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.

29. The Serpent

"Reason for entry?" the overworked booth-worker said, his eyes down on the ream of forms he slid through with a speed and precision which spoke only to an enormous amount of repetition, which burned the movements into muscle memory. He didn't look very much older than she was, if even that; his skin was still bad, his hair in what she supposed was a 'fashionable' style for people of her age if not her gender. The fact that somebody so young was already at work instead of attending classes set off a quiet alarm bell in her mind.

"Family," Nila said simply.

"Returning to or seeking out?" he asked, equally disinterested, his eyes not even yet rising to look upon the motley group which stood before him.

"Does it matter?"

"One gets in, the other doesn't," he said with a shake of his head. "Ba Sing Se has a population of two and a half million, and that half million all came here right around the same time, so keeping track of everybody is essentially impossible. 'Seeking out' family is a pointless endeavor, and a waste of space, according to the Cultural Authority. Move along."

"I didn't say I was seeking out!" Nila snapped, which caused him to finally rise from his work, look at her, her brother, Ashan, and then, back to the form. "Mother is in Ba Sing Se, and I am bringing my simple brother back to her."

"What zone?" he asked. She paused at that. "Like I thought. Next!"

"Damn you, I am going in there even if you..." Nila began, but Ashan caught her shoulder, with a very urgent shake of his head. Nila scowled at him, but glanced the direction he subtly indicated, and saw that there was somebody standing with a degree of ease which could only speak to capacity for awe-inspiring violence. And he was paying very close attention to her. "...This isn't over. I wish to speak to your superior."

"Not going to happen. Next!" the man said, and the three of them were shouldered aside by a grey-haired man hauling a cart full of produce behind him. "Oh, don't even start with that, old man. No outside vegetables in Ba Sing Se. Security!"

"But I have the permit you asked me to get! It took me a week to pass their tests! It's..."

"I don't see it," the man said, as the old man scrabbled at his bags, growing all the more desperate with every passing moment, until it became obvious that the patience of all involved had run out, and the the security shook their heads with annoyance as they converged on him.

"But... My cabbages!" the old man wailed, as several green and gold liveried men came to confiscate his livelihood.

Nila stalked away, coming to a halt near a very overpopulated bench, which had just enough space – due in no small part to Nila's glaring demeanor – to fit her at its very edge. "I have a strong desire to blow something up," she said in Altuundili.

"Nila, please, not so loudly," Ashan warned. "I do not like this place. There is a feel of many ears to these walls."

"I would be shocked if there was a single speaker of Altuundili in this entire compound," Nila pointed out.

"Altuundili is not so rare a language, and I fear what would happen if some heard your intentions. They might react with understandable fear and severity!" Ashan stressed.

"You worry too much."

"And you worry not nearly enough," Ashan countered.

"I wonder how the Avatar is doing," Sharif said distantly, which caused the two other Si Wongi to turn to him in a degree of confusion. And the roughly middle-aged man sitting next to Nila as well.

"Don't tell me you're going to try that old yarn," he said. "The last guy who tried the 'I'm the Avatar, you have to let me in' ploy ended up thrown off of the wall. Turns out, it's a long way down if you can't airbend."

"I can well imagine it would be," Nila said. "Do any of us even look like the Avatar? I thought not. Mind your own business."

"I wouldn't know the Avatar if I tripped over him, but at least I admit it," he said. He gave her still-standing companions a weighing glance, and then turned back to her. "You're obviously the brains of your group," Ashan spluttered at that, "so you should think about coming back once the shift changes. Might be six hours, but nobody actually posts notices unless the entrant tries using violence to get in. A fresh face might see you in."

"You know this bureaucracy well," Ashan said.

"I have to," he said. He offered Nila a hand, reached 'cross his chest. "Iuchi, miss?"

"Nila Ba..." again, she was cut off by Ashan's shaking of the head. His paranoia was becoming endemic, it seemed. She took his hand for a brief shake. "Bantusi."

"I've been coming out here every week for almost six years," he said, pulling that hand to its brother and resting his chin upon it as he glared at the lines of booths. "I had a son who was a soldier out on the Walls. One day, he stopped sending home mail. Nobody would tell me what happened to him, so I started digging. This is as far as I got. But one day, I'm going to find him. One day."

"Six years ago?" Nila asked. She shrugged. "Perhaps he was a casualty when the Dragon of the West came."

He gave her a glance which was equal parts confusion and annoyance. "What are you talking about?" he asked.

"The two year siege of Ba Sing Se?" Nila said slowly. "Where Sativa Badesh broke Prince Iroh's army?"

"You make it sound like there's some sort of war going on," he shook his head briskly. "There is no war in Ba Sing Se. But something happened to my boy, and I'm going to find out."

"Well... Good luck with that," Nila said, suspicious as humanly possible. She turned to Ashan.

"Yes, I was listening," Ashan said in Altuundili. "No war in Ba Sing Se? That doesn't make sense."

"He seemed quite adamant," Nila pointed out.

"I was noticing that," Ashan said. "Perhaps prudence comes with not pushing against that boundary. At least, not yet."

"Why, I'd almost say that was good advice," she pointed out.

"Does that mean you will accept it?" he asked hopefully.

"We shall see."

Ashan scowled. "That sounds very much like a 'no' when it flies from your lips."

"You guys wouldn't believe the line-up for the bathroom," Tzu Zi said brightly as she returned to their beleaguered group. "I had to cheat and sneak into the men's so I didn't wet myself."

"We didn't get in," Nila said. Iuchi grunted something disparaging beside her, but Nila ignored him, since he was no longer relevant. "That little dung-beetle is drunk upon his own perceived power."

"That one?" Tzu Zi asked. "He doesn't look so bad. Why didn't he let us in?"

"Because I could not tell him exactly where Mother is staying. Forgive me for not having an encyclopedic knowledge of the layout of Ba Sing Se!" Nila said with sarcasm.

"You don't?" Sharif asked, turning back to her, but his eyes still staring far past her.

"No, brother, I don't," she shook her head. "This is maddening. I thought surviving the desert would be the worst trials I would face in this journey. Now I need to deal with something deadlier than the forests of Azul; paperwork."

Tzu Zi chewed her lower lip for a moment, and then brightened happily. "Hold this for a minute, would you?" she asked. Nila was about to ask 'hold what', when Tzu Zi's robes came over her head and were drapped over Nila's face. She quickly pulled them away and draped them over Ashan's, who was staring gobsmacked that Tzu Zi was now queuing up behind several others in no more than her underwear.

"Close your mouth, Ashan," Nila said patiently.

"She's naked!"

"No, she is not," Nila pointed out. "Naked would be if she removed the rest of her clothing."

"But... It is scandalous to be so..."

"I'm supposed to remember something," Sharif said, playing with some sort of green rock which he'd picked up on his way into Ba Sing Se.

"Scandal is a relative thing, you will find," Nila said. "When I first met her, I believed as you do, that she dresses far too little and says far too much. The fact is, many dress in as little, or less. She is from another place, and holds other values. She is no less right to them than you are to yours."

"Heh, I thought you were going to say 'than I am to my own'."

"I have values," Nila said, getting up and letting Iuchi reclaim some of his seat. "You and I simply do not share exactly the same of them. Yours might get you punched in the face if voiced in the wrong moment. Mine might see me burned for witchcraft should I ever return to Si Wong. It is a matter of perspective and subjectivity."

"Values are absolute," he tried to argue. "The Enniad set them forth at the beginning to guide moral principle."

"And how convenient that this one faith, of all those on the planet, managed to strike upon the truth which all others managed to miss," Nila said sarcastically. Ashan seemed oddly upset by that.

"You mock my faith."

"Yes, as I mock everybody's faith," she said. "But not your religion. I cannot abide 'faith'. Belief which cannot be challenged or refined stands anathema to me. As I said, my values are not yours."

"I begin to see why Grandfather called you a heretical influence," Ashan said with a chortle and a shake of his head. Nila looked past her curly-haired peer to the booth, where Tzu Zi was now leaning forward and talking animatedly to the teller, no doubt intentionally giving him an easy and ready view of her admittedly spectacular cleavage. That a girl of fourteen years could have a body like that was envy-inducing, particularly in the fifteen-year old, and flat chested, Nila. He shook his head more briskly, turning away from her. "I have not even seen prostitutes so brazen."

"Do not speak of my friend such," Nila said harshly.

"I was saying a truth," Ashan snapped. Then he paused. "Why are we arguing so?"

"I am not sure," Nila said. "Perhaps the day has been too long and too fraught."

Ashan nodded at that, running his fingers along his brow, and muttered. "We must not allow our anger to divide us. I have great fears of this place. It is so strange, so unlike everything I am used to. I feel we are better united than divided."

Nila nodded. "Obviously enough," she said. Ashan glanced toward Tzu Zi, who leaned into the booth and gave the teller a big, excited kiss. "Not one word."

"I would not dream of it," Ashan said, and he kept that word as she skipped back over, and plucked her robe from where it was draped 'cross Ashan's arm and slipped back into it.

"Good news everyone!" she said. "We've got brown-level passes! It's only free passage into the Lower Ring, but I'm sure we can come up with something once we get there."

Nila felt a small smile come to her face. "You have made a trifle of a tragedy. Thank you."

"We've all got things we do well. Yours isn't talking to people," Tzu Zi said simply. With a smile, she grabbed Sharif and Ashan, and began to bear them to yet another queue, this one heading into a stone cart which sat upon a granite rail. "We'll be in the city soon enough. Everything's going to be alright."

Nila sighed, and palmed her face. "You just had to go and say that, didn't you?"

Off to one corner, another watched with bright blue eyes, tracking them as they began to bicker about 'tempting fate' and 'promising to never say things like that'. Pointedly, he looked at the green eyed girl who dominated that conversation. "Hrm," he said to him self, deep in thought. "She might be the one."

But he still had to be careful. If there was one thing Ba Sing Se had taught him in the last five years, it was that you were never safe inside the Walls.

---

Chapter 9

The Serpent

---

She stopped in the middle of a snarky word, which was a clear indicator that something bad was happening. No matter which lifetime she was living, nothing got in the way of her snark. Well, that wasn't exactly true. There was one thing, one thing which was showing itself at this very moment. The girl was nowhere to be seen at the moment, and all the better for it. More and more, Azula was growing nervous about what that girl was capable of. If she could cripple Azula so quickly and so completely... She would be at the mercy of her enemies in a heartbeat.

The journey had turned to something of a death-march, broken only by the uneventful but irritating trip through the Divide. It was every bit as dull and unpleasant as she remembered it from decades past. In fact, had they not lucked upon those traders, and had Iroh not been so slick of tongue and beguiling of word, they'd probably still be down there, driven to distraction by the constant drone of the crawlers. They were not far north of the Divide even yet, but every hour of walk brought them closer to Ba Sing Se, toward victory. Toward the death of the Avatar.

But Azula's instincts had been long honed, not just by living under her father's tutelage, but by the threats to her own life which plagued her last years. Because of those instincts, she was already twisting into a wave of blue flame which intercepted scarlet, exploding that lesser assault in mid air and dropping cinders around she and the old man. Her only mistake in her defense was assuming that would be the end of it; she got a ram of ice in the gut for her foolishness.

She staggered back a few steps, putting her side by side with Iroh, as his placid and distant expression instantly focused on the now and present. "Ambush," he said direly.

"What was your first clue?" Azula snapped. "It's them."

With a grinding of stone, the earth bucked up to try and bludgeon the two of them, but each managed to bound from the impact point easily enough – which came as quite a surprise for Azula because Iroh was hardly a nimble-looking combatant – but each then had to dodge again as she and he were then cut at with fire and razor ice, respectively. As their evasion terminated, they were back to back with each other, a position Azula couldn't have wanted less, but for the simple fact that it meant any attack which tried to flank her would have to go through two hundred and forty pounds of Iroh first.

"She's got good reflexes," the Tribesman noted, as he sauntered into sight, almost invisible against the approaching twilight.

"Stop complimenting them, and defeat them," the firebender ordered, appearing on Azula's other fore quadrant. She didn't have to guess that the muscular earthbender would be facing Iroh directly.

"Who are you?" Iroh asked.

"That doesn't matter to you, now does it?" the girl asked with a flash of smirk.

"Your voice sounds familiar," Iroh said gravely, fists still out toward the earthbender. The firebender paused just a moment at that.

"You wouldn't know her," the earthbender said to Azula's back. "And chances are, you never will."

"So you want to kill me?" Azula asked. "Better have tried. Better have failed."

"For what its worth, it's not personal. To me, anyway," the Tribesman said with a shrug.

"Shut up, Kori," the Earthbender said with an aggravated note. "Just kill them!"

"Do you know who I am?" Iroh asked with a patient tone.

"The Dragon of the West," the firebender said, continuing her circuit around the two royals, to the point where she now vanished out of Azula's line of sight, and the earthbender entered it. "Former Crown Prince. Father to a fallen son. Deposed and turned traitor against his people, his nation, and his throne."

"Interesting," Iroh said. "Have we met somewhere? Have I met your family, perhaps?"

"I have no family," the firebender said, still sounding wary. From the look of the earthbender, in particular, they were just waiting for any excuse to cut loose and crush them. They only needed to know that their assault wouldn't be met with ruthless counterattack. Good thinking. The waterbender paused with a scowl.

"Yeah, thanks a lot, Yoji," he said with a note of amused betrayal.

"Shut up, Kori," the earthbender said again. It seemed to be something of rote action for the young man.

"You know," Iroh said. "I have heard that wearing such spectacles makes it difficult to see in darkness. Is that true?"

The answer came in the form of a jet of flame, a wave of stone, and a scythe of ice. Each was ducked, deflected, or avoided, leaving the two royals in much the same position, and the assassins still circling, their prodding attack obviously finding no purchase. "She must be blind as a bat," Azula pointed out.

"So she is," Iroh said. Then, with a twist of his arms, just once, the snap motion which she had only ever seen her father attempt, he tore electricity through the air, and with a thrust of his blunt fingers, sent it screaming toward that firebending assassin with one smooth, swift motion. But Azula's assumption was stymied, that she might have gotten somebody to deal with her problems, when it was obvious that he'd intentionally missed her, lashing the lightning bolt at eye-level, very close to her head, but not quite at it. The thunder clap sent the girl staggering away, and the earthbender broke off his counterattack, his green eyes widening.

"Yoji!" he shouted, before glaring vitriol at Iroh, who was now backing through the hole in their formation that the debilitation and deafening of the firebender had caused. Azula followed, as she didn't feel much like taking all three of them at once. She was well capable of it, but she knew from experience that a cornered badgermole was the most hellish opponent to kill.

With a twist of her own limbs, she tore the energy in her own body apart, into its yin and its yang, positive and negative. But as it crashed back together, there was some sort of hitch in her. And even as she furiously worked to steady it, to control and focus it, she was sure she could sense the girl's interference. Not this. Not her lightning. With a terrible crack, a vast and forking bolt of lightning seared away from the Azula, and caused the other two assassins to hurl themselves to the ground to avoid it.

It also lifted Azula clear off her feet and threw her backwards down the road, landing in a pile ahead of Iroh. She hadn't even known lightning was capable of such recoil. Iroh pulled her to her feet, and gave her a glare as he picked up the pace, vanishing into the woods off of the trail. It was a look which spoke that they would speak about that later. That it was something he knew every bit as well as she had something wrong with it. She gave one final glance over her shoulder, at the assassins picking themselves up, and then plunged into the woods.

"It would be nice, Princess Azula, to meet friends of yours who don't want to kill you," Iroh whispered with uncharacteristic sarcasm.

Azula offered a dark chuckle in reply. "That would be a change. Keep moving if you want to lose them in the darkness."

---

The people were celebrating. That was good. They'd had little enough to celebrate, lately. There was music playing throughout the de facto capital of the Water Tribe even late into the lengthening night. The change in Chimney Mountain from how it had been even a month ago was stark. Instead of the disheveled mound of cut-snow blocks and tarp tents, it was a proper city, anchored to the rocks which spread down from the mountain which gave their home its name. The sudden influx of population had also made most people turn from begrudgingly naming this place capitol, to openly doing so. After all, it was now the largest city in the South.

And Hakoda stared north, at the stars which slowly turned along the horizon. The cold cut into him, as the South Polar winter returned quickly, and without sympathy or mercy. He stared north, and he missed his children enough that it burned.

