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Chapter 13: Test
She didn't know why she had come here.
Ty Lee stared at the neat facade—so clean and sparkly. In spite of the high walls of the courtyard in back, she could still make out trees and shrubs. Technically it was still a prison—but at least they made it as nice as they could.
A dull shout seemed to waft up from behind the thick walls—a scream of primal rage.
Ty Lee shivered once, before she turned quickly, and hurried away.
Normally when Ty Lee was off shift, she spent the time hanging with some of the other Kyoshi Warriors. Or helping Kiyi set up her dolls for elaborate games of peasant-in-the-cottage, or finding a nice-looking guard she hadn't chatted with yet.
But today, with the full moon rising again tomorrow night, Ty Lee's nerves felt like a thousand ant-mice scurrying just under her skin. Mai didn't seem to think Azula would come here—but Ty Lee wasn't so sure.
Ty Lee! Here's where you've been hiding. Come on, I have another idea for a game.
Ty Lee blinked, shaking herself from her reverie. As she continued down the street, her eyes wandered over the facade of the nearest shop. Flowers spilled from pots and decorative stands, large bright lanterns dangling from the sunset red overhang. She had passed the entrance when she stopped, frowning.
"Yes, you have been here before," said a dull voice behind her. "In case you were wondering."
Ty Lee turned to see a figure in heavy dark clothes had emerged from the shop, the strap of a large pouch over one shoulder.
"Oh! Hi, Mai." Ty Lee glanced back at the sign, hardly believing she had missed recognizing the flower shop of Mai's aunt. She winced, but tried to cover with a smile, glancing at a particularly colorful arrangement. "Everything is so pretty as always! Is your mom and Tom-Tom still staying here?"
"Yes," replied Mai, adjusting the strap on the satchel. "They are. I just had a few things to pick up. And it had been a while since I was back, so I figured I might as well stop by."
Since Azula's escape back in Yunfu, Mai had often been staying at a guest room in the palace, keeping an eye on things. The past month while Zuko was away she often acted like she wasn't worried about Azula coming here when Azula was obviously after Zuko, but Ty Lee couldn't help but notice she had barely left the palace at all, and Ty Lee wondered if Mai had decided to come visit her family today because of whatever might happen night after next. In case things went—bad.
"What's wrong with your face?"
Ty Lee blinked, startled. Mai had started back in the general direction of the palace, but now she had stopped, peering back over her shoulder at Ty Lee.
Ty Lee pressed her hands all over her cheeks and forehead as though miming its shape, wondering if she had somehow missed some of the makeup. Much as Ty Lee loved makeup, she had to admit she sometimes found the constant applying and de-applying of the Kyoshi version exhausting, and wondered how Suki and the others had kept up with it for so long.
"What do you mean?" she demanded.
Mai shrugged and pointed at her own perpetual deadpan. "I could almost use you as a mirror. It's creeping me out."
Ty Lee let her hands drop, frowning. "No you couldn't." She forced a huge beaming smile to demonstrate.
Mai grimaced, putting a hand to her head. "And you accused me of being fake." She started again along the street that would take them back to the palace, and after a moment, Ty Lee raced to catch up.
"Well," Ty Lee began, falling into step beside her. "You know what tomorrow night is. What if Azula tries something?"
Mai stared straight ahead. "I don't think she will, not here. But we're taking every precaution. Double shifts for everyone. We might not be able to fight that bloodbending, but there's probably a limit to how many they could handle, and we have the advantage of numbers."
Numbers was definitely one advantage they would have. Suki was going to have all the Kyoshi Warriors on duty the night through too. Normally Ty Lee would have worried about keeping awake that long, but she doubted that would be a problem. While Ty Lee had never once wished she could be more like Mai, at the moment she had to admit she envied Mai's outward calm.
They walked in silence for a few minutes. Around them the city mulled about, nobles dressed in fine crimson silks, all with an air of quiet politeness that was the way in Fire Nation high society. Most passed by as though they didn't even see them, but a few nodded in Ty Lee's direction. Ty Lee tried smiling back, but before long her eyes slipped past them, returning back in the direction of the pretty buildings that muffled the screams.
