Chapter 11 – Celadon

Markless prairie grew between the wall and the desolate coast, and it was through this corridor he and his sister approached the city. The bison flew as well with two passengers as with one. When the Dragon of the West had tried the city, he'd struck at the south, near where the ferry's port and rail station now operated, as they'd launched their campaign from Half Moon Bay. From the east there was nothing of interest and no vital infrastructure. The plain was flat, treeless, and relatively dry. He had the idea that most of the water had been diverted inside the agricultural ring of the city. In afternoon they landed by Azula's demand with the wall just barely come in sight. "Why are we stopping?"

"Well, Dumb-dumb, it would look awful strange to arrive by flying bison. We'll enter the city after dark. For now let's rest and let this cow graze." She slipped from the saddle and landed gracefully, and Zuko followed after. She took a seat nearby and stared at the walls, contemplating something. Feeling it might be the last moment of peace, he took a walk to clear his head and returned an hour later with no answers. Azula hadn't moved and was still in thought. He fell asleep at some point, though was unsure if she had, and around midnight he was shaken awake by his shoulder. "It's time, get up."

They woke the bison and boarded, and the last distance passed quickly. She took them high up in altitude, so high the air grew thin and cold. The walls had their strengths, but also their weakness—the perimeter they had created was enormous and riddled in blindspots. There was no force capable of adequately patrolling every mile of it, and only a large intrusion could have gained attention. The two passed silently overhead with the bison. Below he could just make out in the darkness squared patches of fields intersecting, each crop a slightly different shade of green. At the end of the fields came another wall, and after passing its threshold they began to descend. She must have had some idea of where they were going, possibly from her hired crew giving her a tip, but Zuko had been kept in the dark and he resented how dependent on her it made him. This was the enemy's city and being trapped within its walls left him on edge. Azula had the reins and lowered the animal carefully into a commercial district.

"I thought Ba Sing Se was wealthy," commented Zuko at the state of the dilapidated buildings and general squalor.

"We're in the Lower Ring. This is where they keep their peasants." She peered around looking for something, then maneuvered the bison one more block over where a man waved to her. "My contact."

He was a slim, greasy man with hair that was thinning under his cap. The bison touched down in the street outside a warehouse while the man carefully slid open a large wooden door. Inside the space was cleared out. "We'll keep the bison in here. We can't exactly stroll around with it, but we need it on hand. I have an idea for it," she said. Zuko coaxed the bison inside and the door was shut behind them. Hay had already been furnished, and the walls were lined with bales. Functionally it was as much soundproofing as food supply for the animal. He had the impression that the area was low trafficked, but that was different than true privacy, and he knew the animal could be loud when the mood struck. The bison curled up and dozed. "The cow has the right idea," said Azula. "The office space in the loft has been converted to a living space for us for the time being. I'm loathe to spend the night in such accommodations, but hopefully we won't be here too long. The problem is how to isolate the Avatar without alerting all his little friends and the city's military and police." At the top of the staircase a grey-haired woman in her fifties waited with a dinner set for the siblings. "She'll watch the animal while we're out. The man I'm having seek out intelligence for me. It's good to have servants even in a foreign nation. No need to be shy, Zuzu—they know who we are." She made a blue flame in her palm to demonstrate, and the woman gazed without surprise. "Happily the Avatar is here after all, training in earthbending. He's only had a few weeks so he won't be proficient yet."

"How are we going to get the Avatar out of the city, though?"

"Preferably while he's unconscious," she replied. "Don't worry. I'll come up with a plan once I know more about the situation." She handed him a card. "If a guard asks for your passport, use this. You can access the Middle Ring, but not the Upper. It would be best not to draw attention to yourself. After all, you're a recognizable guy," she said, then gestured to her left eye. "Some of the nobles here may have heard certain rumors. Leave the Upper Ring to me."

"Fine." It felt like he was constantly being mocked by her, and he hadn't missed it.

