Not Too Far from the Yew Tree

by hojichasunrise

Katara: two years of isolation chasing after her brother who vanished into the Earth Kingdom looking for work. Zuko: six years of isolation on an iron ship slowly losing hope that his horizon might ever change. After coming to realize his father never meant for him to return home, Zuko throws his fate in with Katara's side, but halting one hundred years of momentum isn't that easy.

14. Flowers in Absentia

Chapter 14 – Flowers in Absentia

In the northwestern Earth Kingdom a city had been carved out of a mountain, and it was there, in the silent stonework, that Appa landed under a heavy grey sky. Katara stepped down and surveyed the area. Shrubs were overtaking what had once been paved streets and the elements had worn down finer carved details. What had previously been artistry remained as vague impressions, chisel marks rounded. The first raindrops fell. White streets darkened in the downpour. Aang zipped around, one hand waterbending the rain off his shoulders and the other powering the air scooter under him, and scouted the area. Zuko deboarded and frowned at the sky. As Aang returned to guide them to a suitable location, Katara began serving to shield Appa and their group from the rain. Her brother and Suki remained in the saddle, but Zuko clung to the side of Appa and walked beside them. They entered what had been, at one time, a mansion, perhaps owned by a wealthy trader. Taku had been an international trade hub before the Fire Nation wiped it off the map shortly after they had finished the genocide of the Air Nomads. Aang, thusly, had not known what condition it would be in, and had falsely assumed it would be populated, despite Zuko's warning, until he saw the truth for himself.

The mansion had enough rooms that everyone could take a private bed, and the central courtyard served Appa's needs well. Momo remained wary of Sokka and learned Suki to be a friend, but he enjoyed most of all to flit onto the wide shoulder of the firebender, who never raised a hand to shoo him off no matter how annoying he could be. Currently the lemur was snacking on a peach and dripping the juice down over Zuko's clothing, but he didn't seem to mind and left him be. They gathered in a dining area adjacent to the kitchen and dug through their supplies, trying to find a suitable arrangement for supper. Aang watched Momo's tail tickle against Zuko's ear and down his shirt, and the young man remained motionless and allowed it. "So, you seem to like lemurs," said Aang uncertainly, trying at conversation.

"There were a lot of monkeys at the Eastern Air Temple."

"Did you make friends with them?" the boy asked.

"I considered catching them for dinner, but I didn't think they would taste good."

The airbender swallowed hard and flicked his eyes to the hapless lemur, who couldn't understand his words and was preoccupied fussing with the slimy remains of the peach. Finally he dropped the pit onto Zuko's lap. He calmly picked it up and set it on the table.

"Dinner will be rice with preserved vegetables," said Katara after having taken inventory.

"Meat?" asked her brother.

"Catch some and we'll talk," she replied. He looked out towards the window and slumped dejectedly at the state of the downpour.

Zuko picked the lemur off his shoulder, who drooped in half fluidly and went limp, and set him on the table. "Aang, while they make dinner let's have your first lesson. Come to the courtyard."

"In the rain?"

"Yes. If you mess up, the rain will limit the damage done to the surroundings. Being the Avatar you must have immense power, and we need to manage the risk during your training."

The two went off, though Aang was reluctant to become drenched. Katara, in the kitchen, set the rice on and went to the window to watch them. Zuko could see that she was watching, but Aang's back was to her. "Sit down," he directed the younger boy, and pointed at the center of the courtyard. Appa was nestled in the corner under the awning to stay dry, and the wide yard gave them plenty of room for practice. Aang plopped down in the mud obediently. "Now, hold your palm out like this, and focus on your breathing. Fire is powered by the breath. Try to restrict your flame into the center depression of your palm, and don't let it overflow."

Aang lifted his hands as directed and focused. Several minutes passed and nothing happened. Zuko asked, somewhat impatiently, "Well? Are you breathing?"

"Yes, of course I'm breathing," muttered Aang. "Just because I'm the Avatar doesn't mean I'm automatically good at bending, you know. I mean, I spent weeks practicing earthbending and can barely roll a pebble over the ground."

"What? But I thought—well, nevermind. Just, uh, breathe and, try to, erh," the firebender wavered, then ruffled a hand through his hair, which was soaking wet. "I didn't expect that."

"What was it like when you learned? Did you just zap out a whole explosion?"