"What?"
Ty Lee glanced back at Mai, realizing she had stopped walking, and Mai had pulled ahead a few paces before looking back. Her tone was dull, almost impatient, yet there was a different tinge to her usual aura. A kind of pale lavender shade within the gray that almost felt like concern.
"It's nothing," Ty Lee said, then hesitated. "I guess, I keep thinking about the Kemurikage. I've been thinking about the past, us and Azula, and I wonder—if, when Azula left them, if they felt betrayed."
It seemed silly somehow, saying it out loud. The Kemurikage were probably the one thing they didn't need to worry about now, especially with everything else that was an active danger at this very moment. But for some reason, it kept coming back to her. Wondering how Azula's latest friends felt now, abandoned.
Mai considered for a long moment, then shook her head. "I really doubt it. Think about it. Did we ever feel betrayed?"
For a moment, Ty Lee's mind wandered back—to the days at the Academy. Azula's smiling suggestions of the pranks they should pull on classmates who didn't give Azula the respect she deserved, and if they didn't, the following days of Azula brightly volunteering them in class for the most difficult, dangerous class practical assignments, the unrelated laughing tangents about people who had annoyed her that her father had banished to the colonies. Then of course there were Azula's made up games—the endless games. All designed so she would be the one to win. How uncomfortable losing was, hours of boredom when they couldn't find her at hide-and-seek or being dumped in the garden fountain or forced to steal from their parents, often depended on how happy Azula was with them at the time.
Ty Lee blinked, staring back at Mai, and was surprised at her own answer. "I guess not."
The corner of Mai's mouth twitched, though there was little humor in her face. "I'll give one thing to Azula. If there's one thing she didn't lie about—it was the rules about being her friends. She never intended for us to actually think we would be more important to her than her getting her way."
They walked on. Ty Lee scanned the passing buildings, the carefully manicured shop fronts, the polished signs and shop windows, separated by the narrow shadowed alleyways in between.
It was true, of course. And maybe that was why, however awful and scary being Azula's friends could sometimes be, Ty Lee had never really resented it. Azula liked to make up her own rules, but at least they were always clear. For all Azula liked to lie, there was a funny kind of honesty in that.
"It's going to be all right," Ty Lee said suddenly. "It's going to be all right. Everything is going to turn out all right."
Mai glanced back at her again, and for the first time a real smile flickered at the corner of her lips. "Do you feel better?"
Ty Lee considered. "Not really." However, as her eyes wandered back over her shoulder one last time, to those other friends of Azula's, she suddenly blinked. "You know—if you think about it a certain way, Azula kind of did us a favor."
Mai stopped. She turned her eyes to give Ty Lee a look of supreme disgust. "You're going to force me to ask you what you could possibly mean, aren't you."
Ty Lee shook her head rapidly. "I'm not trying to say—I just mean at the Boiling Rock. By trying to let Zuko die, it made you have to do something to stop it, stand up to her. Think about it—if we hadn't betrayed Azula then, the Avatar's friends probably would have locked us up, too. We'd be just like those Kemurikage girls."
Mai grunted. "They're in a mental institution, they were already locked up," she pointed out. However, her eyes wandered over the streets in thought. She added, "...But you're right. Even if Zuko had tried to vouch for us—we fought them, just like Azula. They would never have trusted us, not if they didn't know we were Azula's enemies, too. I guess that is something we can be grateful for."
They continued on toward the palace. Ty Lee tried to make sense of her many tangled thoughts and feelings—the memories of old times, which had sometimes been bad but not all bad, of people now who she didn't know how to help. The nagging fears of the past, the worry for the people she cared about now. The good that had somehow managed to come from the bad. She could only imagine how her aura looked right now—so many colors they all swirled together in a murky brown of hope and dread.
At last giving it up, Ty Lee reached over to hook her arm through Mai's, making Mai grumble in surprise. In some ways, being friends with Azula had helped her learn to think more positive, to live more in the present. fter all, if there was one thing Azula had taught her over the years, it was that, however bad things might be in the moment, they could always get worse.
