for fourteen years thus far," Ashan said. "What more could you do to me?"

"Also, I have but one rule for keeping my company," she said. He waited for her to continue. "Do not ever say that, or anything like it, again. I might be a godless reprobate, but I will not have anybody tempting fate around me. I've learned my lesson on that one," she finished at a mutter.

A slamming at the door startled both of them, and both shared a glance. It came again, vigorous and rude in the night. Above and behind, Nila could hear people shifting out of sleep. "What is that?" Ashan asked.

"Open this door in the name of the Sultan!"

"And there we have an answer," Nila said flatly. The matriarch of the house began to bundle down, muttering under her voice.

"Just a minute, let an old woman shuffle! My knees aren't what they used to be!"

"Ibtihaj, you are to be brought into custody on charges of smuggling," the voice shouted through the door. Ibtihaj gave a roll of her eyes, and her demeanor was very much 'oh, this again', rather than outright panic.

"I don't think you have the right house; go away. We're trying to sleep!"

"If you do not open this door, we will strike it off its hinges!"

"So impatient he is," the old woman said with a shake of her head.

"You're not worried?" Ashan asked, incredulous.

"I have stepped this dance many times," she said. "Besides, if they try to break in, I'll just take one of the six secret exits and escape into the slums."

"And don't think about trying to flee! We've got guards on all seven exits!"

Ibtihaj paused, then looked down, counting on her fingers. "But the Host he's right. Which one am I forgetting?"

"Can you please focus on the fact that we're about to be raided, and not which secret exit you've forgotten about?" Nila shouted.

"Don't worry, don't worry, all will be well," Ibtihaj said.

"We're coming in!"

"Fine, fine, I shall open the door for you," the old woman said. "Young people these days, they have no manners at all! It is shameful the behavior they show!"

She opened the door to be faced by a wall of angry looking town guardsmen, who were lead by an older man with the flowing, pristine white clothes of a Darvesh. "Ibtihaj, you will stand before the Sultan and defend yourself against the charges levied against you. Do you comply or will these men cut you down where you stand?"

"Oh, don't be so impatient. I'll come along. Not every day I get to see the palace, after all," the old woman said with bright tones, almost as though she'd left half of her brain upon her bedside table. Of course, even Nila knew an act when she saw one. No better way to defend oneself than by making the charges against her seem not only foolish but vindictive.

"You were warned about tenants, woman," the most grizzled, and well armored, of the guardsman said. "Shall we run them out of the city?"

The Darvesh looked Ashan up and down, and was about to make an acceding gesture, but then he spotted Nila. "No. They will stand before the Sultan as well. Bring them."

"What?" Nila demanded, taking a step back.

"This must be some mistake," Ashan said.

"You will silence yourself, boy."

"No, this is ridiculous!" Ashan said. "We arrived only this past afternoon. By what charge to you detain her?"

"That isn't for you to know, whelp," the guardsman said, and made to strike Ashan. But the Darvesh caught the man's hand.

"Do. Not," the man said crisply. The guardsman backed down under the might of religious authority. "What do you fear, child? That your woman be taken by strangers in the night?"

"She's not my..."

"Oh, I'm not his..." Ashan and Nila snapped simultaneously.

"Silence," the Darvesh said quietly, but with a weight which made even Nila quiet herself. "There has been a charge levied against a woman of this description, one of assault against a noble scion. Since he has gone to Ababa, the Sultan will deal with this matter of justice. Now, I suggest you remain here, young man. It is best for you."

"Assault?" Ashan asked quickly. Nila gave a befuddled shrug. "Who did you assault?"

"I don't know, otherwise I might have apprised you of it!"

"First that abusive ass from back home, now you just go around accosting noblemen?" Ashan asked. "What exactly were you up to when you left home, anyway?"

"You know full well what I was up to," Nila snapped.

"Heh. He says she's not his woman. I'm not convinced," that older guardsman said. Nila's mouth slammed shut with an angry clack, followed by the grinding of her teeth. If her annoyances kept up like this, her teeth would likely be perfectly smooth before the end of summer.

"Yes, she could use a man in her life. Head's too in the clouds, I'd say," Ibtihaj added.

"Nobody was asking you, old bat," Nila muttered.

"Show some respect to your elders," the guardsman shouted.