"I wondered where you went," Yue's voice pulled him out of his melancholy. He forced a smile to his face, but he didn't doubt that it sat weary and tired on his visage. Yue was dressed beautifully, but that was no surprise, as the people which returned with her made sure that she got the best of everything. No, her dress this time was far more ostentatious than any which had been seen in this community for decades; in fact, the last time such a gown had existed, let alone been worn, was when Hakoda wed Kya. "You left in such a hurry. People were concerned you ate something which didn't agree with you."

"You should be back with your new husband," Hakoda said gently, motioning back to the community behind him. "This is your day, after all."

Her day. The people needed something to celebrate, and a wedding seemed about the right thing. Yue didn't seem to happy about it, either then, nor now. She sighed, and with a flick, knocked away a strand of snow-white hair which fell before her face. "It was never my day," she said with a sad note, and moved to sit at Hakoda's side. "May I ask you something, Chief Hakoda?"

"As long as you don't call me Chief right now," Hakoda answered.

"You are Chief. There might only be one Water Tribe, but you are its highest government," she pointed out, but stopped suddenly. She glanced away. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't..."

"Your question?" Hakoda asked.

"When... when is it alright to say no?" she asked. Hakoda turned to her. "All my life, I've been doing what others wanted from me. I fought with my people because Father wanted it. I married Hahn because Master Pakku wanted it. I brought them here because Mother wanted it. I think that if Father had been right, that if the Moon Spirit had been so wounded, I would have sacrificed my life for it... When do I get to say what I want? Is this all I am? Somebody else's... tool?"

Hakoda sighed. "You shouldn't have to think about these sorts of things," he said gently, resting a hand on the rich furs which lined her shoulder. "But since you are, then the time is now. You have spent your entire life sacrificing yourself for your Tribe. And it may well be that the Tribe exists today because of what you gave. But only you can ever be the judge of what you're willing to give," he turned to stare to the north, and she stared with him.

"How will I know if it's worth it, though?" she asked.

"You never do," Hakoda said with a shake of his head. "That's what experience teaches you. What gambles are worth taking. What things are worth. How much you lose here, if you don't do something there. For a long time, you've been a part of it. Now, you're going to be the one making decisions."

"You make it sound like you're going somewhere," Yue said with alarm. "You can't. Mother... well..."

"I am aware of Tanuuit's... weakness," Hakoda said. "And I'm not going anywhere. But if you ever want to be more than a figurehead for your community, you have to start taking chances, and suffering the penalties for your own failures. Sokka and Katara both knew, from a young age, that they were responsible in the end for their own lives. And look at what they've done with them. The Avatar is now their charge, and they are fighting to end the war with the Fire Nation at his side," he broke off, staring down to his boots. "I'm so proud of them."

There was the small sound of a sob at Hakoda's side, and he turned to her. She was crying quietly. "I wish Father could have said that to me," she said quietly.

"I don't know if it matters, and I don't know if it's worth anything," Hakoda said, pulling her into a fatherly embrace. "But I could not be prouder of you. You might as well be a daughter for the one I lost so many years ago."

He couldn't see, but she had a small smile at that. The smile slipped away by the time she pulled away, and she turned back toward the community behind them. "So I am in charge of my own fate?"

"As soon as you decide you are," Hakoda confirmed. "And if things ever get hard, and you can't see the path, remember that there are a lot of people who are traveling with you. You're not alone. That's a promise."

"Thank you," Yue said, taking a purging breath. She glanced back toward him, with those big blue eyes. "Have you thought about what Mother talked about?"

Hakoda nodded slowly. "She's not wrong," he said. "It's been... Gods... more than a decade since Kya died. Maybe it is time to remarry."

Yue smiled at that, the small and reserved smile she often showed when she was not most comfortable. "Mother needs a man in her life, the people need some clear transition," she said. "And you are a... better man than my father was."

"No," Hakoda said instantly. "Whoever Arnook was when he died, he was a greater leader once, and a greater man, once. Remember that. Remember how he was, not how he died. I intend to."

"But... He almost destroyed us all," Yue said, clearly conflicted.

"And he is still your father. You can't stop loving the man, any more than I could ever stop loving my children. It might not be fair, but that's the way the world works," he pointed out. She nodded at that, with clear relief on her face. Obviously, she hadn't wanted to bring up the subject of how she grieved for her father. "You miss your father. You deserve to. Remember the happy times. Those are what matter, now."

She nodded, and leaned against the block of stone which jutted from the landscape, looking over the ice of the slowly sliding glacier. Only certain places, like Chimney Mountain, were truly solid in this continent. The others crept toward the sea, sometimes by feet, other times by miles a year. In fact, quite recently, one ill-advised city had drifted close enough to another, which was anchored in place that the two had become one community, and would likely remain so for another couple of decades or so until the first slid past the second. There was an impermanence to this place which was part of its stark beauty. And it resounded in Hakoda's Water Tribe heart.

It was not the only resounding going on. With a report like a cauldron being hit with a sledgehammer, a sphere of dark grey, clear even against the twilight, appeared nearby, causing both High Chief and newlywed to flinch back in alarm and confusion. That sphere expanded, first from the size of a fist, until it was roughly the size of the Avatar's bison. But then, with a sound like breaking glass, the sphere ruptured and broke, its shards vanishing into thin air. And at the center of that sphere was a pristine circle of lush, green grass. And standing upon that grass was an Easterner, who was holding a black-and-white striped ball.

And he was covered in bees.

The man looked around, confusion on his face, then he looked down. His eyes shot wide, and Hakoda got another note of confusion, as those eyes were each of green and brown. "ARGH! I'M COVERED IN BEES!" the man screamed in Tianxia, pointing out the obvious. This, of course, prompted the bees to panic and depart flying in every direction, more than likely spurred on by the screaming and sprinting about of a terrified Easterner. Only once the last significant amount of bees was dislodged did the man calm down, panting, his hands upon his knees.

Yue glanced at Hakoda, the question obvious on her face even if she couldn't quite put words to it. Hakoda could only offer a baffled shrug and an 'i-dunno' grunt at the scene before him. The man glanced up at the two of them, then around him, to the barren wasteland of ice which was the South Pole.

"Excuse me, I think I might have landed in the wrong spot," he said with a laugh. The two of them stared at him. "What? Are there still bees on me?"

"How did you...?" Yue said, astonished and confused.

He stared at her for a moment, and his mouth worked. "Ah. Water Tribe. Sorry about that," he said, as he transitioned into their language. He held up the black and white ball. "Dirak," as if that were an explanation. "Oddly, it usually doesn't send me so astray. I wish it'd stop covering me in bees, though."

"That isn't the first time it's done that?" Hakoda asked. Then, he shook his head. "Never mind. Why is there grass growing there?"

"It's a Spirit Artifact," the man said. "It lets you and anything nearby travel immense distances instantly. Has a couple of drawbacks, but..."

"The bees?" Yue asked, with a smile of mild amusement on her face. It was a fine thing to see.

"Yes, the bees," the man said. He then shuddered. "By the gods, but it is cold, isn't it? You wouldn't happen to have a fire or something for me to warm up next to, would you?"

"Of course," she said. "I am Yue. This is High Chief Hakoda."

He gave her a respectful nod, but broke into a grin when he heard Hakoda's name. "Really? Excellent!" Hakoda leaned back. That man simply had too much energy, it seemed. "I might not be where I expected, but I found somebody who could be of help."

"Who are you?" Hakoda asked with a degree of confusion.

"I am Zha Yu. You might have also heard of my other moniker, though," he said with a shrug.

"Which is?" Yue asked.

"The Mountain King."

---

"It shouldn't be too hard to find your mother," Ashan said, as the cart slid easily along its rail, traversing the vast stretch of farmlands which separated the Outer from the Inner Walls. "After all, I have some degree of certainty that your mother will make herself known."

"You underestimate the difficulty of the task," Nila said. She glanced over to her brother, who was shivering quietly in his seat. "What is wrong, now?"

"Something bad is here," Sharif said without elaboration.

"Well, perhaps we should just leave and avoid it completely," Nila said sarcastically.

"That would be best," Sharif agreed eagerly. Nila stared flatly at him, then palmed her face with annoyance.

"We are not leaving Ba Sing Se. Especially after so much effort was put to entering it!"

"Nila?" Ashan said.

"That isn't her name..." Sharif said quietly, resuming his trembling.

"What," the girl in question said with impatience.

"Don't look blatantly, but I believe that we are being followed," Ashan said.

"This cart has no place in which to hide. Who would be so brazen and stupid?" Nila asked.

"That man, from before," Ashan said. She scowled, but he shook his head vigorously. "No, do not be difficult on this, Nila. I have learned deeply when I am in danger and I feel it strongly now!"

"You are paranoid, itself ordinarily a worthwhile trait, but in this case pointless. These people are all refugees. Nobody is trying to murder you here," she cracked a smirk. "I dare say, that of all of us, Tzu Zi faces the greatest number of knives in the dark."

"How could you be so cold toward your friend?" Ashan asked.

"She's not wrong," Tzu Zi piped up from where she was leaning out the window, smiling broadly from the sunlight which streamed down. Both of the women knew why, as well. As not only a member of the Fire Nation nobility, but a firebender as well, she was doubly in jeopardy just being here. But Tzu Zi faced it as she faced all things, with enthusiasm and optimism, something which Nila could admire but not emulate. She might not be capable of understanding why, but she was sure as gravity and evolutionary heritage that of the lot of them, Tzu Zi was not just the happiest, but also the one having the most fun.

"The problem is easily enough dealt with," Nila said. "She keeps her bending bottled, and remains silent to her origins. And to any who ask, a lie."

"Good enough plan," a new voice entered the mix, causing all three involved in the conversation to button up quickly, and they turned to notice that from the crowd in the cart, somehow Shadow had appeared in their midst. Nila, now having a reason to look with greater effort, could also see the wild hair and focused eyes of Jet sitting against the wall, barely visible through the other passengers. Nila turned her attention back to the pale and drearily dressed young woman before her. "The easiest way to hide something is to make it seem like you have nothing worth hiding."

"How did you...?" Nila asked, baffled.

"Get past the booth-vendors? Used the distraction your little outburst created to swipe somebody's merchandise form. Somewhere out there, there's a cabbage merchant who has to spend a few more days buggering around the bureaucracy," she said without apology. "Like I said. I want to protect my own. Nothing will prevent that."

"You sound like you should try having more fun in your life," Tzu Zi pointed out, as she pulled herself back in from the window. Shadow gave a dry chuckle at that.

"Are you sure you're not Ty Lee?" she asked. She shook her head. "Never mind. I've never been to Ba Sing Se before, but I've heard enough that I think I might be able to keep you out of the worst of it. Consider it repayment for your help on the boat."

"I can find my way perfectly well on my own, th..."

"Nila, you are turning down apt and willing advice. Don't be blinded by pride," Ashan cut in in their native tongue. Turning back to her, he offered a smile and a bow. "We would be delighted to have your guidance and company, young miss."

"You know... you kinda look familiar," Tzu Zi said, stepping in front of Shadow, and scrutinizing her more closely. "Have we met somewhere?"

"Probably," Shadow said with a tone of boredom. Then again, many of her tones were 'of boredom', so it was hard to distinguish what particularly was meant by it. "We might have even gone to the same school."

"Oh, that's not likely," Tzu Zi said. "I mean, I went to school a loooong way away from here."

"So you did," Shadow said, deadpan. She turned, and glanced through the window of the tram, and gave a sigh. "The Inner Wall is coming up. Our stop won't be long after it."

"Excellent," Ashan said, with a wide grin. "You will see, finding your mother will be easy as falling down in the bath-house."

"And what makes you so sure of that?" Nila asked, as the tram slipped into the confines of the wall, a long tunnel with light at its ends.

"Well, there's only so big a city can become, am I not right?" Ashan asked.

And they were answered by the tunnel ending, and the unimaginable scope of Ba Sing Se appearing before them. Thousands upon thousands of buildings, warehouses, stores, structures, towers, and water-works filled every direction of vision, to the point where the city vanished against the horizon. Ashan was agape at it, and even Nila had to let out a low whistle of awe. She was looking upon the home of more than two million human beings. A single settlement so outstandingly massive that it would no doubt be visible from the circuit of the moon. And somewhere in that ocean of humanity, there was a single droplet which Nila was seeking out. Her mother, in a maze a fraction the sum size of the continent.

"That... is a big city," Ashan said, his face quite grey.

"Yes, it is," Nila agreed.

"Wow! Look at that! There must be so many people here!" Tzu Zi said,leaning head and shoulders out of the window's opening to get a better look.

"Please keep head and limbs inside the train!" the voice of the tram's drivers came from the back, where they used their earthbending to propel the vehicle. Tzu Zi ducked back in, but was still grinning.

"And somewhere out there, my sister is probably..."

"Kah Ri, correct?" Nila asked.

"Yeah, that's the one," Tzu Zi answered.

"The lesbian," Nila prompted.

"...yeah, she's one of those, too, but that's not all she is. I mean, she's also an actor and stuff!" Tzu Zi said. Ashan in particular seemed baffled by the term 'lesbian'. Nila decided it was better if she did not explain.

"Ah," Shadow said, as though she finally figured out something. Nila gave her less than half a glance, before returning her attention to her friend.

"Do you know where she is?"

"Well... No. But I know where she sends her mail, so that's a start!" Tzu Zi was bouncing with enthusiasm by the end of it.

"Please don't jump on the train," the voice came from behind them.

"It couldn't possibly harm the ride," Nila snapped back.

"No, because it's distracting my copilot," the answer came, and Nila could see that the second of the two earthbenders propelling the tram was an adolescent boy, who was missing his stride because of his fixation on Tzu Zi.

"Shake your head, young man. Your eyes appear to be stuck," Nila said, stepping between he and the incognito firebender. He did exactly that, and after a moment, the ride gained a bit of the speed it had lost. She turned back to her companions.

"As much as I would like to discharge my brother, perhaps locating Kah Ri would be a fitting beginning," she said.

"So we're going there first?"

"Mother can wait. You have not seen your sister in far longer," Nila said.

"Ooooh! Thank you!" Tzu Zi said, pulling Nila into a hug. And then, she reached over and pulled Ashan in as well, causing the Si Wongi to give a baffled look, his eyes darting around.

She then skipped ahead of the others, causing Shadow to turn and mark her passage. "You have a rare and valuable thing in a friend like her," the gloomy woman said with a sort of quiet earnestness which Nila found hard to ignore. "Make sure you don't squander it."

"I would not dare to," Nila said simply, and genuinely.

"Good," she said, and then turned back toward Jet, managing not to vanish this time because Nila was tracking her movements, and even then, it was a tricky business. That woman could disappear into a crowd of three. Nila turned to Ashan, fist on her hip.

"See? Your paranoia and fears amounted to someone we know enough, and is no threat to us. You should calm yourself before you do yourself an injury," she declared.

"Maybe you're right," Ashan said. "But there's something... off... about this place. You can feel it too, surely?"

"If there is, it will be a problem dealt with in its proper time," Nila said. With the grinding of stone against stone, the tram slowed, and came to a crisp halt at a platform which was... well, covered in graffiti and looked like it had not been cleaned in a month, if not a year. She let out a breath, she hadn't known she was holding in, and waited until the crowd thinned, leaving only she and her companions behind. Then, with one momentous step, she entered the Great City. Under her breath, she whispered, "...and soon my task will be at its end."

---

Under her breath, she sang as she always did, of the hundred songs which filled the air every night. It was one of the few pleasures she was allowed, as her parents tended to be entirely too strict, in her humble opinion. But then again, her parents were her parents. That meant they must know something she didn't. After all, she was barely twelve, and they'd had long lives, and she was only the very youngest of her siblings.

"She's doing it again," Ahroun said petulantly, causing her to stick her tongue out at him and continue singing quietly despite him.

"Tiva! Stop distracting your brother!" Mother's voice came sharp and cutting from the kitchen, all cut from red sandstone. The woman herself leaned back from her table, her greying black hair bound under a coif and her bright green eyes lancing the girl without mercy. "Nebt-Tet's mercy upon me, child. Must you be a constant distraction for your brothers?"

"I was being quiet," she complained.

"Do not speak back to me, daughter," the woman said, before leaning back out of sight, causing Ahroun to chuckle darkly. She shook her head, closed her book, and walked out of the room, past Mother at her table, past her two other brothers who were busy in the courtyard trying to level each other with furious blasts of sandbending. Of all of them in the family, even to her eldest sister, only she had been denied the aptitude to control the sand, something that her parents found deeply shameful. After all, Father was widely held to be the greatest sandbender of his generation. Mother was probably as good or better, if despite never having any opportunity to prove it. Sandbending wasn't a womanly art, after all.

