On Freedom

Katara tried to hold the furious and hysterical Toph down on the bed, with Aang's help. "Toph, this isn't so bad," she cried, "it'll be okay, just let me — I can heal you, I just have to learn how."

"Yeah, and how are you gonna do that?" Toph snapped, voice breaking. "Wave your hands around and conjure up a new scroll? Or, I know, you're gonna bring some waterbenders back from the dead, that's it?" she screamed, and managed to get off the bed, only to crumple immediately to the floor at Katara's feet.

Haru had explained that he had noticed the injury was close to her spine, but hadn't been able to be sure of anything until she'd woken up, and he'd hoped for the best. Instead, they got the second-worst.

Toph was paralyzed from the waist down.

And she was taking it even worse than expected.

"What happened here?" Jet barked, coming into the Infirmary and seeing the disarray. Katara kneeled down to where Toph was sprawled out, choking on her frustrated sobs.

"The javelin clipped her spine, the fourth lumbral vertebra hit the cord," Haru said quietly, robotically, like an actor reading lines, disconnecting from the situation. "I thought... I hoped that Katara's healing had..."

"Why didn't you just let me die?" Toph cried, and Katara recoiled, tears burning in her eyes. She didn't know what to say — Toph's feet were important to her, and she used the sense of touch for everything — without being able to feel the vibrations in the ground, she couldn't see, and she'd need help to get around the ship, two things that she hated above all else. It was Aang who stepped in, face stormy, and grabbed her by the shoulders.

"This is not the end!" he shouted, matching her volume. "I would rather have Toph without legs than no Toph at all!"

"It may as well be the same," she croaked, and Aang pulled her into a tight hug. Katara wrapped her arms around both of them, trying not to cry at Toph's suffering.

"It is not," Aang said softly. "Me and Katara both waterbend now, and we will learn healing and we will heal you, I promise."

Toph sniffed, and touched his face. "Not lying," she muttered, and then, "You promise?" she croaked, and Aang nodded firmly, a determined glint in his eyes. "I'm gonna hold you to that," she whispered, but she let him and Katara pick her up and put her back on the bed. Jet was watching, with his face schooled into blankness.

"You all right, Tophlet?" he asked affectionately, coming over and taking her hand. With the other, she rubbed her eyes violently. "This ship don't run without the best mechanic in the 'Verse, you know that."

"You need a better ship, then," she mumbled, and Jet smiled, but it didn't look at all sincere.

"Yeah, but then it wouldn't be Freedom, would it?" he asked, and Katara gave him a watery smile. "Wouldn't be home."

"Can't do my job," she muttered dejectedly, "if I can't walk."

"There's an old war saying," he said, pulling up Haru's chair and sitting on it, still holding her hand tightly, "goes like this: When you can't run, you crawl."

"I can't crawl," she snapped. "My legs ain't — "

"And when you can't crawl," he continued a little louder, cutting her off, "you find someone to carry you. You're my mechanic, Tophlet," he said quietly, "you're part of my crew and that ain't gonna change any time soon, dong ma?"

"I will carry you, too," Aang added in a small voice, taking her other hand. She screwed up her face like she was refusing to cry anymore, and failed.

Jet and Haru left Katara and Aang in the Infirmary with Toph. He closed the door quietly behind him and looked at the doctor. "Tell me the truth: do you think Katara's bending can heal her spine?" he asked seriously, and Haru sighed.

"I don't know," he replied, running a hand through his long hair, then glaring at it like it owed him something. "It healed the skin and muscle on her back pretty cleanly... if the cord is just pinched, not severed... if she knew more advanced techniques... it's possible."

"Possible," Jet muttered, and then louder, "All right." His mind was made up: with the money they'd get from fencing the Lassiter, they were going to any and all rare book stores on any planet they could find, to get a hold of waterbending scrolls, so that Katara might have the technique to heal Toph. If it had been anyone else, he would have remodeled the ship to accommodate a wheelchair, but Toph saw through her feet — now, she really was blind, and she couldn't walk, to boot.

He'd go to the end of the 'Verse if it meant never having to hear his mechanic cry again.

"All right," he said sharply, walking into the dining room where Bee, Pipsqueak, and the Duke were cleaning their weapons, "Bee, how far off from Hama's skyplex are we?"

