Morality Chain

Heyo, all. I'm back.

Let's get down to business.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

"Hey, Az."

She sighed, turned back and looked at her brother. "What now, Zuko?"

Her older brother was looking at her with an uncertain expression on her face. Under ordinary circumstances she would have dismissed that as nothing unusual and returned to gazing out the window.

But of course nothing in their life was usual or unusual anymore.

And ever since their mother had left her brother's expression had rarely wavered from its remarkable resemblance to a kicked puppy. Well, until now, anyway.

He sighed and rubbed the back of his head. "Az… you know what happened, don't you?"

"What happened about what?"

"About… about mom. About why dad became Fire Lord."

She sighed and closed her eyes. "I told you, Zuko, I don't want to talk about it. Not now."

"Then when?" the uncertainty melted away, to be replaced by growing anger. "No one will tell me anything! None of the servants know anything about what happened that night, and you're the one who came up to me with all that 'Daddy's going to kill you' stuff!"

Azula didn't reply for a long moment. "You mean you don't remember?"

That gave the prince pause. "Remember what?"

"That night… when you were in my room. Mother came to see you before she left."

"She did? What did she say?"

"To you?" Azula snorted. "How would I know? She was just bending over your bed and whispering to you. Don't blame me if you were too sleepy to remember what happened."

Silence. Briefly, Azula wondered what was going through her brother's mind as he heard all of this. With a shake of her head, she turned and began to walk away.

"Az?"

"What?" she said, more snappishly than she had intended to.

"Do you… do you miss mom?"

Azula paused for a long moment. And then she turned slightly, enough so she could look at Zuko out of the corner of her eye.

"I don't know."

And before Zuko could respond to that, Azula had hurried out of the room.

(X)

"Sokka, stop pacing and sit down before you wear a groove into the earth," Toph mumbled from her position leaning against an outcropping of rock.

"How can you all be so calm?!" Sokka snapped by way of response. "Those Fire Nation creeps have Suki, and we don't even know what they're going to do to her!" he paused, mouth working silently, and then he turned on Toph again. "You're sure she didn't fall into the water?"

"For the seventh time, yes! I told you already, if anyone had fallen into the water, I would have sensed it!"

"Like you sensed it when they grabbed Suki and ran off, huh?"

"Just so you know, there's just this tiny little difference between a bunch of people running off in a certain direction and someone losing their balance and falling down a cliff side. So maybe you could get off my-"

"Hey! Aang's back!" Katara, who had hitherto stayed out of the argument in lieu of tending to Ying, interrupted Toph's tirade with a glad shout. And as Sokka glanced up, he could indeed see a tiny speck in the clear sky that was quickly growing in size, and in a few seconds it morphed into the easily identifiable shape of a glider, and the Airbender carrying up.

"Well?" Sokka demanded as soon as Aang came within earshot. In response, the Airbender simply shook his head.

His heart sank. "No… no, maybe you missed something-"

"I scoured everything around the entrance to the pass. Twice."

Katara laid a hand on his shoulder. "You did your best, Aang."

"Yeah, well, maybe it just wasn't good enough," Sokka said bitterly.

"Sokka!"

Sokka gazed back at the ruined entrance to the Serpent's Pass. "What? It's true. He tried, and he couldn't find anything. Now we're going to need to search for them on foot."

"Whoa… what?" Toph glanced up. "We're going to be looking for her?"

"What? Don't tell me you plan to abandon her here?"

Toph winced. "I didn't say that, Snoozles. But in case you've forgotten, we've kind of got an escort mission underway."

His eyes widened, and he looked over to Than and Ying, who were talking quietly to themselves. "There's no expiration date on one of those immigration passes. We find somewhere safe for them to camp out, and then we go look for Suki. There, problem solved."

His satisfaction at finding an apparent solution began to drain away at the expression on Katara's face. "Actually…" she began hesitantly. "Actually, Ying's going to give birth pretty soon. It would be the best if she was in… well, in a place with medical facilities."

He glared at her for a long moment, not wanting to believe what he'd just heard. "Well, that's great. That's just peachy. Now what do we do?" He knew what he wanted to do, of course. He wanted to turn around, have Toph rebuild the ruined section of the pass, and then rush over and hunt down the Fire Nation people. He ground his teeth.