"Soo. Just for the record, I still think this is a bad idea."
Stone and earth churned around them, on every side. With every sweep of Toph's hands, the platform of stone moved forward, carrying its passengers with it.
Zuko's heart pounded, certain with every moment that the earth above would collapse over their heads. He had not realized until now how terrifying it would be being entirely encased far below the ground, in a tunnel only held up by the power of Toph's bending. All was dark around him, and couldn't see his own white knuckles pressing against the stone in front of his knees.
"Which part?" he managed through gritted teeth, in the general direction of Sokka's voice. "You've complained about everything."
"All of it," Sokka answered. Though Zuko couldn't see him, he could almost imagine him ticking off a list on his fingers. "Taking Toph out of the fight. Leaving her and your mom in a little cave somewhere to maybe be ambushed by Azula and some more of her people. Oh, and not to mention all of us taking off on our own and leaving the only two people who can actually fight bloodbending for some oogie time, right when the moon's coming out. Most plans have a couple places where they might fall apart. This has, like, ten."
Zuko's eyes were still fixed on the inky blackness straight ahead of them, and he didn't close his eyes even as a puff of dust fell on his head. "The decision about Toph was already made," he said tersely. "And you saw the look on Katara's face. They have to test Aang in the Avatar State, and she wasn't going to be doing that with any of us around."
Sokka sighed like a martyr. "All right, fine. But, considering we're all probably about to die in the next few hours, complaining's all I got left."
Zuko glared at the darkness, hoping Sokka would be able to interpret his irritated silence. He could feel his mother, sitting on her knees just behind him. She had not spoken a word since they had left camp. He could only imagine what she was feeling now.
He had already told her it wasn't her fault, and it wasn't. But he knew better than anyone that didn't stop the guilt, or the worry. The only thing he could do now to make her feel better was to succeed, to make sure everyone came back safely.
All the stone around them abruptly ground to a halt. Zuko felt a breath of air against his face where Toph's hands moved not far from his head, and the rock churned again, the sound sinking away just in front of where Zuko knelt. They moved forward, following the direction of the sound, until at last the slab beneath them stopped once more, settling into place.
"Okay," Toph said. "We're here. There's no water in these tunnels, so they won't be able to sneak up on me."
Zuko couldn't take the dark anymore and, raising a palm, lit a ball of fire. He raised it above his head.
It was not a massive cavern, perhaps a couple times bigger than his palace room. The rock above was close enough he could just make out the stalactites descending from the ceiling like knives.
Sokka turned toward the right, frowning and squinting down one of the far tunnels. He licked a finger, then held it up. "There's air down here," he note. "That means there's an exit somewhere. Wouldn't it be better if you just blocked it all off?"
Zuko had felt it as well, and now he also looked to Toph.
Toph shrugged. "Could. But then she wouldn't be able to get out if something happened to me, and you wouldn't be able to get in without Aang. Not that anything would happen, but, you know."
Mother spoke up unexpectedly. "I… get claustrophobic occasionally. If I'm in a place I know I can't get out. Can't… escape."
Zuko glanced at her, but found she wasn't looking at him. Her eyes were on Toph, and they darted nervously away.
"I guess it is a risk either way," Zuko said slowly. He would feel much better if Toph buried the place in stone, with no access by either a waterbender or a firebender, deep beneath the earth—but he could understand the panic of being trapped underground. If they didn't come back and something happened to Toph, his mother could be trapped for days, to die a slow death of dehydration and oxygen deprivation. The thought probably terrified her far more than being found by the waterbenders. There shouldn't be a problem—Toph's movement underground had been about as smooth as it could be, probably impossible to detect from the surface, and there shouldn't be any way for Azula or anyone else to trace where they were.
Sokka sighed. "Fine." He took a step back toward Mother, and reached into a pouch at his back, producing a short, thick stick wrapped in cloth at the end.