"No. I could barely light a candle after three years of trying."

Aang stood up, then wiped the mud off his pants. "I'm going back inside. Let's start with the candle." The two trudged in and Katara heard Suki scold them not to track mud everywhere. Aang, then, pooled out rainwater as it fell, collected it, and bathed himself clothing and all, then tossed the muddy water back to the courtyard with a splash, leaving himself clean and dry head to toe. The rice began bubbling over and Katara hurried to lift the lid. Glops of starchy foam plopped onto the cooking fire with a hiss. With that attended she went back to the doorway to watch them, as Zuko asked the airbender, "A little help?" and held his arms out to either side imploringly. Aang repeated the procedure on him. His hair was left slicked up like an onion top. He looked over and saw her watching, then hurriedly fixed his hair to lay flat.

They ate dinner together, which Aang enjoyed, Sokka despised, and Zuko and the two girls ate without note. Sokka pulled her aside after dinner. "Do you really think this is okay? What if he gets to Aang, corrupts him?"

"Corrupts him how, Sokka?"

"Well, you know. Brainwashes him or something, with firebender sorcery."

"I watched Momo wipe peach juice on his nose and he didn't even react." She stepped back as her brother peered curiously at her. "What?"

"Your last boyfriend turned out to be a murderous dud, you know, so you'd better not get any ideas about—" His quip was cut off as she shoved him away, and then she turned on her heel and left to her bedroom for the night. She snuggled into her sleeping sack, with its soft, warm fur lining, and tried to forget his words.

#

They spent three days with Aang focusing on the candle flame in meditation. Zuko was satisfied that he could indeed influence the fire and gave him further instructions. The way to avoid self-destruction was with self-control, and that required him to build a foundation with his new student. As he left the room the Avatar was established in, he found the waterbender glaring at him. "Uh, yes?" he asked, feeling like he was about to be chastised by a school marm. He had nowhere to go and no benefit to be gained by betraying them, but despite that the siblings still kept him under close watch. Ironically the guard was the most relaxed with him. He couldn't complain—if not for them the head of the dai li would be watching Zuko's head rolling across the ground.

"Come with me," she ordered, and he followed obediently. Her braid style was left behind, and she kept a half-ponytail that left the bulk of the volume loose, pinned with the ornament. She led him outside to an empty lane beside a small creek. "I want to practice with you."

He felt a flash of fear. If he accidentally hurt her, that brother of hers would use his intestines as fishing bait. "Is that really okay? Maybe Suki should come watch us. Just in case."

She flushed. "Look, I've never been formally taught, and I can't teach Aang something I myself do not know. My profession is healing, and I'm good at it. I've had a lot of practice. But I've never fought a firebender before, and if Aang's goal is to stop the Fire Nation and restore balance, that situation is inevitable. I need to improve so I can teach him properly. So just shoot some fire at me or something and stop arguing."

The stance she took looked unbalanced, but he had no knowledge of waterbending and didn't want to give her advice on adjusting it from the perspective of a firebender. He looked back, still feeling that his guard should at least be notified of their intent, but he wasn't given any time to hesitate as a whip of water flicked him in the head. "Ow!"

"Do something."

"Fine." He pictured his early lessons and approached it as if teaching a child, with slowed motions and gentle pops of flame. It might have been condescending, but her current level required that approach and, despite her look of frustration, she was barely able to keep up with him even that much. Spheres of water were flung at him, which he burst into harmless mist, and her whips he fractured at midway, cutting off her flow of control. She was focusing on her posture and foot placement, as if through intent alone she could invent every form she needed to know, and rediscover something she had never been taught. When she developed more assurance in her footing, he took initiative to take her off balance with a series of flame-puffs. She backed away in a rush, lost her previous grounding, and was stumbling without form. "Keep your balance," he said.

She grit her teeth to take a suggestion, but regained her centering. After that point he could not again throw her off mark, and she moved fluidly around in step with him. As her confidence improved she could pay less attention to her feet and more to the fire, though she was still only reacting and not anticipating. An expression passed her face of brief surprise followed by strong intent, and she threw a bolt of water out, this one far more dense and sturdy than her previous, its speed and mass maintained by an internal spiral, the way one throws a ball to gain the most distance and straightest flight path. Zuko prepared to counter, but its aim was not at him but slightly up and to the side. He looked over as the water connected with a boomerang, then shielded his eyes as the burst splattered over him.