"All right," Aang finally said. "You guys go on ahead. I'll stay behind and continue looking for them."

"What, by yourself?" Toph shook her head again. "Twinkletoes, you know as well as I do that if you took those girls on alone, you'd get your butt kicked in like three different ways."

"I know, I know. But I'm not gonna confront them head on," Aang looked up. "You guys go ahead with Than and Ying. Hopefully you'll reach Ba Sing Se before too long. Then I'll contact you guys when I find Suki and we can go rescue her together."

"Together? How are you going to contact us? I know you're a good Airbender and all, Twinkletoes, but I don't think you can blow a note across a lake like that."

"And how long will it take to contact us anyway? They could have..." Katara glanced at Sokka and hastily amended her statement. "I don't think we want Suki to suffer any longer than she has to."

"Don't worry," Aang managed a tiny smile. "Zuko may be Fire Nation, but we've seen he doesn't hurt people if he doesn't have to. Suki won't be harmed too much."

"Well, yeah," Katara looked doubtful. "But you know the girl that Zuko's with? The one with the blue fire? I think she's currently the one running the show."

The Avatar slumped, a tired expression crossing his features. "I know. We'll just… have to hope for the best, won't we?"

There were no other objections, and soon the team got ready to part ways. As he shouldered his pack, Sokka turned to see Aang take off on his glider again, zipping into the sky. Then he closed his eyes and sighed.

"Be safe, Suki." He prayed silently.

(X)

"Hey."

The voice was coming from somewhere very, very far away, from a place where there was bright light that stung her eyes, and her whole body hurt. Suki didn't want to go there – she much preferred staying right where she was, where it was dark and comfortable and she could slowly slip away back into the smooth silky darkness-

"Get up."

There was a sudden impact in her side, and pain exploded in her stomach. Suki lurched violently into wakefulness, a coughing spasm wracking her throat as she did so, and when it passed she slumped to the ground, feeling not unlike a cleaning rag that had been used one too many times.

As she lay there, she gradually became aware of two fingers that were waving back and forth in front of her eyes. From those fingers a steady blue flame crackled. Silently, Suki gazed at the flame, confused.

"Oh, good, she's responding."

The flame went out, the fingers went away, and Suki found herself looking into the face of a girl she'd never seen before.

She coughed once. No, that wasn't right. She'd seen her, back at – back at…

The Serpent's Pass. She had been one of the firebenders attacking them. She blinked and tried to struggle to her feet, tried to put some distance between her and her enemy. It took her almost five seconds to realize that none of her limbs were responding.

"In case you're wondering, I've had Ty Lee seal off your limbs. It's mainly used for blocking bending, but it comes in handy if you need someone paralysed for a while," the firebender smiled at her and Suki felt her gut twist slightly.

"Now, perhaps you're wondering what happened. Well, the simple answer is that you got yourself defeated and captured, and now what happens to you is entirely in my hands."

Suki bared her teeth in a snarl, and for some reason the firebender appeared to find this amusing – at any rate, the smirk she was wearing widened slightly.

"Ordinarily I wouldn't care much about what happened to one little prisoner, but you're different. You see, you happened to be travelling with the Avatar, and I happen to be seeking information on him." Suddenly the fingers were being held up to her face again, and there was the flickering blue flame.

"You can tell me what I want to know and I'll drop you off at the nearest Fire Nation encampment unharmed… well, aside from whatever you've already suffered. If I'm in a good mood I'll even leave word that you're not to be mistreated, and for your wounds to be tended to," she paused briefly. "Or… you can be difficult, and I'll have to extract the information I'll need by force. That won't be good – I'm running on a bit of a tight schedule. I trust you don't want me in a bad mood?"

There was a pause. "Let's begin with something simple, then. Is the Avatar going to Ba Sing Se?"

Her mind whirled. She definitely wasn't going to be helping her anytime soon, but silence would only anger her captor. She'd seen the way the firebender and her friends fought – they were good enough to give Aang a run for his money, even if they had ended up losing. She needed some way to throw them off the trail –

"Your mouth's not paralysed, by the way. You can talk any time you want."