"It's a torch," he said, offering it to her, "just in case. But don't use it unless you have to. You'll be safer in the dark with just Toph's eyes."
His mother nodded once, taking the stick, along with a couple of spark stones Sokka produced. "Where will you all be?"
Sokka shrugged. "A lake northwest of here. But don't try to go there, whatever happens here. Especially not before morning."
"I understand." She gripped the torch and the stones, face grim. However, her eyes wandered briefly in the direction of the long tunnel Sokka had pointed out, before she set her jaw, looking quickly away again.
Zuko stepped forward. "Mother."
She blinked and her eyes rose to meet his.
"Promise me," he said in a low, gruff voice. "Promise me you'll be safe."
She stood there for a moment, staring back at him, clutching the torch and stones to her chest. She started to raise her arms toward him, then glanced down at the objects in her hands, as though not sure what to do with them. Toph finally grunted, and tugged on her sleeve, extending a hand palm up, and his mother let her take them.
She stepped forward, and one hand came up to touch his face, carefully brushing the sensitive skin of his scar. Then her arms were encircling him, pulling him into an embrace.
Zuko raised his free hand not holding the flame to her back, and he let his eyes slide closed. Letting the familiar warmth and faint scent of fire lilies envelope him.
"I have always loved you, my son," she whispered in his ear. "And I always will."
She pulled away then, and as something wet stung his good eye, he raised a hand to wipe it away. He took a short breath, steadying himself, before he turned back.
"We'll be back soon," he said.
He and Sokka stood on the platform of earth, and as Toph raised her palms, it rose beneath them, rising up to the tunnel above they had just entered from. He kept the flame burning for a moment longer, staring back at her face as she watched them go.
Even in worn traveling clothes, she managed to look regal. There was sadness and pain and guilt in her eyes—yet strength, too.
Then the earth closed, and she was gone. He closed his hand, extinguishing the flame, letting the darkness take them again.
Katara wasn't ready.
She stood on the bank of the small lake, water reflecting the red light of the twilight sky. There were many such lakes scattered among the high mountains around them, with tributaries that came and went in all directions, eventually winding back out to sea. Around this particular lake the ground was so inhospitable no vegetation had grown up around it, the land flat and barren for at least a quarter a mile in all directions. A tradeoff—better visibility, yet with ample water enough to hopefully make the waterbenders think they would have the advantage anyway. Katara could only hope they weren't right. Appa, meanwhile, circled high overhead. The beacon to attract Azula, in case she hadn't already been following precisely where they were.
Katara raised a hand above the water's surface, and the air was so still she could see her palm reflected from below in the evening light. She withdrew it quickly, drawing it back to her chest. She closed her eyes.
"...Katara?"
Katara flinched at the voice behind her. Then, taking a short breath, she turned.
Aang stood there, as always in his light air nomad clothes in spite of the northern chill on the air. The fiery light of the setting sun reflected off the blue of his arrow tattoos, making them look almost gray.
"It's almost time," he said.
Katara looked away. They only had a few minutes, when the moon would rise just before the sun fully set, when she would be able to use the power, though not quite at its full strength, meaning the waterbenders were not likely to strike then. Zuko and Sokka would return soon after that. But, she still wasn't sure she could do it.
"Aang," she began, still not looking at him. "Are you… sure? I just… don't feel like it's necessary."
She felt a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up to see Aang gazing at her, for once not a trace of cheer or levity in his face. "I know you don't want to," he said. "But do it for me. Okay, sweetie? I need to know."
Katara felt as his arms slowly encircled her, pulling her into a hug. She raised her arms automatically, her palm finding the familiar shape of his shoulder blade, pressing her face to his shoulder.
"They're not any different from me," she whispered suddenly.
She felt Aang tense slightly in surprise, perhaps more at her tone than the words. The way they poured out in a rush, like a confession.
"Those… waterbenders," she continued. "I think they're angry, and hurt, by the things the Fire Nation has done. Just like I was with my mother."