"Sokka, what the hell?" she shouted at her brother, who had snuck up on them and hurled the boomerang at Zuko's head from his blind spot.

"An ashmaker is over here shooting fire at my sister and you—"

"I asked him to practice with me. Aang isn't the only one who could benefit from his being here. I want to improve, too, and he might not be a waterbending master but I can still at least spar with him and prepare myself for what's ahead."

"You're already a healer. I think the North is right, women are best staying at home practicing medical treatment. Even in the South we don't send our women to war. You don't need to know about fighting, so come away from that fire-demon before he hurts you."

"I wouldn't hurt her," Zuko replied, but was spoken over by Katara's own reply, "You might feel that way but they don't, no Fire Nation soldier would spare me just because I'm female, they certainly didn't spare Mom!"

Her brother recoiled from her rage and brushed his hand over the back of his head, looking off in the distance unable to meet her eyes. He regathered his weapon and sheathed it. "I was just concerned is all."

"I don't need your concern, I need your cooperation. Apologize to him."

"What?"

"Apologize to Zuko for trying to kill him."

He looked ready to curse before apologize, but then said, in a rather civil tone, "Sorry. Just a misunderstanding," and left back towards the mansion.

She was still upset, and turned her back to him to wipe her face. Zuko, trying to find some way to calm her, said, "Your brother meant well. I would probably do the same."

"I want a break," she said in a voice like she was trying not to cry.

"Okay."

She sat down next to the stream and let the water wash between her fingertips. Probably she felt it was comforting, as Zuko did candle meditation. He wandered over to an area of long grass, trying to give her privacy, and knelt to dig through. Wildflowers were growing between the weeds. He watched grasshoppers leap out. One landed on a long stalk of grass, sending it pendulating with its weight as it clung to the side. A memory surfaced of a time when he was very young and was seated with his mother in a meadow. He selected through and picked a number of the flowers and grass vines, then sat down with them in his lap, twisting them as his mother had shown him. When finished he tested the structure and felt it satisfactory, then stood up to find Katara, who had recovered and was relaxing by the stream. He extended it to her. "Here."

"A flower crown?"

"Well, girls like these, right? I gave one to my sister once, when she was upset after fighting with her friend."

Katara took it and examined it gently, turning it over to see the blue and white flowers laced into the weave. "Did she like it?"

"She set it on fire, actually. But I don't think you'll do that."

She laughed, then stood up with it placed over her hair. "It smells nice, too. Want to keep practicing for another round?"

He agreed. She set the crown nearby so it wouldn't be damaged and each retook their previous positions. Again they passed attacks to each other, her stance remaining solid and fluid throughout as she'd discovered from the previous round, and nothing had been lost on her. Seeing progress and no longer as wary of making a mistake, he felt more at ease and began to enjoy himself. For him, as well, it was a novelty to train with another element user, and he could see why his uncle had studied them. Fire could be generated at will, but water required continuity, and her balanced, sweeping movements were mesmerizing. Water had to maintain itself from start to end, and the waterbender had to conserve their reservoir. There were more restrictions on her than with fire's use, but the solution waterbenders had arrived at was elegant. Calm, drawn out steps and easy turns carried her.

They rested half an hour later and agreed to return to the mansion for the time being. Zuko called his student out of meditation and assigned him some drills to complete, then went to the dining area for tea with the others. Suki, carrying in a basket of mountain vegetables she'd gathered, saw the flower crown Katara wore and commented, "Pretty." The two commiserated over it. Sokka had come in clutching a limp rabbit and looked around, found Suki, and prepared to show off his catch to her at the time he saw Zuko standing nearby. The young man then looked away and went quietly to the kitchen to leave the game at a cutting board. The two women went into the kitchen, saw the rabbit, and Katara gave an angry shout to her brother to finish his job by butchering it properly, after which he slunk back inside with a fillet knife. "Honestly, Sokka, I am not your servant and neither is Suki."

"It took me two hours to catch this rabbit."

"And it took Suki two hours to gather the vegetables."

Zuko commented, "I think the rabbit looks good. It's plump." Sokka smiled before remembering the compliment came from an 'ashmaker' and then frowned again while slitting the hide open from the belly. "Are you going to save the fur and tan it?"