"How is Toph?" Bee asked, and he shot her a glare.

"That ain't what I asked you," he said, and she glanced away, understanding on her face. Bee read him entirely too well.

"About an hour," she replied, "give or take a few, dependin' on how nasty her defense is and how much dodgin' we have to do."

"Good," he said, and then turned to Haru, who had followed him through the ship. "Doc, you're gonna stay behind, but keep the Infirmary stocked. Might want to move Toph to the couch outside — " he hesitated; she wouldn't be able to get into her bunk, they'd have to figure out something to do about that " — so the bed's clear, just in case. Bee, you and me are goin' in first, gonna try bargainin' with Hama, but let's not expect things to be pretty. Have Longshot, Pipsqueak, and the Duke on-hand, we're probably gonna need 'em bail us out."

"That's a bit dangerous, sir," Bee replied, loading a shotgun. "You sure we don't just want to burst in there?"

"Not if we don't have to," he answered. "Duke, get the con woman up here, she needs to come with us. Pipsqueak," he said, as the Duke bolted off to get Diana, "we still have the pieces of the mule, right?"

"Right. It don't run anymore, though."

"Does it have wheels?"

"Yes..." Pipsqueak replied, confused. "They're busted up somethin' fierce, but they still turn."

"Good," he said, "I'll prep that before I go, and you and the Duke'll have instructions to use that if it gets hairy. Here," he continued, holding out a pair of communicators, "I'm on line 2, you're on line 3, Haru's on line 1." Haru looked floored to be included, but Jet didn't really get why — he'd made it pretty clear that he didn't have any intention of going back to Persephone, which meant that he was part of the crew for now, and part of the job.

"We're planning?" Diana asked, sauntering into the dining room, looking only slightly worse for having slept on a metal floor for three nights.

"Yeah, you're going in first with me and Bee," he replied, loading a magazine with hollow-point rounds. "We're gonna see about bargaining with Hama."

"I'm going with you," someone said suddenly, and they turned. Katara was standing in the doorway, looking determined. "I'm a better negotiator than any of you, anyway," she added.

He watched her carefully for a long moment — why did she want to go? — and then nodded. "Fine, get your princely boyfriend in here, we could use some fire, too. Bee, that puts you in charge of the home team, since she's volunteered to be the negotiator."

"Yes, sir," Bee replied, without looking up from her weapons.

"Why does she want to come?" Pipsqueak asked, and Jet shrugged.

"I don't know. Where was I?"

"You were busy telling me that you're going to be a hóuzi de pìgu and try to bargain with Hama," Diana explained, and he glared at her.

"Yeah, there," he deadpanned. "We're gonna see if we can convince her to hand over this friend o' yours."

"Hama doesn't negotiate," Diana said, like he didn't already know.

"Yeah, well, we just got paid, and everybody answers to the sound o' shiny," he growled, filling his last magazine and loading his pistols. "If she don't respond to the money, 'Squeaks and I got a code for "come bail my ass out" so we'll just use that and the second team'll come in, guns blazin'."

"You have to go in unarmed," Diana told him, slamming her palm on the table. He scowled at her.

"No, really? You think this is the first negotiation we've run? We — "

"Yes," she snapped, cutting him off, "I do think this is your first negotiation."

"It is," Bee told her, voice icy, "but we also have a lot of experience with Hama's sort, so you can hop off that high horse you've got crammed up your ass and leave the planning to the people you hired to do it."

"And if I don't?" Diana asked archly, raising one perfect white eyebrow. "You'll do what, little girl?"

Bee gave her a look that could make a Reaver turn tail and run. "I'm going to be real nice right now," she began, "and let the little girl comment slide. Now, let's just say that if you don't listen to what I have to say, you'll find out how it feels to have a real high horse shoved up your ass, dong ma?"

"And she won't use any lube, either," the Duke muttered, peering through the barrels of one of his shotguns. Jet snorted.

"We 'bout ready?" he asked, as Katara returned with Zuko.

"Yes," Zuko said, eyes ablaze, and Jet glanced around the room.

"Prince Hotman here is gonna stay on the ship," he declared, and Zuko's face shifted down, but Jet ignored it. "Gonna need some real firepower when — if things get hairy. Y'all keep an eye on the Avatar, don't let Hama get even the faintest whiff he's onboard, dong le ma?"