The loft, which had formerly been office space for the warehouse supervisor, had been converted into two bedrooms and a living space for their use. The woman had her own station on the ground floor hemmed off in dividing screens. His room was furnished well and not uncomfortable, but remained quite small. At a table he found new garments and a map of the city provided. He changed clothes and went to set his pearl dagger on the table for the night, but thought better of it and kept it by his pillow instead. With a candlewick-sized flame at his fingertip he read the map over until he attained familiarity.

On his own he would never have been able to put this together, but Azula had. He set the map aside and stroked the sheath of the dagger, thinking of the words carved below into the blade's flat. He thought about the knife being wedged into Zhao's throat, as bitter as medicine and bringing out the heat hidden in his chest, and wondered if Azula would mock Zhao as she did him at the brink of his end. Lying awake, he rolled to his side, then back again, and shuffled the pillow, but once he'd had the thought he couldn't get rid of it so easily. Agni, I'm furious. He'd been half dead or half starved ever since, but his annoyance at his sister had lit a small fire not easily extinguished. To hell with them both. If Azula wants to be this helpful, I'm going to use her, and maybe the next time that monkey goes for a boat ride he'll find something giftwrapped in his cabin.

He tried to refocus on the kid, the Avatar, a pheasant perched unwitting in a garden. He's mine this time.

A lingering worry for what Azula had planned stayed with him, like something forgotten, something overlooked; he told himself he would find it tomorrow, but in the morning he had only his rage remaining, and ruminations on what had been stolen from him. My throne. My nation. My honor. If he returned with the blue-arrowed kid, he could knock that monkey from his seat and reclaim what had been lost. Azula owes me that much. She'll give it to me, or I'll take it from her.

His sister was already gone by morning. The helping woman was downstairs, having just hauled in a bucket of water for the bison. An animal of that size could drink forty of them. "I'm going out," he said, and ignored the bison's excited look to see him again. I'm done lying. That animal has been through enough without my making a further fool of him. The city stank. They were in an industrial section, and the summer heat cooked up whatever contamination from production mills was in the air and mixed it into fumes that burned his eyes. His outfit was green, a color he was tired of, and made him look like a shopboy. He had the map memorized and boarded a train to the Middle Ring. Earthbenders at the rear pushed the traincars along a track of stone, no fuel necessary, no petrol or coal. Around him were tired looking workers off to their jobs and squalling children in school uniforms. They acted like it was peacetime, and Zuko recalled his sister mentioning that the war was a forbidden topic within the walls. No one wanted to be reminded that they were losing, that their jobs were meaningless if the next Iroh found success, and everything they had struggled to gain might only be temporary. At the checkpoint he shoved the passcard at the guard, earning a glare. If I have to be humiliated, so do you.

The Middle Ring looked more like Caldera City. Black-tiled roofs held the span of an inland sea, and the atmosphere wasn't as hopeless. He kept his eyes up as he walked, hoping for a glance of orange to flit across the sky, but didn't see the airbender on his glider. Aimless wandering consumed the morning. Frustrated, he checked into a restaurant for lunch, wishing they had something fiercely spicy but finding the dish underseasoned when it came. He ate without enthusiasm, and when he went to pay, his hand knocked against the passcard. The thought occurred to him, though it should have far earlier, that the Avatar was probably in the Upper Ring, where only Azula could reach.

That blue-arrowed twit is probably flying around without a care in the world, and that she-fox could snatch him away from me at any moment. What does she even need me for? He slapped the coins down on the table and waited for change to be brought. Maybe she plans to rig the bison with explosives and return it to him, then blow him out of the air.

Nonsense. I'm too angry to think straight. She's as alone here as I am.

