Chapter Thirty two
Experimentation and… A Love Letter?!
Bandages. So many bandages. His uncle managed to get by with a hat and some temporary hair dye, but Zuko was covered in bandages. They made it hard to move, and he worried that if it came to a fight he would be hampered by the stuff. He was not very enthusiastic, but it couldn't be helped. This was their best and only plan to find passage without being recognized.
Song was still with them, and she walked beside Sugar Foot with Iroh. To bolster the facade of injury, his uncle had insisted that Zuko ride atop the ostrich-horse. He had refused to tell Iroh her original name, and began anew his endeavor to not own an ostrich-horse named Sugar Foot. She was Yaoke, named for the dawn. He wished that she would accept it, though if anything, she had begun to hate the name more than ever.
"Come along, Yaoke," Iroh said, lightly pulling the reins as they approached the ship he had booked passage on. The animal squawked in rebellion and pulled against the old general. Iroh stopped in surprise at her sudden change in attitude, for she had been very sweet and obedient until that moment.
"What did you say, Mushi?" Song asked, using the cover name. Zuko gritted his teeth. He had hoped that it wouldn't come up and that his steed's name would be forever changed, but, as usual, his luck was nonexistent.
"I was encouraging Yaoke to follow us, but she seems to have a bad feeling about…" He trailed off as Sugar Foot clawed at the ground. His brow furrowed slightly, and the beginning of concern filled his eyes. It was dispelled quickly as Song laughed.
"Not this again; Lee, you know how she feels about her name!" Song said, placing her hands on her hips and looking at the bandaged and disguised prince. Zuko looked away. Iroh glanced from Zuko to Song, and then at the ostrich-horse.
"Her name is Sugar Foot, and she really doesn't like when she is called anything by else." Song explained, "When I first met Lee, she had thrown him from the saddle because he kept calling her a different name. He had to come to my hospital."
Iroh chuckled heartily at the revelation and covered it by pretending it was a cough when he saw Zuko's irritated expression. "Oh, well, I like Sugar Foot better. It's a sweet name for a sweet lady."
He scratched the small feathers of her face as Sugar Foot cooed. The beast gave no further trouble as she followed Iroh towards the dock. When they reached the dock where their ship was moored, Song stopped walking. She bid farewell to Iroh and Zuko, and wished them luck with a bow. She didn't watch them leave, instead she turned away and walked back into the town.
Song thought of her feelings for Zuko. She had been rather smitten with him, and he seemed to harbor at least some affection for her. He would be the Fire Lord though, and that was not the kind of life that Song wanted to pursue. She didn't love him, of course, she didn't; they had spent hardly any time together and the majority of that time was while he was lying to her about who he was. She couldn't really blame him though, for she understood his reasoning.
Now as she walked further into the city she didn't turn in the direction of her home. She stood at a crossroads. If she took the left-hand path, she would return home and resume her life as a nurse. If she took the right-hand path, she wasn't sure where it would take her. Maybe it would lead her nowhere, or perhaps it would take her across the world. Could she help more people if she stayed with her mother? Or maybe she could help people in little ways, in the everyday acts of kindness that the world so desperately needed, if she took this strange, new road. She tapped her foot and made up her mind. She turned right and began to walk, her pack hoisted onto her shoulders. She was sure that her mother would worry, and it filled her with sadness to imagine the distress her absence would cause, but Song knew that she could send a message back home. She would help anyone she could, wherever she went. No matter where this road took her, even if she found her way to the Fire Nation. She thought people there might need her help most of all, for they knew little of their banished prince, of a man she was proud to call her friend.
Katara opened her eyes. The sky was beginning to grow bright with the first rays of the morning sun. The soft and clean light of a new day seemed to chase away the remnants of the cold and trying night, scouring clean the refuse left by the hardships and trials of the day before.
Stretching herself, Katara yawned and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She climbed out of her sleeping bag and saw her brother was still asleep. For the first time since the siege, he had slept longer than her. She idly wondered if he had slept much, if at all, before that morning. Either way, he was asleep now. She assumed that with the return to his normal personality, or at least close to it, his appetite would resume its monstrous capacity as well.
Bending water from the small mountain stream beside their camp, Katara filled a pot to start making breakfast. She built a small fire, and then wondered if it was possible to heat the water with her bending. She rubbed her chin as she pondered the possibility. If she could freeze it, and then melt it, it stood to reason that she could get the water to at least near a boil. She thought of how she melted water back into liquid form. Perhaps she should just… Do that harder? She tried, and then carefully tested the water. Nothing. It was still cold.