"Do you think I'm stupid?" Zuko replied, and he raised an eyebrow.

"Do you really want me to answer that?" Katara laid a hand on Zuko's arm and said something to him quickly, voice too low for Jet to make out. He glared harshly at Jet for another long moment, and then nodded to Katara and stalked out of the room. "You're a saint for puttin' up with him," he grumbled, peering through the sights of his rifle at the Duke and miming shooting him, just for the hell of it. It was Bee who replied.

"He's not that bad, 'cept when you're being an ass to him," she said.

"I'm not an ass," he replied, affronted.

His whole crew laughed at him.

On the Tower-class ship Desdemona

Azula moved through an advanced kata in one of her rooms — she had specifically designed this one so that it was nearly soundproof, had several locks from the inside (and outside), and contained nothing flammable, so that she could practice in absolute peace.

It was that idiot Operative, getting mixed up in her business and throwing her plans off — again.

She was getting quite sick of tiptoeing sweetly around the Parliament's man, and the Parliament in general; she had plans, big ones, the sort of plans that changed the shape of the 'Verse and put her at the forefront of a new regime, but those plans required the government get out of her way. The only reason she hadn't moved on them yet was the Avatar himself — Azula knew her history, and the folly of a two-front war. She didn't know for certain what sort of power he commanded, although she had personally interviewed several of the few survivors of Zhao's short-lived siege of the Water Tribe, and they all seemed to agree on one thing: there were two powers at work, and both were unimaginably dangerous.

One man spoke of a woman wreathed in red — the now-infamous Demon of the Water Tribe — killing men with a flick of her wrist and cutting rows of soldiers into pieces with razor-sharp shards of ice; another spoke of a brilliant glow bringing a cyclone up from the ground and laying waste to an army ten-thousand strong. The Avatar and the water witch that Zhao had been hunting before Uncle's untimely disappearance... the one he had gone on and on about, this one woman he'd been chasing for over fifteen years, a waterbender from St. Albans who had fled to Sihnon and become a Companion.

Azula smirked; it was almost enough to make her believe in fate.

There were also mentions of men with fire in their hands — Uncle and Zuzu, obviously; wherever that waterbender went, her brother would follow, like a loyal puppy. At the capital, he had been infatuated with her, sneaking out at odd hours to meet her, getting irrationally angry whenever Azula called her what she was — a whore. Perhaps a classically trained one, but a whore nonetheless.

She finished the kata and scowled — her hair had come lose in the movements. She heaved a theatrical sigh for the benefit of no one, fixed her hair calmly, and started over again, because perfection was required at every level.

Her spies among the Operative's men had given her information that currently worried her more than the witch, though: a series of porcelain armlets that he wore that were all of the same make but different shapes. The evidence was thin, but when coupled with everything else she knew about Long Feng (and she knew a lot, probably more than even he did), she felt confident in her conclusion: the Alliance had sent a master Earthbender — maybe the last one in existence — to hunt down the Avatar.

She didn't know if it was gloriously intelligent or monstrously stupid.

It made sense, now that she was getting a clearer picture of Long Feng's history in her mind: he had shown a talent for earthbending at a young age (probably on Ariel or Shadow; the planets were known for being descended from the Earth Kingdom) and the Alliance had scooped him up, like they did all children who showed bending talent. Most were imprisoned for study or killed outright, but Long Feng was crafty in a way that most people weren't — she wouldn't have been surprised if he, even at a very young age, had been able to talk his way out of prison or execution, by convincing the Alliance that he was more useful to them alive than dead.

That explained why they were so conservative with their best Operative; the last thing the Alliance needed was for their secret to get out. Officially, bending was a long-dead art and no benders had been born in over a thousand years — if the people knew that their government had been rounding up and killing children as young as four and five, and had been doing it for centuries... They would be effectively destroyed from within.

"Milady?" a voice at her door said, and she mimed shooting lightning at it in irritation. Instead of actually blasting the door to pieces, she took a deep breath.

"Yes?" she asked sweetly, smoothing her meticulous clothing and stepping calmly out of the room. It was the navigator, Quinn, and she wouldn't look at her.

