WhIP

by footfungus

nederlands verhalen over mijn otp

70. SOUTHERN LIGHTS ZUTARA 3

raises an eyebrow as Zhao clenches a fist in anticipation. Even Lord Shuren raises his head, a hopeful look crossing his face. "I...I promise it will never happen again."

"In that, you are correct," Ozai's voice hisses sibilantly across the room, wiping the budding hope off the man's face. "It will never happen again. Did you not hear my daughter, or are you deaf as well as inept?"

The red flames swell in size, towering over the crouched man and illuminating the triumphant smile playing across Azula's mouth as she sneaks a glance at Zhao's ashen face.

"Leave now," Ozai commands dangerously. The flames flicker warningly. "If you value your life."

Lord Shuren doesn't need telling twice. He scurries out of the throne room, somehow never breaking out of his bow. Mai fights a snicker but doesn't know why she bothers, considering the low laughter emanating from the rest of the council once the disgraced former minister is safely out of earshot.

"What a pitiful fool -"

"And touched in the wits too, apparently! The Blue Spirit? Can you imagine…"

"Such stories are hardly fit for a bedtime story...let alone a member of the highest council of the land!"

But Azula says nothing, remaining seated as tall and immovable as a mountain at the head of the table. The wall of her father's fire illuminates the sharp points of her mantle, the crisp pleats in her deep red robes, and the small golden flame at the base of her perfectly smooth topknot. Mai catches the corners of her mouth lifting fractionally higher, just before her father speaks again.

"Zhao," Ozai commands in a hard voice. "Step forward. Now."

The burly man bites his tongue, before rising to his feet in a deliberate motion. He keeps his eyes trained on the ground as he stalks alongside the length of the table. Finally, he kowtows to the ground next to where Azula sits, at the foot of the dais.

Mai holds her breath and it seems to her like the entire room does too, the silence gathering weight in the sweltering heat beading sweat along her brow.

"You were trusted to place someone of competence in the interior minister's office," Ozai breathes, barely audible over the crackling of the leaping flames. "You have made a mockery of my trust."

"My lord," Zhao sputters, not daring to lift his head from where it presses into the waxed floor. "I didn't - I am your faithful servant -"

"I have no use for a servant who chooses to surround himself with snivelling fools," Ozai cuts him off flatly. "Spare me your excuses and your fanciful tales, Zhao. What do you have to say for yourself?"

Zhao's hands curl into shaking fists, the knuckles white and sticking out sharply under his skin. "Your Radiance," he grits out carefully, knowing any word could be his last, "I share your disappointment in his failure. It is a stain on my honour too. You have but to command me, and I will remove myself from your service if it pleases you."

Good riddance, Mai thinks to herself witheringly. And don't let the door hit you on the way out.

But the councillors only exchange glances of disbelief among themselves. As the steady blaze of Ozai's fire stretches into the silence, she spots Azula's frown, ever so slight.

"If it pleases me," Ozai echoes slowly at last. Zhao's shoulders grow rigid with tension. "My daughter, Princess Azula, was correct after all. Perhaps your introduction to domestic affairs occurred too swiftly. You are a man of the military, after all."

To her credit, Azula schools her face to regal indifference. It would be beneath a princess's dignity to gloat, after all. But Mai catches the triumphant gleam in her cold amber eyes, the glow of satisfaction at her father's praise, at Zhao's humiliation. It wasn't every day that the hard lines of her face softened; it wasn't every day that Azula appeared, well, happy.

"Father," she speaks up with a calculated diffidence. "I know it is not my place. But if I may speak?"

"Very well," Ozai allows, his voice suddenly warm and full of the approval she so desperately craved. "What is it that you wish to say, Azula?"

"Only that your wrath at Admiral Zhao's error of judgment is soundly merited," Azula begins with a guileless smile. "To demand his immediate resignation would be just and wise." She pauses to cast a sidelong glance at Zhao, and Mai watches her savour the way he flinches in obvious fear, bracing for her censure.

Then, Azula sniffs haughtily before continuing, "However, he has served you well as a man of the military. Did he not deliver a mighty victory up North in your name? Perhaps he deserves a second chance."

Mai fights to contain her surprise. Azula stares down her nose at Zhao, patiently waiting for her father to speak. Her benevolence keens like a double-edged sword.

"Perhaps," Ozai allows at long last. The line of flames glows brightly before ebbing and shrinking back to their usual size. "You may continue serving as a military consultant, Zhao. But I have no use for you in the governing council. That remains the province of my brilliant daughter."

"Y-Yes, Your Radiance," Zhao rasps through clenched teeth, even as his shoulders sag in relief. "Thank you, Your Radiance. You are too merciful, my lord."

Ozai lets out a cold laugh, and the hairs rise along the back of Mai's neck. "You should thank my daughter, not me, if you truly wish to show your gratitude."

"Y-Yes," Zhao stammers. Azula cocks her head in thinly veiled amusement as he shuffles, bowing deeply to her in a forced show of contrition. "Thank you, Princess Azula. You...are as gracious as you are wise."

Azula narrows her eyes at the last words, flung like a hidden barb that only she truly understood. "You could stand to learn either, Zhao," she warns, staring coldly at the tip of his topknot grazing the floor by her knees. "Now, do as my royal father commanded...and leave."

Zhao stiffens before rising slowly. He locks eyes with Azula for a moment that lingered far too long to be appropriate. His teeth bare into the beginnings of a growl. But the princess only raises an eyebrow, before folding her hands into her lap expectantly. Zhao swallows his mounting rage with no small effort. "Of course," he forces out reluctantly, bobbing his head into a small bow again. "I am yours to command, Your Highness."

Azula picks at the undersides of her sharpened nails in response, already dismissing the disgraced Admiral from her attention.

Mai barely hears the rest of the meeting that continues long after Zhao grudgingly takes his leave But, when Ozai finally dismisses his council, she is surprised to find the princess in unusually high spirits. Azula's smile glows nearly as brightly as the fire lining the base of her father's throne, and she holds her head high as she stalks out of the throne room. The rest of the council parts before her, bowing their heads in reverence as she passes, Mai trailing faithfully at her side.

"That went well," she chances carefully, once out of earshot of the other councillors.

"Hm," Azula sighs in satisfaction. "Not that I believed that fool Shuren's story. But if there is a Blue Spirit, I suppose I ought to thank him." Mai chokes disbelievingly as Azula's smile widens, flashing her teeth like a predator. "He made my morning so much easier. I almost hope he shows his face again...that is, if he wasn't a traitor to Father's rule -"

She breaks off, and Mai pauses in confusion before glancing down the hallway.

Just outside the doors of Azula's suite lurks Zhao. Hunched into a bow, his eyes trained on the battered floor, the red-and-black of his immaculately polished armour blending in with the singed and frayed drapes swaying against the broken walls underneath.

Azula's nostrils flare officiously at the sight of him, but apart from a small sniff, she gives no indication that his presence affected her at all.

"Princess," Zhao calls out as they pass him. Azula reaches for the elaborate door handle, carved in the shape of a dragon's head. "A word, if you please?"

Azula slows in her steps, before stopping altogether. "But it does not please me, Zhao," she says without sparing him a glance. Her fingers trace the ornate edges of the golden dragon's teeth, small and sharp and bared in a snarl. "Stand in my way again, and I will crush you like the grasping insect that you are."

Mai hears the audible grind of Zhao's teeth as he clenches his jaw. Then, Azula pushes through the door and beckons Mai to follow.

They step into the small chamber that served as Azula's study. Shielding her gaze from the bright sunlight pouring through the single east-facing window, Mai picks her way along the bookcases lining the walls from floor to ceiling.

"Well," she makes herself say lightly, settling into one of the comfortable chairs lined across from Azula's ebony desk, meticulously organized and polished to a high shine. "That was something."

"Hm," Azula makes a slightly disparaging sound, seating herself behind her desk and already pouring ink from a bottle into the shallow well. "A mere nuisance. But no matter. I'll deal with Zhao later."

She reaches into one of the drawers, pulling out a scroll of blank paper and stretches it in place with a pair of gleaming golden weights. "In the meantime, Mai, I have a task for you."

"Oh?" Mai fights to keep her voice from shaking as Azula dips a brush into the ink and begins to write. The sharp calligraphy blooms over the page in precise black lines, every brushstroke practiced and deliberate. "And what's that?"

"Fetch your boyfriend's mother for me, would you?" Azula doesn't look up from her writing, but her lips curve slowly into a sly smile. "As of this morning, it appears a position on the governing council just became available."

The people begged for the Painted Lady to save them, and in that moment, it didn't matter that she was a lowly spirit stripped of her majesty and banished from her home.

She still had her will - to do something that no one else would - and that was something that her father, with all his power, could never take away...

Katara shivers in the sudden burst of wind, whipping the trailing cloth of her cloak and veil with its cold, cruel bite.

"Here," a voice says close to her ear before someone drapes a heavy fur shawl around her shoulders.

She clutches at it with frozen fingers, instantly thankful for the warmth. "Thanks," she heaves out gratefully, glancing over her shoulder at Tartok, already backing away.

To her surprise, he waves her off, mumbling awkwardly. "Don't mention it."

Then, he turns on his heel and dashes off to join a group of air acolytes standing at the mouth of one of Nutjuitok's darkened streets. With a barked command and a rousing cheer, they charge into it, racing into one building after another searching for survivors and breaking off their chains.

Katara remains frozen in place, the brisk wind chill along the red stripes of paint already melting off her skin. She wipes at her brow, where somehow, her sweat already mingles with the pigments to smear along her fingers.

The clamour and commotion of the skirmishes still breaking out along the borders of the city echo softly in the distance. The bursts of uncontrolled fire, fanned to greater strength by the concerted strikes of the Air Nomads atop their bison, glow faintly in the sky like the ghost of the celestial lights, staining the clouds the deep red of smouldering coals. It illuminates the tracks of soldiers and beasts and vehicles alike, gouged deep into the ice covering the streets and betraying the haste of their flight out of Nutjuitok.

She can still hear their screams, though they grew fainter with every passing moment as they abandoned the haunted city to flee back to their stronghold of Aujuittuq. While Iroh and Gyatso led a two-pronged offense against the remnants of Admiral Chan's soldiers before shoring up defense of the city, Tartok and the rest of the waterbenders were going around liberating everyone they could find. Even in the dark of night, before dawn touched the horizon with its bleakest of light, the cheers were starting to go around the streets. Free, they cried from the houses, from every window and corner, free, Nutjuitok is free…

A tear spills onto Katara's cheek and she wipes it away quickly with the back of her hand, making an even bigger mess of her makeup. We did it, she thinks blankly, closing her eyes. Zuko, we did it.

We freed Nutjuitok and I didn't even need my bending. All I had were your stories. Turns out, that was enough.

A bleary grumble rings out from somewhere above her. She glances up, momentarily distracted by Appa landing a few feet in front of her. Aang jumps down from his perch atop his furry head, while Toph leans over the side of his saddle, her face tinted visibly green even in the scarce light.

"All clear," Aang declares, leaping down to land lightly on the ice. "Looks like those Fire Navy jerks are clearing out for good."

"And looks like Grandpa and the rest're convincing the stragglers to pick up the pace," Toph supplies, clambering onto Appa's back and sliding down the long shaggy fur lining one of his long legs. She lands on the ice with a thump, her face relaxing with relief. "Oh sweet badgermole-whiskers, land. I never get tired of it."

"Even when it's covered with ice?" Aang asks, smirking.

"Hey. You can't have everything in life, now can you?"

Katara breathes deeply, smiling wryly as her friends' bantering washes over her. A pang hits her then, the instinctive sensing of the missing fourth part of their group, and how much she wanted him there, standing on the ice beside her.

Instead, he was far away, probably facing his fate back in the capital by now. The thought of it sends fear cascading like icewater into her chest, and no amount of careful breathing could control it. Zuko was alone and they were here, and who even knew if he was even still alive?

She cuts off that treacherous train of thought with no small effort. For all that they had heard no news about Zuko since his capture, General Iroh had spoken sense when he said that the death of his only heir would not go unmarked. Word would spread like wildfire, even to their remote corner of the earth. While we suffer this silence, he said earlier, back at the encampment with a heavy heart, he suffers to live another day.

She nearly finishes composing herself by the time Iroh himself arrives, seated on the back of Gyatso's sky bison and landing next to Appa. The two beasts grumble at each other in their animal tongue, while Iroh and Gyatso dismount steadily.

Katara's mouth drops when she spots former chief Arnook rise unsteadily and climb down the side of Gyatso's sky bison.

"The city is secure," Iroh states shortly, his amber eyes roving between Katara, Toph, and Aang. "We rounded up the last of the soldiers and sent them ahead with a message for Admiral Chan."

"A message?" Aang asks uncertainly.

Katara feels as though a bolt of lightning jolts through her stomach as Iroh meets her surly gaze. "Yes," he answers steadily. "To abandon this course of wanton cruelty and choose the honourable path forward."