"Hmm," She said slowly. She licked her teeth as she thought of the issue. She had to think of how to make the water hot. Fire was hot. How did firebenders make fire? They always took a breath first, and she thought she recalled Zuko exhaling sharply with each gout of flame. Maybe that was it? She took a deep breath and performed the movement to melt the ice. She was rewarded for her efforts when a cloud of steam wafted up from the now boiling pot.
Katara let out an inarticulate cheer over her success, waking Aang and Momo from their sleep. Momo jumped into the air, and Aang snapped into a combat stance, his hands raised towards the non-existent foe.
"What's going on?! Is it Azula? Did Zuko decide to be evil again!?" He said, turning in circles as he looked for a foe.
"Oh, sorry," Katara laughed, "It's, well, it's something cool! I boiled water!"
Aang lowered his guard and raised an eyebrow at her. "Well, yeah, we do that almost every day."
Katara's smile died as she realized he had misunderstood. "No, I meant like this!"
She swiftly froze the water, melted it, and made it boil again. Aang was astounded. "Oh my goodness! I didn't know that was even possible!"
"Neither did I," Katara said, smiling again. "I just thought about how firebenders create their fire, and tried that on the water."
Aang narrowed his eyes at her, and then smiled coyly. "Are you sure you're not secretly the Avatar? You know, I don't think I've ever bent anything except for air without you around."
Katara snorted. "Well, that's just not true."
"And how would you know? You weren't there."
Katara rolled her eyes. "Alright, alright, I guess I'm the Avatar."
"See?" Aang said, "I always knew you were special."
Katara blushed at that. He said she was special. The corner of her lips twitched upward. "Well, if I'm the Avatar, then you should teach me some of your airbending."
Aang's smile seemed to rival the sun for its brightness. His elation was so great that he practically shouted, "That's a great idea!"
"Hmrph" Sokka grunted from his sleeping bag. Aang looked chagrined.
"Well, jokes aside, I can't really airbend, so I don't think there's much use in learning…" Katara began, but Aang shook his head in disagreement.
"Maybe you can't airbend, but look what you did by imitating a firebender." He gestured to the pot. "I bet if I taught you some airbending moves, you could come up with something really great!"
"Like what?" Katara asked, her curiosity peaked and all thoughts of breakfast and the boiling water were forgotten.
"Uhh… Something?"
Katara shrugged, and smiling brightly she said, "Let's try it!"
The pair walked behind Appa, where Aang started explaining the theory of airbening to her. "Airbending is all about circular movements, finding the path of least resistance."
He raised his arm toward her in a practiced motion and Katara did the same. Their wrists met, and Aang began guiding her through the winding forms of the Air Nomad tradition. She was focused on her footwork, keeping in pace with his. She felt a slight pressure against her wrist and she turned with the motion.
"There you go; you're a natural!" Aang said.
Katara looked to meet his eyes, but found that they weren't at the level they used to be. When had he grown? She hadn't noticed before, but now their eyes were at around the same height, and his might have even been a hair above hers. She stopped moving and so did he. Their arms slowly lowered, and the space between them shrank. He was so close to her, and she couldn't look away from his striking gray eyes. She leaned into him and…
"What are you doing?" Sokka asked. Katara and Aang leapt apart at his sudden interruption.
"Uhh…" Aang said, and his face became a bright pink.
"We…" Katara began, for some reason not wanting to explain the intimate moment to her brother. "Were… having a staring contest."
Sokka looked surprised. "You just lied to me."
"No," Aang said, and then he bumbled an awkward explanation. "We were staring. A contest of stares. A staring contest: A competition in which you stare. That was the thing that you saw."
Sokka looked at Aang, and he bore a slightly hurt expression. "You too? If you don't want to tell me that's fine, but you don't have to lie. I can probably guess anyway."
Katara started to respond but Sokka waved her off. "Food's done. Rice, and some fruit I found."
Sokka rounded the bison again and was out of sight. Katara looked at Aang sheepishly. Aang shrugged, still a touch red. They too walked to the food.
Zuko laid in his bunk in the small cabin that Iroh had arranged for them. The voyage to Yu Dao would only take a few days, a week at most. According to some of the crew, it was possible to make it there in a little more than a day if they had favorable currents and weather. Zuko hoped that was the case on this trip, and he was trying to calculate the likelihood when his uncle came into the room. Iroh closed the door behind him and withdrew something from the satchel on his hip.