He remained unsettled until evening when he made his return to the Lower Ring, finding the residential area just as grimy and depreciated as the warehouse district. In the street lay the fragments of a shattered teapot glazed in celadon, discarded in the dirt, and he stepped over the shards of porcelain thinking it a waste and too fine an object to have been present in such a filthy place. A few blocks from the station he heard a woman's voice and looked up. Blue robes stood out from the crowd. The waterbender walked by the side of a young man, and was looking up into his eyes telling him something with a smile on her lips. Zuko's heart pounded as he slid into the closest alley and pressed his back against the wall. He held a hand over his scar and waited. She was engaged in conversation with the man and apparently hadn't noticed him. In the moment she walked past the alley, Zuko looked over. Her attention was fully on the man with the messy hair. She looked so much more refined and feminine in that dress—elegant, with a tight bodice and long skirt—than the dirty olive parka. The man replied something to her, enough that Zuko would remember his voice. The man looked over, and Zuko slipped down the alley with his back to them and kept walking.

At the other side of the block he leaned against the façade of a tenement building to calm himself down. He moved a hand over the little bundle in his pocket, the engagement necklace he'd found in the saddle, and remembered the desperate, crying voice pleading with him at the Air Temple, her hair messed up from her abduction in the night, the carved white stone at her neck shimmering in his firelight. Could that dirty prat really be her fiancé? What business did she have coming to the Lower Ring?

A shutter banged above him. He looked up, then stood and kept walking. A few blocks later he stopped in the middle of the street with the sudden thought that he now had something Azula didn't. Behind him footsteps arrested and slipped to the side. He listened. I never get anything without paying for it, do I?

His guest didn't step out. Zuko continued walking, looking for a certain place he'd seen that morning, a little off the beaten track. At this hour the workers in the district should have gone home already. In the clearing at the yard of the empty papermill he turned and waited. Loverboy gave a wary glance around before joining him a few paces away. "Friend of hers?" the man asked. "Hiding your face like that makes me think you must have bad intentions."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said. The wheat-sucker pulled out twin hook swords, so Zuko, not willing to risk firebending just for a street-rat, took out the pearl dagger. "Let me guess, your girlfriend liked the look of me and you got jealous?"

"Funny thing, you didn't give her the chance to get a look at you. I wonder what she would say if I described you and said I saw you around."

"You might be disappointed. For your own sake you're better off not knowing what I did with her."

He gave a shout and lunged forward. Zuko pined for his dao swords. A dagger had poor reach, but, unknown to the angry idiot, he was well versed in dual blade wielding, which meant he knew how to defend against it as well, even at disadvantage. He was liberal with his dodges and cautious with parries, having only one weapon and no backup, and evaded the first few slashes. Loverboy was evidently used to brawling but was unpolished and sloppy. However, he had good athleticism, and Zuko was still on the mend. He kept light to his feet and let the moron lead him around until he sensed his opponent was getting frustrated.

"Stop running. Come here and show me what that dagger can do!"

"It's ornamental, really," he replied while twisting out of the way of a blow. Seeing an opening, Zuko took the lead and stabbed forward, letting the hook sword counter the dagger. Wheat between his teeth, he gave a premature grin and got ready to jerk the sword back, just as Zuko tipped the dagger in a wrenching motion and spun his body around. His technique went both ways and, as it happened, it was easier to rip a long object out of someone's hand than a short one. The sword flipped and clattered to the ground. As his opponent dove for it, Zuko kicked him square in the ribs and cleared space, then dove and took it up. "This one is nice, though."

"You rotten bastard," he said between coughs. From the way he held his side as he picked himself up Zuko thought he broke two or three of his ribs. Switching the dagger to his left and taking the hook sword in his dominant hand, he felt the shift of power as the aggressor realized he was now the one disadvantaged.

"You're down a sword and a few bones. Maybe you should run home before you have to show your girlfriend a smashed-up face to go with it."

He ran forwards, wielding the singular blade as a club. From his eyes it was obvious he'd lost his sense and temper alike. Zuko whammed a side-strike at the outside edge of the sword lifted over his head, which threw his balance off, and aimed the dagger at his flank. He flinched back, but not fast enough, and caught a nice trace of blade through his side. Not lethal, but it might be enough to drive him off for the night. Waiting for the opponent to decide between the smart path and further pain, he felt warm blood drip off the dagger onto his wrist.

