Even if you're right, and this does eliminate the Avatar's ability to bend, Uncle had interjected, voice gravelly and eyes dark, you will anger the other nations. Our troops are stretched thin as it is.

Uncle sipped his tea placidly, but three years at sea with the man had made an impression on Zuko. The Dragon of the West was home, too.

Ozai had looked down his sharp nose with contempt. Iroh, you may be my brother, but you have become a doddering fool. We need not tell the world every bureaucratic detail of conquering them.

Word will find its way out, Fire Lord Ozai. It always does.

Zuko jerks up from his bedroll as the sun begins to warm the sky. A little surprised the peasant hasn't actually killed him in his sleep, he takes a deep, calming breath and rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. He'll meditate, he thinks, and-

"Sleep well?"

Zuko starts. The water-peasant sits cross-legged on her stack of blankets, peering at him with cool blue eyes and more than a little amusement playing across her face.

"No," he mutters. "How am I supposed to sleep when you snore like some kind of walrus-seal?"

"I do not snore!"

In fact, she doesn't, but Zuko is running a little short on generosity this morning. "You're worse than my uncle. Now, be quiet. I'm going to meditate, and you're going to come up with something more useful than 'threaten the Fire Lord' or 'get the Fire Lord banished again' to free your precious Avatar."

Katara raises her eyebrows. "Really? You'll help?"

Zuko snarls. "I'm not helping. I might consider not throwing you in the Boiling Rock."

He'd argued with the doctor all the way to the Avatar's cell. He's a child. He's twelve years old. He could get an infection and die, and then we'll have to start the search all over again. The Avatar had looked at them with fear shining in his eyes, seeing but not understanding what was to befall him. In the end, the royal surgeon had been almost unyielding, and Zuko had made threats he wishes he hadn't had to.

But the Avatar still has his hands, and for that, Zuko is inexplicably, irrationally grateful.

Katara regards him thoughtfully. "I didn't think my plan would work."

Zuko fights the impulse to roll his eyes. "It didn't. Your plans are all deluded and insane. Come up with something better before I change my mind." He stretches his arms above his head as he gets out of bed, and then he's rummaging around a worn chest. Pulling out a length of rope, Zuko beckons.

Katara eyes him suspiciously. "What's that?"

"What's it look like? I'm tying you up."

She splutters as she moves toward him. "Why?"

"I don't need you sneaking off to the airship field," he explains, looping the rope around her wrists.

"You don't trust me?"

"No."

The girl takes a deep breath, and Zuko can practically hear her counting backwards from ten.

The Avatar was shouting at him, the ungrateful fool. How can you do that?! How can you tell him you'll have his family tortured? What's wrong with you?

Zuko had cringed, the self-loathing bubbling up. I wasn't actually going to do it.

I thought we could have been friends. I was wrong.

Zuko felt a vein in his forehead pulsing, the blood in his ears nearly as loud as his conscience. Some thanks I get for saving your bending.

The Avatar had gone white as mourning clothes, his voice suddenly subdued. What was he going to do to me?

Zuko shook his head. Nothing. I'll bring you some tea later. Drink all of it. And don't ever let anyone see your hands.

Katara interrupts his thoughts. "Are you sure you won't let me steal an airship?" She tests the bonds, but the rope holds.

"I don't need my father angry with me, trust me. Not worth it." Before she can speak again, he's nearly out of the tent, a bundle in his arms. "I'm going to wash up. You can tell me your better plan when I get back. Don't get snoopy."

She sputters, and he allows himself to smirk back at her. "I'm not snoopy!"

"Right, and I was born in Ba Sing Se." The tent flap swishes behind him, and he nearly smiles at her aggravated, strangled shout.

He really needs to assign a guard to his tent.

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Mai watches Azula. The princess practices her lightning religiously, and with five years of precision training, she's shooting apples off the heads of practice dummies with barely a flick of her fingers (better them than her, Mai thinks). Ty Lee lounges on her forearms beside Mai, legs folded over her shoulders and feet dangling in front of her face.