"You think this guy's going to give up when he's still winning?" Toph asks skeptically.

Iroh shakes his head. "No. I do not. Admiral Chan is an honourable man...but he is also proud and stubborn." He rubs at his chin thoughtfully. "I have never known him to be cruel, however. Unless there are other pressures driving him. Only time will tell."

Arnook sighs heavily. "To think that within a single moon of our defeat, Nutjuitok is already free of those monsters. I never thought to see this day so soon." He bows his head gratefully to Iroh and Gyatso. "I cannot thank you enough for your help in our direst need."

Iroh raises a hand to stem Arnook's praise. "I'm afraid you are thanking the wrong person." He clears his throat awkwardly, lowering his gaze. "After all, it was Sifu Katara's idea to use the folklore of my people against them."

Katara opens her mouth, but finds herself speechless in the face of Iroh's toneless praise. If he was trying to compliment her to regain her favour, that was one thing. But he had said it almost as though she wasn't standing there at all. As though her presence had no bearing on what he meant to say, or the sincerity of it.

The old guilts wells in her chest. "It worked to liberate Nutjuitok," she says, staring at Iroh carefully. "But retaking Aujuittuq won't be so easy, will it?"

Iroh's face is drawn as he raises it to meet her gaze. "No," he agrees flatly.

"It's been almost a moon since the North fell. We're almost a full moon into spring," she points out, her mind already racing with trepidation. "From here on, the days will only grow longer. We'll have fewer and fewer opportunities to strike and retreat under cover of night." She rubs at her temples in frustration.

"She's right," Arnook admits reluctantly, folding his arms. "The season advances whether the firebenders are here or not. It may be the coldest spring in living memory, but summer is still coming. And with it, the midnight sun."

"And the melt," Katara reminds him, a chill running down her spine. "When the weather finally warms, how will the cities remain standing without any waterbenders to keep it frozen?"

Arnook's gaze flits from her to Iroh. He shrugs helplessly. "I'm afraid we will just have to pray for a chilly summer, then."

"We have bigger problems facing us," Iroh warns. "If we are to try retake Aujuittuq before summer's end, we must remember that the bulk of the invasion force is situated there. Chan's men will have set up multiple bases around the city to defend it. They patrol the streets armed to the teeth, equipped with tanks and armoured rhinos. And they will be veterans of combat, not so easily swayed or fooled by the spirits."

An uncomfortable silence settles over their small group, even as the cheers of the freed Water Tribe people rise up in the distance.

"Do you think there's a chance that Admiral Chan will try seize this city again?" Arnook asks softly.

Iroh sighs again heavily. "I'm not sure," he confesses. "This is a small city on the far side of the polar ice cap. Apart from its harbour, it is not exactly strategically important." He shrugs haplessly. "If I were him, I would choose to concentrate my forces on the crown jewel of my domain, rather than spread myself too thin and risk my quarry slipping through the cracks."

"But we have to do something," Katara hears herself argue, perhaps out of stubborn habit if nothing else. "We can't just sit here and hide."

An unsteady silence trails after her outburst. Toph crosses her arms and Aang runs a hand through Appa's shaggy fur, but the three old men exchange uncertain glances with each other. Some unspoken communication flits rapidly between them before Iroh turns back to meet her defiant gaze.

"I did not say we do nothing, Sifu Katara," he replies patiently, carefully, as though he thought she was just some temperamental wild creature he was trying to soothe. "I was just pointing out that we must take pains not to risk capture -"

"Our friends are out there," Katara barrels over him, pointing somewhere in the distance vaguely, where beyond their sight or reach, Aujuittuq lay, a walled fortress skulking in wait. "The band chiefs, Yue, they're - they're holding them somewhere out there! Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"She's my daughter," Arnook speaks softly, his voice thick and broken. "I would do almost anything to get her back."

Katara stares at him pleadingly, willing him to understand. "Then do something."

"Without the moon, our ability to attack is greatly diminished," Iroh reminds her sharply, and Katara's irritation grows with every maddeningly logical thing he says. "We have no waterbenders, and even our firebending is strangely temperamental now -"

"Maybe you're not as good as you think you are," she interjects nastily.

"Katara, see reason -"

"I didn't need my bending to put the fear of the spirits back into those soldiers!" Katara pushes back hotly.

"No," Iroh counters softly. "Instead you relied on that of your friends there, at great risk. And it will only get harder from here."

She lets out a frustrated huff before turning away from him, from everyone else. The excited bustle and breaking chains of the people in the newly-freed city rings hollowly in her ears.

It felt impossible, she thinks furiously, crossing her arms. No matter that they had somehow miraculously retaken Nutjuitok and dealt Zhao's men an unexpected blow with little more than smoke and mirrors. Finding Yue and the others, retaking the rest of the North, driving out the rest of the Fire Navy soldiers...all remained impossibly out of reach, a mockery of their victorious accomplishment.

And even if they managed all that, it still wouldn't bring the moon back. It still wouldn't get them any closer to saving Zuko.

It was hopeless.

"It's not fair," she chokes out, her throat tightening. "They have every advantage in this fight. All we have left is our will."

Her voice wobbles dangerously and she curses inwardly. Far overhead, the stars and the vast darkness of the night sky slowly begins to recede to the pale glow of dawn. But the impenetrable black void where the moon used to be still remains, unblemished.

She closes her eyes, shivering with disquiet. Then, heavy footsteps crunch loudly behind her before a warm hand rests on her shoulder.

"That is only a matter of perspective," Iroh replies hoarsely. "No matter how brightly the single flame burns, it will never outshine all the stars in the sky. And yet…what more is needed to keep that vast darkness at bay?"

Instinctively, she pulls the fur shawl tighter around herself, as though to dispel the cold dread washing over her. She glances at Iroh's hand still firm on her shoulder, its warmth a strangely reassuring weight in spite of everything he had done.

His eyes soften, the creases in his weary face making him appear old and familiar at the same time. "I am here," he tells her gently. "I am on your side. And I am not going anywhere this time."

She gapes at him, struggling to speak. Her bottom lip quivers dangerously, the lump in the back of her throat closing up tightly. She draws in a shuddering breath, her eyes growing suddenly hot with tears.

It was, after all, almost everything she had needed to hear from him. And everything she had never been ready to accept, until now.

Iroh's eyes widen in surprise as she spins around on her heel. "Sifu Katara," he begins, but never finishes as, to her intense mortification, she presses her face into his chest and breaks down sobbing.

He holds her like he might have held Zuko, or his own late son. The way her own father might have held her, if he had been allowed to live.

"I'm - I'm sorry," she chokes out, hiccuping through her tears. "Iroh, I'm s-so sorry -"

"I am sorry too," he answers sadly. "You were right. I should have taken responsibility for my mistakes. Instead, I turned away and allowed my burdens to fall on young shoulders such as yours. This...this hopeless situation...it is my creation, too."

She sniffs loudly, her entire body shuddering with the force of her emotions. "H-How do we get out of it?" she stammers thickly. "You said it. We're outnumbered and we have no bending and Zuko...Zuko…" The tears fall harder, making it almost impossible to speak.

"We will find a way," Iroh assures her. "I know we will." He tilts her head up to wipe away at the mess of tears and smeared red paint on her face. "You will overcome this, and so will Zuko. And before you know it, we will all be together again. Somehow." His eyes squeeze shut, his jaw tightening implacably as he whispers, "I believe it with all my heart. This too will pass."

She falls silent, except for the small sounds that still well in her throat. Hastily, she wipes her face with the back of her hand.

Overhead, the sky glows dull blue, the weak light finally banishing the dark shroud of night. The stars fade from view and even the black patch where the moon had been torn away yields to the march of the sun.

Katara looks up and breathes in the morning air, its brisk taste sharp on her tongue. "It'll be light soon," she hears herself say. "The day is coming."

Iroh breaks away to glance at Arnook, standing a small distance away. The former chief's craggy face crumples with incipient grief and suddenly, instinctively, Katara knew what they had to do next.

The day dawns bright and clear, the clouds and shadows all but vanished. Sunlight streams down, bravely illuminating the snow-covered buildings of Nutjuitok and the scars left by the fires. It dances off the gleaming surfaces of shining ice and warms the air with its gentle heat.

Katara sheds her thick parka, sweating from exertion and the mildness of arctic spring. By now, the paint has been washed from her skin and her hair has been braided back away from her face. If the folk of Nutjuitok gave her funny looks, she ignores them, focusing on the important task at hand instead.

"Just in the nick of time," Tartok admits reluctantly. "Otherwise the rot would start to set in with this heat."

Katara says nothing, only reaching up to grab one of the many corpses by its boots. With a heave and a grunt, the two of them drag it from one of the several piles lining the street of the healing huts, now already dwindling in size. A fair distance away, Toph and Aang are carrying another body between them, nearly buckling under the dead weight.

She pauses, shifting to better adjust the dead man's feet. Glancing briefly at his face, the curious numbing sense of purpose blanketing the rest of her senses as she takes it in. A sturdy man in his prime and powerfully built. Silver already starts to frost the dark hair at his temples, the planes of his face proud and strong. A handsome man, she reflects, a warrior, perhaps a husband or a father.

"Come on," she says blankly to Tartok, supporting the man by his shoulders. "Let's go."

In a charged silence, the two of them maneuver their way along the path cleared for them, winding through the busy streets and leading to the burial grounds lying on the outskirts of the city. A handful of women were busy at work, setting up graves from the pile of rocks Toph had pulled up for them earlier in the day. Others helped identify the bodies and find their families, the entire city banding together to make sure their loved ones were finally laid to rest.

The distant wail of song rises faintly from the burial grounds, and prickles crawl along Katara's skin. Tartok says nothing to her, the somber setting perhaps exacerbating his own fears about his father, his brother, whether he would ever see them again or if he would have to carry their bodies to their graves in this same way. Katara supposes she should sympathize, but a weight presses down heavily on the empty space in her chest.

She had never gotten the chance to lay her parents to rest. She didn't know where their bodies were, what had happened to them. At least the people of Nutjuitok had that closure, at least she could help give them that.

Together, she and Tartok lay the body down on the ground, stretching it out at the end of a row of the dead.

"That's Tonraq," someone speaks, pointing to the man sprawled out before Katara's feet. "H-he and his wife were expecting their first child." A pause, thick with grief. "He was so happy. He always wanted a little girl."

"He was a good man," Tartok says harshly. "He didn't deserve to die."

"None of them did," Katara agrees.

She walks back along the path leading back to Nutjuitok. Along the edge of the sprawling burial ground, she passes small groups of people laying the bodies atop the ice and placing stones around them to protect them from the elements. Their families, building graves, telling stories, placing small tokens alongside the body - belongings that the deceased had loved and cherished.

Tearing her eyes away from the scene, she slows in her tracks as Arnook and Iroh approach, struggling to carry another body between them toward the burial ground. The familiar guilt wells in her chest as Iroh nods his head at her in acknowledgment. Perhaps he was too tired from the physical labour to speak to her, or perhaps he also felt the awkwardness heavy in the air between them. After so much hostility, it would take a while for things to settle comfortably.

Like the grueling ordeal of laying the dead to rest and mourn them, it would take time for the wounds to heal.

But the sun rises to its zenith, drowning out the shadows and painting the grieving city with liquid gold light. And when it sets, Iroh and the rest of his soldiers light countless little fires, their dancing light dispelling the darkness with their shining brave hearts.

Katara sits by its warm glow, exhausted from the work of the day and her ears full of the mourning songs piercing the night air with their heart-rending sorrow. Toph and Aang sit with her, as silent and introspective as she feels, as though the harrowing day had bound them all.

"The stars are so clear tonight," Aang remarks, tapping his glider against his foot. "Is that the north star up there?"

Katara squints at where he points, the bright white spot glittering directly above the liberated city. "It used to be," she answers. "Nutjuitok was named for it. But the last time the tilt of the earth changed, so did the bearing for true north." She shrugs. "Now the real north star hangs over Tomken. Right over the spirit oasis, I think."

"Wow." Aang's eyes widen as he cranes his head upward, staring directly into the sky. "There are so many of them! It almost looks like another world out there!"

"That's what my grandmother used to say," Katara tells him, smiling wistfully. "When I was little, she'd tell us so many stories about the spirit world, hiding somewhere between the stars and the southern lights."

"Do you think that's true?" Aang inquires, his eyes still fixed upon the stars. "That there's a whole other world somewhere out there?"

"I always thought they were just stories," Katara confesses, chewing her lip. "But the moon spirit was real. Maybe the rest of them are too."

They lapse into a thoughtful silence, grateful for the warmth and crackle of the fire.

"I'm glad you were here," Katara says at last, surprising everyone. "Really."

Aang smiles weakly at her. "We're glad you're here too." His big grey eyes reflect the amber light of the fire burning between them. "It wasn't so long ago when we were scared you'd never be with us again."