Suki swallowed once. "…No. The Avatar isn't headed to Ba Sing Se."

"Is that so? Then why was he on the Serpent's Pass?"

Damn. "…Refugees."

The firebender arched one eyebrow.

"He decided to help some refugees enter the city. The Serpent's Pass is dangerous," Suki paused. "and he wanted to make sure they crossed safely."

The firebender nodded. "I see."

And then, almost faster than Suki could follow, the firebender pressed one hand to her stomach, and crimson agony seared through her gut. Caught by surprise, Suki could only let out a tortured squeal of pain.

She was dimly aware of the firebender raising her hand away, but the red hot pain refused to go away, and Suki lay on the cold earth, unable to suppress the soft whimpers or to stem the tears that leaked from her eyes.

And then she heard the firebender's voice again, filled with amusement and soft menace. "Liar."

She drew in another deep, shuddering breath.

"I probably should have told you this before, but I can tell when someone's lying to me. Call me a people person. But then, I didn't think it would come up. After all, what reason could someone like you have to lie to me?"

Suki drew in another deep breath, and managed to spit out a faint "Damn you," at the firebender.

"I take it that means you're not going to help me willingly?" she said in a conversational tone. She stood, and Suki had a brief, fleeting second to wonder what the firebender was planning when there was a sudden impact against her temple –

And then nothing.

(X)

Azula stood over the unconscious warrior and sighed. Well, that was singularly unproductive.

From behind her, Zuko gave a frustrated sigh. "So we didn't get anything out of her?"

"No. Not that we really needed it that much," Azula shrugged. "We've confirmed the Avatar is headed for Ba Sing Se, anyway."

"Then what do we do with her?"

Azula shrugged. "She's of no use to us. I guess we could just dump her at Qin's base, or if that's too much trouble, we can just kill her right now."

"No."

Azula blinked and looked over to Ty Lee. "Pardon?"

Ty Lee swallowed nervously, but refused to break her gaze from Azula's. "No. I mean, we shouldn't kill her here. Like this. It's not right."

"You certainly didn't complain when I killed those bandits."

"That was different. Those were bandits. They just hurt people and steal things."

Azula bared her teeth. "And this is our enemy. Do you think she'd hesitate to kill any of us if the situation-"

"A hostage."

"What?" Azula turned to face Mai.

"You said she's of no use to us. That's wrong. We can use her as a hostage, since her friends will probably be looking for her."

Azula pursed her lips and looked at Ty Lee. She had no doubt that if she truly pressed the issue, Ty Lee would ultimately give way. Her friend was too soft-hearted for her own good, but complete strangers still took second place to friends. She would feel bad about it, but Azula was certain she wouldn't actively attempt to stop her.

But her feeling bad about it could create potential problems down the line – their hunt for the Avatar was nowhere near complete, after all, and she needed to secure the loyalty of her companions for any other trials they might come across in the future. And after their little talk about morality the other day… Azula shook her head.

"Fine," she said in a weary tone. "No killing. In which case we can't leave her here either – if she makes her way free she'll just be trouble down the line. And as for the hostage thing," she looked to Mai. "I don't think that'll work either – at least, not when we've entered Ba Sing Se. Maybe if by some chance we run into the Avatar outside the walls, but that's unlikely at best."

Mai shrugged as if it were of no consequence and turned away.

"So we're left with…" Zuko said softly. "Turning her over to a Fire Nation outpost."

"And War Minister Qin's is the closest one," Azula acknowledged. "Come on. The sooner we're rid of her, the better."

(X)

After bringing the warrior back to consciousness by way of a cup of water, Azula had bound her hands and had her climb on the back of Ty Lee's komodo-dragon. As they departed, Azula couldn't help but wonder if they would be the victim of any ill-advised escape attempts.

However, the warrior, while appearing resentful, didn't appear to be planning much, so Azula let the issue slide – while keeping a surreptitious eye on the warrior, of course.