There were many womanly arts, and one day, she would have to learn them all. She couldn't loaf around the house forever, after all. Some day, she would have a family of her own. With a scowl over her shoulder, she promised that she would not be the mother to her children that Mother was to her. Her over-the-shoulder scowl saw her path cross an infinitesimally small distance too close to the sparring twins, which caused the one not facing away from her to lean back toward the door.

"Mother! Tiva's getting in the way of our practice!"

"TIVA! What did I tell you about distracting your brothers!" Mother's voice shrieked out of the house. She sighed, and trudged away, out of the courtyard and into the street which ran from northeast to southwest, a ploy by the designers of the city to never have to walk directly toward the sun, neither at sunset or sunrise. It also made it the very devil for a non-local to navigate. It was probably a small part of why Nassar had stood against the barbarians to the south for hundreds of years.

She walked the streets, and the glances she got were as varied as the faces in the crowd. Nassar was a trade hub, after all, so many in the South Earth Kingdoms sold wares here, even settling down to live in the jewel of the Grit Ocean. Some people looked on her with a muted note of sympathy. They knew who her parents were, and they knew of her shortcoming. Some looked on her with a degree of scorn, for that same reason. Others looked on her with distaste, because she was always reading. And what sort of proper woman read, after all?

She knew exactly where she was going, which was why reaching her destination required no thought and little effort. With a matter of a few minutes, and only one condescending shove by an arrogant boy, she reached Tushu's Book Store, an unassuming piece of property tucked between a den of iniquity and a clothing store anybody with a working brain knew was actually a brothel. Which rather made it a den of iniquity itself, but at least it put up the effort to seem presentable. That Tushu was given such horrible property spoke to another attitude of her people, their disgust with outsiders. She never understood it. If it hadn't been for outside trade, everybody in Nassar would starve.

The door opened to a chime of a bell, which caused the short, broad-shouldered proprietor to glance in her direction, to smile.

"Sati! It's lovely to see you again. Have you finished The Histories of the Ba Sing Se Riots already?" Tushu asked.

"No, I just had to leave that house," she said, slumping in the chair in the corner, pulling her book out and settling it into her lap, quickly locating where she'd left off. "Mother is being impossible again."

Tushu sighed. "It's a shame that there aren't more young people like you, Sati," he said. "Nobody around here seems to want to read, and that's just wrong."

"I know, right?" she answered, happy at the deepest level to have somebody whom she could talk to, even if he was four times her age and married, with a son who was still older than she was. "I mean... if you don't read, you can't learn important things, like about the Dog Rebellions, or why the Fire Nation started the War..."

"You don't need to convince me, Sati," he said. He looked back, as he heard something behind him. "No, it's just Sati, dearest. Are you going to say hello?"

The woman in question, Tushu's wife, was a local, with the same dusky complexion and black hand tattoos that the girl herself had. Although, for the girl, they were still fresh, and still stung a little. Reading was an escape from that discomfort, a way for her mind to separate from her body, and leave the trifles of pain behind. The woman gave an uneasy smile to her, which she returned without the unsteadiness. Mahktiba was always a shy girl, she supposed, or at least uncomfortable dealing with people. It didn't surprise her that there were so many like that; down here, woman could get married off as early as fourteen years, and their social circles never did grow very large. Once again, the girl's mind drifted away from the page, wondering about running away from home, fleeing north, to Ibn-Atal. Or better yet, fleeing south, and maybe even braving the Long Road and reaching Omashu! She'd heard some amazing things about that King Bumi, after all.

Then, she looked down, and realized that she'd missed most of what she was trying to read. With a sigh, she started again. Tushu moved around the store, keeping things tidy, orderly. Generally, performing the woman's tasks, but with a sort of pride and contentment which showed this was what he wanted. There was much about culture outside the desert which she didn't understand. One day she would. One day, she'd be out there in the wide world, and the world would just have to deal with her!

"You seem a little more put upon than usual, Sati," Tushu said as he passed her by. "Are your hands still aching?"

"Yes, but I can handle it," she said honestly. "Can I ask you something?"

"Any time, little lady."

"Why did you come here?" she asked.

"Everybody should have books," he said with a shrug. "At least, that's what I thought when I arrived. I found other reasons to stay."

"Your woman."

"My... wife, Sati," he corrected. "And don't call her my woman. It's not like I own her."

She laughed at that, as though he were making a joke. That laughter died when it became obvious he wasn't. "I apologize. I didn't mean to offend. I'll just read quietly."

"Sati, even if you did offend me, it's alright. Sometimes, the uncomfortable things need to be said. I think that's a lot of the problem of what's going on these days," Tushu opined. Then, he paused, running a finger along a line of books with a look of consternation. "Sharif! Where is the Abridged Histories of the Monolith?"

"It must be out back!" the man's son answered at a yell. Tushu shook his head with mild bemusement.

"I swear, there are days I feel this place would fall down around my ears if I slept in too late," Tushu said.

"I could help," she offered. He turned to her, his brown eyes twisted in calculation. "I mean..."

"No, you know, that might be a good idea," he said. "Another set of hands around here might just be what this place needs."

Her eyes became quite wide, and she hugged the book to her breast. "You mean it? I can work here?"

"I would be honored. After all, we–"

There was a feeling, like the entire world flipped upside down and crashed down onto her head. Then, there was long blackness.

And a light sliding along a rail.

"No, don't be afraid, Sativa," Tushu's voice came from the darkness, but weakly, and wetly. "It's going to be alright."

"No, no it isn't, Tushu! What happened out there?" she said.

"Don't go outside..."

A light, sliding around a rail.

The smell of death was beginning to pull in. Tushu had gone silent. Sharif was silent long before. The darkness was only illuminated by a single candle, it fluttering on its last flame. The woman, long quiet, looked at her, and gave her a single nod. A permission. She knew she wouldn't last, but that the girl was far less injured than she. The girl might survive.

And that was when the girl learned the taste of human blood. Bitter. Iron. But it kept her alive.

A light, sliding 'round its rail.

She staggered, clothes torn and filthy, bloody, out of the ruins of the home and place of business of her only friend. She expected to see the many buildings of Nassar dominating her vision. Instead, she saw rubble and ruin and encroaching sand. The grit on the rubble burned at her feet, a caustic sting with every step, numbing them. Damaging them. She would bear the burns for the rest of her life. She staggered the empty streets, having reached the point where the smell of human carrion no longer disturbed her. Staggering home.

There was no home.

She didn't cry then. Her eyes were dry. Just as well. She needed every drop of water to stay alive.

Under her breath, as she always did, she sang one of the hundred songs of the city of Nassar, staring down in her lap and reading the book. Ahroun looked on with growing annoyance, and...

…

"Has there been any progress?" the deep voice of the Grand Secretariat asked in the antechamber. Han shook his head, scratching at the edge of the patch which covered his missing eye.

"I'm afraid not, Grand Secretariat," Han said with a note of consternation. "Everything we've done seems to slip past her. It's almost as though she's erected some sort of mental barrier inside her psyche."

"That doesn't seem possible," Long Feng noted.

"I didn't think it was possible," Han admitted. "But there is no other ready explanation. She must be reliving a memory inside her head, something so absolute, so visceral that she can focus on it to the exclusion of the entire world."

"Her first love, or the birth of her children perhaps?" Long Feng said with a note of disdain.

"I don't believe so," Han answered. He motioned for the Grand Secretariat to follow him into the room which housed their most valuable prisoner, their most important subject. The setup of the room was laughably simple, almost identical to the one they used for any other of their dissidents and troublemakers, but with a twist that the seat the woman was bound into was designed to hold certain psychotropic compounds, fed down a frequently changed reed into a wound in her upper arm. All in an attempt to break through a mental barricade. "Observe her expression."

Long Feng leaned in, and noted that her expression was one of fear and despair, not the blank, distant stare of a successfully remodeled subject, nor the sublime joy of a woman reliving pleasant dreams. "Remarkable," Long Feng said. After all, how many women dropped themselves into hell to spite a man? "Continue, as long as it takes. Do not damage her, though. I need her intellect intact."

"We might need to give her some time to recover, or perhaps devise a new strategy," Han said. "It might be that this simply will not work."

"If that's the case, then find one that will. I will not squander the potential of the Dragon of the East," Long Feng pointed out. Han nodded, then turned to the light, which circuited a rail in the center of the woman's field of view. Long Feng, though, departed, sparing a moment to glance at the chronometer which he kept stowed in one of the pockets of his green robes. He frowned at the time it displayed. He would have to trust his inferiors with this. He had an important meeting to attend, one he dared not be late for. Not after last time...

---

Ashan stared into the abattoir. It wasn't much to look at, but then again, nothing within eyeshot was. For all he was awed at the overwhelming scale of the city of Ba Sing Se, once one got far enough down, got one's nose close enough to the ground, that scale vanished completely, and he didn't feel so encroached upon, so impressed upon, so crushed by humanity. Even though, rationally, he knew that outside of eyeshot there were just as many human beings living their lives, just as many buildings, and beyond an eyeshot of that just as many again, it didn't matter. He kept his eyes low. Just like any other of the hundred thousand souls he'd crossed paths with in the two hours since entering the Impenetrable City.

"Well, have you got something in mind?" the remarkably hairy middle aged man asked from the front counter, which was bereft of goods. It made sense. This whole neighborhood seemed somewhat seedy. And once again, he reminded himself that much of the 'Lower Ring' shared in that quality. He couldn't think of why, but that was a matter of not having enough information yet. He'd see how things worked. That was rather what he did. "Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to order?"

"That flank is cut against grain," Ashan pointed out the exemplar cut kept behind glass. The man scowled at him.

"And what would you know about cutting meat, sand-foot?" he asked. Ashan wasn't sure if that was intended as a slur, so he decided to treat it as if it weren't. With a sigh, he pulled aside the drape of his robes to show the belt and brace of knives and sharpening implements which hung from it. The butcher leaned back. "Is that some kind of threat?"

"Why would I threaten? I mean only to tell you I know much about the cutting of meat," Ashan said, with a note of confusion.

"Are you saying that you're a better butcher than I am?" he asked, leaning forward.

"I do not mean to offend."

The man thumped his fist against the counter, and pointed at a door at the back of the store. "Well, if you've got airs, you'd better prove 'em," he said. "We'll see if your money is where your mouth is."

Of course, this whole thing had Ashan more than a little confused. All he'd done was point out a flaw in the man's technique, and suddenly, the man was defensive and confrontational. Still, he had more than enough time to waste. Nila and Tzu Zi had headed toward the Middle Ring, where Tzu Zi's sister was reputed to perform, but left with instructions where to rendezvous. Since there were still plenty of hours left in the day, he decided to take in the sights.

And those sights unsettled Ashan slightly. When he left Si Wong, he claimed it was because everything was too familiar, and reminded him too much of what he lost. That being the case, Ba Sing Se could be considered a godsend. Nothing was familiar here. He could see none with complexions like his own, and not a single word of Altuundili graced his ear. And there wasn't a grain of sand to be found, so he felt as isolated and alone as he ever had, even amidst this ocean of humanity. It was uncomfortable, for reasons quite opposite of what he'd expected.

The back room of the abattoir was much as Ashan expected it should be. There was a grate which was kept clean with a water hand-pump, and hooks dangled from the ceiling. There were many hooks, but very few of them actually held animals for butchering. It was either that the man was used to having much larger orders, or else simply had an unnatural and unhealthy fixation with hooks. Ashan sincerely hoped it was the former. The butcher crossed his thick, hirsute arms before his thick, hirsute chest, and nodded toward a sheep-pig half, which dangled still from the ceiling. "Let's see what you make of this, O' master butcher."

Ashan shrugged and pulled out the first of his many knives. If nothing else, doing something familiar in an unfamiliar place worked wonders to take his mind off of the stress and the strain. They had traveled like the devils themselves were on their heels, traveling from when Tzu Zi rose until when Nila could be convinced to sleep, and affording no complaint from anybody in the group who had external genitalia. Because of that, they reached Ba Sing Se from Chameleon Port in outstanding time. The downside was that it left everybody exhausted. Well, it left Ashan exhausted, at least; he could not speak for the firebender, who had some degree of military training despite her young age; he could also not speak for Nila, because he knew that her training was in all likelihood far harsher. He paused in his cutting of the loin, thinking about her. She didn't deserve to be so serious, so humorless, and so angry. If the world were a far farer place, she would be laughing and joyous, without the crushing responsibilities, without the suffocating expectations. The butcher leaned in, as though waiting for Ashan to prove he wasn't as good as his training demanded of him. With a roll of his eyes, Ashan continued, extracting a masterful loin, and rolling it into string with deft movements.

The truth was, when it came down to it, a casual and joyous Nila was no Nila at all. Everything she was now, she had to be. It was as much a part of her identity as her skin, her eyes, or her bones. Yes, she almost never laughed, but the way Ashan saw things, the wonderful was far too dear to give away freely, and far to precious to expend upon just anybody. When she did laugh, it was all the sweeter. While he knew she would be happier if she loosened up, and stopped taking herself so seriously, and stopped gauging herself against her mother's almost insurmountable reputation, he could only guide her to that path. She would take it or not on her on recognizance.

He smiled to himself as he considered that only a few months ago, she would never have taken that road if offered. As much as every ounce of him wanted to despise Malu for murdering his mother, he knew he could not hate her completely; for because of she and the firebender, Nila was closer to being a normal person than Ashan had ever known. Much as Sharif had been normal once, given the same impulses, humor, and stupid ideas that a person of his age was prone to, Nila was... well, she was born a strange Si Wongi girl, and would likely die by most accounts a strange Si Wongi woman. She was the only person Ashan had ever encountered who was inspired by a man accidentally decapitating himself. With a shake of his head and a chuckle, he slammed down his cleave, and set aside the hoof next to the soup bones.

"Wait, you're supposed to throw that out," the Butcher pointed out at that hoof. Ashan paused before the creations of the last few minutes, which were a substantial amount of raw meats of many cuts, some laid out, some stacked, some bound in cord. Ashan glanced back to the hoof.

"I admit, hoof soup isn't the greatest of stocks, but it is filling, for what it lacks in taste," Ashan pointed out.

"Your people eat that stuff?" he asked.

"Sir, we eat anything we can kill," Ashan said honestly. Including, if the situation warranted, the bodies of the dead. It was a practice which Ashan already knew not to speak of; most Eastern nations, and in fact almost all of the world that Ashan had ever heard of, considered the practice ghoulish.

"Hoof soup," he repeated to himself, rubbing at his chin. Oddly, his head was the only part of his body not growing an all-concealing pelt. "Think people will buy it for the novelty?"

"Unlikely. It is filling, not appealing," Ashan admitted. But the butcher shrugged.

"Hell, it's still money I'd have been throwing away."

Ashan nodded, and set around to his butchery once more. His mind turned to Tzu Zi, then. It was a poorly kept secret that the girl was not simply a firebender, but in fact a member of Fire Nation nobility. He wondered from time to time if this was another case of the universe playing fast and loose with its own rules, to make daughter resemble mother. After all, Sativa Badesh bint Seema din Nassar had seen a confidante and companion in the Mountain King. Now, her daughter was 'chumming about' with the child of the East's enemy. He had no suspicions of treachery in Nila, though. To betray, one must first have loyalty, and Nila's loyalty had always been to science and learning beyond any other. But in recent days, that loyalty had expanded to a clutch of friends, a commodity she had never held before. And that loyalty was every bit as fierce as her mother's had been at the Walls of Ba Sing Se years ago, but for its much smaller focus.

It was easy to see why Nila latched onto Tzu Zi. The firebender was exactly the kind of friend that Nila needed. Somebody patient, warm, and infinitely forgiving. And additionally, somebody who hadn't accidentally arranged for a brick to be hurled at her head, but that was a matter for the past, and one which would remain there. And she served a fine example to Nila; the hard headed young woman would learn how to act in society if nothing else than by simple osmosis. And while Ashan could definitely pick out the traces of envy from the scientist to the firebender, it was a matter of petty physicalities. Yes, Tzu Zi might be developed beyond her years, but Nila wasn't an ogre to behold. A distracted smile came to his face as he remembered his first look at her when she'd come back. She'd always been nimble, but when she returned, in those leg-hugging pants, showcasing a spectacular bottom, he'd had to take a moment to appreciate it. Then she walked into him. The rest was history.

"You've got a deft hand, I'll grant you that," the butcher said.