Both men faced each other and caught their breath. Messy-hair kept his eyes locked to his while examining his wound with the back of his hand, and Zuko could see him wince. He knew just how sharp the pearl dagger was. If the nitwit has a job, he won't be back for a few days while that one scabs over, and if he was really smart he'd take some needle and thread to it sooner rather than later. His expression changed, though no less furious, to something of an understanding, and he backed away, though he broke eye contact only at the last moment. Zuko watched him go and could hear the uneven, limping footsteps. He flicked the blood off the knife and sheathed it, then looked to the new prize he'd won. Tacky. He detoured into and through the factory, making certain the angry fiancé wouldn't know which direction he'd gone, and took the long way back to the warehouse. He changed shirts as soon as he could and threw the soiled garment into the servingwoman's arms. "Get that blood off the cuff before it stains."

"Are you injured?"

"It's not my blood."

With some satisfaction he hung the sword over his flimsy doorway with a few nails. Azula had returned and slunk to him evidently annoyed by the hammering. "Off killing dirtpeasants, are we?"

"He's not dead. This time."

"Ah, you've made a friend. Well, I don't suppose you've found any leads on the Avatar and what his security detail might be?"

"No, I haven't."

She looked at him curiously. He was still pissed and throbbing with adrenaline from the fight, and she wouldn't see anything but the satisfaction of having won. His sister slipped off for her own bed, and Zuko counted that as two victories for the day.

#

Stepping off the train for the morning, she saw Jet seated nearby holding his side. "Hey," he tried to say with a smile, but it was obvious he was in serious pain.

Katara went over to him and put a hand on his wrist, where he was holding his side, and saw his face was pale. "What happened?"

"Got in a fight. I know you're busy, but maybe…?"

"Of course. Let's go to your apartment. Is it bad?"

"Sort of."

With him seated on his bed, Katara unwrapped the bandages and realized 'bad' was an understatement. "Who did this to you?"

"Just some mugger."

With his shirt off he laid down and she pulled a chair up. His right side was purple and swollen, and the cut across his left was held together with poorly done stitches and looked infected already. She pulled out her water and began treatment while his friends watched from the doorway at a respectful distance.

An hour later he yelped, "Ow!" as she pulled the stitches out one by one.

"I have to undo this to finish."

"I'll have you know Smellerbee lovingly laced up, ow!, every one of those stitches that you're now ruthlessly, ow!, ripping out." He was trying to joke still, but she thought no mugger could have done this much to him.

The front desk worker was relieved to see her, even quite later than she had usually been arriving. "Are you well, Miss Katara? You look tired."

"I'm fine. Sorry, but I have to leave early. There's somewhere I have to go tonight."

"We appreciate anything you do here. Please take care of yourself as well," he replied. He was a sweet man, and she was glad someone like him was working there. It took a rare soul to witness such horrible things every day and still be able to smile kindly.

That afternoon she took a detour to the military training camp. Aang beamed and ran over to greet her. "Do you want to go home with me?" he asked. "I could take you on my glider."

"Maybe, Aang, but I'm here to speak with my father." He looked deflated enough that Momo sensed it and went to comfort him. "You can still train for another hour or two."

"Oh, yeah. Right." He slunk back to his trainer, a brutal looking man with a thick beard.

Katara asked an officer to take her to wherever her father was, and, as it turned out, he was in the middle of his own match against an Earth soldier. She watched quietly in the gateway as her father ran at the earthbender with only a wooden staff, then evaded stones flying towards him and the ground under his feet giving way. He kept his balance, launched off a sudden rise of the ground, and propelled himself to the earthbender. As a stone shot towards him, Hakoda twisted around to barely dodge it, and landed his strike on the opponent's shoulder. The man fell to the ground with the force, but his armor prevented real damage. Hakoda laughed and helped him to his feet, then noticed his daughter waiting for him. He whispered to the man before coming to meet her.

"Dad, I have a request for you. Can you ask the military to look up information about a certain event?" He agreed, and she told him all the detail she knew about it.