As night fell and the small group made camp for the night, Suki was left near the campfire's edge. She kept quiet, watching and listening as the two firebenders – from what she could gather they were apparently brother and sister – debate about getting a boat to get to the Fire Nation encampment. She frowned. It almost sounded like they wanted to avoid actually meeting any Fire Nation soldiers, though. Why? Were they renegades of some kind?

Suddenly, Suki remembered that she was trying to escape the place. Glancing over to the two of them to ensure that they weren't looking, Suki silently gripped onto the piece of sharpened flint she had picked up earlier and began cutting at the bonds around the wrist. It had been a stroke of good luck that she had managed to grab that without anyone noticing, and now-

"Here," a dark shape plopped itself down next to her, revealing itself to be the girl with the long braid, holding up a bowl of what was presumably food. "You're hungry, aren't you? This is for you."

Yes, she was indeed very hungry, Suki suddenly realized. The last time she'd eaten had been back at the refuge dock, and that had been over a day ago. And the smell wafting from the bowl was awfully tempting. Still, to accept food from the enemy…

"Come on. It's not poisoned or anything," the girl with the braid said. "You want me to take a bite and prove it?"

After a long pause Suki relaxed and shook her head. A huge smile spread across the girl's face. "Great! Oh, I guess you can't use your hands, huh… well, don't worry, I'll feed you!" and with that, she scooped up a portion of the stew and slowly brought the spoon to Suki's mouth.

Confused and more than a little apprehensive, Suki opened her mouth and let the girl feed her. For a moment she was reminded of home and Kyoshi Island, and she was a little girl again, her mother balancing a spoonful of gruel and bringing it to her mouth-

Wait, no. No! This was nothing like home! Suki shook her head and swallowed the bite.

"How was it?" the girl asked, and Suki shrugged slightly as a response.

"I... guess that means you like it?" there was a long pause, pregnant with expectation. And then, "My name's Ty Lee. What's yours?"

Was she for real? The Kyoshi Warrior paused for a long moment, and then said, "I'm Suki."

"Suki," Ty Lee repeated. "That's a nice name." As she said so, she scooped up another spoonful of stew. "Okay, here goes-"

"Why are you doing this?" Suki demanded. Ty Lee paused and blinked, clearly not expecting such an outburst.

"Doing… what?"

"This! Being so… why are you feeding me? I'm your enemy, aren't I?"

"Oh, that," Ty Lee chuckled. "Well, just because we're on opposite sides doesn't mean we have to hate each other or anything. I mean, back when I was in the circus I had lots of Earth Kingdom friends! They didn't like the war much, and honestly, I don't like it much either, but we can still help each other out," Ty Lee grinned at Suki. "And maybe when the war's over and all the fighting's stopped, we can be friends."

Suki simply stared at Ty Lee, openmouthed. Don't be ridiculous, she wanted to say, but somehow the words refused to form themselves. After a moment, Ty Lee shrugged. "Well, that can wait until later. Here, open wide…"

(X)

"Enjoyed yourself, Ty Lee?" Azula's voice dripped sarcasm as the acrobat settled herself by the fire. Either Ty Lee didn't notice the sarcasm or chose to ignore it – in Azula's estimation, either was equally likely – as she nodded enthusiastically.

"Her name's Suki, and she's from this island called Kyoshi Island to the south. They have this bunch of warriors there called the Kyoshi Warriors, and Suki's their leader! Isn't that neat."

"The Kyoshi Warriors of Kyoshi Island. Original," Azula remarked. The name sounded familiar, somehow, but it probably wasn't all that important, and Azula dismissed it quickly. "Anyway, don't get too chummy with her, we're dropping her off at the base in a couple day's time and we'll probably never see her again."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Ty Lee mumbled.

"By the way, the flint."

"The what?"

"The flint. The one she was using in her attempt to cut her ropes. I said that if you were going to bring her that dinner, you could at least deal with that."

"Oh, right. Here." Ty Lee tossed the sharpened rock to the ground.

Azula sighed and closed her eyes. "Right, thanks. And with that, I'm going to bed. Ty Lee, you have first watch. Make sure the prisoner doesn't go anywhere."

"Got it."

Azula stood, turned to head back to her tent, and paused, a frown coming over her face. Had she… She glanced up at the night sky. There had been a strange sound, almost like the wind catching on something. She scanned the area for several long seconds, and after finding nothing, shook her head and entered her tent.