She lowers her head, the regret mingling with her grief and threatening to swallow her up. "I really am sorry about that," she breathes. "I - I don't know what I was thinking."

"You thought you had your home back," Toph replies bluntly. "I think if any of us had that chance...I'm not sure we wouldn't take it too."

"But it wasn't my home," Katara answers darkly. The flames leap in front of her, nearly blinding her with their bright golden glow. "I wished it was, but my home is gone. And I didn't want to admit that...until Hahn gave me no choice."

"That's not exactly true," Aang points out kindly. "If there's one thing the Air Nomads taught me...it's that home isn't a place." He places a hand over his chest, over the spot where the Dai Li had crushed his ribs with a rock and Katara had fought to heal it. So long ago. "It's a feeling, and you bring it with you, everywhere you go. You can't ever really lose it, no matter what they take from you."

Katara closes her eyes, the firelight still appearing a red glow behind her eyelids. "I could have left at any time," she whispers. "But I didn't. I couldn't see the way out of it, even though it was right in front of me." She clutches at her chest the way Aang had. "Even though you all were right in front of me. I guess that makes me a pretty terrible friend."

A loaded silence follows her words.

"It wasn't your best moment," Toph agrees. "You've definitely had better ones."

Katara nods, still afraid to open her eyes.

"But…" Toph trails off, thinking hard. "You've also come a long way."

Somehow, in spite of the day they had just shared, Katara still manages to smile. "You guys might not be from the Water Tribes...but you're part of my tribe," she whispers, the truth of it resonating in her chest with a power that surprises her. "I'm just sorry it took me so long to realize that."

"Hey," Toph says lightly, but the firelight illuminates the corners of her mouth uplifting into a smirk. "We're happy to be part of your tribe too."

She says nothing of the blank space between them, the missing fourth person in their group. But she didn't have to. As Aang had said, home was a feeling, and Zuko's loss was one they all still felt, viscerally.

But, as General Iroh had said, they had to believe in him to survive. They had to believe they could get him back someday, somehow.

Whatever it takes, Katara swears silently. I'll find you again, Zuko. I'll find you and I'll tell you...I'll tell you...

The light of the setting sun streams through the knifelike slit of window in the far corner of Zuko's cell, painting a rectangle of burnished gold on the cold stone tiles. He stares at it blankly, the brightness making his eyes water and deepening the shadows wavering around him.

"Are you even listening to me?"

He blinks, his eyes flitting from the ground to the dazzling bands of fuchsia and pale blue striping the small patch of sky. "What?" he asks absently, his mouth parched dry.

Mai makes an impatient sound, barely visible in the gloom of his squat, dank prison cell. If he looked away from the window, he could almost make out her pale face in the corner, a glowing white apparition seeming to hover disembodied, as the black of her dress blended seamlessly with the darkness. But the bright colourful light calls him and he finds himself unable to look away, his attention fixed on it instead of the constant hissing emanating from Mai's mouth.

"I said, that was totally irresponsible and stupid!" she continues, fighting to keep her voice quiet, though he still hears the anger thinly veiled in it. "What were you thinking, anyway? Going after Asaka like that?"

"I thought you wanted me to," he answers dully, licking his shrivelled, chapped lips. The canteen of water lies overturned on his meal tray, drained to its dregs long ago. "Didn't you say I was the only one who could actually take matters into my own hands?"

"Not like that!" Mai snaps, her teeth clenching in fear. "Scare some guards, fine, rescue some innocent prisoners, maybe, but getting a man lynched to death?"

"Of course," Zuko retorts under his breath sarcastically. "Agni forbid I actually do something that makes a difference around here."

"There's a time and place, Zuko. Have you even thought about the consequences?"

He pretends to think about it. "Sure," he answers seriously. "Maybe they'll lock me up and threaten to kill me and take my bending away with poison - oh wait."

"You're out of your mind," Mai seethes, shaking her head furiously. "Taking a stand against your dad is fine, but courting discovery is dangerous -"

"Because I'm so safe here?" he scoffs. "Open your eyes, Mai! If you didn't want me to do anything, then why did you even come here to begin with?"

"I wish I knew," she fires back. "Why did I help such an idiot? What am I supposed to do now?"

He glares at her. But as the dying light of dusk wanes and slowly plunges the rest of his cell back into its familiar darkness, he finds himself better able to see the lines scoring her face. The shadows of sleeplessness, the extreme pallour of fear. She wasn't angry at him, he realizes, she was petrified of the consequences of finally taking a stand.

His face softens before he turns away from her. "I suggest you find some good alibis," he answers evenly. "And stay as far away from me as you can."

He hears her swallow nervously as he jiggles the loose block in the wall. "What are you planning to do next?" she asks reluctantly.

Zuko grimaces as he reaches for his crumpled black clothes and laughing blue mask, stowed safely in the hidden wall cavity. "It's probably best if you don't know."

She exhales slowly, and he isn't sure if she's disappointed, relieved, or a combination of the two. "It's probably too late for me to tell you stop all this, isn't it?"

He pauses, already halfway through donning the scraps of black. To stop all this, his mind whispers tantalizingly. To embrace safety, and spend the remainder of whatever days he had left fearfully waiting for the end. To abandon the only chance he had, no matter how slight, of finally showing his father and Azula exactly what he thought of them.

"I can't," he answers quietly, his fingers tightening on the belt around his waist. "Not now." Because he was a dead man either way. But now that he had finally tasted the thrill of rebellion, no matter how dangerous it was, it was impossible to stop.

Besides...it was what Katara would do if she were in his shoes. And if she could find a way to pick herself up and fight back, time and time again, then so could he.

"You're crazy," Mai disparages from her corner, watching him slip the tight-fitting black hood over his head.

"It must run in the family," he sighs, flattening the cloth over his ears and the scratchy patches of stubble lining his scalp in a faint shadow. He hears her shuffle, perhaps preparing to leave and a sudden thought grips him. "Mai? Who are they going to replace Shuren with?"

She pauses. Her white face tilts in amusement. "Kei Ling."

His eyes widen in surprise. "Your boyfriend's mother?" he asks bluntly, the blue mask accidentally slipping from his fingers. The sound of its clatter against the cold prison floor fills his ears. "A strange choice...but a bold one. Whose idea was that?"

"Weirdly enough," Mai answers tentatively, "it was Azula's."

Zuko staggers, nearly losing his balance. He had expected many things of his sister. But risking their father's wrath by appointing one of his most vocal enemies to his cabinet was a move that truly floored him. "What is she planning?" he mutters, before shaking his head. It didn't matter. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good. "At least she didn't replace one brainless brute with another."

"Yeah," Mai admits, before lapsing into a thoughtful silence. "Interesting, isn't it?"

He exhales slowly, before reaching over and picking up the mask from where it lay by his feet. "Dangerous, more like." The exaggerated smile leaps out at him in the darkness permeating the cell. "You should go now, before the guards find you here."

"As if they could," Mai sniffs, sounding insulted. She turns to leave, but glances at him over her shoulder. "Try not to get killed out there, yeah?"

He snorts, strapping the mask onto his face. "I make no promises," he retorts dryly.

But only silence greets his words, and when he finally turns around to face her, he finds his cell silent and empty, as though she had never been there.

Zuko sighs, reaching into his pocket for the slim blade she had given him the night before. It's better this way, he tells himself firmly. Mai had come through for him in a way that went against t nature. And even though it had surprised him, he couldn't ask any more of her. It was one thing to jump into the dragon's mouth when you were already falling off the edge of a cliff. But to involve Mai further was to invite the hammer of Azula's wrath upon her. Telling her to stay away was the kindest thing he could do for her now.

The lock in the grille snaps open with a sharp click.

So Asaka's gone, Shuren's been banished from the capital, and Zhao's been demoted. Not bad for one night's work. I wonder what I could do tonight. After all, cut off the head and the body dies...

A sudden calm settles over him as he scrambles out the window and perches in a shadowed corner. He turns to face the palace, its spires gleaming at the other edge of the caldera.

It all started and ended with his father. If he could only find a way to sneak into the palace grounds, past the walls and guards and other fortifications that had doubtless been erected since Lu Ten's death…

But his mind draws a blank, the sheer scale of all the obstacles overwhelming him. Even if he did manage, even if he could somehow get past all the defenses and slip into the royal quarters, there would still be Ozai himself to contend with. There would still be Azula.

Closing his eyes, he breathes deeply as his uncle had taught him. But the paths of chi in his body lie dormant and unresponsive, his inner fire quenched and completely inaccessible. Even with the unexpected freedom the mask bestowed upon him, he was no fool. His father wouldn't be brought down by sneak attacks and broadswords. Zuko had faced him twice now, and had been lucky to escape with his life both times. Without his bending, he didn't stand a chance.

No, his father lay squarely out of reach, and so did Azula. But the rest of their men – all the ministers and councillors and advisors and deputies…

I might not be able to cut off the head. But if I go for the arms and legs…

A slow smile works across his face.

The late afternoon sky shines cold and grey, the same dreary colour of the worn stone lining the immaculate streets of Gaoling.

Lee whistles under his breath, fighting the urge to stare in every direction at the prim, pristine city neatly tucked between the Oyong mountains and the foggy swamp. A strange chill passes through him at the thought of the boggy expanse lurking just out of sight of the low circular walls bordering the city. Their route from the resistance stronghold outside of Ba Sing Se had taken them through the forests and mountains occupying the heart of the Earth continent, thankfully bypassing the murky quagmire altogether. He rubs his palms together, trying to ease the sudden clamminess of his hands, but the unease persists, like the memory of the uncanny swamp pervading his nightmares, always lingering at the edge, longing to swallow him whole.

"Lee, quit dawdling and hurry up!" barks Yao, pausing in his strenuous paces at the head of their group to glare at him over his shoulder.

"Right! Coming!" he retorts, scrambling to catch up. He shakes his head violently, falling in line with the rear of the small team of resistance fighters tasked to retake Gaoling before it became another haven for the retreating Dai Li.

There was Master Iio, Yao, their navigator, and General Wen, a burly man of short stature and even shorter temper, who was a member of King Bumi's Council of Five and had been charged to lead their mission. Haru and a wiry village guy called Sentsu rounded out the remainder of the earthbenders that the resistance could afford to spare.

Trailing somewhat behind them, and appearing nearly as confused by their presence in the group as everyone else was, were Arrluk and a few others of his brethren, who had finally shed their Dai Li uniforms for the inconspicuous earthy attire and black cloaks of the resistance. Maguyuk, an older man with wrinkled skin the colour of oak, and built just as powerfully. A labret studded his bottom lip, flashing whenever he spoke, and a shining whalestooth club dangled from his belt. It thumps purposefully against the side of his leg with every step.

Then there were Iluak and Ruska, a brother and sister who Lee recognized instantly as the pair who had tortured and failed to save Jun. They marched ahead of him in unison, tall and willowy and nearly indistinguishable from each other, sharing the same straight black hair and hard, angular features. Even their weapons matched, both sporting identical serrated knives strapped to their backs.

"How does a Water Tribe woman like you know how to wield a knife anyway?" he'd grunted earlier, watching Ruska sharpen her blade with a twinging resentment.

But she hadn't been able to face him, whether out of guilt or shame or something more, he couldn't tell. Her cheeks and ears flushed dark red as, with her eyes fixed upon the whetstone, she mumbled something about receiving a warrior's upbringing with her twin brother.

Lee had raised an eyebrow at that. Based on what little knowledge of the Water Tribes he had gleaned from his acquaintance with Pakku, he thought they adhered to rigidly defined gender roles. Perhaps in their time of crisis, the Southern refugees had decided there were more important things than tradition in order to survive.

But then Yao draws to a halt and Lee absently bumps into the large warrior in front of him. "We're here," the earthbender grumbles, rolling up his map and tucking it into his pocket.

"Right," General Wen grumbles, gesturing to the opulent estate sprawling before them. Its gated doors gleam to a polished shine, proudly displaying an elaborately-wrought flying boar. "Step lively and mind your manners, all of you. The Beifongs are upper-class people, and we need them on our side if we have a hope of winning this fight."

"I still don't understand why we have to put on airs," Sentsu complains as Lee rubs his head gingerly. "We know the Dai Li are falling back here, why can't we just ambush them and take them out?"

General Wen lets out a groan, pressing his fingers into his temples. "How many times do I have to explain?" he snaps. "We need money, not just manpower. The Dai Li have years of tributes behind them...not to mention the support of the Empire! But Lao Beifong is the richest man in the world, and if he decides to throw his support to us, it changes the game." He crosses his arms stubbornly. "Now, will you play along or do I have to leave you out here on guard duty?"

"I wouldn't mind that," Sentsu mutters, rubbing the back of his head uncomfortably. "Leave the talking to someone smart."

The general rolls his eyes. "Right," he bites out impatiently, "I wouldn't want to mistake you for one of those, now."

"Hey." Sentsu raises his big hands defensively. "At least I know what I'm good for. I'll call you if I see any heads that need crushing."