"I show respect where it is deserved," she turned to Ashan, and switched tongues. "This will work to the better for me. I will be back soon, and then we will head north."

"But... if you don't?" Ashan asked.

"Then take my brother in. He needs somebody taking care of him," she said quietly. Ashan nodded gravely. She then turned back to the Darvesh. "Well? What are you standing about for? We are due justice, are we not?"

"Could you tell her to be quiet? If you don't, she might 'have an accident' before we get to the palace," the guardsman said.

"For the sake of your captor's sanity, please silence yourself," the Darvesh said. Nila just rolled her eyes at that.

---

The road forked before him. He was so far beyond tired that the only thing keeping him going at this point was willpower, and he knew that would fail him eventually. It was just a matter of doing what needed to be done before that happened. It meant finding his sister before it was too late. Zuko ran a thumb along the bifurcated hilt of his sabers. Which way? The path thus far had been obvious enough, but now, he was torn. One way lay the snaking road down the sea, Omashu at its end. The other could reach Omashu as well, but it was a longer route, a drier one, and a clearer one.

Would she pick the shorter, harder trail, where she would be forced to move slowly?

Would she pick the longer, easier trail, where she could keep her full speed?

It was an interesting cognitive juggle that Zuko had to undertake to both realistically consider her actions while believing that she still desperately needed his help. A truth he hadn't considered was that it was more the opposite. But he stared at that fork, and his breath started to speed. He was failing Azula, and his mother, again. Because he couldn't figure out what was right in front of his face.

With a twist of his arms and a roar of frustration, he flashed a bolt of lightning into the rolling hills beyond. With that out of his system, he felt drained, and slumped down to sit on the scarcely stoned highway right at the fork. He cupped his head for a long moment, feeling numb. There had to be a way.

Then, he spotted something, darkness against lightness, in a spot out of the way. He scooted over, and lifted up some drooping grasses which had almost obscured it. There was script on this wall, inexactly writ with greasy soot. He read it and reread it, because he had difficulty translating Whalesh and it was obvious because of the medium that was the only language which would have survived like this.

I am following your sister, Nephew. Please, trust I have the best in mind for her.

You will find me where three roads meet.

There was also an arrow, pointing down the rainy path. Instantly, he turned to the drier path, intercepting his Uncle clear on his mind. He'd made it one step before he coached himself to stillness. "Don't be stupid, Zuko," he told himself. "What is he trying to tell me?"

Zuko paused, looking at that writing again. The message seemed clear, but if there was one thing that living for three years with his Uncle had taught him, it was that things were never precisely what they appeared to be with him. He glanced down that easier, longer path. Then, to the harder one. He breathed in, forcing his mind to quiet, even in its turbulence, and opened with a moment of clarity. Iroh had known Zuko well, and taught him well, but obviously, didn't consider that Zuko might have learned more than the old man had sought to teach. Iroh wanted Zuko to disbelieve his directions, and strike out despite him.

It was a double bluff.

Zuko started walking, following the arrow which Iroh would never consider Zuko clever enough to follow. There was some irony in the fact that, had he never listened to Iroh at all, he would have walked the same path, but for different reasons. He looked ahead, at the switchbacks which began in the hazy distance, and leveled his eyes, squared his shoulders.

"I'm coming, Azula," he said. "I'll keep you safe."

---

"That could have gone better," Sativa said as she emerged from the berm which parted the Lower Ring from the Middle, its great wall behind her. Of those that managed to escape, the Emperor emerged last. "So we can only assume that at a significant level the Order has been compromised in Ba Sing Se."

"We should go somewhere else," Bato instantly offered. "There's got to be a safer place to find this information. What about that library in the desert you were always talking about."

"No," Piandao said simply.

"What library?" Zeruel asked.

"Be silent, politician, you are out of your element. That is an option which is not open to us any longer," Sativa answered the Tribesman's question. "We must advance with this."

"I don't think you're thinking this through," Beifong said. "He knows you're in the city. His goons have found us once. What's to stop him from finding us again?"

"I'll just be more perceptive in the future," Sativa said. "I should have known that Eryu was going to sell me out."

"Sati, does something seem wrong to you?" Piandao asked.

"Many things seem wrong to me right now," she pointed out humorlessly.

"No, I think I know what he's talking about," Beifong said, catching Sativa's sleeve and stopping her.