"And you have a need for another butcher," Ashan answered him. The butcher raised a brow at that. Ashan nodded toward the long abandoned, stained apron which hung, dusty, on its peg. "It has not seen a wearer in some time, I can imagine?"

"You've also got a thief's eyes," he said with a laugh.

"Was... that an insult?"

"Rou," he said, offering that meaty, hairy hand toward Ashan. He paused for a moment, but remembered what was expected of him after a moment. He took, and shook it for a moment.

"Ashan ibn-Ali din Ababa."

Rou gave a confused glance. "How much of that was your name?"

"All of it. Most simply call me Ashan," he clarified. Rou chuckled at that.

"Think you can do that again?"

"Of course," Ashan said with a note of pride. "I can prepare and butcher everything from bison to tiger bear."

"You've worked bison? Good. We're getting an old cow in from the north pastures later today," Rou said. "Those things are murder on my back."

"They do weigh twelve tonnes or better," Ashan said. "Do you work in quarters or halves?"

Rou pointed upward, and Ashan reevaluated the forest of hooks on the ceiling. Come to think of it, that many might be just enough to suspend a halved air-bison for butchery. "What do you think?"

Ashan already had his answer, so simply shrugged. The familiar was a comfort, in an unfamiliar place. And considering the dwindling nature of their finances, it would do everybody good to have money appear, rather than simply hemorrhage. Ashan rasped his blades across their whet stone. The day was scarcely past noon, and there was much work to be done.

---

"Finally," Azula said, slapping away the brambles which still made their best efforts to cling to her clothing. It was telling that her own clothes were falling into tatters at an alarming rate. She really had to get some more durable clothing; say what one would about Tribesmen, their clothing tended to last, for example. "We are free of those psychopaths and idiots and have a clear path to Ba Sing Se."

"Ah, yes," Iroh ran a hand down his beard, pondering it. Azula idly wondered what was passing through the old geezer's head, but decided that it either had something to do with treason or tea, or possibly an aphorism that she couldn't have decoded with the help of a genius like Hiroshi Sato. As that thought went through her head, she felt a sting of old, almost healed over outrage. Her son's father had worked for that admittedly brilliant businessman for more than a decade, only to have his legs cut out from under him as coldly and inpassionately as a wave breaking a bank. It was an odd feeling, being outraged for another. It wasn't something she was comfortable with. But she was still fairly sure if she ever encountered Hiroshi again, she was going to punch him in the face hard enough that he would regret what happened almost three decades ago in another lifetime. The bitter taste of revenge soothed her nerves, even if it did not improve her disposition. "That means we must take the Serpent's Pass."

"What?" Azula asked, caught out in her own thoughts unexpectedly. She couldn't afford to be outpaced by the old man. She needed her wits about her. After all, he'd betrayed the Fire Nation in her life time, and undoubtedly would again given the chance.

"We are too far east to reach the docks at Full Moon Bay," Iroh said patiently. "We are entirely too far west to catch a river barge at Burning Rock..."

"Burning what?"

"...Our oldest colony on this continent," Iroh said suspiciously. "Have you forgotten so much?"

Azula shook her head. Burning Rock. Of course. How had that slipped her mind? She had one of those. Well, she never did, but the Fire Nation did. She glanced around, but couldn't see the girl, doubtless the source of that mental interference.

She did see a great, great many symbols, though, carved into every tree, and hewn into every visible rock.

"I know what Burning Rock is, you old fool," Azula said defensively. "I was asking about that 'serpent's pass' of yours."

"A bridged isthmus crossing the bays," he said. He raised a brow toward her. "Of course, I would have to wonder about your ignorance of it. You were once quite adept in geography."

"I remembered the parts that mattered," Azula said.

"No, you remember your world, not this one," he said, as he started to move onto a path which easily turned northward, cutting through the copses and brambles. "If I was to guess, your world was a much emptier one than this. A world where there was no nation of Adamite heathens in the Southern Hemisphere. You seemed... most disturbed when we first docked there."

"Those islands were empty," Azula said, her usual biting tone vacant. "I hid there for years, plotting revenge against Zuko for stealing my throne. Raising Chiyo."

He didn't speak at that, just walked the path through the brambles. She mulled, a habit she was really going to have to break. It distracted her. "From what I recall of this region, that 'Serpent's Pass' would deposit you not far from the Wasteland of... some Easterner who doesn't really matter. It would not be far from there to the Walls."

"So you do remember," Iroh said simply. He nodded. "Several days walking, without something faster than our feet. And then what?"

"Excuse me?"

"Once we are at the walls, how do you suggest we enter Ba Sing Se?" his eyes had turned shrewd and cold.

"Simple. I locate that band of Kyoshi Warriors who are trying to rendezvous with the Avatar, and use their credentials and outfits to disguise myself. You can come up with your own solution," Azula said. Iroh halted, turning to face her squarely.

"The same Kyoshi Warriors whom you personally disbanded months ago, when you annexed their island?" Iroh asked flatly.

"No, the... Wait... What?"

"At the beginning of this madness, you and your brother went to Kyoshi Island without me," Iroh said. "You brought down their young warriors, and Zhao moved troops to conquer the island days after we left. That Kyoshi Warrior you are likely referring to, has been in prison since the beginning of winter."

"But..." Azula glanced aside, and could not see the girl, that source of her misery and confusion. But the colors of the world were growing to verdant. Too close. She clutched at her head. This wasn't the way things worked. It couldn't have changed. "I'll figure something out."

"No, you won't," Iroh said.

"I will lie, and cheat, and steal my way into that damned city if I have to! It wouldn't be the first time!" Azula screamed.

"And then what?" Iroh asked.

"Then, I bring down the walls," she said. "It was easy enough last time. This time, I should have it done in a fraction of the time."

"And then what?" Iroh asked.

"Then, I kill the Avatar, when his allies are few and cornered, and he has nowhere left to run."

"And if that fails?" Iroh pressed.

"It will not."

"AND IF THAT FAILS!" Iroh's voice raised into a sudden and irate roar. "You are so trapped in your idea of what should happen, that you've become blinded to the fact that the world is changing and leaving you behind. Your assumptions are not just faulty, they are wrong! And you are wrong for believing in them! This is exactly why I tried to keep Zuko away from you at the North Pole. Your brash and unthinking actions could have seen you trapped, murdered by Tribesmen, or captured by Zhao! But do you listen to me?" he scoffed loudly. He stared at her, golden eyes to golden eyes. "And even when you did have him, you let him slip through your grasp. You never plan anymore. You just accept on faith that the universe will act as you hope it will."

"Please, this is close enough that even I can call it destiny," Azula said. "He's going to be in Ba Sing Se."

"Destiny? What do you know about destiny? Do you really believe that the universe is aligning itself for your ends? Have you become so conceited?"

"No, but..."

"So you're just being lazy, not bothering to do anything but coast by on simple luck?" Iroh asked.

"I am not lazy."

"When you were young, you were once called born lucky. But that luck has deserted you," Iroh said. "The way it now goes is 'Zuko lived lucky, Azula was lucky to be alive'. He sees his ups and downs, and he plans for them. It is time you either accept that you have been sabotaging yourself out of sheer laziness, and stop blaming everybody but the young woman responsible – you – or else give up on this endeavor entirely."

Azula glared at him. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Then how are you getting into Ba Sing Se?" Iroh asked.

"I will think of..."

"HOW. ARE. YOU. GETTING. INTO. BA SING SE!" Iroh shouted. Azula recoiled from him. Everything she knew about her Uncle, soft-hearted, doddering old fool that he was, was in stark contrast to what she saw before her now. He even seemed taller somehow, as he railed against her. He shook his head. "When you give me a plan, then we will advance. Until then, we move no further than here."

"If we don't move quickly, we will miss our window of opportunity," she said, stomping past him, until they were out from under the fairly sparse canopy of trees, and the path snaked around some low, rolling hills. She turned back to face him, when she saw a streak of white shoot over a nearby hillock. Her eyes shot wide, doubly so when she saw that its back held a saddle, and it was flying only a few hundred feet in the air. "The Avatar!" she shouted. That got the old bastard moving up to her side, but only to watch impassively as the beast scudded through the air, heading to the west. She continued pointing after it, but had to catch herself, and turned north once more. "But... He's going the wrong way."

"So how accurate was your predictive ability again?" Iroh asked. "We stay here, until you have a plan."

And watching that white blip vanish across the hilly horizon, she was starting to wonder if Iroh wasn't right. Things weren't the way she remembered them. And if that were the case, then maybe all the preparation in the world wouldn't be enough to keep up with it.

---

"Is it just me, or does this place just seem really, really dangerous?" Tzu Zi asked, looking about the dingy streets. "There's lots of seedy looking people around here."

"Of course. There are a lot of poor people in the Lower Ring, and poor people tend to be desperate, and desperate people tend to be dangerous. It is simply a matter of not inciting that desperation to violence, an easy enough task," Nila said.

"This place smells funny," Sharif complained quietly from Nila's side, his eyes locked on the dirt road they walked. Nila gave him a glance. Since when could he smell?

"Look, we'll be into the Middle Ring soon!" Tzu Zi pointed out happily. Nila, though, held a scowl as she leaned up on her toes to get a glimpse of what lay ahead of them. Namely, the gates.

"I don't think it will be so simple," Nila contended. But she didn't elaborate on it, despite Tzu Zi's worried look. Instead, she queued with all the others near the gate – that seemed to be a fact of daily living in Ba Sing Se; standing in line.

"Wow. There must be something really nice in the Middle Ring to attract this kind of crowd," Tzu Zi said, hope still clinging to her voice. "Right?"

"I think I'm going to be ill," Sharif complained.

Nila glanced quickly at her brother, and noted that he was seeming a bit more grey than brown, so she pulled Tzu Zi toward him. "Find him a bathroom quickly, before he spoils himself."

"Alright," Tzu Zi said, pulling the simple minded teenager away from the gate, and into a tenement housing nearby. Nila pursed her lips, but didn't speak to that, either. She had to shuffle aside, though, as somebody took a spot behind her.

"Your friend didn't look well," the young man said with a tone of boredom.

"He is seldom ill. I have seldom known a heartier constitution," Nila admitted. The man before her was probably in his early twenties, and was almost as dark as she. But he certainly didn't sound like any Si Wongi that she'd ever heard. For one thing, his Tianxia was utterly devoid of an Altuundili accent.

"You must be new to the City," he said.

"We arrived this morning," she said. Then, she paused. "Why are you talking to me?"

"Because the alternative is talking to him," the man pointed past her, at a corpulent man whose distant stare was in the same league as Sharif's, but gummed idly on a corn ear, big fists crossed at his belt. She had to admit, she was probably a better a conversational partner, and that was not saying much. "They say these walls are here to create order. Does that seem right to you?"

"Walls cannot create order, unless they are prison walls," Nila said with a shake of her head. "I have seen many walls since my arrival inside this city, and they are not to keep people separated. They are too easily passed, and too easily destroyed by concerted effort. No, the walls are here to create a degree of fire safety."

"Astute observation," he said.

"An obvious one," Nila contended. "This city houses more than two million people. A fire in such a metropolis could unmake untold lives and industry. But fire walls, preventing the spread of fires beyond a small area, mean that never shall much of the city be lost to a single calamity."

"You're wrong," the stranger said.

"What."

"There aren't two million people living here," he said. She raised a brow at that. "The actual number is closer to 'nobody has a sweet clue'. You're right about the walls, though, on both counts. Safety, and security. For somebody, anyway."

"You speak poorly of this place," she pointed out.

"I've seen much of it since I got here. Little of it turned out to be good," he said. He nodded toward the gates. "Why head for the Middle Ring?"

"My friend has a sister living there. We are attempting to meet her," she said. "And who are you to be so interested in my motives?"

"Qujeck Shaktson," he said. Nila couldn't help but raise a brow at that. "What?"

"Shacktson?"

"So?"

"You are a Tribesman, yes?" she asked.

"And Tribesmen don't tend to have surnames?" he asked. "Well, these people will give you one if you give them a whisker of a chance. I have a father named Shakt, so..."

"It is a foolish way," she shook her head.

"It's an old way," he contended. "And you are?"

"Nila," she answered simply. He prompted her forward. "I am nobody's son. The breasts should make that plentifully obvious."

"They would if they were apparent," he said sotto. He glanced aside, giving her the self-conscious opportunity to tug at her own shirt, confirming that she had not suddenly gone concave-of-chest while she wasn't paying attention. She rolled her eyes, getting her mind back away from where it should by rights only rest if she were a libidinous young boy, and back onto the situation before her. Namely, that the Tribesman was facing her once more. "So, Nila Nobody'sson, what, if I may ask, is that thing on your back?"

"Do you have an education in metallurgy, physics, and engineering?"

"I'm a professional waterbender," he said as a sardonic answer.

"Then it is above your understanding," she said, hitching her wrapped firearm up a mite so it could rest more comfortably.

"You don't let it touch the ground, and it weighs a bomb," he said. "Not a sword, too blunt. Not a club, the proportions are all wrong, and you don't have the body type of somebody who'd use one," a smirk came to his face. "Is that a firearm?"

Her brows rose at that. "You're smarter than you look."

"It's how I survive Ba Sing Se," he pointed out. She gave a nod to his question. "That's an unusual piece of equipment, particularly in the hands of one so young. They don't exactly hand those to just about anybody, doubly so in Si Wong."

"Have you been spying on me?" she asked, her knife slowly sliding to where she kept a knife, then after a moment's consideration past it to where she kept an incendiary lemon.

"You're dark skinned, you have green eyes, and you sound like Miss al-Jalani. It's not so hard to come to that conclusion," he said. "But you're right to be paranoid. The cutpurses, cutthroats, and destitute masses require the least of your attention. Observe," he nodded down the street, and Nila followed his motion. "That man has been sweeping that same spot for fifteen minutes. Which means?"

"He's watching something," Nila said, her eyes returning to the Tribesman.

"Indeed, but what?" he asked. "The answer is simple. He arrived when your friend did, and has been keeping a close eye on her."

"What?" she asked.

"Your friend, she's from a long ways away," Qujeck pointed out. "Some place... a bit west of here. There's people in this city who keep very close attention on that kind of people."

"Is that a threat?" Nila asked.

"Warning," he said. "While there may 'be no war in Ba Sing Se', you need to be very careful about the things you say around people," he broke off, and looked ahead of him, at the gates, and the queue leading to it which hadn't altered one step in that whole time. "And you must realize that this gate will not allow you through it."

"It has become apparent," Nila said. "Why?"

"Remember the sweeping man," Qujeck stressed. He glanced behind him, his gaze lingering. "And take great care what you say, and to whom. Assume every wall has a hostile ear pressed against it, and you'll live a lot longer."

He turned and started to walk away, leaving Nila somewhat baffled at the exchange which lead up to it. "Wait, why tell me such things?"

"Because somebody had to," he answered, not turning back. Nila shook her head in annoyance, and when she turned back around, she could see Tzu Zi slowly guiding the still-ill looking Sharif back to where Nila was standing. Nila chewed on her lip, thinking about the line, the walls, and that Tribesman, as the firebender finally reached her side.

"I don't think Sharif's going to be able to wait in line. We... we should wait until tomorrow to see Kah Ri," Tzu Zi said.

"Are you sure?" Nila asked. Tzu Zi looked quite saddened by that turn of events, but nodded. "Then we should go to where we said we would meet Ashan. And find a place to spend the night here in the Lower Ring."

"Yeah, that line doesn't look like it's moving at all," Tzu Zi said. She helped coax Sharif forward, even as he took every step with an expression of most perfect misery. "Come on, Sharif. We'll find you some place where you can lie down."

"Tha'll be good," Sharif said, his voice even more slurring than usual. The two of them walked past, and as they did, Sharif scratched at the back of his neck. Only because of that, did Nila see that there was a tiny, raised bump there. She moved closer as she rounded him, taking only a momentary glance at it. At the center of that bump was a tiny hole, a prick almost as tiny as a bug bite. But seeing it, and seeing the sudden 'illness' which had befallen her brother, she drew the conclusion which Qujeck was coaching her towards.

Somebody was trying to control her movements in Ba Sing Se.

She clenched a fist around the barrel of her gun that lay against her back, and made a quiet oath. They would fail. She was Nila Badesh bint Seema din Nassar, and she had a duty. Nothing would stand in her way.

---

"This place is great!" Smellerbee said with a level of enthusiasm. Longshot gave her a look which clearly said 'perhaps if you have six legs and eat human filth'. "Look at that bed! You could fit three of us on that thing!"