"Fine by me," Wen declares, cracking his thick knuckles decisively. "Sentsu, Maguyuk, you two stand guard outside. The rest of you, in with me." He waves an impatient hand. "Now."

Lee catches Arrluk's quizzical stare before shaking his head and following the General toward the well-manicured gardens surrounding the Beifong estate.

To his surprise, the gates swing open noiselessly, beckoning them inside.

For someone who mainly frequented the secret hideouts and underground lairs of King Bumi's resistance, the opulence of Lao Beifong's audience room dazzles him. And even from what little he could glean of his barely-remembered previous life, Lee doesn't imagine he had been well-acquainted with such wealth either.

He blinks, trying to clear his sight of the blinding flash of gold from nearly every surface. Coating the walls, decorating every surface in jewel-encrusted vases and statues and those weird branches that rich people left out to prove that they were rich. Plating every inch of the man's chair, which looked far more like a throne than whatever King Bumi sat on.

Lord Beifong lounges upon it, his chin resting on his hand as his gaze wanders elsewhere, scarcely listening to the drawn-out and frankly boring speech General Wen had prepared for him. A thin man on the generous end of his middle years, the brilliant gold brocade of his heavy robes competes with the glittering gems lining every one of his fingers, which all somehow managed to make his complexion appear even more sallow. Lee stares at the headpiece adorning the man's prim topknot, dimly wondering how his slim neck didn't snap under the weight of it.

"So," General Wen concludes a quarter of an hour into their audience, squaring his shoulders proudly, "we believe the time is now to turn the tide in this conflict. As a notably well-esteemed citizen of the Earth continent, your support would be invaluable, Lord Beifong."

But the man only continues staring at the wall, saying nothing and giving no indication that he had heard anything the General had said to him.

An awkward silence descends upon the small group. Lee catches Haru's eye, before making a face at him. The young earthbender shrugs fractionally in return, before turning back to face Lord Beifong respectfully.

"Of course," Master Iio interjects diplomatically after a round of quiet coughs and cleared throats fail to grab the man's attention, "once the resistance establishes control over the region, we would not forget those who helped us in our hour of need. Such a... magnanimous benefactor would be well rewarded in the event of a regime change -"

"I hardly need any more money," Lord Beifong speaks up suddenly, straightening in his seat and plying Iio with a disdainful glance. "I have nothing to gain from your pathetic resistance."

"With all due respect," Iio tries again, "once we oust the Dai Li, you would be in the position to considerably influence the new government -"

"I'm the richest man in the world," Lord Beifong cuts her off, sounding bored. "I already considerably influence the government."

"R-Right," General Wen stammers, his face turning unusually red, "but - but think of how unstable our land has become under the Dai Li's leadership! Surely that can't be good for business!"

"And taking a stand in these domestic disputes is?" Lord Beifong counters softly, idly twirling a giant sapphire ring on his index finger. "No, Captain Win, this unrest will blow over, as it usually does. And there is no doubt in my mind that the Dai Li will end up in control again."

"Perhaps. But perhaps not," General Wen says, pointing to the small group behind him. "In a stroke of good fortune, we have demolished the seat of the Dai Li's power. A small team of our own fighters infiltrated their fortress under Lake Laogai and ended their covert operations to exert their influence over the people!"

Lord Beifong chuckles quietly, before shaking his head. "Forgive me, but I find that hard to believe."

"It's true," General Wen argues. "Why, standing behind me are not only the men who dismantled the Laogai operation, but some of the bloodbenders who were in on it!" He glances impatiently over his shoulder, beckoning at Lee to step forward. "Tell him, Lee!"

"Uh," Lee stammers as the man's disinterested gaze sweeps over him like a searchlight, "he - he's right. We found out that Long Feng and his men were using an army of bloodbenders - Water Tribe war prisoners - to, uh…" he wavers, now feeling more stupid by the moment as Lord Beifong raises a skeptical eyebrow, before finishing lamely, "to brainwash their dissidents and turn them into sleepers."

Mentally smacking himself for his unconvincing delivery, he isn't surprised at all when the man laughs again, harder this time. "What a story!" he declares, wiping a tear of mirth from the corner of his eye. "I must hand it to you rebels, you certainly didn't get where you are for any lack of imagination!"

"But it's true!" Haru protests, adding his voice indignantly. He points to Arrluk and the twins, hovering just behind him in their inconspicuous brown robes. "See, they were actually part of the Dai Li conspiracy! Tell him - tell him the truth!"

"With respect," Ruska speaks up, dropping into a deep bow as Lord Beifong's gaze settles on her, "I know it must be incredibly difficult to believe. And yet...sometimes the most outlandish tales are those that nobody would think to fabricate, unless they must be true." She presses a hand to her chest, staring up in earnest. "My countrymen and I were misled and duped by Long Feng to use our abilities to sow misinformation and distrust among your people. But when this - this Lee infiltrated our base, he made us realize the error of our ways." A shadow passes over her face. "He showed us the truth, and we have pledged ourselves to his cause, to the rebels' cause -"

"What kind of abilities?"

Ruska flounders, caught off guard by Lord Beifong's question. "I - I beg your pardon?"

But Lord Beifong leans forward in his seat, his eyes glimmering with thinly disguised interest for the first time since the whole conversation had started. "You said Long Feng used your abilities to sow misinformation. What kind of abilities?"

"Uh…" Ruska exchanges an uncomfortable glance with her twin brother, who nods at her encouragingly to continue, "to...to bend blood. Sir."

Discomfort coils in Lee's stomach as the man on the throne steeples his fingers in his lap. The jewels encrusting his hand wink and flash in the golden room. "Go on."

But Ruska hangs her head, her braids of hair shielding her face in a dark curtain. "We discovered how to control all the pathways in the living body, Sir. How to control movements, reflexes, instincts, thoughts..." She swallows hard before continuing raggedly. "Personalities."

Lord Beifong straightens in his seat, staring at Ruska with rapt, undivided attention. "Personalities?" he echoes, his voice dropping to a hush. "What do you mean?"

"That was the heart of the Dai Li sleeper operation," Ruska whispers, shaking her head. The sound of all her beads clacking together seem to echo in Lee's ears, and he glares at her trembling shoulders. "We believed we were taking Empire spies and reprogramming them with new personalities, to forget who they were, to prepare them for a lifetime of peace." She spits the word out in disgust. "Only that wasn't true at all, Long Feng actually had us manipulating the minds of innocent people -"

"You mean you have the power to change someone's entire personality?" Lord Beifong demands, his jaw hanging wide with disbelief. "Anyone's?"

"Um…" Ruska glances at General Wen for help, but he only raises his eyebrows meaningfully at her, motioning for her to continue. "Well...technically yes. But - but stronger minds were more difficult -"

"But not impossible," Lord Beifong interrupts, his eyes gleaming with a cold shrewdness that makes Lee feel uneasy to his core. "You could take someone who was a...a complete and utter rebel through and through, and then turn them docile." His voice lowers as his face turns strangely soft. "Gentle. Placable. Obedient."

Ruska's head jerks into a nod. "Y-Yes," she breathes, placing her hands in her lap to stop them from shaking. "That was exactly what we used to do."

"Hmm." Lord Beifong strokes his thin beard for a moment, before his face grows unexpectedly attentive. "Very well. You've intrigued me. I will support your little resistance with any financial assistance you require."

A disbelieving smile splits across Ruska's face as relieved laughter erupts around her.

"But," Lord Beifong intones, raising a hand. Silence blankets the room, as suddenly as it had lifted. "I have a condition."

"Name it," General Wen declares, dropping to his knees gratefully. "Anything you want, my lord, and we will make it happen. You won't regret supporting us...not for a single moment!"

But chills run down Lee's spine as Lord Beifong's face hardens. "I want you to turn someone for me," he says softly, twisting the sapphire on his finger round and round. "Someone who harbours delusions of being the greatest earthbender in the world, when she's merely blind and frail and helpless. Someone who keeps refusing to let us help her... who thinks she can't be contained, not by spies or bounty hunters, or even a room made entirely of metal."

Lee's mouth drops at the man's vehement declaration. Even General Wen shuffles uncomfortably at the thought of an entirely metal room. "Who is it, my lord?" he asks weakly, even as he grows pale. "A prisoner?"

"No." A sudden, implacable anger burns in his eyes; his fingers dig into the stiff golden brocade pooling in his lap. "The most important person to me in the world. And she's been gone from home for far too long." Lord Beifong inhales deeply, before turning to meet Ruska's wilting gaze with his own. "Accept my help...and you will do this for me when I ask. That is my condition."

"Way to go," Lee hisses under his breath once they file out of Lord Beifong's audience room and out of earshot. "And when exactly do you plan on telling Lord Buttfong that you can't bend anymore?"

Ruska keeps her eyes trained ahead, even as they glimmer with a mild panic. "That...is a later problem," she answers delicately. "Right now, our sole mission was to enlist Lord Beifong's support, and I did that -"

"By lying to him!" Lee nearly explodes, trying to contain his indignation. "And by promising him a neat little mind-wiped zombie whenever he asks for one! How is that any better than what Long Feng asked you to do?"

"Enough!" General Wen rebukes sharply, whirling on him with a swish of his cloak. "Ruska is right. There are bigger things at stake here. We can worry about Lord Beifong once we oust the Dai Li -"

"Right," Lee snarks, balling his fists. "Because planning to get on Lord Beifong's bad side is a real recipe for success. Good one!"

"Do you have any better ideas?" General Wen demands, stepping so close to him that they are almost nose to nose. "Your last mission led you straight into a Dai Li trap! If it wasn't for the miraculous destruction of the moon, you would still be languishing in a prison cell under the lake, waiting for Long Feng to crack you like an overripe tree nut!" He exhales sharply through his nose, glaring at Lee ferociously. "You will follow your orders without complaint. Or, you can march straight back into whatever hovel you crawled out from and wait for the Dai Li to find you again. Your choice."

Lee opens his mouth wordlessly, the sting of the General's words crashing over him. He tries to speak, but suddenly, Jun's lifeless body is all he can see. A small, choking sound escapes him instead.

General Wen frowns down at him unblinkingly. "I thought so," he says with a contemptuous curl of his lip, before turning away. "We will proceed according to plan, without objections."

He manages to keep his mouth mutinously shut on the way back to their shelter on the edge of the city. Rage simmers under his skin, crawling with every word Ruska and her brother exchange softly between themselves. It takes all his effort to bite back his retorts, a million justifications spinning in his mind and dying on his lips.

Because when it came down to it, the General was right. He had failed, and Jun's death was all his fault.

"You okay?" Haru mutters out the corner of his mouth, falling in step with him.

Lee glances at him sharply, before nodding curtly.

The young earthbender's face softens sympathetically, and it makes his skin crawl. "He was pretty harsh back there," Haru agrees quietly, gesturing at the General marching stolidly ahead of them, too focused on his conversation with Master Iio to pay them any heed. "I hope you realize that none of us blame you for what happened in Lake Laogai. Not really."

Lee snorts with disbelief, thinking of Jun's lifeless body, unmoving and listless in his arms.

"I mean it," Haru continues earnestly. "Me, Ty Lee, Suki - we all know a bad situation when we see one."

"Right," he scoffs, the kindness in Haru's voice somehow rankling harder than General Wen's reprimand had. "Thanks for the cuddlefest. But you don't have to do that."

"Do what?"

"Lie to me," Lee spits out, stopping in his tracks. The world spins around him and the others press on, oblivious to his mounting distress. He cares for none of it. "I put you all in danger. You can admit it. I screwed up and I accept that." His nails dig into his palms sharply. "I've got no business acting like my ideas are worth anything. And if you've got a working brain under all that hair, you should probably just stay away from me."

"Lee -" Haru starts, but he hears no more of it as he turns on his heel. "Hey! Lee!"

His calls fade into the wind screaming against his ears as he breaks into a run. The pristine streets of the small city whiz past him, its citizens pausing in their tracks to stare at him curiously as he dashes past them.

Water gathers in his eyes, blurring the path ahead. He wipes at them furiously with a darkened sleeve. After everything he had done, after everything he had failed to do, tears were a luxury he didn't deserve.

He runs aimlessly, his feet carrying him through the maze of streets and alleys of Gaoling, past rows of identical houses and the bustling marketplace. It didn't matter where he went or how fast he ran. He could never outrun his guilt.

Jun's lifeless body. Suki limping on her broken leg, resentfully waiting back in the resistance hideout when she should have been a part of this mission too. Haru, whose misplaced faith in him had landed him not once, but twice into the Dai Li's clutches. No wonder the young earthbender was the only one who thought anything of him - he must have sustained some serious brain damage. It was the only logical explanation.

And beyond that, a life he could barely remember, but which haunted him nonetheless. A life as a boy of the Southern Water Tribes, who had lost his family and left his sister behind. Her face rises up in front of him, smiling at him like she had in his dream, staring at him in undisguised anguish back during the battle of the Sun Warriors Isle…

You can't let go of your last link to who you really are, Suki whispers accusingly in his ear, because you're one of them, aren't you?