Meanwhile, with the darkness of night as his cloak, Aang flew as fast as the winds would carry him back to his friends.

(X)

"Finally," Mai stated flatly as they noted the Fire Nation encampment in the distance. "That took way too long."

Azula heard Mai's grouse and barely paid any attention to it. Even at this distance, she could tell that there was a significant amount of activity in the Fire Nation base. Her eyes narrowed. What was going…

"There!" the shout came from behind them and Azula twisted in time to see the Avatar drop down from the sky, with the rest of his gang following up behind him.

"Give Suki back!" came a shout from the Water Tribe boy, and Azula gave that remark all the attention it deserved as she turned her sights to the Avatar himself.

"Well, look at you. You've become confident enough to start chasing me down, have you?" despite her bravado, Azula could still feel the ache in her torso from the injury she'd suffered during the last confrontation.

If we fought now, we'd be at a major disadvantage. We need to find some way out of this.

Just then, the Avatar stepped forward, one hand raised in a non-threatening manner.

"We're not here for a fight."

Azula paused. "What?"

"We just want Suki back. That's all. Just let her go and we can both walk away from this without having to come to blows. Okay?"

Azula was silent for several long seconds, pondering what the Avatar had just said.

And then she let out a snort of derisive laughter.

"I don't think so, Avatar."

The Avatar let out a long breath and nodded. "So be-"

"Aang!" came the call from the prisoner. Azula whipped her head around. "Don't worry about me! I'll be fine! Just get to Ba Sing Se and warn the king! Just-"

"Be quiet!" Azula snapped as she sent a bolt of flame out – it didn't hit anyone, but impacted with the ground and billowed up for a brief moment, casting a pale blue light.

A deep rumbling noise that resonated through the entire area drew the attention of everyone present, and they whipped their heads around to stare as the ground in front of the encampment cracked and shifted away, revealing a massive metallic drill. With a thunderous groan it slammed onto the ground began to turn slowly, until it was pointed at the massive walls of Ba Sing Se.

Suddenly a plan, formed on the spur of the moment, leapt into Azula's mind, and she tugged at the reins of the komodo-dragon.

"We'll just be going now, Avatar. I wonder which of us needs to be dealt with more urgently," as she spoke, she began guiding the komodo-dragon away down a steep incline. After a moment's hesitation, the other three komodo-dragons followed suit.

As Azula rode away, she could hear a cry of frustration from the Water Tribe boy, and the snap of a glider unfurling as the Avatar took to the skies – in the direction of the drill.

Azula smiled.

(X)

"There we go," Azula looked down at the captive as she landed in the rough stone floor. "Once the rest of the army comes back they'll be sure to find you, along with the note I left for them. So don't worry about being left here for too long," and not stopping to acknowledge Suki's glare, Azula turned and left.

With the majority of the forces in the encampment having left to continue their assault on the walls of Ba Sing Se with the drill, evading the skeleton crews on patrol had been simplicity itself. And without the dead weight of a prisoner slowing them down, getting out would be even easier.

Azula paused as she looked out over the encampment and she sighed. Everything in here was so completely Fire Nation that she couldn't help but feel somewhat nostalgic for the palace and home. Shaking her head, she pushed away those lingering thoughts to the back of her mind and turned away.

"Come on, we should be leaving soon."

"No, wait, hang on!" there was a muffled but excited voice from Zuko, who emerged from a rather large tent, grasping several pieces of paper. "Look what I found!"

Azula glanced over, and her eyes widened. Surely those couldn't be…

"Refuge passports to Ba Sing Se?" Mai questioned as she held up one of the scrolls. "Looks like a rather good forgery…"

"So Qin does understand a bit of subtlety and sneakiness," Azula said dryly. "Colour me impressed." Of course he also apparently failed to utilize this to any degree, so I guess I shouldn't give him too much credit. "Zuko, Mai, we've just found our tickets into Ba Sing Se."

Chapter End

This was largely a transitional chapter which was meant to keep moving the plot along. I tend to find these a little harder to write. Still, I hope it turned out well.

Thanks for reading, please review.