"And there are five of us," Bug pointed out quietly. "At least the bathroom is nice. There's two of them for the floor!"

"What's your take on this, Shadow? You've been staying awfully quiet," Jet asked. Mai sighed, as she often did, and leaned against the wall.

"I really don't care. One place is as good as any other," she said. But Jet's gaze on her lingered a bit longer, a knowing glance, that he knew she was lying and was going to press her on it, if not now. "You should get some food."

"Wait, why am I always the one who gets 'volunteered' for getting groceries?" Bug complained.

"Because if you don't, you endlessly complain about the eats," Smellerbee pointed out, giving Longshot a nudge. "I swear, I've never seen a pickier eater. Am I right?"

Longshot's idle shrug said 'you're not wrong, Bee.'

Bug bristled at that. The dual stereotype of being the unpleasable gourmand and the only one in the group who knew what a weevil-roach tasted like obviously didn't agree with her. "Fine. But just for that, I'm getting the nastiest cheese I can find. Real stinky stuff!"

With a huff, she zoomed out of the room, slamming the door behind her. It was telling about the quality of the door's craftsmanship that it immediately bounced back open, until Mai reached over and shut it more gently. Smellerbee, though, was already bouncing on the bed like a five year old. "And feel this mattress! It's better than anything I've ever felt before! It's not like sleeping on rocks at all!"

"Yeah, well, enjoy it," Jet said. "This is where we're going to be for a while."

"Maybe you should take a bath," Mai said flatly. "The tubs are up on the roofs. Nobody can watch you up there."

"Are you saying I'm filthy?"

"You are," Mai said simply.

"Yeah, but that's a personal choice," Smellerbee said defiant, arms crossed before chest. Longshot sighed, glancing at her with a look of 'your choice is going to smell worse than any cheese Bug comes back with'. She let out a grunt of shock at Longshot's silent, if cutting, remark. "There's no need to get nasty like that. Fine. I'll have a bath. First time for everything, am I right?"

"It's not as terrible as it sounds," Mai said.

"Yeah, you'd know, little miss pampered," Jet said with tone of mild mockery, one she nevertheless shot him a glare fore. "Go on, Bee. Don't drop the soap."

"Yeah, yeah," Smellerbee said, throwing a rude gesture behind her as she departed. Mai nodded Longshot after her.

"You should make sure she doesn't just dunk her head and call herself clean. We're going to have to live together in this tiny apartment for a while. I don't feel like having to smell everybody that whole time," she said. Longshot's eyes flicked toward where Smellerbee was retreating, then back to Mai. It was clearly a glance of 'are you really sure that's any sort of good idea?' "Fine. Then you'll be the one to sleep next to her in the closet."

A roll of his eyes, which even without Longshot's ability to pack whole paragraphs into a gesture would have been clearly 'fine, but this isn't my first choice.'

And with that, the former Fire Nation noble and the former child bandit, orphans both, were alone in their room. Jet closed the door again,and leaned against it, smiling toward her. "You've got something up your sleeve, don't you?" he asked.

"Knives."

"Something else," he prompted.

"I also keep quarrels and shuriken up there," Mai said with the slightest of smirks.

"You know what I mean," Jet said. "We could have 'started over' anywhere. Why Ba Sing Se?"

"It's safe," Mai lied. "The Fire Nation couldn't get in here with the Dragon of the West doing the thinking for them."

"Since when do you care about safe?" Jet asked.

"There's plenty of opportunities here," Mai lied again.

Jet wasn't having any of it. "I watched a man get robbed of his shoes on the way here. The only opportunities are banditry, and possibly hiring on to prevent banditry for somebody with a bit more money than we have. You're not telling me something. What is it?"

"Why would I lie to you?" Mai asked.

"Lots of reasons. If you thought you were protecting me, if you didn't like what I was doing, if you thought I was going to go off on some rampage of roaring revenge against the Fire Nation, or start persecuting random passer's-by as Fire Nation spies," he rattled off, without any clear indication that he was going to stop.

"Fine, then why would I lie to you about this?"

"I don't know. I was hoping that you'd tell me," Jet asked. He smiled then, that bedroom smile he thought melted her heart. And while it did do great things for improving her 'mood', it wasn't nearly as foolproof as he believed it was. "Come on. It's just the two of us. Bug, Bee, and Shot don't need to know about it."

"And why should you?"

"Mai, please," he said, that smile dropping away. "You want me to trust you, well, it doesn't work in a vacuum."

Mai stepped away from the wall. He wasn't wrong, after all. "Fine. We're not here for a 'fresh start'."

"As I suspected."

"There are some... friends of my family," she said. "People pretty high up. I believe if I can get in contact with them, we might be able to do more in a few months to hurt the Fire Nation than we've managed to do in years."

"I see," Jet said, his tones serious but his eyes cunning. "And you didn't want me to know about this?"

"I didn't want you to get your hopes up, in case it didn't work," Mai said. "I was always told that Ba Sing Se was the most dangerous city on the planet. And since I'm from Azul, that should really mean something to you."

Jet paced a line to the back of the room, then returned to her, his eyes down, pondering. "Who are you supposed to be contacting?"

"A man named How," she said. "Before the Dragon of the East got involved with the war, he was holding out against Prince Iroh better than anybody else. If he's still alive, he'll know how useful I am."

"How useful you are...?" Jet asked. "What's your plan exactly?"

"I'm the last daughter of an annihilated House," Mai said. "With his backing, and my name, I could bring down the Fire Nation from the inside."

"That's... ambitious."

"And I didn't want to bring you in because there's a very real possibility that you'd get killed," she said.

"So?" he asked. He flashed that smile again, and even Mai was annoyed to find that it was working a lot more now than it had been before. "Mai, if you want me to, I'll walk right up to the Fire Lord's bedchamber, knock real loud, and punch him in the teeth. I'm in this with you. No matter what."

She smiled, then, the small, subdued smile which was about all she could bring herself to muster. It was also the most genuine smile she had. "Thank you, Jet."

"So... tell me how you're going to kill the Fire Lord," Jet said. And that sounded every bit the invitation his tone made it out to be.

---

"I think it's obvious who taught her how to throw lightning," Kori pointed out, as he leaned away from Yoji's face, giving her that fraction of a second to put her cracked spectacles back into place before the only other member of their group saw what lay beyond them. The rational part of her mind told her that it was a pointless affectation, but she still couldn't stand to leave that be. If there were some way she couldn't have eyes the color they were, she'd have painted them as she did her face, in a heartbeat and without a single regret.

"And your ability to point out the obvious is undiminished," Omo said from where he was leaning against the rock. He faced Yoji more squarely. "How's your hearing?"

"The fact that I am able to respond to you should be some sign," Yoji pointed out.

"And your vision seems to have cleared," Kori said with a nod. "You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd say the universe was trying to kill you."

"It's been trying to kill me since infancy. It has yet to succeed," Yoji pointed out, rising and kneading out the tension in her shoulders and neck. Kori rolled his eyes at that.

"It only has to succeed once."

"So we're back on their trail?"

Yoji nodded at the earthbender's question. "The universe may be trying to kill me, but it's also sending a clear signal that our task is at hand. The Prince has left the traitors behind. We can kill them as easily as an insect and nobody will be the wiser," a smirk came to her lips. "Why, if we can do it quietly enough, Prince Zuko will never even know what became of them."

"I don't think we're that lucky," Kori said. He looked north. "Ba Sing Se, then."

"Really? Why would anybody willingly go into that rat-scorpion's nest?" Omo asked.

"There are two Ba Sing Se's," Kori said, as he ushered the others to follow him. "The first is, as you said, a rat-scorpion's nest, a destitute hell-hole where all the most deadly things from Azul are poured into green robes and called a city of two million. You know, a proper opinion of the place," Omo chuckled at that. "The other, on that vaunted other hand, is a paradise of innovation and stability – as though they don't realize that the two are mutually exclusive. Home to the most educated populace on earth, with the greatest medical facilities and the most well stocked university in the world, built upon the bones of a city as old as The Monolith itself. A city of walls and wonders."

"Don't tell me you believe that garbage," Omo said.

"What do you think?" Kori asked. "It is a dangerous place, but has somebody carefully crafting its image. Personally, I would wonder if that city actually existed, and wasn't just a massive pit full of corpses behind the vaunted Walls, were it not that once in a long, long while, somebody actually comes out of that place."

"It may not be yet, but give the Fire Nation some time," Yoji said. Kori shook his head.

"Killing the people of Ba Sing Se would be a waste. With a bit of effort, a lot could be made of a city like that. Imagine Ba Sing Se, but with the industrial complexes of Azul, the brilliant minds of Sato and Qin driving its development? Wouldn't that be a thing to behold?" Kori asked.

"Don't tell me you're going native," Omo said. Kori scoffed.

"It's not 'going native' to see how the world could be improved. I just think it's short sighted to destroy something simply because it stood against you once. Bear in mind that it's likely that your ancestors fought against the Fire Nation for decades, before the Fire Nation graciously drew you against its bosom."

"My ancestors were idiots," Omo said tersely.

"Oh, I can sympathize," Kori said. "After all, mine tried to kill me. That's just wasteful."

"If you say so," Omo said sarcastically.

"Can we please focus on the task ahead of us?" Yoji asked. She paused, though. "Omo, a word?"

"I'll just pick out the path," Kori said. "Don't do anything I'd regret."

"What?" Omo asked, but with a guffaw, Kori moved ahead, out of sight through the terrain. Omo shook his head and turned to her. "I swear, that Tribesman is as mad as his kin."

"He is Fire Nation. Even if he's not very good at it," she said.

"So what's on your mind?" he asked. My, but he was a pleasant sight for sore eyes. Literally. His worried expression was the first thing she'd beheld once the flash-blindness had worn off, and his voice the first he'd heard. And he was very, very appealing to both senses.

"I wished to..." she began, and suddenly found herself unable to get the right words out. So she did the thing that she'd promised herself never to do, chickened out, and changed what she was going to say. "...thank you for being so astute in your duties. If you hadn't been so timely, the Dragon might have put a lightning bolt into my head."

Omo smiled at that, a lop-sided grin on his chiseled jaw. "Well, the Fire Nation couldn't afford to lose you. You're one of the best that they've got."

She forced a tight-lipped smile onto her face. Nothing personal, then? That was actually disappointing. "Well, it was for the best that your reflexes were as good as they are. Now, we should get back to..."

"Yoji, there's something else you want to say, isn't there?" Omo asked, cutting her off and blocking her embarrassed stride toward her fellow Child. "I'll admit, I'm not the most perceptive, but I know when something's right in front of me. Have I done something to aggravate you? No, wait, has Kori? Because I know about you and he. I can understand why you put up with him, but you don't need to for his sake. He can work with other Children just as easily as with you."

"He and I? We aren't..."

"Brother and sister," he said. She flinched away in shame. Gently, he guided her chin back, to face him. She knew he couldn't see her eyes, which was for the best, because they were having a very hard time keeping stable and focused. "It's alright. You belong here. With us. Nobody's going to take you away from the Children, from Kori, or me. You don't need to be afraid of that."

"I'm not afraid," she said. Well, that was a lie.

"It's alright," Omo said, taking a step back, hands out to his sides. "If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. No harm done, and I'll consider this the end of it. But if there's something else going on, with one of the other Children, or somebody outside our group..."

"There's nothing going on," she said, and with a sigh, hung her head. "And there shouldn't be. There are rules against this. We cannot have Children liasing with Children. We do not know whose parents are whose. It divides loyalties and sows dissension. It's too much of a risk, and besides, nothing good could ever come of it."

"You're probably right," Omo said with a sigh. There was a long moment of silence.

"Just kiss her you hulking idiot!" Kori's voice came at a shout from some distance away. He turned to where the waterbender had left, bafflement on his face.

"He couldn't possibly know that we were talking ab..." Omo began.

Yoji cut him off by following that distantly offered advice.

And it was good.

---

"Is that sufficient?" Azula asked at long last, for she was starting to feel a bit hoarse from talking at such length. Still, it was the only way to get the doddering old teamonger walking again.

"Barely," Iroh said, continuing to walk alongside her. "You leave much in the hands of chance."

"I sometimes leave things to fate, and the intricate machinations which can be predicted by any proper intellect, but chance? Never," Azula countered.

"I think you operate on predictions you cannot know the ends of," Iroh pointed out. "You are taking risks, basing today's strategy on your time's victory. Much may have changed. Much must have."

"As long as it is Long Feng and his Dai Li that control Ba Sing Se, then I know for a fact that I can deliver the city into Fire Nation hands," Azula said. She idly glanced aside, and while the symbols now abounded with such frequency that they even seemed to be writ in the veins of leaves, her younger self, that distracting and troublesome meddler, was nowhere to be found. Good. Some peace of mind was desperately needed.

The terrain had turned to hills once more, but it was obvious as they walked that they were moving on a spine of earth, for to either side, after very few miles, the land sloped sharply down, plunging to sea level very quickly. Iroh paused, and nodded. "We are close."

"To that 'Serpent's Pass' of yours?" Azula asked, somewhat pointlessly.

"Indeed," Iroh said, scratching at his beard. "It has been a few years since we destroyed the bridge connecting one isthmus to the other. I wonder if they ever rebuilt it?"

"They'd better have," Azula said.

"It shouldn't be too much of a problem," Iroh said. "After all, you were quite the capable swimmer when you were younger."

Azula shuddered at that. All of the worst times in her life were times when she was surrounded by water. Her first humiliation at the hands of Iroh, all those decades ago, when he first redirected her lightning and threw her over the side of her own ship. She would have drowned had not her otherwise useless marines fished her out, blubbering and coughing out lungs of water onto the docks. And again, when that girl humiliated her on the Day of Sozin's Comet, leaving her trapped, chained, and defeated. And again, when she almost lost both of her children, when their boat capsized on their way to the East Continent. Water was terror and pain and death, wrapped in cold and suffocating darkness, and she wanted to keep it as far away from her as possible. Anything more than a bathtub's-worth was more than she'd ever need.

They didn't need to go much further before they came to an arch, which lay in the middle of that spine of land. At the top of that gate was a sign, which was carved in crisp, Tianxia lettering. 'Abandon Hope', it said.

And they weren't the only ones looking at it.

"Abandon hope? But hope is all we have..." a woman's disappointed moaning broke the silence. Azula glanced aside, and saw that they'd approached up a switchback which marched up the side of the spine, out of sight until they'd reached the top not a hundred yards away. The woman in question was heavily pregnant, and had a young man, probably the inflicter of that status upon her, guiding her steps.

"Best pay attention. Living on hope is a pointless exercise, and will only end in misery," Azula said bitterly.

"You must forgive my niece. She has had a difficult few weeks," Iroh said. "You can call me Mushi, and this is Aimei."

"Oh, well, I'm Than, and this is my wife Ying," the man said. "You must have been rejected from Full Moon Bay like we were, or you'd never attempt the Serpent's Pass."

"Somebody stole our tickets and all of our possessions," Ying said quietly. Azula rolled her eyes. Anybody who couldn't protect what was theirs, or otherwise arrange for its protection, didn't deserve to have it to begin with. "This is the only way we'll get to somewhere safe."

"Heh. Safe," Azula snorted. Iroh shot her a glance, but then moved to Ying's side, taking her other hand and guiding her forward. Of course that insane crack-pot would decide to slow them down by helping the useless. "No place is safe these days."

"Aimei, stop talking like that," Iroh snapped. He gave a sigh toward the pregnant woman. "My niece is prone to dark moods. Please be patient with her."

"It's alright. We've had our share of trouble, and we know others have too," Than said. With the two of them helping Ying, they finally started toward the spine of land, which narrowed until it was more a knife jutting up from the water than a path from dry land to dry land. It was going to be a very long day. "Tell me, do you really think that there's a monster out in the water?"

Azula sighed. Just when she thought that the day couldn't get any more aggravatingly terrible, the Universe went out of its way to make sure that it did.

---

Nila backed away from the landlady, who stared at her with an expression which any would have discerned as 'take one more step toward my building and I stab you'. With barely a second thought, and managing to not throw the bigot a stink-face for her irrational and wordless denial, Nila crossed this building off of her mental list of places to stay. The list had started quite long, but between their unwillingness to trade in foreign coin – which meant that at some point Nila was going to have to find a money-changer and transfer her tiny supplies of gold and silver into local coinage – and the remarkable waiting lists that she'd encountered, it was seeming that the Tribesman's estimation of the city's population was more right than either had suspected. Not only were there many more than two million living here, there were so many that Ba Sing Se, the only city which could feed itself without leaving its front gate, was running out of places to put them all.