"I sure am. These pelts are valuable."

Aang joined them, wiping sweat from his brow after his set of hotsquats had been completed, and watched Katara lighting the cooking fire using the sparkrocks. He watched with as much interest as if he'd never seen a sparkrock before. After she was done, he asked, "Can I see those?" She handed them over doubtfully and watched as he clicked them together slowly, then quickly. "How do these work, anyway? I've used them my whole life but never thought about it."

"The friction creates a spark," Sokka explained.

"Friction?"

"The resistance from two things moving against each other. You can make fire by rubbing two sticks together fast enough and long enough, too, but that takes forever and is a pain in the butt. Sparkrocks you just clack and zap."

It looked like he was arriving at some epiphany, and he pulled Zuko along back to the training room, an empty drawing room they'd cleared out and converted to a dojo. Candles were placed along a block of stone at the corner, but the rest of the floor had been reserved as an empty space. Not only Aang but Suki also used the area—apparently she and her boyfriend were training together whenever Aang was not utilizing it. He sat down in front of the candles and held the stones in front of him. "Sifu Zuko, I think I figured out why fire has been so hard for me. In airbending there is a complete lack of friction. If an airbender wants, he doesn't even need to touch the ground to walk at all. But to generate fire you need something more. Friction, heat, some kind of spark. Is that right?"

"Yes. Your breath is the fuel, and you can consider intent as the initial spark. The intent to attack, the intent to birth flame. It needs to be created, whereas air already exists."

"Just my wanting to make fire isn't enough intent?"

"Well, most firebenders put emotion into it, like anger."

"So you have to be angry all the time?"

"I'm not angry all the time," he snapped. "There are other ways, too; my uncle never looks angry, but he's an excellent firebender."

He toyed with the sparkrocks for a few minutes, thinking something over, and then set them aside and turned to the candles. Entering lotus pose, Aang began meditating. In a few moments he opened his eyes and glared at the candles with his body tensed and face tight. A spark passed over the wick, although it didn't light. "It worked?"

"That's a good start," Zuko replied. "You're a firebender now."

With a wide grin he leapt up and hugged Zuko, catching him off guard. "You're the best firebending teacher ever! It only took three days, not three years."

Flustered, he pushed the boy off and chastised, "Not quite. You threw a spark but the candle still isn't lit. Focus on doing that same thing again until dinner is ready."

He pivoted and plopped back down into lotus. "Understood, Sifu Zuko!"

"Don't call me that."

#

Katara hung the dried flower crown as a wreath on her door. A month passed in peace. Aang went from casting half a spark to being able to perform novice-level firebending, enough to begin sparring, and his days were divided between training with Zuko and with her. What she learned from her sparring with Zuko, she passed to Aang, but she was quickly reaching the limit of what she could invent on her own. The North had teachers, but they wouldn't help her, only him, and the thought of begging for their assistance welled up bile; the North had been almost as vicious to them as the Fire Nation had. Katara could only imagine a land of snow and ice, with all their directions backwards, the sea on the wrong side, the sun rising with the other cardinal wind, and instead of comfort she would find condescension.

In a swamp at the lowlands outside the city, thigh-deep, she and Aang exchanged blows with bullfrogs in the background bellowing. Dead trees punctuated the brown water where the rising level had over time come to drown the lowest reach of the forest. Thick mud was papered over with layers of oak leaves and the water swirled with red pigment from the mountains surrounding the area. Iron mines criss-crossed the area and their shafts ran deeper than any of their group wanted to explore. Sokka had been the only one to venture far in, for the sake of his own curiosity, and with his experience he'd warned the others not to enter. "Sometimes the air becomes bad inside a mine, and if you breathe it, you'll die. You won't have time to make it to Katara and she won't be able to help you anyway. It's best to stay clear of them," he'd warned.

Aang paused while distracted and her attack thumped him across the chest. He splashed down and his head went under the swampwater. When he emerged his clothes were soaked through brown and slimy but, with a shaved head, at least he didn't have to worry about his hair becoming matted with sludge. He coughed out the putrid water and spat. "Katara, did you see that, over there?" He pointed. "There was a light." Where he indicated was a side of the mountain near a mine shaft, hidden behind the trees.

"I didn't see. What kind of light?"

"Well, it looked like a lantern."

"Maybe it was Sokka."