Dreamily, Ty Lee smiles. "I can't wait for your wedding, Mai."

"You and everyone else," Mai says.

"It's so romantic," Ty Lee chirps. "I wish I had a childhood sweetheart."

"Whatever."

"Leave her alone, Ty Lee," Azula interjects, smoothing her bangs and turning from her practice dummies as the last apple explodes in a spray of sticky ashes. "Zuzu is gone so much that she's nearly forgotten about him."

Mai sighs. "Azula-"

"Think about it, Mai," Azula says. "You must not have seen him more than once the last time he was home."

Mai narrows her eyes fractionally. "What of it?"

Azula shrugs, gold eyes glittering, red lips pulled up into a smirk. "You love the fool just as much as you always have, I'm sure."

The barb settles heavily in her heart, but one does not stay alive near Azula by wilting in the heat. And, if nothing else, Mai is never bored. "Of course."

Azula sips at a cup of water delicately. "It's a shame, really. Someone as skilled as you should be going to the Earth Kingdom with me and Ty Lee; instead, you're stuck here, selecting napkin colors."

Ty Lee unwinds herself from her pose on the ground and pops up to stand between them. "Maybe you could use a vacation, Mai. Come with us!"

Azula holds the cup with her fingernails, balancing the porcelain between sharp, red talons. "Don't be cruel, Ty Lee. You know very well that the rest of Mai's life will be devoted to being the perfect little wife and raising my useless brother's children. She'll never leave this place again."

The effort to tamp down a flinch is greater than usual, but Mai remains impassive. "I love Zuko, and I look forward to our life together."

"One hopes," Azula nearly chirps, putting her cup back in its place. "He doesn't love you, of course, but I suppose there are more important things." She straightens her shoulders and turns to exit the training grounds. "Ty Lee, we're going."

Ty Lee shoots a mournful glance back at Mai, but she follows the princess without another word. Mai watches them go, mask firmly in place despite the black fingernails leaving red moons under her billowing sleeves and the taste of iron bubbling up where her teeth pierce her cheek. Zuko had carried Azula's dishonesty like a watchword, whispering "Azula always lies" like a prayer on his lips.

He was wrong. Azula is quite fond of the truth, sharpened and poisoned as it is on her tongue.

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You don't always hear the drums of war. It's not always practical to bring drums at all, but the anticipation thrums in Jet's veins with a steady thump as he readies the Freedom Fighters. Wheat stalk dangling from his lips, he gently taps metal shavings into characters traced in wet glue. The parchment wrinkles from the moisture, and his light taps keep rhythm with the drums in his head.

Smellerbee and a few of the men load barrels of blasting jelly on a boat outfitted to resemble a Fire Navy ship. Jet has to admit that Sokka is clever, if frustratingly idealistic, and his designs will get them through the patrols and into the Fire Nation capitol's port without a problem, so long as they can keep their Earth Kingdom heads down.

Beneath the veneer of steel, the ship is made of light birch. Useless in a fight, but it's faster than any ship has a right to be when combined with the steam engine. Backup sails will only get them caught once they're in Fire Nation waters, but they have a lot of ocean to cover. Jet isn't worried. If all else fails, they'll blow the ship at the docks.

He writes none of that. The Blind Bandit has little patience for strategy, preferring to punch her way through problems (which, Jet thinks ruefully, is why she's off winning Earth Rumble VII instead of loading barrels with Smellerbee). His message in metal is short, succinct: Blind Bandit, need you at main hideout. Going on a mission. Ask for Sokka. Jet.

Jet holds the parchment down as cold wind blusters around him, the rat-tat-tat of the war drums beating in his brain in the chilled, pre-dawn light. Across the hideout, rigidly straight in his cot, Sokka traces the smooth and worn edges of a single wooden Pai Sho tile. And his pulse thumps heavily, erratically, and he wishes for the steadier drum of rain against his roof.