"What is this paranoia you host?" Sativa asked.

"Listen!"

Sativa glanced around, and a chill ran through her. "I hear nothing," she said, making it clear that she understood the ramifications of that. You could always hear people in Ba Sing Se, it was the greatest concentration of human beings on this planet. You were never more than a dozen feet away from one. So for there to be no sounds of bustle, of voices, of song...

"How?" Bato asked.

Sativa turned and had her bow out in an instant, snapping a shot the instant the clack of stone upon tile reached her ear. But though the arrow flew true, it found not flesh but a stone fist to explode against. That she had a second arrow on the nock didn't avail her much, since she could see dozens, then at least a hundred of the green robed, pan-hatted footpads on the roofs and in the alleys, some of them silently clinging in the naked stone of the wall and surrounding environs. Black streaks launched out of the air, slamming across the face and arms of Zeruel, hurling him to the ground bound hand and foot, and his mouth locked shut by stone. The others were instantly at her back, with Piandao holding both swords out and at the ready.

"Well?" Sativa asked. "Are you going to make me wait for my own murder?"

"Murder you?" the deep voice came through the darkness. She felt a shiver run through her at that. "Why on this Earth would I want that?"

"Impossible," she muttered in her own tongue. "You would never..."

He appeared just inside the circle of agents of the Cultural Authority, and opened the hood of a lantern, casting them all into a pool of light. He was not a large man, quite a bit shorter than either Bato or Piandao. His hair was severely receded, approaching complete baldness, and his dark green eyes were shrewd. "You presume much, Dragon of the East. Imagine my surprise having you back in my web, especially after evading it before. You really do think a lot of yourself, don't you?"

"You won't take us alive, Long Feng," she said.

"Why not?" he asked, his deep tones droll. "After all, you've put so much effort into placing yourselves into the snare. It would be negligent of me to not collect. And you even managed to snare the Emperor with your fumblings. We've been looking for you for a long time. To think you were right under my nose this whole time," Zeruel glared for all he was worth for he could do nothing more than that.

"We could leave," Beifong said. "And not return."

"That does not interest me," Long Feng said. "But having the fabled Dragon of the East?"

"You will not take me alive."

"So you presume, and your presumptions will be the end of you," Long Feng said confidently. "You once fought against the Dragon of the West and won. You will fight for Ba Sing Se again."

"I have no time to fight for your vanity nor avarice. Now you cannot believe that these... Dai Li... of yours," using the denigratory term Piandao had invented during their stay in the city almost two decades ago, "will be able to meaningfully hamper us, otherwise you might have had a smaller number. Have you set the army against us as well? I doubt they will heed your word over mine. They well remember who stood on the walls for them, and who cowered in the Halls of Culture."

Long Feng gave a bass chuckle at that. "And you continue to presume, desert-dweller."

"Then send your men to their deaths. I will have Bato stand down so that it is a far fairer fight," she said with a smirk.

"Or perhaps you might have your lady stand down?" Long Feng asked. He started to smile. "Or should I make things a bit more interesting?"

She frowned at him. "What do you mean?"

Long Feng turned to Beifong, and cleared his voice. "Joo Dee, the Earth King has invited you to Lake Laogai."

"What is the madness?" Sativa demanded.

"I am honored to accept his invitation," Beifong said monotone, her fists dropping from their martial stance. Sativa turned slightly. Beifong's eyes had dilated completely, and a blissful, mindless look settled onto her face.

"Wh..." Piandao asked, since he couldn't see the transformation. She was at his back.

"Take them down," Long Feng said with a tone of boredom.

In an instant, Sativa had to completely reevaluate the fight, and in that instant, Beifong reached down, grabbing a fist's coating of stone and slamming it into the back of Piandao's head, sending him to the floor unconscious in a single blow. Bato backed away, trying to send a fist at her, to slow her down, but she was operating outside the domain of thought. Even as Sativa drew her own knives, cold and ready to put down the sudden threat for good, Beifong was stepping away, bending as she went, and the stone between Bato and Sativa surged inward, sending the two slamming into each other. She was stunned slightly by that blow, and Bato had to push her aside when Beifong's follow up almost clubbed her as she had Piandao. She shook the stars from her sight, and gave just a moment to see if Piandao was still alive. He still breathed, which caused a shard of relief in her, if one she couldn't foster, since Beifong was now giving full pressure onto Bato, and in a fight between bender and non, there was usually an edge to the Bender.