"Yeah, maybe," he replied, and wrung his shirt out. "Should we head back for the day? It's a long hike back up the mountain to the mansion."

They had about two hours of daylight left, so she agreed, and they cleaned off at a creek that fed the swamp. The water was mineral-laden but at least was not impregnated with the heavy murkiness of decayed plant-matter as the swamp was. She looked again towards where he said he'd seen a light, wondering if they ought to investigate it, but Aang was already dried off and heading up the return path, so she finished cleaning off and followed after.

When they walked into the living area she saw her brother and Suki in a state of undress. She covered herself with his discarded clothes and Sokka shouted, "A little privacy? At least knock!"

"You're in the living area and I don't have any reason to knock, and on what door? Do that in your own bedrooms," she replied. "'Guard' my behind, you brought her along to have sweetie-time at night, not to watch Zuko." He was tugging his pants up as Suki turned her back to them and searched for her undershirt with an arm over her chest. "Where is Zuko?"

"Not here, as you can see. Seriously, a little privacy?" her brother replied.

"I've seen your little fishy already."

"This isn't bath time and we aren't seven. Katara!"

With satisfaction she left to the kitchen with Aang while the lovers vacated the premises. The hunter and the gatherer had both been derelict on their duties and she frowned trying to puzzle out a dinner solution. "I'm going to see if Zuko is outside," she said. "Maybe he found something to cook for tonight."

She left through the front door again, causing her brother to screech at her a second time. It was on the cusp of night and becoming difficult to see. The pathways, through neglect over the unoccupied century, had become damaged and were dangerous in the dark. The streets included steep staircases and even the level ground was overgrown. She circled to the back where what had once been a vegetable garden had become overgrown, frequented by rabbits eating what of the vegetables continued to grow wild after the gardeners had long since passed. Her firebender was not there either, nor anywhere else she could find, and she wondered about the light Aang had claimed to see earlier, though she didn't understand why he would have been halfway down the mountain alone in evening.

Turning down the lane, Katara sought out the old apple tree. Their reclaimed residence had been in the wealthy district of the city, and fruit-bearing trees had been planted along the edge of the terrace in a row for ornamentation. Some had not survived without caretakers, but a certain gnarled old tree had overgrown the terrace's side and its roots had crawled half down the ledge to the next level below, thriving in neglect. Its branches spread wide and drew hungry animals to venture up the mountain, although they still feared the human-created architecture even when no human had been sighted there in their living memory, like an instinct inherited from their predecessors.

Hooves clodded over the stone ground in a frenzy and a large dark blur reared over her. A burst of fire poured out, followed by a bestial grunt, and the startled gazelle-deer toppled aside, rebounding on the ground, and skid to a stop. A person dropped out of the thick upper branches of the apple tree. "It took me forever to bait that deer up here," complained Zuko. "What are you doing here?"

"Either gathering apples or finding you, but perhaps I've accomplished both. You were hunting?"

"Sokka asked me to earlier. He said he hurt his leg and couldn't go." He knelt beside the deer and checked it. "Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine, and so is my brother, by the way. He wanted you out of the house so he could romance your guard. In the future it might be best not to take anything he says seriously."

Zuko stood and lit a small fire at his hand so they could see each other and the motionless animal. She gathered apples into a messenger bag as he illuminated the area for her. When she turned back with a filled sack, he had a strange expression and wouldn't make eye contact with her, but his voice remained markless. "Well, it's venison for dinner, anyway. Can you help me take this back? Grab its hind legs." He went through the horns to the front and picked it up under the shoulders, then waited as she grabbed the haunches, and they lifted in sync. He couldn't maintain a fire while both hands were tied up, but took the lead and walked backwards, making sure neither of them would trip.

"Zuko, were you down near the mine today?"

"No. I've been breadcrumbing apples from the forest up to here all afternoon."

As they arrived, Zuko gave a shout and his pupil rushed to open the door for them, then recoiled when he saw the dinner plan in their arms, sticking his tongue out similarly to how the recently departed gazelle-deer was. As they passed the dining room they got a similar reaction from Sokka, who was appalled that he had blemished the hide and ruined it, ranting about how much a good deerskin sold for. "Think of it as being partially pre-cooked," replied Zuko. "How was your date night? I heard you made a score yourself." Sokka choked on his own saliva.