"The Operative is here," Quinn said, "along with a Firefly, he seems to think you should see it personally."

"Oh?" she replied, raising an eyebrow and walking through the halls, Quinn following her loyally. "Does it have signs of bending having been performed lately?"

"Not to my knowledge, milady," Quinn murmured, and Azula heaved a sigh, turning on her.

"I don't make a habit of shooting messengers, Quinn," she said, glaring at her. "Stop acting like I'm going to kill you over this. You shouldn't fear me... unless there's something I don't know about you?"

"Of course not, milady," she said quickly, "I just... I know how the lady dislikes the Operative."

"Well, that's true," Azula replied coldly. "He's a meddlesome fool."

"He... is an Operative," Quinn said hesitantly, "and I don't believe that the Alliance employs fools for such jobs."

"On the contrary, Quinn, only a fool would do such a job," she countered, and when Quinn looked confused, she continued. "Operatives are meant for one purpose: to keep secrets. They are not to know what those secrets are. Do you understand how much willful ignorance and blind loyalty that requires?" she scoffed, and waved a hand. "And on top of this, our friend," she said the word like it was covered in poison, "already knew what we were dealing with. Not only was he a fool to become an Operative in the first place, but he isn't even doing his job properly. I must say," she sighed, "he just hasn't measured up to his reputation."

"I'm wary of him, milady," Quinn gushed, biting her lip with fear at the sudden outburst, as though Azula would strike her down for speaking out of turn — which was a bit disheartening; that was something she would only do if she thought Quinn was being insubordinate. "I worry that there is more to him than meets the eye."

"Quinn," she replied warmly, "there always is. Do you know what the trick is?" she asked, and then continued without giving the other woman a chance to respond. "You must always ensure that they know less about you than you do them," she explained. "Like the Operative, I have also done my research; unlike the Operative, I'm a more skilled researcher. Don't worry, Quinn," she added, congenial and venomous, "I have him completely under my control.

"I will capture the Avatar," she continued softly, composing herself before going into the meeting room where Long Feng waited. "He is merely an obstacle, one I will take care of when the time is right."

Hama Sila's Skyplex, orbiting the planet Ezra

Katara led the way into Hama's skyplex, since she was playing lead negotiator. She had been fully prepared to stay on the ship with Aang and Toph, but she remembered those scrolls that Bee had seen when they were picking up the train job, and although Sokka insisted that this was the stupidest thing she'd ever done, she had to take the chance that they might be about waterbending, or any bending, something useful. The odds weren't in her favor, but she just couldn't get the image of Toph, sprawled out at her feet and sobbing, out of her mind's eye.

If there was a chance, she had to risk it, and besides, she was a better negotiator than Jet.

The woman they called Diana walked next to her, scowling, while Jet walked behind them, playing the part of dutiful servant to the Companion who had shown up. This whole gamble was fragile, and she was glad to know that the others were waiting in the wings to save them when it would all inevitably go wrong.

"Lady Hama Sila," one of the men said, opening the door, "the Companion, Lady Katara Nerrevik. She is here about... Madame Malina."

The woman inside the room hardly looked as dangerous as Sokka and Bee had sworn she was — in fact, she looked downright friendly.

"Lady Katara, and Captain Reynolds," she replied, bowing her head slightly and smiling with a mouthful of black teeth, "come in, come in. It's good to see you again, Jonathan," she said warmly, and Jet stiffened. "And who is this — ?"

"This is Diana, a friend of Madame Malina's," she explained. "Diana would like to see the lady, if she is here."

"Oh, she's here," Hama replied, "and still kicking, if you care. She wronged me," she said matter-of-factly, "and no, she can't see her daughter."

Katara glanced at Diana — the woman they were springing was her mother? "Her daughter?" she repeated dumbly, and Diana scowled.

"Yes, I recognize the hair," Hama answered, pointing to Diana's head and smiling in way that set Katara on-edge. "Not many people under the age of seventy with hair that color. How's it a pretty young thing like you ended up with a head full o' white hair, eh?"

Diana glowered. "A botched dye job," she snapped, and Hama barked out a laugh.