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Zuko looks down at the anchored ships clustered in the bay. The crystal blue water shimmers around them, and small waves break in white foam against the iron hulks. He counts nearly seventy ships, not as many as the last attempt, but he hopes these are stronger. Strong enough that the engines don't burn out (again) under Zhao's ambition, in any case.

"Admiral Zhao," he grits out as the older man, thick sideburns and thicker ego, pulls himself over the cliff's edge. "Thank you for joining us."

"Fire Lord Zuko," Zhao says, voice thick and gravelly with irritation. "Perhaps the next rendezvous point should be chosen by the navy." He bows, a picture of propriety, and yet the scorn and condescension are palpable.

Zuko bites the inside of his cheek. "Was the climb too much for you, Admiral?" He has to admit that the single perk of the Fire Lord's title is his clear outranking of Zhao - he could disrespect a banished prince. To disrespect a Fire Lord is another matter entirely. His father might have been ambiguous about Zuko's honor, but Zuko's return to the fold has done wonders for limiting Zhao's ability to torment him.

Zhao twitches. "Of course not, sir."

"Good. Inform the navy that we leave at dawn tomorrow. The attack should begin at midday."

"We should leave now. It's barely past dawn," Zhao snaps.

"No." Zuko lifts his chin. "Your men should rest; you traveled all night."

"The sooner we leave, the sooner we defeat the waterbenders."

"Don't question me, Zhao," Zuko growls. "You of all people know what happened last time the Fire Navy was too eager to reach the Northern Water Tribe."

Zhao swallows visibly and clenches his fists. "Has Captain Jee passed along my insights?"

Zuko tries very, very hard not scream. "Yes. We will attack as you suggest."

"Excellent decision, sir. I hope my experience will be valuable to your efforts." The smile that creeps across Zhao's face gives Zuko mild nausea. Blood will run in the streets tomorrow, he knows, and a fist closes around his heart.

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The day passes interminably. Finally, as shadows creep along the tent and the sun warms from its early spring brightness to a red sunset, she hears him coming, heavy, angry stomps echoing over the ground. Katara breathes deeply, trying to center herself, and then Zuko is back, throwing open the entrance of the tent and flinging a bowl of jook at her feet. "Eat this. I don't need you starving to death in here."

"Don't tell me what to do," she bites. "And how am I supposed to eat with my hands tied behind my back?"

"You'll figure something out," he says, sitting heavily on his bedroll. "I need to think. Be quiet."

"I've been stuck here all day! Untie me!"

Zuko glares, but he steps back up lightly and loosens the rope around her wrists. "You have a lot of nerve for a backwater tribeswoman." She is about to strike at him, but he speaks again. "You'll need it to survive this war."

Katara studies him in the dim light, wishing for a window, or a candle. "You've changed, Zuko." Her voice is softer than she intended, and she pinches her leg sharply.

"Fire Lord Zuko."

She makes a face. "Well, maybe not that much."

He sighs heavily, pulling his hair out of its high phoenix plume and unwinding the strip of red leather. "Of course I've changed. The war was supposed to spread greatness, Katara." His voice drops to a whisper and his arms fall to the bedroll as he returns to it. "Greatness isn't all it's cracked up to be."

"You'd know?" She snaps.

When he looks up at her, the sadness in his eyes catches her off guard. "The Fire Nation is losing. Maybe not on the battlefield, but my country is dying."

She thinks he's going to say more, but the way his eyes dart around tells her he's being cautious. "So end the war."

"I don't have that power."

She huffs in frustration. "You're the Fire Lord! Spreading war and violence and hatred might be in your blood, but you have power. End the war and go hunt platypus bears instead."

"I don't have any power, Katara!" Fire flashes in his hands and puffs out of his nose. "The Phoenix King has power. I'm nothing but a glorified general."

She wonders if this is a way in. "Do you want power?"

Zuko blinks at her. "What?"