A strangled yell dies in his throat. He grabs at his head, now pounding and fit to burst. If only he could pull the treacherous thoughts out with his fingers, if only he could…

Go...I'm right behind you! Run!

Run and stay low, and don't look back...

Panting for breath, his entire body aching and spent, he finally slows to a stop. Doubling over, he gasps, placing his head between his knees, in a desperate bid to stop all the thoughts from spinning out of control.

But it didn't matter. The waterbenders from Lake Laogai had the opportunity to atone for their actions, but he could never. He didn't even know what he had done wrong, or how to find his long lost sister. All he could do was wander, tormented by the memories of the life he had lost, and make sure nobody else could be sucked into the cursed vortex that was his company.

When at last the world stops spinning around him and he's finally able to breathe again, he raises his tear-stained face. Then, he stiffens in confusion.

The walls of the small city and the peaks of the mountains loom in the distance behind him. He blinks, staring at the thick clouds of fog cascading down the dark green brush lining the ground ahead. It obscures the murky pools of muddy, sucking water, reaching for him in curling fingerlike tendrils.

He swallows hard, taking a tentative step forward. The mud squishes beneath his foot, soft and wet and hungry for him. In the distance, a shrill human scream shatters the preternatural silence.

Freezing in his tracks, his heart pounding loud in his ears, he scans his surroundings in a frenzy. "Who's there?" he calls, his voice shaking uncontrollably.

But the only answer is his own echo, swirling all around him until it fades away.

He gulps, torn between turning back and plunging forward. The mists billow around him, shrouding everything in a haze of pale grey. Light and dark suffuse together, a soft veil descending over him, cutting him off from the rest of the world.

A sudden motion captures his attention. He squints, wondering if it was a trick of the light or someone racing through the mists, deeper into the folds of damp rotting vegetation. If it was a trick of his imagination, or whether he could actually hear something in its depths, calling to him.

He isn't aware of deciding, of moving at all. Only the sound of mud squishing under his feet growing louder, the stunted plants and vines drawing ever nearer.

The swamp beckons. He wanders into its embrace, lost to the siren-song of its longing. Above him, the greenery stretches out for miles in a murky canopy, dimming the grey light of the sky until it too vanishes from sight.

Chapter 50: what lies beneath

Chapter Text

disclaimer. nothing familiar are belong to me, and i derive nothing from the writing of this except brownie points.

author's notes. i can't thank you all enough for your lovely feedback! this one's been brewing for a while but came together surprisingly quickly so have another chapter. it's a pretty elaborate mindfuck but that's kind of the intent. if you have time, i'd recommend re-reading chapters 25 and 28 beforehand, to ideally get the most out of the sequence of events depicted in this one.

warning for some dark themes recurring throughout. nothing explicit but it's there.

as always, feel free to drop by my tumblr at colourwhirled-writes for fic and general updates.

i give you...

southern lights

chapter l. what lies beneath

touch me with your love
and reveal to me my true name

"nemo" / nightwish

The torches lining the stone walls flare brightly in sudden alarm. For a moment, the inside of the nobleman's bedroom is illuminated bright as day. Yellow light dances off the heavy drapery, the specially-commissioned family portraits in their lacquered frames, and the collection of rare earthenware pottery imported from the colonies.

One of them crashes to the floor, the shattering of clay punctuating the pathetic whimpering sounds emanating from a corner of the room. Crouched in a ball, as small as he can make himself, Lord Ikeda cowers behind his prized curtains, crimson red silk hand-woven from the looms of Han Tui, now smouldering gently in ruined tatters.

He glances at the window-sill jutting out just over his head, the window cracked slightly open to allow a breath of wind to tickle his cheek. Holding his breath and listening carefully, he weighs his chances. The triple-eaved spire of the Imperial palace and its garrisoned walls lay but a stone's throw from his apartments. If he could slip through the window somehow, quickly and silently to evade detection. If he summoned the remnants of his failing courage to make the jump from his bedroom balcony, tucked on the third floor and overlooking the beautiful garden. If he could only escape…

Then a quiet grunt and the thud of another body slamming against the ground, just outside his bedroom door. The creak of the door opening on its hinges, the shrill crunch of pottery shards under a heavy boot.

He's here, Lord Ikeda thinks to himself wildly, quivering in fear. The Blue Spirit.

The crunching sounds grow closer, quieter with every step. Lord Ikeda's eyes flit desperately from the window to the barrier of his curtains, concealing him from his pursuer. Any moment and he would be found. There was no other choice, he had to act now -

His hand closes around the gleaming wooden sill. He manages to get halfway through his feet before a sudden slicing sound tears through his ears.

Blood drains from his face at the gleaming blade piercing through the curtain. He freezes, unable to move, watching in horror as it cuts through the drapes, first in a horizontal line shearing the red silk in half, and then descending in lazy trails toward the floor.

His knees give out and he crumples to the ground with a thud. His back collides against the wall, his head smacking the underside of the ledge. Stars dance before his eyes.

A squeak escapes him as the curtain falls, sliced to ribbons pooling around his slippers. His bedroom slowly appears, barely visible in the pitch black of night. The torches were now extinguished, the smell of smoke filling the air. Their dying embers illuminate the mess trailing through his room...as well as the masked figure in black now towering before him. The glinting point of its steel sword tickles the hollow of his throat in an unspoken threat.

"I…" Lord Ikeda stammers, his eyes growing wide in sudden fear, "I beg for your mercy, Mr. Blue Spirit, Sir."

The faint light streaming through the window shines against the mask, shining blue and white ridges twisted into deathly black eyes and a ghastly smile. It tilts its head, whether in amusement or indignation, the awful grin doesn't convey.

"Surely there must be something I can do for you," he presses on, his teeth chattering as the blade pricks his throat. "I'm not without influence, I have the ear of the Phoenix King's council itself! Perhaps I can help you…"

He squeezes his eyes shut as the blade presses harder into his skin. Struggling to draw breath, certain that the next one he took would be his last -

"You can."

The sound of the Blue Spirit's voice makes his blood run cold. It's nearly as awful as the grin spreading over its face - blunt and rasping like the edge of its blade, muffled and echoing eerily through the hollows of the mask. But despite his fear, something in Lord Ikeda's brain clicks into place. Because spirit or man or menacing ghost, if he could talk with the assassin, then he could reason with it, maybe even bargain with it -

But the Blue Spirit's blade increases its pressure and Lord Ikeda grunts in pain as blood trickles wet along his skin. "You can help me by taking a stand," it hisses. "Take a stand against the Phoenix King's work...or die as you have lived, a coward on your knees."

Sweat drenches Lord Ikeda's night robe all the way through. "Please," he whimpers piteously, "please, I'm just a minor official...I just do what I'm told -"

"I thought you said you had influence." The Blue Spirit's voice turns mocking. "That you had the ear of the Phoenix King's council."

He shakes his head vehemently. "I'm…I'm just a glorified bureaucrat, Mr. Blue Spirit! That's all!"

"That's all?" The fearsome blue mask gazes around the richly furnished bedroom, with all its treasures now overturned and scattered along the floor. "They seem to have compensated you well for your troubles. Or perhaps imprisoning innocent people without cause pays more than it used to."

The point of its blade drags a line across his throat. Enough to draw blood but not to kill him. He's toying with me, Lord Ikeda realizes, feeling suddenly woozy. He could kill me at any moment, but he wants to draw this out. "Please," he begs, tears spilling out the corners of his eyes. "Please…spare me."

"Why?" The Blue Spirit demands, lowering its fearful masked face until it levels with his own. He whimpers in fear as its hot breath brushes his face. "Did you spare any of the innocents held in your prisons? Or the royal hostages you have held under house arrest?"

"It's not my fault," Lord Ikeda whines. "The Phoenix King made me –"

"You had a choice," the Blue Spirit drones tonelessly, its voice rinigng like an impending death knell. "You still have a choice."

To Lord Ikeda's surprise, it lifts the blade fractionally. He shivers violently, clutching at the blood dripping along his neck.

"It must give you such peace, to allow you to sleep so soundly in your bed every night," it continues. "Meanwhile Ozai's tyranny runs unchecked."

"It's not just my fault," he breathes, unable to stop the tears from sliding down his face. "There are others who share the blame -"

"Others who will share in your fate!" the Blue Spirit snarls, its voice suddenly inches from his ear. "Make no mistake, Ozai's time will come. But you, and the cowards like you who carry out his orders without question, who allow his creatures to buy your integrity with useless riches… you also have a debt to pay."

"Then what are you waiting for?" Lord Ikeda grits out through clenched teeth. His fingers clutch at the ruined strips of his precious silk curtains in a desperate vice-grip. "Kill me quickly and get it over with."

He flinches, bracing himself for the whistle of the sword and the inevitable pain of its final blow. But instead, a cold laugh greets his ears.

"Oh no. I don't think so," it sneers. Cold metal kisses his skin as the Blue Spirit places the flat of his blade under his chin, forcing his head upward to stare into the blank, soulless eye sockets. "A quick death is kinder than you deserve. But if you do as I say...you will live past this night."

A sob of relief shudders through him. "Thank you!" he gushes, dropping instinctively into a kowtow and then wincing as the blade cuts into his skin. "Thank you, I'll do anything, please, thank you, thank you -"

"You will meet with Ozai's council first thing in the morning," it orders, cutting him off contemptuously. "You will inform them that you can no longer carry out your duties in good faith, and that they should seek a fitting replacement to fill your post as soon as possible." Lord Ikeda's mouth hangs open in shock as the Blue Spirit continues cuttingly. "Then, you will leave this place and never come back."

"They'll kill me," Lord Ikeda whispers, every inch of his skin suddenly turning clammy with dread. "I'm a dead man if I say that."

"Perhaps," the Blue Spirit intones disinterestedly. "But consider yourself warned, Lord Ikeda. For if you dare to remain in the city by the time night falls, I will seek you out, no matter where you hide...and then you will wish you had suffered Ozai's wrath instead." Its voice grows as hard and sharp as the blade pressing into the underside of his chin. "Do you understand?"

"Why - why are you doing this?" Lord Ikeda cries.

"Answer me."

"I understand," he chokes out, feeling sick to his stomach. "I - I will do as you say. But please, just let me go, I won't cause trouble, I promise -"

The blade drops from his neck. Lord Ikeda collapses to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably as he clutches gratefully at his throat.

"You have until sundown, Lord Ikeda," the Blue Spirit's voice warns from somewhere above him. "Do not test the limits of my mercy."

He tries to speak but finds himself crying too hard to speak. He nods instead, his mouth forming unintelligible sounds in spite of himself.

"Good." The faint tapping sounds of its footsteps, already receding away. "Hopefully this will be the last we see of each other…"

"You - you never answered my question," Lord Ikeda blurts out, clambering to all fours. "Why are you doing this?"

But only the chaotic mess of his empty bedroom greets his eyes. He squints, searching for the masked man in the darkness, panic welling inside him. How could he have disappeared so quickly? Did I imagine this whole thing?

Then, the Blue Spirit suddenly answers, as though out of nowhere. "Because I still have my will," it echoes all around him, a disembodied voice as resonant and hard as steel. "To do something when no one else would. And that is something that the Phoenix King, with all his power, can never take away."

Lord Ikeda leaps to his feet, trying to search for it in vain. But the spirit was already gone, the bleeding cuts along his skin a grim reminder of the terrifying encounter.

He claps a hand against his neck, feeling suddenly light-headed. The room spins around him as he staggers away from the window and blunders toward his chests. Prized possessions tumble around him as he grabs indiscriminately at them, packing as though his life depended upon it.

Maybe the Phoenix King and the princess would look upon him more mercifully the next morning, or maybe they would have him roasted alive for insubordination. Either way, Lord Ikeda didn't plan on sticking around to find out. After all - he glances despairing at the thin band of light glowing along the horizon - he had until sundown to get away, and he intended to put as much distance between him and that cursed Blue Spirit as he possibly could.

To hell with the rest.

The air closes around him, growing thicker and heavier with every step. The silence gathers weight, holding its breath as he plunges further into its depths.

How long he wanders, he doesn't know. His feet move of their own accord, dragging him further into the swirling fog. Its silent call an unseen lure pulling him inexorably to its heart.

Something whispers unintelligibly, a slight buzzing noise tickling his ears. So faint he wonders if it is real or a figment of his tortured imagination.

The mist curls around him, a living breathing shroud. Every now and then, he fancies he sees a strange shape writhing in its depths. Or maybe it was just a trick of the slanting light creeping through the canopy overhead.

A sudden splashing sound alerts him to the presence of water. He finds himself ankle-deep in a muddy pool, threatening to suck him under. The memories descend upon him suddenly, a thousand half-forgotten nightmares of drowning in a swamp exactly like this one, screaming, helpless, utterly alone…

Cursing, he stumbles backward, kicking vehemently at the squishy plants wrapping around his shoes. The world pitches suddenly upward as he trips, landing with a heavy thud.