Bato fought with Beifong, obviously not wanting to hurt her, always trying to grab her, pin her down, trip her up. But just like Sativa had taught the girl, mobility was life. And she was much more mobile than Bato was. Long Feng watched confidently from his pool of light as Beifong – no, it was obvious to her that she was Joo Dee, plain and simple – kept bending, sending up pillars and blocks which Bato had to bat aside, each one draining his energy, battering his body. And because he was in her path, Sati couldn't get a shot. So she changed tactics. She turned her aim toward Long Feng, and hurled a blade right at his neck.

A flicker of dodge and it clattered against the stone near him. "I grow bored of this," Long Feng said.

Joo Dee twisted around Bato's grasp and gave a stomp to the ground which sent a pillar straight up between the Tribesman's legs. His eyes bulged in his head and he toppled over sideways with a tormented cry. She, on the other hand, readied her knives, preparing to murder someone who she had dared to call friend. But even as she surged toward the woman who looked upon her with a fixed smile and empty eyes, she felt something slam into her arm, twisting her 'round. She tried to slash back, but her blow was stunted.

Because there was a stone glove locked upon her wrist. She let out a growl, dropping the blade from her captured hand to her free one, and continued, trying to not make this a complete rout, to at least have some semblance of her pride in this, for she could well expect what would come next. But there was another slam, and she was twisted about once more, then her arms started to pull apart, straining at her shoulders. She stomped one foot forward, not toward the girl, this time. Toward the man who controlled her mind. Long Feng stood, watching with mild interest, as she pressed against the will of two of those Dai Li trying to restrain her. All she had to do was get one shot, one clout in the skull. She might get lucky. She might crack his bald head like an egg.

And that was when the last of them caught an ankle. Now unable to balance herself, she was flipped forward onto her chin. She took a painful intake of breath, trying to regain what was knocked from her, and she heard the footfalls of Long Feng approaching closer. "And see what your presumption has earned you?"

"I will destroy you, Long Feng," Sativa promised.

"No, I don't think you will," he said, leaning down, and grabbing a handful of her hair. "I think that you are going to serve us, serve Ba Sing Se as the Dragon of the East once more. So when the Fire Nation comes again, they will learn that they will never disrupt what I have created here. Ba Sing Se will stand eternally as the safest, most powerful nation on this earth, and you will be a part of it. And you will do so willingly. Well, for a certain value of willingly."

"I will never–"

It was then that Long Feng smashed her face down into the stones of the street, and her consciousness fled into cold, terrible blackness.

As silence returned to the abandoned streets, one form high above on the dividing wall watched, mouth open in shock, the whittling he'd been doing for the moment forgotten. He watched as the horde of green robed figures converged, and without fanfare dragged the heroes of decades past into a building far too small to contain them all, before vanishing completely into obscurity.

"Well," he said, tucking the whale-tooth knife back into his sash. "That was less than ideal."

He swung his legs over the wall, and walked back into shadows. It would do him well to be seen on a night like this after all. The darkness would have its due.

---

Most girls would have started at the slamming of the door directly at her back. Nila wasn't most girls. Say what one would about having the Dragon of the East for a mother, it had definitely made her stronger for it. The room was only about two thirds of one, as one whole wall and part of the ceiling was absent, making the chamber something like a balcony, albeit one flanked by the rest of the palace at either side. The lights here, unlike elsewhere in the palace which were blazing bright even in the small hours of the morning, were dim and low, braziers sitting no more than a hands-breadth from the floor. As she blinked, trying to get her eyes to acclimate to the sudden darkness, she could see the logic to them. Even under the blackness of the current new moon, those lanterns cast enough light so that nobody would trip over anything.

"Well, are you going to stand by the door or are you going to step forward?" a man's voice said from the edge of the room/balcony. Instantly, Nila felt a compunction to remain exactly where she was, just to spite him. But that wouldn't accomplish anything. After all, this man was potentially her sole judge and possible executioner.

Nila started to walk forward, and as she did, her eyes grew more and more acute to the contents of the room. It was a study of sorts, desks against the walls and great shelves covered in books, pale decorative plants breaking up the spaces. She started to see the other in the room, that man, as well. A metal squeak, and a bit of movement, and she frowned. A spyglass, obviously, but one of unusual proportion. She came to a halt a few paces away.