In her newfound confidence, she drops her chin into her hands, elbows resting on the table, and looks up at him through her eyelashes. "Do you want power? You could be a real Fire Lord. When Aang overthrows-"

"Quiet, peasant!" He shouts. "Don't speak treason in my presence."

And they'd been getting along so well. "You're the one who wanted a better plan," she grumbles.

"That's the best you came up with? Deposing the Phoenix King?" Zuko's eyes are wide, disbelieving. "Isn't your brother supposed to be some brilliant strategist?"

"Talents don't always run in families," Katara says. "In case you haven't noticed."

Zuko glares. "I don't like you."

"Obviously. How is the Fire Nation losing? I haven't heard anything about unrest."

Zuko shakes his head. "The people are afraid. The capital city caught fire during your invasion and hasn't stopped burning. Ember Island is gone. We've stripped all the metal from buildings all over the Fire Nation for weapons and airships, and it's not enough. Nothing is ever enough."

"So why keep fighting?"

"What, and tell my nation that we're giving up? That all the people who have died did so for nothing? That we've destroyed ourselves and lost?"

Katara fiddles with the ends of her hair. "What if you don't give up, and you still lose?"

"The Avatar isn't going to win this, Katara. You and your brother and your rebels aren't either. The Fire Nation needs to win this war before there isn't a Fire Nation left to come home to. And I have no reason to free the Avatar, and a lot of reasons not to. I'll get you passage to the outer islands. Stop this idiotic bombing, and you have my word that the Southern Water Tribe will be left alone. I'll recall the Southern Raiders."

She blinks back the tears in her eyes. His offer is tempting, like candy set before a child or lychee nuts before Momo. But she knows better than to trust him. She knows better than to sacrifice her sister tribe to save her own. "Or," Katara offers, "if you withdraw, you and your soldiers might have a home left. If you don't, Jet will make you Earth Kingdom colonists with no Fire Nation to go back to. And he'll probably torment you for the rest of your lives."

He looks at her tiredly, clearly weighing his options. Katara meets his eyes, daring him to make a decision, though she knows nothing he does is likely to stop Jet. She focuses on willing him to free Aang. If he does that, maybe they can stop the bombings. Maybe they can defeat the Phoenix King and stop the war, finally. Maybe things can go back to some semblance of normal. Whatever normal is after a century of war.

"Katara," he sighs, and she jolts at the sound of her name, foreign in his raspy whisper. "Take it or leave it. I don't want to hurt you or your people, but I can, and I will if I have to."

Red rage roils in her chest, and her fists clench and unclench in her lap as she kneels behind her paltry dinner. "Take me to the Northern Water Tribe," she demands, voice hard as steel. "I'll get you your victory, with no losses."

Zuko looks her up and down. "How do you plan to do that?"

"You'll find out," she says, and she turns her back to him. "And then we're going back to the Fire Nation, and I'm getting Aang out of there."

"You're in no position to make demands, peasant."

With her wrists unbound and her jook untouched, Katara is a terror as she whisks the liquid out of her surroundings and freezes it around Zuko's neck. He squirms as he struggles for breath, and she tightens the icy grip as she leans over him, suddenly close, personal. "Yes, I am," she snarls. "So, Fire Lord, do you want to be on your father's bad side, or mine?"

Zuko hacks and gasps when she releases the ring of ice, the purplish tinge fading from his lips as he recovers. He nods at her, eyes glittering furiously in the dying light. "We leave just before dawn. You'll stow away on the flagship."

"Fine." She tugs the blanket from the previous night over her and turns her back to him, dehydrated porridge left otherwise untouched.

Katara tries not to think about the gold eyes burning into her back as she feigns sleep. She tries not to think about how Zuko's throat will be mottled green and indigo in the morning. She tries not to think about how on earth she's going to keep up her end of the bargain.

Not for the first time, Katara misses her brother.

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A/N: Are you guys out there somewhere? Drop me a line if you're still following along. Stats have been down since September and my usual doses of dopamine are AWOL. Hard times.