Aang had relaxed slowly, though his arms remained around her, strong and reassuring. "I know you see yourself in them," he said at last. "They're being manipulated by Azula—once we capture them, we can try to help them." He hesitated, then added, "But, they've attacked innocent people, people who had nothing to do with what the Fire Nation has done, like Hama did. We have to stop them."
Katara suddenly pushed against his chest, pulling away. He let her go, and she turned her back on him. She stared out at the darkening sky, still crimson with dusk. Though the mountains would block their view of the moon when it first rose, she knew when it did, she would feel it. It hadn't risen just yet.
"Do—" Her voice cracked, and she swallowed, then tried again. "Do you know… how Zuko knew? About… the technique."
Aang hesitated. "I guess… I thought you must have told him."
Katara shook her head, still facing out toward the mountains. "It was… when we went after the man who killed my mother. I used it on the leader of the Southern Raiders. It turned out he wasn't the man after all—but I thought he was at the time."
Aang didn't immediately reply. "...Oh," he said at last.
Katara was starting to regret saying this. Since that day, she had never spoken of that night—at first because the anger still burned inside her, and she didn't feel sorry, not really. She had chosen to spare the man's life, but she still hated him, hated all the people who had done things like he had done. Then, when she and Aang had come together after Sozin's Comet and the end of the war, it had become something she didn't want him to know. An image she didn't want him to picture when he thought of her. But it had also weighed on her, like a secret she was keeping from him—she couldn't turn back now.
"That…" she began, arms coming up to wrap around herself. "That was the worst time. Worse than when I used it on Hama, or even on Azula."
"You were angry," he said slowly, tone understanding.
Katara whirled on him. She could feel the muscles in her face contorting strangely, eyes wide and wild.
"Yes—I was angry. I wanted—I wanted him to have time to feel pain. To be afraid. I wanted him to know there was nothing he could do to defend himself, so he would feel just a little of what my mother felt."
Aang was staring back at her, eyes slightly wider than usual, and Katara couldn't meet his gaze anymore. She half turned away, staring instead at the rocky barren ground between them.
"Aang, this power—it scares me. Because I don't know how I'll use it next, if I get angry, or scared, or desperate enough. It exists, and somehow I can't seem to not use it. I hate it."
Katara didn't look up to see Aang's expression now, the look in his eyes. But she saw as he opened his mouth to speak.
However, Katara tensed—a chill swept over her skin, that had nothing to do with the cold air around her, as the sun had nearly disappeared from the sky. She turned, eyes facing the mountains to the east.
Aang followed her gaze. "It's up," he said softly. "The moon." Instantly, his arms rose, knees bending in a combat pose. "Come on, Katara. We have to do this. Now."
Katara's eyes whipped back around to his face—but whatever reaction he might have had to her words was gone. His expression was only determined, all business.
Katara swallowed hard, then nodded once. She raised one trembling hand. Then, closing her eyes and averting her face, she tugged very lightly, at Aang's right hand.
She felt as it moved with her pull, and her stomach tightened—she thought she might be sick. She moved the hand, which had been hanging at his side, upward, until it was almost waving at her.
"Do it," she whispered, eyes still closed. "Do it, Aang, try to go into the Avatar State."
Aang was quiet for a second, and at last she opened her eyes.
His gaze was solemn. "Katara."
"Do it, Aang!" she demanded. "We have to do it before the others get back."
"Katara," he said again. "It needs to be like a fight. Or I won't know for sure. You can't hold back."
She shook her head vigorously. "I—can't, Aang. I can't!"
"You can," he insisted. "You have to. It's not going to hurt me, Katara, not permanently. I need to know. Do it for me."
Aang was staring back at her, his knees still bent in readiness for combat. His arm was still under her power, raised in the air. The sickness swept through her again.
She shook her head. "No," she whispered. "This is—as far as I'm going to go."
For a moment, Aang looked almost panicked—his eyes wide, as he glanced in desperation toward the east again, the mountains that blocked the view of the moon. Then, as she watched, his expression hardened to one of resolve. His eyes shifted back to her.