"I bought you these books while I was getting supplies in town." Iroh said as he handed Zuko a pair of old and tattered books. "Since you won't be able to walk around the ship much, I thought that this would give you something to do."
Zuko took the books and examined him. One was a book of the philosophy of an Earth King from centuries ago, and the other was… "The Methods and Theory of Combustion Bending?"
Iroh nodded. "I know that you have always had an interest in it, and when I saw the book I thought it would be an interesting read."
Zuko smiled, despite the discomfort of his disguise. He appreciated his uncle going out of his way, even for the small things like the books.
"Anyway, Prince Zuko, there's a Pai Sho tournament that I intend to participate in, so I won't be in the cabin until late…"
Zuko glared at his uncle. He would have bet good money that the old man had orchestrated the tournament himself. Well, he thought, it didn't matter much. If his uncle was happy, he was fine with it. His glare softened. He nodded and began to read as Iroh left the cabin. He was immersed in the theory almost instantly.
It seemed that opposite normal firebending, the combustion bending style was released through the focus of one's mind almost entirely. It was new information to him, as the scrolls he had read in the palace as a child had little to no information beyond the basics. Combustion benders condensed the flame until it was at the target, and then released the pressure in one instant. Perhaps the lack of information given by the scrolls available to him at the time was the reason he could never create the smallest explosion? He had used the classical stances and moves used in traditional firebending.
He flipped through page after page of the thin book, until he came across a diagram of a man. The pictures indicated the man taking a breath, and then a line formed from his eyes to the target, and the third image showed the man exhaling and the target was obscured by an explosion. It… wasn't very helpful. There was no instruction besides the pictures, just a message advising extreme caution.
"That doesn't tell me anything!" Zuko snapped at the book. "Just breathe and look at the target?! And be careful? Wow, I never would have thought to be cautious while firebending, thank Agni for that tidbit!"
The cabin door creaked open and Iroh stepped through the door.
"Lee!" He said as a hulking man followed him into the room. The man had a shaved head and a short, neatly trimmed beard. He had evidently lost his arm and leg, for he wore two iron prosthetics in their place. On his brow lay a tattoo of a vertical red eye.
"This kind man is a combustion bender, and he has agreed to give a demonstration!"
"So King Bumi is just waiting then?" Sokka asked with his mouth full of rice and fruit. Katara grimaced and averted her eyes. Gross.
"Yeah, pretty much." Aang said, after having the decency to swallow his mouthful first.
"That's good; I was worried that you couldn't get him out because we got caught." Sokka said, and he looked towards the ground as he spoke. Aang shook his head and assured him it wasn't the case. Katara frowned, as she had no idea how they were discovered.
"How did Azula know we were there?" She wondered aloud. Aang shrugged and grunted his confusion as he ate. Sokka, however, flushed and looked away. Katara narrowed her eyes. Sokka had gone into the palace during his ascent of the wall. Had she seen him there?
"Sokka…" Katara began, and she gave him a suspicious look. "Did Azula see you when you climbed into that room?"
"Oh yeah, why did you go inside of the palace?" Aang asked.
"Uh, no reason. And no, she didn't see me."
"Sokka." Katara said, and her voice carried an accusatory note. He was hiding something from them.
"Uh… the thing is, well, I still had her hairpiece, and then I was passing her room so I-"
Aang gasped, staring at him in shock. "You broke into her room? Did you at least jam her door shut or something? Like, I don't know, move her furniture a few inches to the left so that she would bump into it when she's in a rush?"
"You went into her room to return her hairpiece?!" Katara said. She got to her feet and put her hands on her hips. "After all that 'stop acting like goblins! You're being suspicious!' stuff! What were you thinking!?"
"I didn't think they would have been back yet! Her or her friends! If I had, I wouldn't have left the hairpiece, or the note!"
It was Katara's turn to gasp. "You left her a love letter!?"
Zuko hobbled his way up to the main deck of the ship. He took care to stop frequently, and leaned on his uncle often. It wouldn't do to be found out already, and he hoped that he wouldn't have to be. He already had one successful voyage in which he hid his identity, so why not two? Maybe he would make a hobby of it. No, he thought, that was a terrible idea.