Dull explosions of pain spark from his hip, rattling through his bones. He grits his teeth as he pushes to his hands and knees, so preoccupied with rubbing the sore spots lining his body that he barely notices the subtle shifts of the heavy fog descending upon him.

Only when he has clambered onto his haunches, doubled over and clutching at the persistent ache drumming behind his temples, does he spot the figure coalescing in the mist before him. At first a mere shadow of a woman, condensing slowly into a solid apparition. The shifting light illuminating her colours and textures, making her appear strangely real.

The woman turns around to face him, and something inside him splits with yearning. It takes a moment for him to take her in - the heavy layers of shaggy animal furs disguising the swell of her belly, the long dark hair woven into a curtain of fine braids that cascade to the small of her back, the proud carriage of her shoulders. The nondescript blue bundle she carries in her arms like a small treasure.

This isn't real, he thinks numbly. But his mouth gapes open when her eyes land on him and crinkle with happiness.

"Would you like to hold her?" she asks.

He shakes his head, still not understanding as she bends over him and presses the bundle into his arms. A sudden cold crashes over him, as though she had upended a bucket of icewater over his head. He lets out a shuddering gasp.

"Not like that," she chides with a soft laugh. "Gently."

But when her hands touch his own, he is surprised to find them warm and solid. Frozen in his confusion, he only watches mutely as she prods his arms, delicately rearranging them around the unmoving blue bundle in his grasp.

"There," she says at last, her smile transforming her tired, puffy face into pure radiance. "Just like that. What do you think?"

Still confused, he glances down at the bundle in his arms, and the chill slowly subsides.

To his surprise, he realizes that it's a baby, tiny and fast asleep and barely visible through the swathes of thick blue cloth. He glimpses a shock of fuzzy dark hair, a pair of eyes closed peacefully in sleep. Its weight solid in his arms, its faint warmth as it tucks its head against his chest.

Something inside him glows. "It's so...squishy," he comments uncertainly, suddenly terrified of accidentally dropping it.

The woman laughs and the sound is soothing to his ears. "It suits you," she says, resting her head on her hands. "After all...this is the most important thing you've ever done."

He makes a wounded face at her. "More important than fighting?" he hears himself ask in the skeptical voice of a small boy. "More important than hunting, or fishing, or ice dodging even?"

"More important than all of that combined," the woman answers earnestly, even as her soft smile widens. "You get to be a big brother."

The solemnity of the moment weighs heavily upon him, the most important moment of his short life. He tries to stand up as tall as he can, awkwardly balancing the baby's weight in his arms. But the sudden jostling movement awakens it with a shrill, piercing cry. Gutted, he tries to hold it even as it squirms, its tiny hands reaching for their mother.

"Shh," he whispers, the words coming from a place he doesn't recognize, yet has somehow, miraculously, always been there. He tightens his grip on the baby, cradling it against his shoulder, patting the fuzzy shock of soft downy hair. "It's okay, little sister. I'm here."

And to his surprise, the baby's cries wind down. When he checks her face, he is shocked to find her staring up at him with big blue eyes mirroring his own. He sees himself reflected in them with awe and wonder. Her tiny mouth spreads into a wide smile and she lets out a contented burble.

"See?" the woman whispers delightedly, "Nothing on this earth can keep you two apart for long."

He feels his own heart begin to melt as the baby relaxes, resting her head against his shoulder and drifting back into a peaceful sleep. A stupid grin plasters his face as he strokes her small back in a soothing rhythm.

"Take care of her." The woman's voice fades, growing more distant. "Keep her safe. You are all you have."

"Mom?" He glances up in surprise, but the woman has already disappeared, the thick clouds of mist slowly dissolving away. "Mom?"

But everything fades into darkness, until the only thing that exists is the solid warm weight of the sleeping baby in his arms. You are all you have, his mother's voice echoes in his ears. Never forget that.

"I won't," he croaks, clutching at it tighter. "How - how could I forget that?"

To his horror, the weight in his arms dissipates. He scrambles, staring in shock as the baby wrapped in the swathe of soft blue cloth also vanishes. Spinning around madly, he searches her out. But the clouds of mist roll back like a parting curtain, revealing the ominous darkness of the swamp settling back into view. The baby and her mother now nowhere to be found.

He presses a hand into his chest, a horrible, empty ache throbbing in the wake of their sudden absence -

Smack!

"Ow!" He staggers backward, as a snowball hurtles out of nowhere and pelts him squarely in the face.

"Hey!" he complains, clapping a hand to where the shocking cold stings his cheek. Blinking stupidly, he whirls in the direction it had come from.

Belatedly, he registers another presence materializing before him, as though it had always been there. The little girl huddles under a gnarled branch, jutting out of a tree like an old woman's hand. She giggles into a pair of mittened hands, watching his consternation with the unfettered glee of a child.

Then, feeling his gaze turn upon her, she quickly turns around and bolts out of sight.

"Hey!" he yells again, racing after her. Desperation surges wildly inside him, an imminent feeling clamouring like a certain doom if he lost her...

The unearthly coils of mist grow thinner as he pounds through the swamp, wisps of spidersilk tangling along the webbed vines covering the pathway ahead of him. Through the gloomy silence and the blood searing through his ears, he still manages to catch the sound of her mischievous giggles, trailing on the air like a lifeline.

He follows the sound, his lungs burning from exertion. She ducks and weaves through the cloying vegetation effortlessly, enviably unaffected by the whipping branches that smack him eagerly across the face. They burn like thin streaks of fire, but he barely even notices, blundering after her, chasing the glimpses of bright blue flashing just out of reach.

If he could only run just a little bit faster...

"Katara!" The name slips out of his mouth before he even realizes it. "Katara, I'm coming-!"

The sound of her giggles abruptly fades away. A sudden fear passes through him like a chill as he speeds up. A sense of imminent dread crawls up his spine, an instinctive knowledge that if he didn't reach her in time, something terrible would happen -

"Oof."

The world spins sideways, the muddy ground hurtling up to catch him in its oozing grip. Winded, he spits out a mouthful of mud. Twisting around, he glares at the innocuous vine wrapped around his ankle, and violently dislodges it with a swish of his knife.

"Stupid swamp," he fumes, wrenching his ankle free and wiping at the dirt caked on the side of his face, "stupid trees, dumb ugly vines -"

Blinking stars out of his eyes, he staggers upright, the ground feeling dangerously unsteady beneath his feet. A plummeting feeling in his chest at the silence enclosing him from all directions - she's gone, I lost her -

His ears prick as a new soft sound drifts toward him. A high-pitched wail, a full-hearted sobbing sound filtering through the wall of tall grass…

He pushes through it, heedless of the scratches and snapping of the wizened stalks. All that matters is finding her, and he doesn't know why, except that somehow...this was the key. This was where it had all begun, and where it had to end.

Jumping over another small pool and landing on firm ground, he straightens to find himself in a small clearing. A gap in the thick canopy of the trees allows more daylight to stream through, touching the thickening mists with a heartening glow.

He stumbles toward it, to where the little girl crouches in the heart of the clearing. She appears older now, far older than when she had thrown snowballs at him and laughed. But not yet the hardened warrior who had pleaded with him on the edges of the Sun Warriors Isle.

Her hair falls out of the braid trailing down the small of her back, her threadbare gown covered with burns. Her thin shoulders tremble from the force of her sobs. As he draws nearer, he can pick out the words buried in them. " - don't, don't leave me, don't leave me here alone -"

"I can't," he breathes, his entire body freezing with cold immutable purpose. "I can't - I won't leave you -"

But no matter how quickly he runs, how hard he tries to reach her, the distance between them yawns into a neverending expanse. The voice of their mother still echoes in his ears, reminding him, keep her safe, you are all you have...

And he'd promised her, it was the most important thing he could do, after all -

Except as he rounds a corner and the mists swirl past his face, the bottom of his stomach plummets. He slides to a stop, doubled over and gasping for breath, his eyes fixed on the sobbing girl.

Except, she appears older now, more closely resembling the hardened warrior he had met on the battlefield. But instead of armour, she wears an ill-fitting blue tunic that hangs limply off her wiry body, and instead of crying, she's terrified for her life.

I was supposed to keep her safe. He can only watch, horror-struck and guilt-ridden as she drops to the ground, rolling out of the way of incoming bursts of fire. Burns line her arm, the back of her oversized blue tunic a smouldering ruin.

Charging toward her is a firebender, attacking her with ill-controlled fury. His face is twisted into a demonic mask, made all the more fearsome by the hideous burn scarring his eye. Are you satisfied now? he roars at her as she cowers fearfully on the ground. Is this what you want me to be?

"No," he croaks, starting toward them. The girl's eyes meet his own, blazing wild and desperate with terror before she curls up tight, ducking beneath a raging outpouring of flame.

"No!" He lunges toward the attacking firebender, his heart drumming a furious rhythm in his chest. But before he could reach, the mist sweeps in front of him, swallowing both the girl and her attacker in a thick white cloud.

He swats at it violently, trying to push his way through. Following the sound of her voice trailing somewhere in the distance, the anguished cries leading him through the close-knit fog. It thins again at the base of a small hill, enough for him to find her again.

She doesn't notice him this time, focused on slicing through a series of waterbending forms with the powerful determination of a master. This time, she's older than he's ever seen her, sporting mismatched armour and loosened hair flowing free of its beads and braids.

A pang strikes him through as she lets out a scream, collapsing to the ground writhing in agony. The water tumbles to the ground in front of her, splashing uselessly before it too falls limp and helpless.

"Oh no," he whispers, as the mist gushes down, enveloping her prone form. He starts toward her, reaching for her in vain. "Get up, come on -"

He turns and spots her through a thinning patch of mist behind him. She lumbers to her feet, gritting her teeth and sporting an obvious limp. A chill crawls down his spine as he finally recognizes the fitted, smoke-coloured armour he had last seen her wearing. Understanding curls with revulsion in his gut as she bares her teeth, panting heavily at the handful of men in identical green Dai Li uniforms materializing out of the mist to surround her.

"I'm here!" he shouts, trying to draw near. To his horror, he watches as they take turns toying with her, as she struggles to keep up. The strength in her body flags, the sound of her breathing growing more laboured. Every time she strikes, the men in green disappear like smoke on the wind. Every time they knock her down, it takes her longer to get back up.

I have to help her. He pushes past the apparitions dancing in the mist, the ground slippery beneath his feet. I was supposed to protect her, it's all my fault.

He trips and nearly loses his balance. His hands shoot out and he rights himself, just in time to see the girl standing face to face with one of the men in green. An unspoken horror claws up his throat as the man slowly removes his hat, and his own face stares out from under it.

"It can't be," he pleads, shaking his head. Tears stream down his face. "That's not right. I was supposed to protect you..."

One foot sets in front of the other, once and again. Blindly, he doesn't even realize as the distance between them suddenly shifts and melts with a swish of the curling mists.

In a blink of his eyes, she stands before him again. As he stares at her, he's instantly transported back to that day. Through the confused haze of his memories, past and present clashing with his forgotten and false selves in a splitting ache, he still manages to remember it clearly. He just had to close his eyes and he was back there.

The sound of rumbling earth and screaming men hard on his heels. The acrid smells of battle, the distant flash of lightning. His dirt-stained Dai Li uniform slick with sweat, the metal hat askew and barely held in place by its thin chain. The nerves tightening through his body as he pleads with her, begging her to help him, to save him.

And then her eyes staring right into his, seeming to see past the confusion and straight through to his true self. "I'm going to see you again," she swears in a low voice, and he isn't sure if she was speaking then or now as the words resonate around him in a fierce promise, "and when I find out what they did to you...I'm going to destroy them."

Shivers course through him uncontrollably, and he wraps his arms tightly across his chest. Opening his eyes, her words echo and grow softer as the thick mist clouds fade away, revealing an opening in the suffocating swamp. The close-knit canopy breaks off, revealing the grey expanse of sunless sky stretching overhead.

Its cold light illuminates the enormous banyan-grove tree rising up before him, and he has to crane his neck upward to take in its colossal height. Its trunk was as thick as a small house, its scaly bark wrapped around its girth in thick ropes. Giant roots emerge from its base, protruding aboveground to cover the squishy mud of the swamp. One curves past his foot, a solid pathway bridging the distance from him to the base of the tree.

He gapes at it, stunned. The ethereal silence hums loudly in his ears, punctuating the anxious drum of his pulse and the strange pull that continues to draw him closer. Glancing around cautiously, relieved when the space around him is clear of swamp mist and visions. Yet an overwhelming sense of familiarity settles over him. As though his feet knew the path winding ahead of him. As though he had been here before, seen all this before…

"Hello?" he calls out, and his voice stretches thin and afraid all around him. The murky gloom of stillwater pools flicker in the diffuse light, winking in the corner of his eye. He presses forward, his gaze fixed on the massive tree growing closer, too afraid of what else he might see...