"Tell me what you see there," the older man said.

"I can see nothing. It is too far," Nila said. There was a grunt, then some movement from that other, as he reached down and grabbed something, tossing it to Nila. It was a more conventional lens, which she raised to her eye and followed his out-thrust finger. Off in the distance, past the north gates, she could see the obscure forms of people out amongst the sand, their backs stooped, but their heads, little more than dots at this distance, swinging furtively. "They are searching."

"And of course they are. Market day was yesterday, and they are going over the dross," he said. "It is a telling thing that there are those of such poverty that they would set aside their revulsion of gold to feed themselves. They would pan for the gold we melt down and cast away, even if it means damnation and torment in their afterlife for doing so."

"The whole thing is absurd. Gold is just a metal," Nila said before her brain caught up with her mouth.

There was a moment of silence, then a chuckle, as the man beside her twisted the nib of a gas lamp, and the flame danced higher. Almost unconsciously, she took a half step away from the man in the sturdy chair. "So one such as you would say," said the Sultan, his own hazel eyes weighing her. He was an older man, obviously, but he looked it. His face was lined with strain and worry, and the hair which peeked out from under his blue night-cap was iron grey. His teeth also had gaps between them, and were somewhat yellowed. Leaving her in a state of trepidation, he looked out to the north again. "They believe that gold is the great temptation of Setekh, He Who Is The Sands. That its shining color was designed to instill greed in mankind, so that they would dig forever at it, until their fingers were raw and bloody, and they bake dry under the sun. That any contact with gold is deeply taboo, to the point of gathering it is a blasphemy."

"They say?" Nila asked. "What say you?"

"Many things," he answered. "A great many things. So many things in fact that I can do little else but say things."

"What is going on? Where is Ibtihaj?"

"I reminded her of the nature of our relationship," he said, slowly wheeling that large spyglass so that it now peered into the stars of the heavens. "The greatest problem in having a cultural distaste toward gold is that it makes intracontinental trade a practical impossibility. Everybody in the East uses a gold standard. Do you know how many times an Eastern Nation has tried to hyperinflate our currency in only the thirteen years I have sat as Sultan? Seven. All because we cannot use a known precious metal to base our economy on."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you, unlike others, might understand it," he said, leaning in to view through his lens. "You have a developed mind, if your mother had any observation to her. I don't doubt that she did."

"You know my mother?"

"Everybody in the East Continent knows your mother, oblivious girl," he said. He leaned back for a moment, then turned to her. "Why do you cripple yourself, Dragon's Daughter?"

She scowled at that. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You are known rude to the point of comedy," Wahid said, a calculation clear in his eyes. "But it is a tactlessness of bluntness, not of insult. You had to have known that at the merest mention of your mother's name, you would have been an honored guest in this palace, supped the finest of dinners this nation has to offer, known the entertainment of interesting people, and rested in the most comforting of beds. Instead, you opt to keep your identity a secret, and immediately antagonize my Yeniceri, and then upon my taking of your property, do not even seek legal redress. Instead you, by simple chance, end up in the hands of Adin and her brood, breaking bread with smugglers and robbers, sleeping on a mouldy cot. So I again ask you; why do you cripple yourself?"

"How is that crippling myself?" she asked. "My name has earned me nothing, only my actions have."

"But your name can open opportunities outright denied to those lacking such, but cleave to your abilities well," Wahid pointed out. "A peasant in the field might have the most cunning of minds for economy in all of the nation, but he is relegated to pulling radishes and dying of dysentery in abject poverty. It is no fair thing, but it is the world in which we live."

"So you'd have me live in the shadow of my mother?"

"I would have you leverage what you've been given, arbitrarily as it has been, to your ends," Wahid said testily. "Anything less is handicapping yourself pointlessly."

"I'm not sure I understand the meaning of this," Nila said.

He raised a brow to her, then leaned back, cranking up the lantern to its fullest and banishing the darkness. He motioned to a chair. "Sit. You need not stand in my presence. I am not my predecessor," and she did so. He reached aside, and lifted up something from out of sight, and hefted it before him. Nila's eyes narrowed.

"That's..."