Katara wasn't in good humor with her brother. "Sokka, butcher the deer. You've sent Zuko off to do your job and he's been tip-toeing around the mountain half the day. Don't even argue with me," she scolded in a threatening tone, "No one is eating dinner until that gazelle-deer becomes deer-chops and I don't want to hear one word from you if it's not ready before midnight."

Aang, meanwhile, helped himself to an apple and a bowl of rice happily, and mocked Sokka who had one hundred and forty pounds of hot and fresh meat to portion out and clear the guts from. As her brother sulked, she sat with Suki and snacked on apples while Zuko cleaned himself off in the bath area down the hall. "Why don't you get Mr. One Man Barbeque to roast the deer whole for us?" Sokka shouted to her.

"Sokka, when you're done cutting that up, go build a way to smoke the leftovers and gather enough wood for it."

"Oh, sure, let me just slap together a smokehouse. I suppose you have a barrel of salt you've been storing under Appa's tail?"

"You made me look at your tail today, so I don't want to hear it."

"You should have knocked!"

Aang went into the kitchen to wash his bowl and gagged at the thick scent, then left the dirty dishes on the counter and backed out. "Ugh! I'm going to be sick!"

"Go get a bath and take your mind off it, Aang; Sokka can clean your dishes up."

"Oh, sure," her brother retorted. "Butcher the deer, build the smokehouse, distill an entire barrel of salt out of swamp water, and then also wash all the dishes," her brother complained. "Let me just defeat the Firelord while I'm at it, too."

"That would be great," said Aang as he was leaving. "Thank you for the apple, Katara."

Zuko emerged at that time in fresh clothes, his hair still wet, and sat at the table where Suki had brewed tea. Katara, glancing at his dark hair dripping into his own teacup, lifted her arm with the wrist loose and bent the water dry from him. "Thanks," he said, still unused to the sensation.

"Apple?"

"I've spent five hours today looking at apples. When is dinner?" Sokka began complaining at being tasked with too much for one person, and Katara flicked the leftover bathwater at his face.

She woke up on the couch with Zuko seated nearby and the scent of stew heavy in the air. "Have a nice nap?" asked Zuko. Outside the window was pitch dark. "Aang went to bed already."

Before she could reply that she'd like to go to bed in kind, Sokka lugged over a tray of dinner and set a bowl in front of his sister, saying no one else was going to bed before they ate the meal he'd spent hours laboring over. After eating he dragged himself out the door, saying he was going to go chop down some trees and build a smokehouse from the raw timber, and to expect him back sometime before tomorrow afternoon. She tried to sleep over the sound of the axe.

The next day she and Aang returned to the swamp, that time taking Zuko with them to see what Aang was like in another element. He wouldn't enter the swamp and remained in the forest seated on a log from which he could overlook the match and, "Preferably stay dry." While they practiced, he watched the surroundings warily. On the evening walk back it looked like he was lost in thought, though he wouldn't tell either of them about what. Nothing occurred and Aang did not again see the strange light. Sokka had given up on poking at the mineshafts and had gone looting through the neighboring houses, though he found nothing left untouched of any value. By that time his smoker had finished processing the gazelle-deer into preserved rations and he was begging Zuko to bag another buck.

Sleeping peacefully one night, her door banged open and Zuko shouted to her, "We need to leave, get up and grab your things. The Fire Nation found us." From one second in a dream to the next looking around wondering where she was, she didn't get up immediately, and he went to the bedside and tugged her arm to get her out of the bedding. "Your brother alerted us just a minute ago, we have to go, they've got the mountain surrounded. Hurry up." With the physical touch she gathered her wits and again her heart was racing as it had at Gao Ling. She shoved her few possessions into the travel sack with haste, and he shouldered his pack already prepared with the dao lashed underneath from where he'd left it beside her door. Everyone was racing to Appa at the courtyard. While they stowed the luggage and what of the provisions they could grab easily, Aang roused the bison. He had the lemur slouched groggy over his shoulder. Zuko gave her a hand up to the saddle just as Appa stood up and shook the sleep from his body. Aang lifted himself up and made sure everyone was present, then commanded, "Yip yip." As they took off and cleared the roof of the surrounding mansion, Katara saw a river of fire barring them from the main road at the base of the mountain. They'd been noticed that quickly and the bison dipped to dodge an assault, which blew apart the roof behind them. Her brother was pushing Suki down in the saddle and covering her.