They eventually made it to the main deck, and then towards the stern. When they finally made it to the back of the ship, the unnamed stranger motioned for them to step back. He gestured for Zuko to watch carefully. The man took a sharp, deep breath and clenched his abdominal muscles. A line of condensed fire shot from his forehead and out to sea. There was a few seconds, a series of sharp pops and snaps, and then an explosion a few hundred feet away.
Zuko had watched carefully. He observed everything that the man had done, but he still did not understand how he had done it. "How do you do it?"
The man turned his head towards Zuko, and raised his still intact fist. He punched out towards the stern and a blast of fire shot out. "Learn the feeling."
The man walked away from them, and disappeared below deck. Zuko frowned. He punched out with his one non-bandaged hand and bent a stream of fire. He focused on the feeling, but he still couldn't tell what the behemoth had meant. He looked to his uncle, who seemed lost in thought.
"Uncle, do you know what he meant?"
Iroh shook his head as if to clear it. "What?"
"Do you know what he meant by 'learn the feeling'?" Zuko asked.
Iroh paused and stroked his now chestnut beard. "When he performed his combustive strike, he pooled the energy in his mind and focused it through his tattoo. I suppose he meant to focus your energy, and then release it without letting it catch fire."
Zuko raised his eyebrows. "How do you know he did that?"
"I could see it." He said and gestured vaguely to his forehead, still lost in thought. "With my third eye."
"Your what?"
"it was not a love letter!" Sokka nearly shouted, his face red as an apple.
"Oh I find that so easy to believe!" Katara said. She wasn't sure if she was angry or amused, so she decided to be both. "She kissed you, and then only hours later you sneak into her room to leave her gifts and notes! Of all of the stupid things, of all of the women, you just had to pick her!"
Sokka stood up and walked over to Katara. He pointed a finger in her face and said, "I was handcuffed! I didn't have a choice. And, might I add, I had said I would return the hairpiece after we got out of the cave, so that's what I did. Oh yeah, and that 'love letter' was a note bragging about our successful infiltration and rescue, that I left just to make her mad!"
Katara scoffed. "Yeah, okay."
"That's exactly what I did." Sokka crossed his arms as he sat back down. He shot a final glare at Katara. "I don't care if you believe it. It's still the truth."
Katara threw her hands up in exasperation and walked across the small campsite to sit beside Aang. Aang had just been sitting there while he twiddled his thumbs awkwardly. Evidently, he was eager to move to a different subject, for he said, "Moving on from all of that, I still need to find an earthbending teacher. Bumi said that I need to find someone who waits and listens, but I don't even know where to look!"
Sokka uncrossed his arms and stroked his chin. He licked his teeth as he considered the problem, but Katara proffered a solution first. "We know that we have to go to the library in the Si Wong desert, so maybe we should look in the cities and towns near there? That way we can find a teacher and then get to the library as fast as possible."
"Yeah," Aang said, "That could work. The sooner we can find out more about Vaatu and the stuff La told you about the better."
"What? When did you talk to the Ocean Spirit?" Sokka asked, looking at his sister with confused curiosity. Katara was still rather annoyed with him, if only for his hypocrisy over not being suspicious in Omashu. She pushed down the feeling and answered him.
"On our last day at the North Pole, I went to the spirit Oasis and asked for help from the spirits."
"Help with what?" Sokka asked
"With your bond with Koh. La told me that he didn't know how to get your soul back, but that…" She trailed off. As she had begun to explain, the light in Sokka's eyes had gone out. He stared out into space as if he couldn't see anything, as if he was someplace far away. Had he entered the void? Why would he do that, if he had said just the previous afternoon that he had no desire to live in the vast emptiness anymore?
"Sokka?" Aang asked, for he too had noticed the change that came over the swordsman. He walked over to him and waved a hand in front of his face. No reaction was forthcoming. He shook Sokka lightly, but there was still no reaction. Aang looked at Katara, and his concern was evident in his expression.
Zuko lay awake in his bed as his uncle snored violently. Third eyes, chi, spirit energy, bending, all of that and the kitchen sink. He wondered now if he could open his third eye, or if only some people could manage it. He thought it would be easier to learn new forms of bending if he could see the energy flow through the body. He guessed that was what made Uncle Iroh such a good teacher.
The combustion bender had said to learn the feeling of his bending. Learn the feeling. How could you learn a feeling? Didn't you just feel it? He blew his hair out of his eyes. He thought about cutting it, as it had started to get out of hand. He disregarded the errant thought and returned to the question he was mulling over.