It is only as his feet carry him past the massive tree-root arches and onto the solid base of the banyan-grove, that he hears something else call out in response.

"Back again, are you?"

The hairs on the back of his neck prickle at the voice, at once unexpected and maddeningly familiar. He whirls around, nearly losing his balance and falling into the serene pools of water surrounding the base of the tree.

The squat, grubby man materializes before him as though out of nowhere. He suppresses his yell of alarm, wondering if it was another apparition conjured by the mist. If so...why would it show me this?

He settles for staring wildly at the stranger's shock of untamed pepper hair and copious belly drooping freely over the skimpy loincloth that served as his only clothing.

But the strange man offers him a genial, gap-toothed smile. "Why, young Wang Fire," he greets warmly, the twang of his accent as outlandish as the rest of his appearance. "I didn't think I'd be seeing you again."

It takes him a healthy minute before he manages to find his voice. "We've...we've met?" he croaks in disbelief. "You mean you're real?"

The strange swamp-man scratches his head with a blackened fingernail. "You mean you don't remember old Huu?" he asks, an injured expression crossing his coarse features.

He hangs his head, staring at the mud staining his nondescript clothing. "I don't remember a lot of things," he confesses quietly.

Bracing himself for the swamp-man to say something bizarre before fading away, he is surprised when he tilts his head knowingly instead. "So you say," he comments wryly. "But...some things stay the same, don't they?"

"I don't know," he sighs, kicking aimlessly at one of the thinner roots snaking past his foot. "Was I as much of a let-down the last time you saw me?"

"Can't say that you were," observes the swamp-man, Huu, with infuriating ease. "But then again, you were awful keen to get past this place. Left someone behind, you did."

He groans loudly, and something flutters unsettlingly in the distance. "Great!" he gripes, crossing his arms defensively. "Just great. Good to know that I've been the same miserable failure all this time, and that nothing's changed!"

"Now, don't be so sure about that," Huu tries to console him. "After all...if you were meant to be here before, then you're meant to be here again now, aren't you?"

He scoffs, sitting down on the ground in a huff. "That's just a load of swamp-gas nonsense!" he insists hotly, even as tears of frustration brim in his eyes. "Sounds like a fancy way of saying I haven't gone anywhere." The banyan-grove tree looms behind him, a silent shadowy sentinel watching him with unseeing eyes. "And what's the point? I'm just going around in circles!"

A soft crunching sound as Huu settles down beside him. "What shape do you think life is, if not a circle?"

Growling under his breath, he picks at a loosened piece of bark and hurls it into the distance. He doesn't hear it make a sound as it hits the water, only stares blankly at the turbulent ripples it leaves in its wake. "I think I'm going crazy," he laments at last. "Every time things start to make sense, I keep seeing things and...and I don't know."

"You see things because the swamp shows you them," Huu tells him. "You saw them then and you see them now."

A snort escapes him. "Right," he mutters sarcastically. "The swamp showed me. Next, you'll be telling me it thinks and has feelings, too."

"Why not?" Huu counters infuriatingly. "You think it's any different from me or you? If you listen close enough, you can hear it breathing with you. You can hear it talking."

He freezes at that, remembering the strange indecipherable whispers that had pulled him toward this spot. The visions that had felt so real that he had thought them memories… "That's impossible," he protests feebly, trying to wave off the fanciful thought. "Swamps can't talk."

The man smiles haplessly at him, shaking his head. "That's what you said last time too. At least you're consistent."

His mouth hangs open as Huu lumbers slowly to his feet, continuing in measured tones, "In the swamp, we see visions of people we've lost. People we've loved. Folks we think are gone."

He opens his mouth to argue, but finds himself unable to. After all, what had he been chasing in order to find himself in this spot? Shapes in the mist, or something more, something real?

"But the swamp tells us they're not. We're still connected to them." The man's crooked teeth flash in a beatific grin. "Time is an illusion...and so is death."

Take care of her. You are all you have.

It suits you...you get to be a big brother.

I'm going to see you again.

Nothing on this earth can keep you two apart for long.

Don't leave me.

"Why are you telling me this?" he whispers hoarsely.

Huu stares at him with big glassy eyes that reflect the shifting, murky green light of the swamp itself. "Because you needed to hear it then," he answers sagely, already turning away, "and you need to hear it again now."

"Wait!" he cries, as the man walks away. "What do I do now? How do I get out of here?"

But Huu pauses, glancing at him over his shoulder to give him an enigmatic smile. "You've already got everything you need," he answers cryptically. "All you have to do is trust in yourself...and you'll find your way again."

"I will?"

"Sure." A sweeping sense of familiarity crashes over him as the man disappears into the thick brush, his voice trailing after him. "You always do."

The last of the day's sunlight stretches through the bars lining Zuko's window. He stares blankly at the dust mites illuminated in the glowing golden rays, swirling and floating aimlessly in the air.

His mother crouches before him, the dying sunlight pooling along the folds of her cloak. He tries not to focus on the tremour of her hands as she draws the small vial out and slides it through the bars. Her face is blanched pale as usual, her shoulders hunched as though already bracing for his censure.

Zuko yawns instead, plucking the potion from the ground with two fingers. His entire body aches from exhaustion and exertion; the cold and the damp sitting in his bones and making restful sleep difficult. What little he could scrounge was interrupted by the guards, the scrape of his meal trays and privy bucket, the occasional blinding warmth of the sun grazing his face as it transited across the sky.

His mother raises an eyebrow as he pops the cork and drains the contents in a single gulp. "No choice words of disappointment for your mother today?" she asks nervously.

"I'm tired," he retorts brusquely, but not untruthfully. Unlike Azula, lies had never come easily to him.

But his mother's face softens and the sight of it still manages to enrage him. "The sunshade can do that," she tells him gently.

He waves a hand vaguely, motioning for her to stop. "Is that all?"

"I'm only trying to help," she replies, sounding hurt.

"Then leave." He sets the empty vial down on the ground, and slides it back to her side of the bars. The scraping sound of glass against stone sets his teeth on edge.

He glances furtively at the sliver of sky visible through his window, already judging the light. How many hours left until he could don his mask and sneak out again? After the freedom and exhilaration of his nighttime escapades, the confines of his cell seemed that much more loathsome. He, a disowned fire prince, stripped of his bending, and now come to loathe the sun itself. Instead, he prefers the secrecy of the stars and the cloak of anonymity they conferred upon him.

Feeling the weight of his mother's reproachful gaze, he tries not to look at the loose block at the base of his wall, behind which his mask and attire lay concealed. He hoards over his secret protectively like a mother turtleduck over a clutch of eggs; when he sleeps, he dreams of being discovered, and when he lies awake and restless, he fears his slightest motion could give him away.

And yet, nothing matters to him more in this place. It's his purpose, his only reason for awakening. All he has left.

Ursa lifts the vial and turns it absently in between her fingers. "Do you want to hear a story?"

He opens his mouth to snap at her, itching for her to disappear.

"After all, it must be quite lonely to sit in here by yourself, with nobody to keep you company."

"I keep to myself just fine," he bites out.

"I know. But…" To his surprise, a sudden smile crosses his mother's face, before she shields it with a delicate hand. "It's a good story. I think you'll enjoy it."

The furtive glint of amusement, of triumph, in his defeated mother's wan face catches his attention. It had been so long since she had been anything other than a wraith, his father's dogged puppet, content to let him pluck her strings. For a moment, he remembers the simple delight she had worn when they were younger, when she had dragged them to the plays she had loved so much. The warmth of her voice when she had read to him and Azula before tucking them into bed.

And in spite of the twinge in his chest at the thought, he couldn't help but be intrigued by that glimpse of her, before everything had gone wrong.

"Go on," he sighs instead, slumping back on the pallet of straw.

It's a mark of how tired he is that he doesn't anticipate her next words. "Have you heard of the Blue Spirit?"

He stiffens, and then curses inwardly at giving himself away. "I've read Love Among The Dragons, Mother," he disparages as coldly as possible, forcing himself to relax. "I'm not interested in hearing it again."

"Of course," Ursa allows, before a trickle of amusement creeps into her voice. "How could you have heard, shut up in here? Yes, the Blue Spirit was a character in that play, come to deliver justice upon the great Emperor Norin…" She pauses, scanning their surroundings before leaning closer, her voice dropping to a whisper, "and your father."

Zuko fights to keep his breath very steady. "What do you mean?"

"He's real, Zuko." In the corner of his eye, he sees his mother's hands close around the iron bars. "It's all anyone can talk about these days."

He swallows, choosing his next words with care. "I didn't think even a spirit had the power to turn Father into a human."

A single, traitorous snort escapes her before she regains her composure. "That remains to be seen. But this Blue Spirit - whoever he is - he's like vengeance come again. A fierce defender of the common folk, wreaking havoc upon your father's plans."

Zuko closes his eyes and sighs in his best imitation of Mai. "Pure theatrics. If this Blue Spirit meant any real business, he wouldn't be wasting his time. He would go straight to Father and take him out."

"And then what?" Ursa asks quietly. "Your father's body wouldn't even be cold in the ground before Zhao or another of his ilk took up arms in his name. No, the Blue Spirit wouldn't make Emperor Norin a martyr to his cause, and it seems he has the same plan for Ozai."

"What do you mean?" Zuko raises his head to look at her directly, his curiosity outweighing his need for caution.

"Don't you remember, Zuko?" Her voice lowers in pitch, adopting a gifted storyteller's hushed cadence. "And here I am come, Dragon-lord, to throw down your arms and cut out the rot from your blackened heart."

"I don't understand."

"It wasn't enough to strike him down once. The Blue Spirit needed to undo the Dragon Emperor to achieve his ends."

"So he turned him into a human. Mother, I told you, I know the story."

"He took away his power, Zuko. Not just his body." Even in the darkness permeating the cell, he sees the excitement glittering in her eyes. "And now the Blue Spirit is going after your father in the same way. Turning butchers over to the people to face justice, incapacitating his governing council… Intervening to humiliate them, intimidate them, chase them out in the night until there's no one left who even wants to enact his will."

Zuko wonders what to say, how to react in any way that wouldn't give him away. Part of him swells at his mother's enthusiasm, and longs to tell her it was me, I'm the Blue Spirit. To see her astonishment war with adoration for her brave son. But then the last of the sunlight flashes off the empty glass vial in her fingers and he holds his tongue.

"He sounds like a fool who's going to get himself killed," he says instead.

"Don't sound so sure," his mother remarks, pocketing the glass vial in a swish of black velvet. "He's come once again to put an emperor in his place. And he won't rest until his work is complete."

"Maybe you should lower your voice," he warns, his voice turning sardonic. "You wouldn't want the guards thinking you've developed an appetite for killing emperors, would you?"

The smile vanishes from her face as though he'd struck her open-handed.

He huffs, before turning over to face the wall stubbornly. "Goodnight, Mother. Don't forget to close the door on your way out."

He hears her struggle behind him, somewhere beyond the iron bars. He imagines that he hears all the words she couldn't say stretching out in the silence between them.

But then he hears the swish of her heavy black cloak, and the slam of the heavy door behind her, and then, finally, nothing at all.

Once, he had thought the silence of the swamp to be impenetrable, all-encompassing, absolute.

But the longer he sits there, cross-legged at the base of the towering banyan-grove tree, the more he begins to understand the sounds surrounding him. There were no winds to stir the air, no animal cries or crawling critters to distract his ear. No movement in the grass and vines and thin spindly branches stretching across its breadth like a thick tangled web, trapping every hapless wanderer in its midst.

Only here, in the unearthly stillness, can he finally begin to hear it.

With half-seeing eyes, he peers over the edge of the stillwater pools, its surfaces smooth and reflective as polished glass. Old Huu had disappeared by now, perhaps minutes or months ago. Apart from the steady drumbeat of his heart, and the answering hum resonating from the tree behind him, he sits alone. Not another soul in sight, for miles and miles around.

No one except him...and the faces in the water.

The mists had returned, creeping along the winding bark of the banyan-grove, a long-lived enmeshment of strangler roots devouring the tree beneath. An aeon of struggle, consumption, death, written in its tangled ridges. And still it grew, upward and onward, in perpetual reach of a sky that only it could see, its roots spreading everywhere, connecting the disparate parts of the dying swamp until it became one single, living whole again.

He sees it then, the creeping roots of his own life, all reflected back to him in the water's surface. How they sprouted, parted, growing in their own separate ways, a hungry, destructive force. All while its heart withered and died, the last of its essence sucked clean.

Not dead, the voice of the swamp corrects. Transcended.

"Two more coming by this way," Aang mutters, ducking back into the shadows.

Katara frowns from where they crouch in the corner of one of the melting snow mansions lining the main street of Aujuittuq. "That's the third patrol in nearly half an hour," she mutters as orange light bounces off wet slush. "We're never going to retake this place."