"I'll let you see her if, if you like," she offered, like it was a huge favor. "Crow, open the window for our guests," she said, and they turned as the large, tattooed man walked over to a wall and pulled on a section of it, revealing a window, or a two-way mirror. On the other side of it was a woman with startlingly white hair sprinkled with blood, and she was chained to the ceiling by her wrists. She was crying.

Katara felt sick; this was a nightmare.

"We have payment," she said, putting her training to use in keeping her face completely free of emotion. "Five thousand credits."

Hama appeared to think about that, and then grinned. "Just because I like your crew so much, I'll be nice. That'll get you... half, that seem fair?" she suggested. "You get first pick, too. Top, bottom, left, or right?"

"No deal," Jet said, before Katara could speak. She shot him an incredulous glare — what, did he actually think she was considering it? — but he just raised an eyebrow, and she caught on — that was his and Pipsqueak's code. The sirens went off and after a long, tense minute where they all stood and waited for something to happen, Hama watching them with a calculating, condescending look, a loud crash sounded from the distance as Freedom violently pulled in to land at the skyplex.

"You really thought to play me? How ungrateful. After all I've done for you," she huffed indignantly, mockingly, and raised her hands into a strange... a familiar form. Katara felt the pull on her blood, and she heard her companions shout, and she reacted — felt it, the way that Aang and Zuko had talked about, the movement and the pulse and the rush of pressure against the vessels. She raised her hands into the same form, pulling on Crow's blood and Hama's blood, and the woman gasped at her before she burst into laughter. "Oh, now that's rich! You bring your very own bloodbender into my den. That's a new one, I'll admit."

Jet hit the ground just behind her, gasping and clutching his sides. "What the hell was that?" he hissed, and she stared at Hama. That was the special torture she used, that had done — that — to Diana's mother, that had made her name known through this quadrant as someone not to cross. She tortured people with the same technique that Katara had used to stop the Alliance on St. Albans.

"So, the Companion is a waterbender," Hama crowed, "and a powerful one, at that. We can deal," she said, grinning, "an even trade. You get the Madam Malina back if I get to keep the little bloodbender — just to teach, mind," she added innocently, but her eyes glittered with something that Katara didn't want to name. "I'm just dying to train another powerful bender."

"No deal," Jet replied sharply, standing up, and Hama twisted her hands again, but then Katara followed her movements and she seized up for a second, then shot her a vicious glare.

"You can't bend my blood, little girl, no more than I can yours," she said coldly, and then swept her hand over a potted plant on her desk. Abruptly, it turned to a brown husk, and Hama was attacking her with shards of ice. Katara stepped backwards, gasping, and caught the ice, forming it into her own tide that she threw back at the old woman.

It was clear, though, that Hama was the superior bender — perhaps Katara had the power to beat her, but she lacked the training. "You're an amateur," Hama said, pinning her to the wall with knives of ice. "I, on the other hand..."

How? Katara wondered. How had she found training? It had to be proof that the scrolls were about waterbending — but now she was in over her head.

Jet tackled Hama then, and Diana hit Crow full across the face with the dead potted plant before shattering the two-way mirror with the heavy lamp on Hama's desk and diving through to free her mother. Katara pulled the water from the ice-sickles, splitting it into two and freezing Crow to the wall with one half, then followed Diana.

"Yue," the woman gasped, "Yue, you came for me — you — no — "

Katara froze.

Yue. That was the name of Chief Arnook's daughter — she tried to remember what had happened to her and her mother. Father had told her once, but it had happened before she could remember, Arnook had — something, he had done something bad, and his wife had left him and taken their daughter with her, just fled the planet.

Yue was Diana, Pheobe, Ceridwen — the last Water Tribe princess descended from the ancient moon goddess Yue herself, a line that went back to the Age of Bending.

"Ssh, mother," Yue breathed, easing her into her arms, "I'm here. I brought a healer," she said, and shot Katara a watery glare, daring her to comment on their shared heritage. She rushed over and began to heal the woman with Hama's water. It didn't help overmuch, but it did seem to ease her pain.

"There's a doctor on the ship," she said, and the woman smiled.

"Kya," she muttered, "I never thought I would..." Her eyes fluttered closed, but Katara had a finger on her pulse; her heart was still beating, if weakly.

"She's alive," Katara said fervently, "we can get her to — " She cried out as a wave of water hit her in the chest and she hit the far wall, blacking out.