"I need to lie down," Sharif said with misery from where he was left leaning against a lamp-post, which its like marched down the road showing the official pathway as opposed to the warren of alleyways that most people utilized. Easy to see why; the street had become a clogged artery of stalls, people, and garbage. "Did she say yes?"

"As with so many others, her hateful silence was the only answer she would give," Nila answered her brother. Sharif's gaze was still locked roughly on the horizon, but for all his obvious discomfort, there was something closer to a spark of thought in them. Of course, that could just be wishful thinking on Nila's part. The fact that, on some level and in some way, Sharif still existed within that dumb-struck brain hadn't really settled as something real to the girl. It wasn't that she was ignoring it, or that she didn't believe what she'd seen nor heard. Rather, it was too painful. That her brother, the only person who had connected to her in her early years, wasn't gone as she had previously believed? Nila had mourned her brother long ago. When Malu unleashed that hell upon her homeland, she'd witnessed Sharif rise from the dead. And she wasn't sure how to deal with that.

Nila pulled her brother through the stream of humanity, to where the girl in the dark red robes was talking animatedly with a storekeeper. Nila raised a brow at Tzu Zi's behavior, and when she saw why she was so excited, Nila couldn't help but groan.

"Do you not remember our depleting pool of finances? We have not the cash for such fripperies!" Nila snapped. Tzu Zi turned to her, her big brown eyes slightly hurt.

"But look at the shoes!" she said, motioning to something which Nila didn't readily recognize, especially not as footwear. "Aren't they pretty? And look at the color!"

"What are you talking about?" Nila asked. Tzu Zi pointed at a pair which had most baffled the Si Wongi girl, some sort of roughly crescent shaped device, albeit with one point of its mass coming to an almost needle-like point. Nila's brow could scarcely go higher. "That is not a shoe. I have worn shoes. I have seen shoes. That is... some sort of penetrating device!"

"You've never seen a stiletto before?" Tzu Zi asked.

"Of course I have, I have one right here," Nila said, hefting the slender blade, still in its sheath so not to invoke a panic, toward the firebender. Tzu Zi, though, shook her head.

"No, I meant a stiletto heel!"

"So they are a weapon, then?" Nila asked.

"You need to get something other than weapons on your mind," Tzu Zi said. "They make you stand a certain way, so it gives you a special posture and makes your bum look bigger."

"The last thing I need is an augmentation of my ass. Besides, no human could walk on that torture implement," Nila countered. "Besides, if I wanted to restrict my ability to walk, I would have opted to be born before the Dog Rebellions."

"Hey, this isn't foot binding," the vendor finally cut in, as Nila had finally pushed a button which the broad faced man could not deny. "This is a shoe. You can take off a shoe. With footbinding, you're crippled for life."

Nila had to shrug. "Perhaps. Still, it seems a waste of money better spent on such things as food and shelter."

"I don't blame 'ya," the shoe-salesman said, settling back into his seat with the sort of posture of somebody who knew he was a punchline which the universe would revisit at its leisure. "...not much living to be made as a shoe salesman."

"Nobody asked you," Nila said. "Come along, Tzu Zi."

"But... awww."

Her haste was quite justified, after all. Night was coming, and even from what she'd seen of Ba Sing Se so far, she had no great desire to be trapped upon its streets in the night.

---

The sudden rumble of stone was all the warning that Azula got, and she flattened herself against the wall of that switchbacking trail. Of course, in her haste, she'd also pushed the two time-consuming loads which Iroh demanded she bear to safety as well, and the slide of rock bounded past them before their startled, stupid faces. Azula didn't say a word as she released them and stepped away. The path had gotten very narrow, such that two people could walk abreast only if one of them had a death wish.

"We're nearing the center," Iroh said.

"Obviously," Azula snarked. "...at the rate we're running out of path we'll soon need Ty Lee's skill at balancing to traverse it."

"Who?" Ying asked.

"An old friend," Azula said dismissively. She didn't notice Iroh's gaze become scrutinous at that. But since it seemed to have that sort of aspect much of the time when Azula was around, it was becoming increasingly hard to tell.

"I don't like this," Than said, staring ahead even as he had Ying's arm. "We'll be in plain sight of Full Moon Bay soon."

"It was inevitable. This isn't exactly a large path," Azula pointed out.

"Yeah, but the Fire Nation controls Full Moon Bay, and they have ships passing all the time," Than said. "I mean... they have to time their refugee ferries into those gaps in when the Fire Nation is in force. People are saying that the Fire Nation is building something up in the Wastelands."

Azula scowled at that. She remembered Qin's overweening pride at that overengineered mechanical abortion, that pipe dream which ended up shitting itself to death with only minor help by the Avatar and his band of cronies. That she missed a perfectly good opportunity to kill that little bastard was galling. That doing so also meant that Ty Lee was injured was unforgivable. She'd had ample reason to hate the Avatar back then... well, ample by Azula's then-anemic standards.

"It doesn't matter. I'd prefer to have this place behind me," Azula said, walking ahead of them, and having to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun as it crept down toward the western horizon. The air was still warm, and she could still feel the sun's power in her, but she knew that, soon enough, that would depart her. She turned, half way along that switchback, and cast an annoyed glance over her shoulder at the others, who lagged behind. "Well? Are you going to keep up, or are you going to lallygag until the Walls come crashing down?"

"She's pregnant!"

"So?" Azula asked. "Pregnant women can move every bit as fast as I can, if given proper incentive."

That was something she knew firsthand.

"Aimei, are you sure you should be standing out there?" Iroh asked. "Any ship could see you."

"Please, there's only one ship, and it's almost a mile away," Azula said, glancing out over the waters. "That's well outside trebuchet range."

"And if it doesn't have trebuchets?" Iroh asked. She frowned. If it didn't have trebuchets, then what would it be armed with?

Her answer came in the form of a descending whistle. Iroh's eyes bugged wide. "RUN!" he screamed. And Azula actually did, hurling herself aside from something she could hear but not see. Because of that, when the explosive shell slammed against the stone and detonated, it sent shards of rock and debris flying around her, rather than through her.

"We must move quickly! They will follow that shot with more!" Iroh urged, and with that, Ying proved Azula's point, in running every bit as fast as Azula herself as she made her scrabbling way across that path. Another descending whistle saw Azula halting herself short, and luckly so, since it blasted the path ahead of her into a slide of rocks and scree which would have swept her straight off the sheer cliffs and down into the water. If the fall hadn't killed her, that water definitely would have. She shook her head, trying to get the ringing out of her ears, and that sensation that her skin was stretched too close to a firepit for comfort out of her perception, before she started running again, bounding from the larger, heavier rocks which would be anchored under their own weight for her passage.

The last few yards before the path turned again, so that it faced the east rather than the west, was marked by another descending whistle. Were they actively targeting her, or was the Universe just trying to kill her? Even without that aggravating child pointing it out, she knew that the latter option had to be the correct one. This time, she couldn't tell which way she had to go to avoid it, since she was still only barely able to hear at all. So when the shell landed just under the path, it took the stone walkway right out from under Azula's feet. She lurched, trying to keep her balance, trying to keep her stride, but there was no traction. How could there be? Where she was standing, there ceased to be a path.

She slid as the rock slid, but caught the edge of that horrible precipice with her fingertips. A flailing toe caught another hold, cementing her position, but she knew she didn't dare move. She hadn't the leverage to advance, and she knew her stamina could keep her here for a while, but not indefinitely. She looked up, and saw that Than and Ying were carefully edging around the crater in the path, hugging the back wall. Iroh, though, was staring down at her. So he was just going to leave her to die, was he? How very fitting for him.

At least, that was her thought before he flopped down on his belly and extended a hand toward her. "Take my hand! I can bring you back up!"

"Why would you?" Azula asked, ignorant of the confused look that Ying gave, as Than wasn't paying attention either.

"For once in your life stop talking and accept that your family is trying to help you," Iroh shouted down at her. She looked down, at that hated water below. Up at her meager hand hold. And with a growl which would likely have convinced that Fire Nation crew to pick another target, preferably on another continent, she heaved her other hand up into Iroh's. She expected that it would only be a brace, to help her find her own way up, but with a single heave, Azula was being dragged up off of that unstable perch and up to solid ground. Iroh didn't wait for her to stand before skirting the edge of that fall himself.

And there was another whistle approaching. Azula kipped to her feet, and with a single bound crossed that gap, heaving herself forward at a roll as the last shell zipped over the top of the crest, and she watched it burst in the water of Chameleon Bay, sending up a great plume of water to mark its inaccuracy. "Those Fire Nation bastards are terrifyingly good shots," Than said.

"Azul might be masters of the cannon, but the rest of their countrymen haven't lagged behind, I think," Iroh said. "Come. We should rest at that wider spot ahead. If nothing else, a pregnant woman shouldn't have to endure such hardship so frequently, not at such a delicate time."

"Thank you, Mushi," she said. She rubbed at her rounded belly. "I never thought I could run like that."

"Terror is a potent motivator," Azula noted, leaning against the rocks. She knew she had the strength of body to keep going for hours, but just the visceral recognition that her own people were firing on her, trying to kill her... it left her drained.

---

It was starting to worry the firebender that Nila's face was getting that tight. If she were a clockspring, she'd probably be close to bursting by now. Although, she could see why. Every place that they went to to try to find a roof over their head for the approaching night was rejecting them, sometimes loudly and violently. It took all of Tzu Zi's good nature to keep her from marching right up to those people and giving them a piece of her mind that they wouldn't soon forget.

Also of concern was how the day seemed to have made a straight progression from good to bad to terribad. With nothing more than a bit of harmless flirting in the morning, she'd gotten them into this frankly amazing city, but ever since then, the day had been going steadily and starkly downhill. "It's going to be alright, Nila," Tzu Zi said.

"Would that you spoke from knowledge I lacked," Nila muttered. "I could use some good news for a change."

"Well..." Tzu Zi gave a moment to steady Sharif, who was looking quite unwell now. She didn't understand what had overtaken him; his sickness was quite sudden in its onset, and nobody else seemed to be ill. "I know that you prefer to have a roof over your head, but there's probably a few spots outside the Inner Walls where we could camp..."

Nila scowled at the very notion of camping. It was from her inherent preference of sleeping some place where people had put up walls that sapped their cash so quickly once they'd left Si Wong. For herself, Tzu Zi didn't mind either way. In fact, some of the best times she had in this land were when it was just she and Nila, under the open stars, the former trying to get the latter to open up, the latter seemingly out to convince the former that she was exactly as unpleasant as she believed herself. It was good that Tzu Zi had broken Nila of that kind of thinking. More or less.

"I will not sleep under a bush like some vagabond," Nila said clearly. "Besides, if we must reenter the city each morning, it would make finding my mother and your sister more time-consuming than it needs to be. Better to find a hovel somewhere."

"Yeah, but all the hovels are already taken," Tzu Zi said.

"Well, we will find one," Nila said. "And preferably soon. Ashan should have met us almost an hour ago. This will be difficult enough without our having to hunt down that clueless buffoon time and again."

Tzu Zi's brow knit with worry. "You're right. Where were we supposed to meet him?"

"One square over," Nila cast a thumb behind her. "I have been keeping an eye. Sharif is not so easily missed."

"But what if he's looking for us?"

"Then he is an idiot, and should remember the easiest way to be found when death isn't certainly on the line is to remain still until one finds you," Nila pointed out.

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense," Tzu Zi said. "So... how about this place?"

She looked the building up and down. It didn't look like much, just five floors of painted over windows, rusting bars over the lower of them, and a door which hung lazily off of one hinge. The steps also appeared to be more rot than wood at this juncture. Nila shrugged. "I would remember asking at such a place."

"I've got a good feeling about this one," Tzu Zi said. "I'm sure that they'll let us in, no problem whatsoever! It'll be easy as pancakes!"

"Easy as panca...?" Nila began.

She was cut off when a gout of water dropped from the ceiling of that building, and somehow managed to land directly atop of Nila, and nobody else. Nila stood there, green eyes bugging from her head, hand still up as she was framing her question, sputtering out the dirty, sudsy water. A moment later, something thick splatted down directly behind Nila's back, probably coating her boots and pant-cuffs. Tzu Zi flinched, as any sane person would, at seeing a person so tightly wound being torqued a little bit tighter.

"Tzu Zi?"

"Yes, Nila?"

"Remember what we decided about tempting fate?" the Si Wongi girl asked with an extremely measured tone.

"Don't do it?" the firebender asked.

"Good girl."

"I don't feel well," Sharif murmured.

"I am aware, you need not remind me at the top and bottom of every hour!" Nila snapped. With one hand, she wicked her hair back, taking a moment to wring the... bathwater, Tzu Zi hoped... from it before knocking on the door. To nobody's great surprise, the knock sent the door tipping into the inner hallway, sending up a plume of dust where it landed. Nila turned back to Tzu Zi. "How fortunate we are that you have a good feeling."

"I said I was sorry," Tzu Zi said. Nila, though, sighed, and motioned the others in behind her. Since the firebender was in charge of Sharif's movements at the moment, she was the one who had to guide him in. She'd only made it five steps before a head peeked around the corner, which doubtless lead to the stairwell heading up to the higher floors. The head was greying, thin haired, and female. She was a hard looking woman, and while her face was entirely a different shape from the Dakongese, she had many of the same features as the women Tzu Zi had encountered in her time in the plains under the mandatory company of Khagan Khatun. Weathered, tired, and weary.

"Damn it all, somebody should fix that door," that woman said.

"Where is the superintendant of this tenement?" Nila asked.

"That's me," the woman pointed out.

Nila scowled at her. "...then you should be repairing the door," she pointed out. The woman shrugged. "I was told that you had rooms available."

"Sorry, just gave away my last vacancy a few minutes ago," she walked past them, pushing the door back up and shoving the bolts back into their long thread-stripped holes, leaving it in an aesthetically better shape than it had been before, but Tzu Zi knew that it would be falling down again in a matter of a few openings and closes. Nila growled, and launched into a quiet stream of what Tzu Zi guessed was profanity, because it was in that language which she didn't speak. And come to think of it, she didn't even know how to pronounce the name of the language which Nila was currently swearing in. "Hey, calm down. That's just how it goes. You wake up one morning with two empty rooms, and by dinner-time they're filled. That's life in Ba Sing Se."

"It does us no favors," Nila muttered.

"Yeah, well, if you can survive here, you can survive anywhere," the woman said with a chuckle.

"Not Azul..." Tzu Zi pointed out.

"Yeah, well, everything's tryin' to kill you in Azul," the superintendent pointed out.

"I would like to meet that lucky bastard, and see if he wants this room more than I," Nila said.

"Hey, I'm not going to let some stranger walk in and intimidate my tenants," she cut in. "Besides, he said that he had a few more who were going to be living with him, so good luck dislodging that lot."

"Who? Give me a name," Nila demanded.

The superintendent opened her mouth, then broke off. "Huh. Come to think of it, it's kinda needlessly long and hard to remember. And he talks like he's from the desert. There was an 'ibn' in there I think..."

"You don't think?" Tzu Zi began.

"You have my thanks, Missus Mun," Ashan's voice came from the superintendent's back. "Now keep those in the ice-box this time, and you won't need to buy again until next week."

"Of course it is," Nila said flatly. Ashan appeared 'round that corner, a smile on his face, and his hands dripping wet, which he wiped off on a towel upon his shoulder. That towel was somewhat stained with pink. Ashan and Nila shared a moment of staring, he with shock, she with grim annoyance. "Nila! By the Host the time! I had utterly forgotten!"

"That isn't her name..." Sharif muttered from his quiet place at Tzu Zi's side.

"You know this angry thug?" Mun asked, but without anger or incrimination. Ashan nodded. "And she's the one you were talking about?"

"Yes, she and Tzu Zi are the others. This is Sharif, her brother," Ashan went through introductions, which gave Nila a raised eyebrow, as though she was mildly surprised. And had Tzu Zi known that tradition dictated that men always be introduced before women, she would have understood Nila's reaction. But as it was, she just smiled and considered that the universe was a fundamentally good place after all.

"I see. Well, they're your problem, not mine. Unless they become my problem," she paused. "You're not going to become my problem, are you?"

"Oh, heavens no," Tzu Zi said.

"I will make no such promises," Nila offered.

"I want some soup," Sharif said, eyes still staring somewhere far below the floorboards.

"Eh, good enough," Mun said, before pulling a key from a great loop of them and handing it to Ashan. "Don't make me regret this, foreigner. And make sure rent is paid promptly."