With a sudden shout, he broke free of her tentative control, spinning around on the spot.
A gale force wind tore through the clearing, hitting her full force. Katara's hair whipped wildly about her face, and she staggered backward, raising her arms in front of her face instinctively to protect herself.
Aang wasn't finished. He stepped forward again, only this time it wasn't air at his fingers. An enormous blast of flame exploded at her, like a fiery bird with wings extended, too wide to dodge.
Katara's eyes widened, her hands automatically drawing from the water at one of her pouches for a shield. However, it suddenly drew back, as though shoved back by a giant invisible hand, and she looked up to see Aang, his palm raised, fighting her for control.
"No!" he shouted over the roar of the coming flames. "Not that way!"
Katara might have been able to overpower him for control if she'd been ready for it, but she hadn't been ready, and so now all she could do was drop to the ground, hands gripped protectively over her head as the burning flames tore past above. Too close—the air around the flames blazed hot, and she gasped.
The moment the fire dispersed in the air behind her, she looked down at her hands, and was shocked to see the knuckles of her right hand puckered and red. Her eyes darted upward. "Aang, you—"
Aang's face was a mask of intensity, mouth set in a grim angry slash—he had lit another ball of flame, and now it danced above his raised hand. However, as she gazed at his face in the dying light, features cast in sharp relief by the fire, she saw his eyes. They gleamed wet in the firelight, and as she watched, a single tear spilled over, trailing down his face.
For a moment, everything stood still. Aang had once, long ago, burned her by accident. Playing around with his new ability to bend fire, in spite of Master Jeong Jeong's dire warnings. At the time he'd said he would never firebend again, and Katara had not realized how much he meant it, how deep the guilt ran, until after. After they'd made it to the North Pole, and traveled the entire Earth Kingdom, seen Ba Sing Se fall, gone undercover in the Fire Nation—and still, all that time later, he staunchly resisted firebending.
As the thoughts flashed through her mind, she understood—what this was costing him. Just how determined he was to know that he could help her when the moment came.
Katara gritted her teeth. She closed her eyes briefly, and she felt as a tear spilled down her face from one eye, then the other. For a moment she pictured Azula, smiling smugly from wherever she hid, a taunt already on her lips.
And though it was not yet fully night, the sun not quite gone, Katara felt the power surge through her. Her eyes flashed open.
Aang's fist was coming around, flames and smoke trailing after it, building again for another blast—and it froze.
Katara's hands were raised in front of her, fingers bent. She twisted sharply, dragging hard to one side. He moved with her pull, wrist extended in front of him, as though tied to a rampaging komodo-rhino, unable to pull free. She twisted her hands again, dragging back the other way. If she kept him off balance, he couldn't concentrate, couldn't fight back—
With his free hand, his fingers moved, tendrils of flame once again dancing in the air. Katara shifted her focus, freezing him in place, seizing both arms. His arms folded behind his back, locking in place. Hands still raised, Katara began to move her fingers differently—slowly at first, then faster, and faster, until they were scrabbling like tree branches in a harsh wind, tiny rabbit-rat claws scouring a bone. At her command, his blood moved again—pulling and twisting through his veins, yet holding him precisely in place.
Aang gritted his teeth, and a gasp of pain escaped him. He turned his head one way, then the other, as though trying to get away, but unable to. It was a technique she had seen—felt—Hama use, turning the blood in on itself, not just controlling, but forcing the body to cause itself pain. The pain of the blood marshaling itself against the confines of the skin. That was the true power of bloodbending—to control, to turn one's own body into an enemy. Katara didn't doubt that Hama had taught her new disciples this technique, how to cause pain to subdue an opponent, and they would all use it.
Katara felt another tear track its way down her face, but still she didn't look away. Instead, she gritted her teeth again, so hard she thought they might crack, and with hand extended, lowered him to his knees, bowing his head forward.
The sky was now dark overhead—they would be coming soon. But she didn't relent.
For the first time, something tugged at her control, a deep power, deep as time itself, that seemed to well up beneath her fingers. Aang raised his head to look at her—and his eyes glowed a pure white.