"...an outstanding piece," he said. He handed it to her, and she snatched it from him. "I can see why you'd be protective of it. I have seen other firearms from other producers, but none of that... elegance."

"It is the finest I've made," she said. His grey brows rose at that.

"You produced this piece? That is impressive indeed."

"It is garbage," she said. He gave her a look of surprise. "I produced this a year ago. I have learned much in a year."

"You call it your finest work and denigrate it," he said. "What madness has infested you?"

"Have you ever met my mother?" she asked, and then paused. "Of course you have. Well, imagine that eighteen hours of every day."

He gave a chuckle at that. "Then I suppose you deserve some sympathies." He pointed at the firearm. "The barrel structure is ingenious, but I cannot find how to reload it. There is no ram-rod."

She levered back the bolt, and the firing mechanism swung out. "It is breach loaded," she said. "A much more sensible method."

"I can see so," he said. "It is a pity that these will never be more than a technological curiosity," she raised a brow. "Two... or rather four... shots in a minute is a poor showing against a proper bow which can launch a dozen, or worse a bender of stones or fire, who can launch half a hundred in that same minute given proper mastery."

"Indeed," Nila agreed, locking the thing back together. "As I have heard it called, too loud, too slow, too expensive, and too delicate. I still consider it a finer weapon."

"And there is the pride I have heard of," Wahid said.

She leaned forward, letting her firearm settle into the crook of the chair. "Tell me, what is Ibtihaj to you? What relationship is it you spoke of?"

"You still think of such things?" he asked. "Your mind is an iron trap, it seems."

"And yours is an Azuli grease-worm."

"How do you think I've lasted as long as I have?" he said with a laugh. "You are a scientist, or of scientific mind at least. I am an economist. And a vital part of the economy in a place as... superstitious as Northern Si Wong, is the ability to manipulate a well regulated grey market. Without money-changers, we would crumble in a matter of months, but would the Caliphs listen to me? No. Gold is more taboo than fornication in this country."

"Why... no, a better question is how you ever managed to become Sultan with such attitudes and beliefs," Nila asked with a smirk.

"Someone had to do the job," he said with a shrug. "And there are certain perks to being an atheist in charge of one of the most militantly superstitious peoples on this planet."

Nila's eyes shot up at that. "That is not a claim many would willingly give."

"I'm old. I have little to prove," he said with a chuckle.

"I wonder then why you wanted to see me," Nila pressed.

"To the core at last," Wahid said. "Frankly, I am surprised you allowed me to ramble as long as I had. I had heard your impatience was only matched by your tactlessness," she glared at him. "There it is, there it is. The charges which brought you here were indeed valid. You had assaulted a member of the upper class, and he demanded restitution."

"What? Who?"

"The son of Sheik Sham'Moalim," Wahid said. "Honestly, I'm surprised you managed to evade him. He is a hard man to escape."

"Not any longer. He is dead," she said. "Gashuin indicted me? That snake!"

"Wait, a moment please. What do you mean that the Sheik is dead?"

"You have received no word?" she asked. She rolled her eyes. "Fitting, it seems that I am the messenger after all."

"Please, what news is this?"

"About a fortnight ago..."

"The scarlet night?" Wahid asked hotly. "There was a riot in the streets over that madness. What news is this you've brought me?"

She took a breath. "Sentinel Rock is gone."

"It has fallen?" the Sultan asked.

"More like wiped off the face of this Earth," she clarified. "Khagan Khatun – Borte, she is also called – brought siege to the fortress, aided by refugees from the invasion of Great Whales. But in the midst of the battle, a woman I thought was a friend showed that she was not what she appeared. She... manifested that light, and tore the fortress to shreds, destroying both armies in the process."

"This is..." the Sultan said, his skin becoming pale. "I do not doubt your truth. Why?"

"She thought she was the Avatar," she said, shaking her head. "She was something... else."

"But Borte, does she yet live?"

"I believe so," she said. "Her army, however, is obliterated. Only the people of her Iron Horde remain, and the springs of Sentinel Rock have become an unlivable hellscape. There is no realistic path from the South to this city," she shook her head slowly. "And now, there is no South Si Wong, either."

"This is dire news, but I thank you for it," Wahid said. "They call me an over-thinking coward, but I know where I am best suited. All must be known for any useful enterprise to succeed. Please, stay as a guest of my palace while I..."