"You have the first payment already," Ashan said. Mun shrugged, and headed back into her room under the stairwell. Nila turned to Ashan. "...Yes?"

"You have paid her? With what? Bad humor and unnecessary optimism?"

"You forget that of we two, I have a great deal of training in a reputable profession," Ashan said. "In fact, through that profession, I heard of this apartment, and my employer even deigned to put forth a voucher for my occupation. But I speak too long of myself. Tell me, how was your meeting with your sister, Tzu Zi?"

"We didn't get to her," Tzu Zi didn't bother keeping the disappointment out of her voice. Ashan gave a sigh, and a look of genuine sympathy for her.

"Well, perhaps tomorrow will be a kinder day than today. And Sharif... what is wrong with Sharif?"

"He suddenly took ill," Nila said. "And lucky indeed that you have a room, for illness in the streets can only become worse."

"Indeed it can," Ashan said. "The room is up on the second floor from the roof. It is a fine place; it has two beds and a cot to sleep upon."

"Good," Nila said. As Ashan guided them back, he finally broached the question which Tzu Zi was counting the minutes until he attacked.

"Nila?" she offered a grunt in answer. "Why are you soaking wet?"

Her growl was the only answer that anybody would have needed.

---

His look clearly said 'you clean up well, all things considered', as he handed her another towel for her hair. "Yeah, and you'd be the one to notice it, you big perv," Smellerbee noted. Longshot clucked his tongue and glanced away.

It was fairly cold water to bathe in, all things considered, but Shadow's recommendation had been a good one. After that soak, and some ablutions and abrasions, she'd probably dislodged a not insignificant fraction of her own body weight in filth and detritus. "I feel like a new woman!" she declared.

Longshot's subdued smirk said clearly 'you smell like one, too'.

"Yeah, laugh it up, bucko. You're bathing next!" she said, hurling her head-towel at him. He caught it before it flopped over his face as she'd hoped it would. He gave a shrug, which said 'and if I need my back scrubbed, you'll be the first I call', before turning to the tub. He raised a brow at it.

"Yeah, I'm scratching my head at that myself," she said. "I mean, it'd be a pain in the ass to drag it all the way to the alley. I say, just tip the thing over the side of the building."

'Is that wise?', his glance asked.

"Stop being such a little girl and help me move this thing," Smellerbee demanded, and with the two of them behind it, they were able to move that sloshing tub to the precipice of the building. Then, with a mighty heave, they upended it, sending first the water out of it, and then a moment later, the precipitate which had come off of Smellerbee in her bath. With a chuckle of a job properly half-assed, she let the tub settle back down into place. She was half way back to the door which lead down into the building when she heard something which she'd never heard before.

Longshot said "...uhhhh..."

Smellerbee turned to him, and saw that he was nodding toward the edge again. Smellerbee moved past him, and favored a glance down into the street below. Her eyes went wide when she saw that she'd managed to bulls-eye somebody with her bathwater. She shared a glance with the otherwise mute archer, and an understanding was shared between them.

Nevertheless, Smellerbee found a desire to put words to it. "Leg it!" she demanded. And with that, the two of them made a break for that door, and did not pause until they were safely out of sight.

---

"That is not a bridge," Azula pointed out dryly. And to any reasonable observer of the drooping strand which crossed the gap between the southern end of the Serpent's Pass and the north, it was plainly obvious. That was not a bridge, so much as the first step of many to the creation of a bridge. Less a bridge, more of a half-imagined notion of a bridge. Simply put, that sagging mass of three ropes and an obviously unsafe line of planks to walk upon was no bridge she was going to happily walk upon.

She mulled to herself, remembering the good old days, when she crossed the Bay in the captain's quarters of a Fire Nation equipment freighter, and felt terribly hard-done-by for having to stoop so low.

"I admit, it is not an ideal path," Iroh placated, running a hand down his beard. "But we do not have another option. Unless you would rather swim?"

Azula's dark grumble was all the answer he needed for that.

"Does she not know how to swim?" Than asked her uncle, which the old man gave a chuckle for.

"She did once. I think she's just being fussy."

"Fussy?" Azula snapped.

"Ooh, we should keep moving," Ying said, her face contracting in a rictus of great discomfort.

"Why?"

Azula raised a brow as she glanced back where Ying had traveled, and noted the splatter a dozen or so paces behind them. "Because your woman is giving birth," Azula said flatly.

"WHAT?" Than shouted.

"A... Aimei, do not be absurd," Iroh said. Azula nodded back to where the woman's water now lay against the stone. "...oh."

"And Uncle... for a change... is right. We need to cross, since there's a wider spot right over there and we can barely stand on the path here, let alone drop a child onto it," she said.

"Well, come on then!" Than said, guiding his now barely in-labor wife to the foot of the bridge. Iroh gave them pause, though. "I thought you said..."

"I should attempt the crossing first," Iroh said. "If it can bear my weight – all of it – then you should be able to cross. If not, then I have saved you a tragedy."

"Oh... bless you, Mushi," Ying said, her face growing pale. Oh, first-births. They were always so clueless. Iroh, to his credit, didn't waste any time moving across that unstable 'bridge', and for all its rickety appearance, it held his girth and weight with nothing more than a mild complaint of hemp creaking. Iroh stopped at the far side, then beckoned the couple to cross. Azula, though, didn't.

She didn't want to get onto that bridge.

Not with so much water under her.

"Aimei! What are you doing? Come over here!" Iroh shouted from the other shore. Azula glanced down, then back up at him.

"It might take your weight, and may just accept theirs. Mine with theirs will probably snap it," she lied. Well, it was a reasonable enough lie, all things considered.

"Come along, girl," Than shouted as the two of them reached the center point of the bridge, still moving briskly. "There's nothing to be afraid of. It's just a bridge over open water. There's nothing going to reach out and attack you!"

And then, Azula knew exactly how doomed she was, because that sinking feeling in her gut started up again. That was the feeling Azula always got when the Universe was turning against her. She'd felt it quite a few times over her life. And she was feeling it now. That feeling was all that kept surprise from turning into horror, but instead into head-wagging weariness, when what came next appeared.

Of course, the others, not so schooled in the comedic cruelties of fate and chance, all let out a horrified scream as the great and powerful bulk of some sort of sea monster raised up from the deep, its face great and massive. It had iridescent scales, mostly blue or purple, but its head was an olive green, and its eyes were bright red, a serpent of the seas which a layman could be forgiven for thinking an off-colored dragon. Well, until that layman was proven an idiot for not notice the lack of wings and limbs, but that was neither here nor there because that great Serpent was now attacking.

"GET OFF THE BRIDGE YOU MORONS!" Azula screamed. They tried, those two fools from the East. But they had all the coordination of a drunken Komodo Rhino in their panic, and found themselves losing their footing, and only staying on the bridge because of panicked grip. Azula rolled her eyes, and prepared to consign them to their fate.

And she would have. In a heartbeat.

But something was shifting. Not so obvious as the great veil which swept over her at that bastard girl's behest, leaving her helpless and useless. No, this was much more subtle. It was a spider's feet, whispering across the surface of her cognition. Not orders. But will. An urge to be something more than selfish and self-preservatory. A foolish, idealistic notion of childhood, carefully weaved into her psyche by an unseen hand. Not much, but just enough to get Azula moving, enough to get Azula to lie to herself enough that if she didn't intercede, the beast would probably eat them, and the bridge together, leaving her stranded on this side of the isthmus.

And it was just strong enough to overwhelm her fear of drowning.

At first, Azula's steps were careful, almost comically so. But as she got her balance and learned how to move with the sway of the bridge, they stopped being so timid, and started to become strides in force. The beast had dived under the water again, but Azula was watching the ripples of the surface. She knew that it would be surfacing soon, and quite nearby. She finally approached the middle as well, and gave Than a shove toward the beach, and hauled Ying out of her difficult position with one hand and half a mind. She then shoved the woman to the man. "Get to the other side before this thing eats you..."

'You', of course, being punctuated by the beast rearing up again, its head and trailing whiskers dozens of yards above the surface of the bay. It looked down at Azula, and at the two near her, and let out a roar which smelled of salt-water and dead seafood. Azula didn't bother batting an eyelash, but the other two did as their fight-or-flight reflexes demanded of them and they fled with all possible haste. And for reasons even Azula couldn't justify to herself, she stood at the center of that bridge, and smirked up at the thing. Red eyes glared down at her, before turning toward the fleeing morsels. With a flick of her fingers, though, a bolt of flame lashed out at the creature.

The flame was golden.

Azula was momentarily shocked at its weakness, at its dimness, but with a shake of her head, she put more effort into her next assault, and this time, it burned as blue and hot as any flames she ever had. And this time, when the flames caressed the scales of the great monster, they did more than dry it of water. The beast roared once again, and turned its attention wholly onto the girl who had the audacity to strike at it. But when it lashed out in response to her assault, it didn't do so in any manner she would have predicted.

It opened its maw wide, and a jet of high pressure water blasted out. Azula's eyes went quite wide at that, and a sting of panic inched its way into her, but she managed to dodge aside of that blast, and keep her balance from the way that it hurled the bridge back and forth. The beast then turned its attacks low, and intentionally fired that blast short of her, causing a great mounting wave to smash at her, one she couldn't avoid. The impact of it hurled her right over the line which was at her back. Only a very timely grab prevented Azula from plunging right into the water, which hung only a yard or so under the lowest point of the bridge. Azula shook the shocking cold and wetness from her perception, then with a heave, pulled herself back up.

That wasn't going to stand. The beast was coiling down toward her, its maw opened slightly as though it expected it would be diving under to eat her out of the water. It could probably have consumed her in a single bite, without bothering to chew. But it was just a dumb beast. It certainly wasn't as smart as the Dragons once had been. And were again. So when Azula began to tear her arms around through the kata she knew by heart, she only did preliminary targeting. It wasn't like this thing would know to dodge, after all.

And it didn't. What it did do was just as shocking. Even as the energy tore itself apart, the thing recoiled slightly, and twisted its body into an odd posture. And when that energy finally begged for its release, it did so with thunder and a bolt clear across the blue. It also released with such a horrendous backlash that it sent Azula flying backward, only halted from a second plunge by using her legs to keep the rope from bypassing her completely. It was an awkward few seconds while she pulled her now upside-down self back onto the bridge, and those few seconds she expected to be of triumph and monster-slayage. Instead, the lightning bolt struck the creature, but the beast gave only the slightest of shivers, and the vast power of the lightning bolt began to arc down its skin, jumping constantly lower without ever apparently reaching the internal organs and muscles of the beast. Azula stared for a moment. Its skin must have been extraordinarily electroconductive, to be able to slough off a direct hit from her lightning with no harm whatsoever. It loosened itself, and turned to her once more, something almost like outrage in its scarlet eyes.

This time, when it lashed out, it wasn't from its maw. With a wave, the tail of the beast surged up from the deep, and blasted the entire length of the bridge. She was ready for it, and locked herself in place with both hands.

What she didn't expect was the entirety of that wave snap-freezing into ice. Her eyes darted around, a horrible fear reaching right down into her boots and shaking her like a leaf, despite her being utterly unable to move at all. No. Not again. Not like last time. Not frozen. Not in the water.

But then, there was that gentle urging in her mind. Well, less gentle and more annoyed and impatient, but not tolerating panic. There was a way out. One she'd missed last time because she was so distraught and distracted, so out of her mind that she could no longer properly use it. Uncle always said that fire came from the breath. And she still had a lung-full of the stuff. With a puff, she forced it out, and ignited it as it came. It was very little, but it had some heat in it, and she felt the ice clinging to her face become loose. She could move her mouth. Her features became a scowl, and she breathed out harder, blasting more of that air into fire. This time, she did it from the bottom of her lungs and her body quivered with the expenditure of it. She would be free, or she would die. There was no room for compromise. Nobody was going to save her.

So she saved herself.

With a blast of water exploding into steam, and that expansion causing the ice above it to literally explode away, she was breathing and free once again. The entire bridge was now a mere suggestion, one which was slowly starting to drift since it had dismoored from the side she'd started from. The entire structure was now a block of ice which almost spanned the gap at the heart of the Serpent's Pass. And the Serpent leaned back as she appeared back into the breathing world, almost like it was surprised. Azula drank deep of sweet, sweet air, and heaved herself out of her frozen coffin, and started to run, toward the side which had not yet broken away, the side where that idiot couple and her doddering uncle awaited. The beast let out another roar, and moved to cut her off, rising out of the water just off of the bridge, eyes locked on her. It reached back, and spat out another jet of water.

This time, Azula dug her feet into the ice, and cast both fists out to meet it. Water met brilliant azure flames. Water and flame became steam. And she matched the beast strength for strength, before the water began to wane. Then, as its angry roar had turned to something more concerned, the water died completely, and her blast of flames seared across the beast's face. With a howl of pain, it dropped back into the water, no doubt still alive, but clearly from its utter abandonment of the attack, not willing to face somebody capable of causing it pain, either.

Azula stared after it for a moment, then casually walked off the ice, onto the remnants of the bridge, and then onto solid land a good second and a half before the bulk of the shifting ice behind her was finally too much for this moorage to take, and the bridge snapped and was set adrift completely.

"That was..." Iroh began, something between awe and concern on his face.

"Stay away from us, you murderer!" Than shouted, trying to shield Ying from her.

"And who have I killed?" Azula asked. "Come on, Uncle."

"Well, nobody that I know but... But you're Fire Nation!"

"So are more than two hundred million other people on this planet. That is a great many murderers," Azula said sarcastically.

"Yeah, well... you are trying to kill us."

"I honestly don't care about you," Azula said. "Uncle. Move."

"Very well," Iroh said.

"Did you know about her?" Than asked.

"Of course. She is my niece, after all," Iroh said.

"Ooooh, Than, it hurts."

"That's alright, Ying," Than said. He turned to her. "Now... I think this is the part where you have to push, really hard!"

Azula could have kept walking, and in fact, the departing fancy that was sliding away from her mind would have probably not looked back. But the cold, bitter, angry core which was her being had a lot of memories, a lot of experiences which she would never be able to give to anybody alive today. Not only would they not believe her, but some of them just wouldn't make sense. That part of her, the old and harried part, stopped.

"Push? She's just broken her water. There are hours and hours before that comes," Azula said.

"What?" Than asked.

"If you try to push too early, you'll just exhaust yourself for when the real difficult part comes," she said matter-of-factly, ignoring Iroh's calculating glance. She nodded up the defile to the widening spot above them. "Get her up there so she doesn't try to dilate on this cat-goat path."

"Why should I trust anything you have to say? You're Fire Nation! You're a firebender!"

Azula stared at him, disdain clear in her eyes. She raised her hand. "A show of hands; who here has delivered an infant?"

There was sheepish silence from the two Easterners. Azula turned to her uncle. "Being in the same room as your birthing wife doesn't count, since I know for a fact that the midwives did all the difficult work," she said. The old man's hand lowered. She turned back to the Easterners, as the only one left with a hand up. "That's what I thought. Now, you can either attempt to deliver a newborn with nothing but optimistic ignorance and whatever you're carrying on your back, or you can accept the help of an 'enemy firebender' who's happened to have delivered two children and knows the mistakes you're about to make."

"But..."

"JUST LET HER HELP!" Ying bellowed with remarkable volume, which caused Than to flinch.

"Yes, dear."

"Smart girl," Azula said. She pointed up to the clearing. "Go up, and find a place to rest. Since this is your first child, it will take quite a while to come."

"...thank you," Ying said to her, as she passed. "For everything."

"I have done nothing yet," Azula pointed out. Than kept trying to give her a stink face, but his attention was where it was supposed to be; on his woman. Iroh, though, kept his attention on Azula. He raised a brow. "What?"

"Why?" he asked, simply.

"They're idiots and without somebody who knows what she's doing, she and the child will probably die," Azula said flatly.

"No, why did you reveal yourself to them? That was an unnecessary risk," Iroh said.

"I couldn't run off that sea serpent with insults and harsh language," Azula answered.

"Why did you try to help them at all?" he then pressed.

"They were in my way, and wasting my time. I didn't feel like getting stranded on the wrong side of the gap," Azula gave her justifications.

"That is an excuse, not a reason," Iroh pointed out.

"Am I not allowed to indulge in foolish braggadocio from time to time?" Azula asked.

"That was not braggadocio," Iroh answered. "You wanted to save them."

"I wanted nothing of the sort," she said spikily.

"As you say," he said with a shrug. "I'll go boil some water."