"Behind, over the back of the mountain," shouted Zuko. It was the only place remaining dark. They turned and darted in the direction. Suddenly he shouted, "Wait, get down—" before a large burst singed towards them. From a kneeling position on the unstable surface of the fleeing bison, he firebent the worst of it away from them. "To the side, it was a trap. Break through over there," he pointed to a spot in the other direction that was relatively low density for attacks. By that point a barrage of incoming shots filled the air around them. Sokka crawled to the front to take over navigation to free Aang to assist him in redirecting incoming fire. Katara found the lemur at her chest terrified. She and Suki supported each other taking cover as the bison swerved and jolted to dodge the attack.

After they passed a particularly intense volley, Sokka pulled hard to the side on the reins and set the bison to a rough turn. "Around the mountain, I have an idea," he said. They pulled around an outcrop that blocked line of attack from the main body of troops and descended low in a ravine which fed a stream through to the swamp. They headed upcurrent, keeping low, and trees snapped and exploded behind them. At the top they passed a wide-mouthed mineshaft and veered left into an adjacent valley, whereupon they left behind all sight of the fires. "They'll think we took cover in the mine. Now we're going to loop around and cross that river. It's dark. The other side is dense forest, and we're going to bury into that and hide our flightpath. Katara, Aang, I need both of you at the front. You're going to take us underwater for the river crossing, and you're going to do so as smoothly and quietly as possible. We want to blend in seamlessly so they won't know we've passed."

She and Zuko traded spots. Aang braced her shoulder and the two waited for their cue. They descended down around the other side of the adjacent mountain, having made a U-shaped bypass, and kept low to not show through the dips in the ridgeline. The echoes of the attack came from disjointed directions as the mountains threw the echoes far from their origin. She couldn't tell where the force was. Sokka pulled them lower until they were just above the newly erupted treeline, and then to the side, taking a clearing behind the canopy's cover. The river was ahead, and both waterbenders readied themselves. They slowed and made the approach. To the left a half-mile sat a fleet anchored in the river. She had only a momentary glance of it before they met the water's edge, and she and Aang pulled a covering sheet of water above the airspace of the bison. Appa touched down and walked across the riverbed while Aang and she kept the water framed above them, as if the river were passing over without interruption. To every side the bison was surrounded by water they were curating, and Sokka coaxed him to keep walking across.

The surface was not interrupted by enemy fire and they assumed they'd not been spotted entering. They'd had only a moment to scout the other side before they'd entered, and she contemplated if they shouldn't just stay on the riverbed and go further upstream all the way to safety, but they had a limited oxygen quantity and no idea where the fleet extended to. With the ships on the river the forest was safer. The slope increased and the bison began climbing the other shore. The two kept the water flowing overhead to obscure them as long as viable without causing acceleration to the current, which the ships would notice. At a mark she told Aang to let them surface, and they continued onto dry land, letting the river merge behind them as if they'd never passed through. They stepped forward as quietly as possible until behind the treeline, and then Sokka looked around for a wide enough passage through.

They kept grounded, walking Appa forward, for several miles. At that time Aang went up, leaping with airbending to the top of a pine, and knelt on a branch to scout. Soon he came down and reported that the attacking force was scattering but not approaching their side of the river yet.

"They don't know we crossed," concluded Sokka. "But they've discovered we aren't in the mineshaft after all. Let's keep going. There are mountains on this side about ten miles away we can shelter in. I'm not willing to fly for now—I bet they have scopes and are checking the sky." He turned to Zuko and asked, "Who are they and how did they find us?"

"I got a look at the closer ship and the sigil. They're the fleet under Commander Zhao. I don't know how they found us, but they do regular patrols of all waterways."

Aang asked, "Where should we go?"

"Yu Dao is in this direction," said Zuko.

Sokka replied, "That's a Fire Nation colony!"

"Exactly. They won't expect us to go there. If we wait them out they'll assume we went upriver. We can throw them off."

Sokka looked suspicious but, without a better plan, agreed. The city was on the other side of the mountains, which they didn't reach until dawn, and no one wanted to go back to sleep by that point. Feeling wary of making their presence known, everyone remained mute and kept close to the bison while Aang scouted the area and found them a viable passage. Behind them the landscape burned gold with the sunrise.