When he was a young boy, his mother had told him that the blind man has heightened senses to make up for the lack of sight. Perhaps that was the key? Close his eyes and firebend. Not the safest course of action, but not the most dangerous either. He raised his hand and closed his eyes. He focused on the feeling of his arm, and then released a flame. He felt… something. A light pressure that rushed past his limb. Was that what the behemoth had meant? Focus on that feeling?
Zuko began to channel more energy into his limb for a stronger blast of fire, but paused. He opened his eyes and lowered his hand. It occurred to him that experimenting with firebending, so that he could eventually try combustion bending, was not an indoor activity to be practiced on a passenger ship. They would be disembarking in Yu Dao soon enough, and then they would be off to Gaoling. He could wait.
He closed his eyes for a final time that night, and the rocking of the ship sent him into a much-needed sleep.
"What's wrong with him?!" Katara asked. Aang threw his hands in the air and paced around. "I don't know! It's like he's gone into the Spirit World!"
"No, this is different," Katara said, "When he goes into the spirit world shadows stretch across the ground and cover his face."
Just then, Sokka shuddered and stamped a foot on the ground. He shook his head once and looked around. "Sorry, I must've spaced out for a second. What were you saying about the Ocean Spirit?"
"Sokka! What happened? What was that?" Aang asked. Sokka raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"What was what?" He asked.
"When Katara brought up a way to get your soul back, to break the bond with the Face Stealer, you- Gah! Not again!" Aang shouted the last part of the sentence when Sokka seemed to lose all awareness. His vacant, lifeless eyes stared unblinkingly into space. Aang looked at Katara.
Katara felt her heart skip a beat as suspicion formed in her mind, and she hoped that it would not be true. "Aang, we need to talk about something else, quick!"
Aang's face went blank. He looked around at the morning light. "Uh, nice weather we're having today."
"Aang, why are you talking about the weather? You were just telling me what Katara wanted to say. What was it?" Sokka said. Aang and Katara shared a look. Katara took a deep breath. She decided to test her theory, rather than dance around the subject.
"I want to break your bond with the Face Stealer." She said in a rush. For the third time, Sokka seemed to enter a sort of coma; a state of total unawareness. Katara groaned in displeasure.
"Everytime we bring it up, he leaves, like he falls out of his own mind or something. Aang, I don't think Sokka will be able to help us. I think we're going to have to do this on our own."
The Avatar looked at Sokka with sad eyes, and a shadow of doubt flitted across his face. Katara couldn't see it, and it was fortunate for her that she did not, for if she had, it would have broken her heart. Aang was worried that Sokka couldn't be saved at all. He wiped his face of expression and turned to Katara.
"Maybe I should go and speak with him." Aang said. Upon the change of subject, Sokka snapped out of his stupor and looked at Aang quizzically.
"Speak with who?" He asked. Katara looked between the two boys, a knot of fear filled her stomach, and she wasn't quite sure why. Aang would be fine, wouldn't he? He was the Avatar, after all.
"The Face Stealer." Aang answered quietly after a few seconds.
The sun shone brightly over the city of Yu Dao. Zuko and his uncle disembarked from the ship and entered the bustling port city. They had made surprisingly good time, as strong currents and favorable weather shortened their journey from one of a few days into a single night and morning. Now Zuko led Sugar Foot across the city towards the road that led east, towards Earth Kingdom controlled territory and eventually Gaoling.
"How long until we get there, Uncle?" Zuko asked. Iroh unrolled the map and read it for a moment. He stroked his beard for a few seconds, and said, "Well, it would be a week on foot, but it depends on how fast and for how long Sugar Foot can carry us. A few days at best, I think."
Zuko nodded. A few days was better than the month of traveling that they had avoided, and he hoped that the Avatar would be found soon. He idly wondered if he would have already found a firebending teacher by then, but he doubted it. Aang still had to learn earthbending, and though he had picked up waterbending rapidly, it would still take a while for him to master the next discipline.
Before they made it out of Yu Dao, Zuko double checked their food supply, and that of Sugar Foot. He did not want a repeat of his last crosscountry expedition.
Author's Note:
She is in the wings. I know that a few of the more regular readers have been excited for her introduction, and I can now say that Toph will make her grand entrance quite soon.
I hope that you all have had a wonderful new year and wish everyone good fortune in the days to come.
1/1/2023