Katara clamped down harder, mustering all of her concentration, all her strength. He twitched and jerked, yet slowly he rose back to his feet. She fought, bent fingers gripping hard as she tried to push him back down—but it was like trying to hold down a bucking leopard-whale. The power blazed, too strong to fight.
He raised a hand, arrow tattoos glowing, and she felt the earth rumble beneath her.
Katara let go, dodging sideways just before a pillar of stone erupted from the ground. Crouched down, she spun back to face him, her mind racing—trying to think of what they would do. What means they might use to try to fight such a power. What else might be filled with water that could be controlled.
Katara's eyes focused on his chest—where lay his beating heart.
Katara raised both hands, reaching deep—and felt as his heart responded to her pull. It stuttered once, then twice.
He stumbled slightly, the glowing arrow tattoo on his forehead dipping as his head briefly fell forward with surprise. Then he raised his head, and with a swing of both arms, he broke free in a wave.
She fell backward, landing hard on one elbow. Dazed, she lay there, and her eyes rose. He drew upward slowly, hovering above her, the air trembling with power.
She stared back up for a moment—then closed her eyes.
"...tara."
Katara's mind was foggy as she slowly opened her eyes.
She was laying flat on her back, Aang hovering anxiously over her. His eyes no longer glowed, and he held one of her hands in his.
Katara slowly sat up, then winced, glancing down at her free hand. The skin was still raw and red from the burn.
"You must have blacked out for a second," he said. His eyes followed her gaze to her injured hand, then he glanced away. "Sorry."
Katara reached down, pulling the cork off her water pouch, then drew a sliver from within and spread it over her injured hand like a gauze. "It's okay. I can heal it just fine."
The water hummed with the healing, and they were both silent as they watched.
"Um," he said after a moment. "I guess… I guess we know now. I shouldn't have a problem. Even if there's more of them working on me at the same time, I think the Avatar State will let me break free."
"Yeah," Katara murmured. "I think so too."
She raised her hand, now perfectly back to normal. Then she replaced the water in the waterskin, corking it back up.
They sat in silence for a minute. The hint of red of twilight had nearly gone from the sky now, leaving it dark. The full moon would soon be visible above the mountains.
"So," Aang said at last. "So—are you… okay?"
Katara didn't look at him. Instead, she looked to the east.
"When… do you think the others will get back?"
"Soon, hopefully," he said, cautious. "They could attack soon."
Katara shifted her knees beneath her. "We should be on the lookout for them, then."
She rose to her feet, and though for a moment her head swam with vertigo, she shook herself, forcing her vision to settle.
Aang remained kneeling a moment, his eyes following her. "...Okay." After a moment, he climbed to his feet, too.
Katara walked away from him, eyes scanning, staring out across the empty landscape. The tears had dried on her face, and she wiped the grit from her eyes.
A moment before, she had felt tired—as tired as she could remember being. But that was fading. Instead, something hot was building in her stomach. There were a lot of things she had forgiven in her life—Zuko, for all he had done to them in the early days of their travels, even Jet, in his misguided zeal to exterminate the Fire Nation. But there were some things she just couldn't forgive. Azula had lied to a people that weren't hers, made use of a power that wasn't hers, and now she had driven them to this.
It burned within her. Not anger, exactly—not like the anger against Yon Rha, that sought to destroy. But the will. It might not have been their fault, or not completely their fault, being used by Azula, but that didn't matter now. She would fight them. If she had the power to make all this stop—then she would. She would fight.
A/N: Why do I like bloodbending so much, I'm not sure. The Puppet Master might be my second favorite episode, after The Southern Raiders.
Ty Lee's perspective came unexpectedly in a later draft, again I wanted to step outside the view of all the regulars. (Kind of a rough draft of a scene being a new addition, might get some heavy reworking later.) Her voice along with Sokka's are definitely ones I'll plan to work on in future.
Thanks for reading! If you have a moment, let me know what you thought, and hope to see you in the next one!
Posted 6/22/23