"I must decline," she said. "We are heading out of the desert, and planned to depart soon."

"Why?"

"I must find my mother, and deliver my brother to her."

"Ah, yes, young Sharif," Wahid nodded. "I had heard what became of him. Such a shame. He could have been so... But I digress. If you seek your mother, you will find her in Ba Sing Se."

"What?" she asked.

"It might cleave against another cultural taboo to heed the advice of a woman, but I know that your mother gives little but good. She and I have been in contact for a long time, and she sent me a message not too long ago that she was at the Great Wall. If you would find her, it will be there."

Nila leaned back in her seat for a moment, glancing out over the city to the deserts beyond it. "Why are you even helping me? What do you gain?"

"You are your mother's daughter," he said, and cut her off when she scoffed, "however little you wish to believe it. It is my personal policy to invest in those who shall reap the greatest benefit. And I can see great benefit in you."

"So you would use me?" Nila asked coldly.

"No, not my benefit. Simply benefit," he answered, then took a moment to mull, stroking at his chin. "There are things you yet do not understand, but I have no doubt that in time, you will. The garden gate opens to those who are willing to know."

"Is this all?" Nila asked, impatient. "I have had well enough of this culture for the time being."

"So much alike you two are," he said quietly. "And that will be your downfall, I fear. Pride is and has always been your mother's greatest failing. Guard against it, Dragon's Daughter, and your life will be far sweeter than hers has been."

Nila got to her feet, and pulled the gun up behind her, draping it on the strap across her chest so that it lay with its barrel above her shoulder. "My life is hardly sweet," Nila said.

"Give it time," he answered. As she walked, he called her name for the first time since she'd entered his presence. She scowled at having to hear it, and turned to him. "I have one question about that device. What happens when it misfires?"

"Is it not obvious? It explodes," she said.

"And why would you design something with such a drawback?"

"Why indeed," She said, walking away. The doors opened for her, and the Yeniceri were waiting for her. Even then, she wondered how it was that all of the most important people of this age seemed to want to talk to her. It was almost as though fate were rearranging itself to mock her. But she couldn't think about that, not now. Now, she had a path again. Mother was in Ba Sing Se. So she would head north.

She was a dutiful daughter, after all.

---

I wanted to do this chapter since I started fleshing out Nila back in S1. The great irony of this is the parallels between mother and daughter. In a strong way, Sativa is something like a Greek Hero, particularly of the Tragic sort. She is a strong character, but possessed of a fatal flaw. Hers is her pride, and her hubris. Her heedless overconfidence in her intellect and planning abilities leads to her downfall, and is has in the past as well. In fact, in the myriad other universes which Avatar spans, her life is a story in it. Nila, on the other hand, is arrogant and abrasive, yes, but she recognizes her flaw and takes as many steps as she is capable against it. Thus, the dramatic irony of juxtaposing the two stories against each other. Almost the same things happen to both, but the outcome couldn't be any more different.

Another personal golden calf of mine is considering how the same group would exist in another world. If you know anything about me, I shamelessly recycle characters throughout every story I create, take part in, or play. So pondering Sativa's Reading Group (as I humorously refer to her association of middle-aged badasses), I realized that while they are not a nail of themselves in this story, they are a bellweather for how the world has changed around them. In fact, in this world, they're just about as well off as they could be. During the Great Noodle Incident, only Llewenydd died. Compare that to Canon, where Llewenydd, Zha Yu, and Sati all ended up dead, Piandao and Poppy Beifong permanently cut off contact, and Bato only survived because he wasn't there. Sure, they're all in a rough way in this (you know, imprisoned, tortured, and one of them carted off to get Joo Dee-ified), but compared to Canon, they're all just peachy. After all, Nila and Sharif got to exist in this world. And that's kinda important to my narrative. I'd go into further detail, but I'd prefer the Noodle Incident remain nice and Noodly.

Can anybody else tell that I'm putting a disproportionate amount of thought into my writing? And still, I hammer out a one-hour alt for the obviously terrible ending to ME3, and it gets three times the traffic I usually ever see. There is no justice. Ah, well. I promise plenty of Azula and Aang next time, folks. And they're in a scene which I wanted to write since BEFORE STARTING TO PEN CHILDREN OF THE WAR! No pressure.

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