"It's far too early for that," Azula pointed out, with a shake of her head.

"It is never too early for tea," Iroh answered her. She couldn't help but sigh at that. No matter what lifetime she was in, no matter how much changed to her detriment, that man's love of tea was a constant around which existence seemed to spin.

---

Qujeck stared at the book at his hip once more, imagining all of the things he'd write into it. Back when he was young and stupid, he'd actually do it, penning the thoughts he'd had in the day, in an attempt to understand them, to gain wisdom from them. To know what he would say when he sent a letter back to his mother. It had been years since he could bring himself to put pen to paper to her. He wasn't the boy who left Summavut, not even close. In his darkest nightmares, Mother was there, and when she looked upon him, she saw a monster, some horrible twisted thing which had no place. A failure to his Tribe, a failure to his friends, and a failure to his family.

In a way, it was almost a relief when the rumors began to circulate, so quietly, amongst the lowest of the new refugees, that Summavut had fallen. Those rumors were, of course, very, very quickly silenced. But still, it was a comfort to Qujeck's weary mind that for his family, at least, there was closure. There was an end. He would never have to look upon Lana's disappointment, Shakt's disapproval and dismay. They were gone. He ran a thumb over the book, which hadn't been written in since her death. Her death, his fault.

There was a lot he had to account for. And the truth of the matter was, he wasn't sure if the only thing he had to repay it would come close to being worth enough.

He sighed, and forced himself back into paying attention to his surroundings. His eyes swept the crowds below, which milled even in the darkness. They had to be nearby. He'd been watching them for quite a while, and only lost sight of them for a few minutes while he attended nature's call. But it had been hours, and none of his signals went up that they'd been spotted elsewhere. Which left Qujeck baffled.

"Where did you go, you little sand-devil?" he asked.

It was a tenuous strand that he had to walk. If he told her too much, he'd lose her, and any ability to repay his monumental debts in honor and life. If he told her too little, she would be useless to him. And worst of all, if she found how he was using her, she would lash out to spite him, and be just as useless as if she'd charged headlong into her own demise. A part of him wished that the girl would have been as biddable as Si Wongi women were purported to be, in fact supposed to be. The better part of him slapped that notion down – a weak and servile girl would be of no use.

He turned from the court which opened from the meeting of four streets, devoid of any decoration and thus cluttered with lean-tos and stalls, to the more ornamented square next to it, bearing the statue of some soldier, clad in armor most ancient, a statue which had been there in one form or another since Ba Sing Se was taken from the hands of the Monolith. One arm pointing to the west, while other beckoned, its boot on top of an unidentifiable chunk of debris. It was probably some leader in the rebellion which brought the Monolith crashing down. Nobody knew. There was a lot which went up in flames when the Monolith was torn down. Dare say, too much.

"I can wait all night, if I have to," Qujeck said, slowly panning toward the next square.

The shocking 'kra-thoom' almost made him wet himself, had he not already taken care of that hours ago, and not drank anything in the interum. A chunk of the stone which hemmed the roof burst into dust and shards, which caused Qujeck to flinch away, his hands tearing the water from his quick-draw flasks in a flash, blades of jagged ice now at his command to kill or ward, as the need would come. But what he saw left him both slightly baffled, and feeling something like an idiot.

"How fortunate that you shall not have to," the Si Wongi girl said sarcastically, still staring down that firearm at him.

"It was a mistake to fire a warning shot," Qujeck said. "Those things take forever to reload, and your opponent now knows exactly where you are. Either kill him with your first shot, or don't bother."

"Two barrels," she answered him. And when Qujeck observed more closely, he could see that she was right. And that the firearm she had been carrying about under a shroud was far more advanced than he thought possible. "I have two issues. First; 'sand-devil'?"

"You have a certain reputation," Qujeck answered.

"And second; what do you want with me?"

Nobody could say that she was not direct. "You are the daughter of Sativa Badesh bint Seema din Nassar, right?"

"I am she. What of it?"

"What are you doing here?" Qujeck asked, honestly wondering.

"I could ask you the same question."

"I live here," Qujeck said indignantly.

"Really?" she asked with suspicion.

"My room is right under your feet," Qujeck stated. She glanced at him, but didn't lower her firearm from what he had to assume was a lethal shot. "And you?"

"It would seem mine is a floor below yours."

"...You got a room in my apartment building?" Qujeck asked, letting the ice flow back into his flasks, if only so he could knead his brow.

"I had no knowledge that this was your home. Only that somebody was following me and directing my movements by poisoning my brother. Was that you?" the last came out as a quantifiable threat, which made Qujeck glad he'd put his ice away. She might have shot him after that question, had he given her any justification.

"No," She leaned forward, into her shot, it seemed. "But I think I know who did," he quickly offered. For all he didn't really care if he died, he was certainly in no rush to, not before he'd made up for his mistakes, and his failures. She leaned back, pondering a moment, then finally let her weapon lower from his head.

"Who?"

"What do you know about the Cultural Authority?" Qujeck asked. Best to ease her in slowly.

"That there is such a thing, having heard it only now," she answered him. "What are they?"

"Officially? They are the stewards and bureaucrats who oversee the daily workings of Ba Sing Se," she raised an eyebrow at him. "Unofficially? They control Ba Sing Se from the lowest Triad thug to the seat of the Earth King itself."

"A heady charge to make. Have you proof of this allegation?"

Qujeck sighed, and shook his head. He'd stopped trying to collect evidence against the Authority about a dozen bodies back. They were simply too good at covering their tracks. "No. I have only the things I've seen, the people I've cared about who've died because of them, because of the things that they saw."

"The Cultural Authority," she gave a slight chuckle. He raised an eyebrow. "In their language, it is a joke. Dai Li means 'overwhelming force'. A homophone, yes?"

"Not really."

Her moment of levity vanished completely, replaced by a somber and intense expression which she seemed to have inherited whole from her mother. "Why would they seek to control me?"

"Because of your mother, maybe?" Qujeck offered. "Or maybe because of your friends?"

"My friends? Ashan is only wanted dead in one backward city in one backward part of the world. Tzu Zi is..." she trailed off, as she dawned on the point Qujeck was implying. It was not a dawning of awe, though, on the girl's face. More annoyance that she hadn't figured it out sooner. "So these Dai Li of yours know about her? How?"

"It'd be a lot easier to list what the Dai Li don't know," Qujeck said. "If you want a piece of free advice? Don't antagonize anybody wearing green mandarin robes and a pan hat. If you do..."

"They'll kill me where I stand?" she asked dryly.

"If only," Qujeck said. "You'll disappear. Everybody who knows about you will disappear. Everybody who knows about them will disappear. Every piece of paper in the city which bares your name will vanish. Every image of you, from a idle sketch, to a statue hewn into the side of a palace will be erased, removed from existence in a single night. Every person who knows your face will be struck blind. Every mention of your name will be silenced. Anything which cannot be traced to any but you will be destroyed. As far as the Impenetrable City will know, from that morning on, not only do you not exist, but you never existed, and it will be impossible for anybody to think otherwise."

She stared at him for a long moment. "Such a feat cannot be possible."

"The Dai Li are powerful, and they are petty. I'm not trying to scare you..."

"I watched as a demon turned my friend into a monster, and then shot her twice. I do not frighten easily," she said.

"You should be afraid," Qujeck urged. "Fear keeps you alive."

"And also paralyzes you when you need to act," she said, but gave a shrug. "So why have they made an enemy of you? Have they attempted and failed to erase you? Or was it somebody else?"

Qujeck glanced away. It was odd that somebody could see into his darkest failures so quickly, and so easily. She definitely was her mother's daughter. And perhaps more, because the woman herself didn't give that impressive a showing when Qujeck saw her.

"I see. So you are the only voice for the dead," she said. "And you want to use me to destroy them?"

"No! Well, maybe," Qujeck said. She was too quick, that one. "But that's not the point. I've lost enough people, seen enough good taken away from the world by those monsters in green. Maybe I just wanted to be sure that nothing happened to you, like it did for..."

"Why me?" she asked.

"Why not?"

"That is no answer."

"It doesn't need to be," Qujeck said. He turned back to the city. "They say while ugly lays only atop the skin, and beauty runs into the bone, you'll find that the inverse is true of Ba Sing Se. It's beauty and splendor only hide that it's rotten to its core. Don't do anything rash out there. This city's eaten enough of the young to last a thousand lifetimes."

"I will take that in the spirit it's offered. For now," she said. She glanced past him, to the north, toward the bright and shining higher rings in the distance. "Just don't get in my way."

She turned and strode through the door, letting it rattle closed behind her. Qujeck had to chuckle. "I wouldn't dream of it," he said.

Maybe things were looking up for a change?

---

Azula sat quietly, near the stones which they'd taken shelter in from the wind. They hadn't even enough to make a roof over their heads. But since it was perpetually dry in the East, they had no fear for rain. And with Iroh brew tea and boiling water with a nice big fire, they were more than warm enough. She sat, and the woman beside her panted and wheezed, and occasionally screamed. Than just looked progressively more and more uncomfortable with the whole thing.

"Aren't you going to do something?" Than asked. Azula sighed, then leaned down toward the ground, casually glancing up the pregnant woman's dress. Even now, after she'd explained, at length, why she was doing so, Than still got a look of indignation each time she did so. "That is..."

"Yes," Azula answered his question, catching him out and sputtering impotently. "I'll need your coat. You have cleaned it like I asked, right?"

"Yes, but I don't know why you..." Than began, handing over the bundle which had been his overcoat, before Iroh boiled it in water until it was cleaner than it probably had ever been since it was woven. She took it from him without asking and pulled up on Ying, drawing her up to a squat. His eyes bugged out at that. "What are you doing?"

"Your woman has dilated as wide as she is going to," Azula explained coldly. "From the look of her, her contractions are almost running in waves. You wanted to know when to push? Now is as good a time as any."

"Really? It's almost over?" Ying asked.

"Yes. Now, keep squatting," Azula said as she tried to lay down again. "It's far easier that way. Trust me."

"According to who? Your Fire Lord?"

"What would the Fire Lord know about birthing infants? Not only is he a man, he has a horde of physicians to do the hard work for him," Azula snapped, indignation in her voice masking the fact that she'd managed to lie without lying, and without trying to. "This is personal experience. Lying down makes it easy for a doctor to access her. It also makes the birth harder than it needs to be. Squatting helps. I'm not sure why."

She knew that for a fact, because for all the other difficulties around Daichi's birth, the position was not amongst them. Hell, it might have been because he was her second child, but with just a shift in the way she held herself, she was able to get him to practically drop out. Not that she could relate this tale to them. Her body was too young to have that kind of experience, not realistically. That her body was still a virgin at this point further stretched that credulity. No, let some things be unsaid.

Ying cried out again, her face a painting of intense discomfort and pain. Azula didn't have any expression at all on her, contrasting the panic of Ying's husband, and the careful distraction of Iroh at the fire. She was obviously bearing down, and pushing. From the way she was crushing Than's hand in her own grip told her that the contraction was there, and that she was pushing through it. Azula reached back, and her timing was perhaps a bit premature, as her grab was only at air, underneath a cap of hair. "Yes, the head is appearing," Azula related. Than brightened up, then realized his wife was crushing his hand, and let out a yelp of pain.

"Really?" Ying asked, so much hope in her voice. Azula only felt cold, and bitter at it. She'd lost more than these people would ever have. And for a reason which she couldn't selfishly justify to herself, she was helping them. She wanted to blame the girl for doing this to her. And at the same time, she knew that the girl wouldn't have helped these people if she could have. This was on no other head but her own. Another push, another scream, and this time, Azula felt something push into her hands. She bundled it quickly, and drew it up from the ground, wrapped in a clean coat for lack of anything better. It let out a keening cry, its toothless mouth opened wide, bleating with all of its tiny strength. Healthy, and alive. And Azula felt cold.

"My gods... it's so..." Than said.

"It's a boy," Azula said. "Enjoy it. Mushi, we're leaving."

"Wait," Than said.

"What?"

"You don't need to go."

"We're Fire Nation, remember? You hate us," Azula pointed out, still walking away from them.

"We could never hate somebody who did this for us," Ying said. "You protected us. You brought our son into the world."

"Maybe... maybe the Fire Nation isn't as bad as people say," Than admitted quietly. Azula raised a brow at them.

"What should we call him?" Ying asked. "He should have a unique name."

"Maybe Aimei should pick it," Than pointed out.

"Why should I care?" Azula asked.

"Aimei, this is a great honor they are showing you," Iroh said gently.

"And I'm the last person that they need to do it. There are thousands upon thousands of names. If you're having such trouble, just call him Lee, like everybody else in the world does," Azula shook her head.

"Aimei!" Iroh snapped. She sighed, and turned back to him. "I cannot say why you did this for them. I could not be more surprised that you did, in fact. But they are showing you favor and respect, and you spit on it? Show some respect of your own!"

"Respect is earned."

"And you have earned theirs," Iroh pointed out. "Don't denigrate it."

Azula sighed, and made a mental note that she was seemingly on a path in sighs alone to make up for Mai's absence from this world. "Fine. What were you going to call him?"

"Well, I was going to call him 'Hope' if he were a girl," Ying said. "But that just doesn't fit. Not with him. I need something... More appropriate."

Iroh looked at her. She turned her eyes to the ground, and turned her thoughts inward. Why was she so numb? She knew that she should at least feel something, if nothing else impatience. But she was floating in the world like a mind without a body. As soulless and hollow as an automaton. And she couldn't figure out why.

And then, she looked out onto the waves, to the symbols they formed as they rippled away in the wind which came down along the ridge of the Serpent's Pass. A story of loneliness. A thousand lines of poetry on being alone. Opportunities missed.

She pulled her eyes up, to the sparse clouds. Agni's blood, she was so cruel to Daichi. She didn't even realize it until now. Just because he wasn't a firebender, she dismissed him from her life. He was her son, and she cut him down time and time again. She failed as a mother, not just in Chiyo, but in him.

She didn't want to feel that pain again.

She knew she had to.

"Daichi," she said. Iroh raised a brow at that.

"What does it mean?" Ying asked, still shivering, but not from cold in their tiny shelter.

Azula shook her head. "It's just a name. It doesn't mean anything."

"Daichi..." Than said. "Yes. I think that will work. Hello, Daichi."

"Aimei..." Iroh said.

"Don't abandon him, and don't mistreat him," Azula said. "He's your son, and he deserves better of you."

"I never would," Than said, earnestly, honestly. "You'll live in a better world than the one I grew up in, Daichi, I swear it."

"...good," Azula said. Iroh motioned up the path, but she shook her head. It was still hours until morning truly rose, and she was exhausted, in more ways than she'd like to have believed possible. She walked over to the other side of that stand of rocks, glanced toward Iroh, to make sure he was paying closer attention to them than he was to her, and when he was, she pulled her knees up to her chest. She hugged them tight, and pressed her eyes shut with all her will. But it wasn't enough to contain the tears which began to force their way out. And so quietly, she wept for a son who she should have loved better.

Agni's Flame above... she was a terrible mother.

---

Everything slowly winding together like a clockspring before the pressure snaps and everything goes kaflooey. As I said, I enjoy making protagonists suffer to earn whatever ending they get. Turns out, I make antagonists suffer, too. Old'Zula, as I've pointed out before, isn't a complete monster that some people assume. Just because she killed Katara, had her firebending ripped out, and then shanked Aang to death with a shiv, doesn't make her beyond all empathy. Consider why she did, for example; her daughter, the one person in the world whom she valued above herself, was brutally taken away from her. What mother would not want revenge for that? Old'Zula is operating on a faulty logic, and being a little bit irrational, but honestly, Lil'Zula is being just as irrational in thinking that if she captures the Avatar, that Daddy will love her again. The interactions between Old'Zula and Iroh were more hostile than I'd predicted, but it worked well to set them apart from the goofy coaching of Iroh and Zuko in canon. Old'Zula doesn't like Iroh. Iroh tolerates Old'Zula. But no more than that.

Second, there has been some discussion about Ozai, as well. Consider the following. His head'Zula is constantly tearing him down, pointing out his every shortcoming and failure, and generally treating him like a burning bag of dogcrap. And when exactly did she first appear to him, again? What had he just done when she first started intruding on his thoughts?

Fourth, as soon as I figured out who Nila was, I knew I had to do the shoe scene. All the way to the Al Bundy expy selling them.

Fifth, there is no third. Sixth, you'll get more Team Avatar in the next chapter. What? Even demigods get sick from time to time.

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