Helplessly, she stares up at the sky, illuminated by the glow of the midnight sun hanging low on the horizon. The gaping, starless void where the moon should have been stares back at her, filling her with its unnerving dread. All around her the streets of the Northern Water Tribe's capital city lie bleak and empty, except for the heavy patrols of Fire Navy soldiers.

A pair of them march past, mounted on armoured komodo-rhinos. The guards loom tall and menacing in their crimson armour, their faces hidden by bone-white visor plates so that to her, they're all a single monolith, one indistinguishable enemy.

"Maybe not," Aang muses once the patrol passes them. "But if we can confidently expect to run into a guard every ten minutes or so -"

"It took most of the spring to tunnel our way in here undetected!" Katara snaps despairingly. "It's nearly summer already, and we're still no closer to freeing Aujuittuq than we were a month ago! Now the best case scenario is that we can confidently expect to run into a guard every ten minutes?" She slumps back against the wall, the snow cold and wet against her back. "What could we possibly accomplish in just ten minutes, Aang?"

"I don't know." Aang shrugs, his grey eyes still sparkling optimistically in the low light. "Maybe another spirit miracle will bring back your bending and you could rally the whole tribe and gang up on Chan's soldiers and force a surrender before they even realize what's happening?"

Katara snorts humourlessly. "Yeah, right. As if that's ever going to happen."

"Yeah," Aang agrees dully. "That'd be pretty awesome though."

She grunts scornfully. "Yeah…awesome."

They scurry along the main street of Aujuittuq without another word after that, clinging to the shadows deepening along its sides. Katara holds her tongue at the sight of its ruined majesty. Where before, the banks of its broad canal had been lined with towering buildings and bridges carved from ice, now all that's left is piles of rubble and melting ice. The sharp prows of the Fire Navy fleet had sliced through the ice shelf leading inland from the great gates guarding Southwestern Sea. They bob in the water offshore, anchored at rest amid a multitude of new ice floes.

The bridges were gone, the sidewalks covered with debris and wet slush. Someone had cleared a narrow path to allow the Fire Navy soldiers to patrol with their armoured beasts and their tanks, but the rest of the city remains a broken, thawing ruin.

The mouth of the makeshift tunnel leading back to their hideout crawls into sight, hidden in a narrow alleyway. They're about to leap in when a sudden sound splits the silence.

Katara skids to a stop, nearly colliding into Aang as they both stare at each other, wide-eyed and mouths pressed tightly shut in fearful silence.

A bright glow flares through the sky nearby. The telltale crash of fire burns somewhere beyond. A muffled sound of voices floats in the air, some loud and taunting, some high-pitched and fearful.

"Katara," Aang warns, already reaching for his glider, "Katara, don't -"

But she breaks into a run, pursuing the voices and those whooshing sounds that had to be firebending. Someone was out past curfew, she understands, someone who was caught and being attacked by soldiers and needed help…

Red light spills onto the snow in front of a smaller ice manse. Its carved driftwood doors swing on their hinges, smouldering to embers. A small group of Fire Navy soldiers gather in a ring on the street, surrounding a pair of people huddled on the ground. Chains clank loudly around their wrists and ankles, their greying parkas marred with blackened singe marks. The komodo-rhinos paw the slush, growling plaintively.

Katara reaches for one of the smoke bombs tucked into her belt. But then a shout breaks through the din, interrupting everything.

"What is going on here?"

She freezes, recognizing the voice with a sudden, sinking feeling.

Admiral Chan marches into the fray. The ring of soldiers dissolves abruptly as the men spring into formation, bowing to their commanding officer.

"Has the cold taken your tongues or only your wits?" Admiral Chan demands, his hard scowl framed by his helmet. "Never have I seen soldiers of the Imperial Navy behaving so dishonourably!"

"But – but Sir," one of the soldiers protests, still facing the snow between the Admiral's boots, "these two was out past curfew. We was just teaching them some respect, that's all."

"And how exactly were you planning on doing that?" Admiral Chan asks dangerously.

Nobody answers. Katara's fingers tighten on the smoke grenade on her belt.

"Well?" Admiral Chan taps his foot impatiently. "Does no man here have the courage to answer his commanding officer?"

"We...we just wanted to play a little," someone answers sheepishly. "That's all."

"Play?" Admiral Chan echoes, his disgust plain on his face as he steps forward. "Shame on you. It is a dark day in our Empire's history indeed, when its soldiers behave like simple savages out in the wild."

Since when have the Empire's soldiers been anything but simple savages? Katara wonders quizzically.

"But Sir," another protests, "everyone's doing it, how come we're the only ones getting in trouble for it?"

Admiral Chan draws himself up to his full height, his face darkening forbiddingly. "It appears everyone is overdue for a lesson in Fire Navy discipline!" he barks, his voice so loud and commanding that it makes Katara's ears hurt. "In the meantime, if you wish to teach these people a lesson about respecting our curfew, throw them into lockup instead. A day should suffice. Is that clear?"

"Yessir," all the soldiers chorus balefully.

Katara flattens herself against the wall as Admiral Chan and his flanking guards march past. Only until they shrink into the distance well out of earshot does she dare let out a single shuddering breath of relief.

But the rest of the soldiers get to their feet, grumbling mutinously.

"Spoilsport," someone mutters, kicking at the snow vehemently.

Another else sighs, glancing cautiously at the Admiral's back, receding into the distance. "Come on. Let's get these two oafs into the lockup, afore the Admiral comes back."

"Wonder what's gotten into him, anyway?"

"Just 'cos he can't have no fun as an Admiral don't mean he's gotta ruin it for the rest of us, now."

The smoke grenade is halfway out of her belt when Aang's hand on her wrist stops her. She glares at him pointedly, only to see him shake his head.

Too many. We couldn't take them all. And with the Admiral right there.

Shaking in helplessness, she can only watch reluctantly as the soldiers grab the two prisoners by their chains and drag them along in the snow.

Once the street is clear again does she dash out of the shadows, racing to the spot where the two Water Tribe men had been taken captive.

"What are you doing?" Aang hisses into her ear as he follows, holding out his glider warningly, already scanning their surroundings for any incoming soldiers.

But Katara stares at the tracks gouged into the snow, where the soldiers had dragged their prisoners. "Look," she breathes. "They're taking them to the lockup."

"So?"

"So," Katara repeats impatiently, "those tracks will lead to the lockup. Where they've got all their prisoners locked up."

"Katara," Aang warns, "we can't."

"But think about it, Aang! They could have important prisoners there!" Katara's mind races with the possibilities. "Maybe that's where they're keeping Princess Yue and the other band chiefs! We have to try, at least."

Aang groans loudly. "I hate when you get like this." He slams the butt of his glider into the snow. "Especially when you're right."

Katara brightens, squeezing him tightly. "Thanks, Aang! C'mon, let's go -"

"Recon only," Aang complains. "I'm not helping you do anything reckless, now."

"What, me? Reckless?" She smiles at him innocently over her shoulder. "Wouldn't dream of it."

They follow their quarry away from the ruined harbour and the remnants of the band chiefs' hall. The last time Katara had seen it, the spire had almost been fully reconstructed from the damage she had inflicted upon it. Now it's another pile of rubble scattered by the street.

Her mouth presses into a tight line as she sidesteps a baleen carving, probably one of countless others that had decorated its many rooms. She gazes down at it blankly, remembering being back in that hall, tearing it down in her determination to teach Hahn and his men a lesson.

Now, it was as though none of that had ever happened. While she and Hahn had been at each other's throats, Zhao's army had swooped in and defeated them all. If there was anything to be gained from her foolhardy escapades in the north, it lay as broken and meaningless as the demolished hall and all its fancy trappings lying by her feet.

"Katara," Aang calls from somewhere ahead of her, "Katara, hurry up!"

They pass three other small patrols of Fire Navy soldiers, nearly walking headlong into one before Aang yanks them out of sight to huddle in a corner. Just as the last patrol turns around a bend in the street, toward a stark structure jutting out from one of Aujuittuq's great walls, the last one still standing.

From their hiding spot, they have a clear view of the street winding down the slope of the hill, leading straight to the ice cliffs that ring the city. Blocks of snow create a towering wall that granted access to the vast arctic planes at their summit. A low, rectangular building juts out of its base, dark with narrow slotted windows at regular intervals.

A chill seeps into her gut as she watches the group of soldiers marching into it, yanking their two prisoners to their feet. "We have to help them."

But Aang's hand flies to her shoulder, holding her tightly in place. "Are you insane?" he seethes. "Have you seen how many soldiers there are? We could never take them with just the two of us!"

"But we have to try!" Katara protests. "Can't we at least just take a look around?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because it never just stops with a look around, Katara!" Aang argues, his fingers digging into her shoulder. "First, you dragged us here, and now you want to go take a look around, and before you know it, we're going to be surrounded by guards and prisoners and then Toph and the others will have to come rescue us!"

Katara punches the wall next to them, clenching her teeth in frustration. Because he's right, and he hadn't even mentioned the worst part. Which was that she still couldn't bend. Without his help, she was less than useless out here.

"I just wish there was something we could do," she laments.

Aang's grip loosens. "At least we know where they're keeping their prisoners now! That's better than nothing. We can work with that, come up with a plan -"

"Yeah," Katara admits, brightening in spite of herself. "Maybe once we find Yue and the others, we could arrange a trade of hostages. Hahn and the other chiefs for Zuko." She straightens at the thought, a wistful smile crossing her face. "That would be nice."

"That would be nice," Aang echoes, shaking his head. "But I don't think it'll be that easy to get Zuko back."

She kicks vehemently at the snow. "Spirits take them all," she curses, slumping back against the wall of the building behind them. "If only there was something I could do to help him, besides dressing up as a spirit and pretending to fly! I'd give anything to get my bending back."

Tearing her gaze away from the prison bristling with Fire Navy soldiers, she instead glares at the night sky. The malevolent shadow of the missing moon bores back into her, a circle of unending darkness framed by a patchwork of gleaming stars and the midnight sunlight, already glowing steadily brighter.

The sight of it is so eerily striking, she doesn't notice the faint sounds of approaching footsteps until a voice speaks right in her ear. "Katara?"

She jumps in horror. The click of Aang's unsheathed glider snaps in her ears.

Whirling around, her hand reaching for the smoke grenades in her belt -

"Lusa?" she asks in confusion, freezing in her spot.

The familiar face of the older Southern girl, dressed unobtrusively in black from head to toe, fills her with a crush of conflicting feelings. Relief that she was alive, righteous anger over how she had betrayed them by telling Hahn about her nighttime waterbending lessons… "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Lusa whispers. Her eyes dart around nervously, before she shrinks into the shadows, closer to where Katara and Aang hide in their corner.

"For your information, we were trying to find Princess Yue and the others!" Katara retorts hotly, fighting to keep her voice quiet. She glares at Lusa sourly. "What about you? Trying to find more people to sell out?"

"Keep it down," Aang pleads, his anxious eyes flitting between Katara and Lusa. "If they find us here, we're all done for."

"We were just leaving," Katara says coldly, not taking her eyes off of Lusa. "If you're going to tell on us again, you could at least give us a head start."

To her chagrin, Lusa only lowers her head. Her glossy chestnut hair tumbles around her, falling out of its braids. "I don't expect you to understand," she rasps. "But - but I'm sorry, Katara, I'm so sorry -"

"Save it." Katara silences the older girl's stammered apology with a wave of her hand. "I trusted you, and you betrayed me! Betrayed all of us! And now you just want me to forgive you, just like that?"

Lusa swallows hard, before raising her head again. "Princess Yue isn't in that prison," she breathes steadily, her green eyes luminous in the faint starlight. "None of the band chiefs are either."

"They're not?" Aang curses as Katara falls silent, trying to digest the unhappy news. "Then where are they keeping them?"

"I don't know. Nobody does, except for some of those soldiers, maybe. We were trying to find out -"

"We?" Katara repeats skeptically.

"Me, and Ikkuma, and some of the others," Lusa supplies delicately. "We were hoping to squeeze some of the lower officers for information -"

"Ikkuma?" Katara lights up at the familiar name. "You mean she's okay? I thought she was still locked up."

"She was." Lusa fiddles with the beads at the end of a long braid. "But the Fire Navy soldiers wanted to make more room for the war prisoners. So they emptied the lockup. They let the older women like Ikkuma return home to their families."

"And the younger ones?" Katara asks, dread rising in her throat.

But Lusa looks away, her mouth curling in disgust. Katara can only force herself to continue breathing very slowly, suddenly feeling very sick.

"What?" Aang asks, still oblivious in the heavy silence settling between the two. "What happened to the other girls?"

"Never mind," Katara retorts bleakly, closing her eyes in silent despair. It was too much, it was all too much and spiralling out of control, and they had only touched the tip of the iceberg of all the awfulness that Admiral Chan and his men had in store for them.

But she was here with her friends, and Zuko was somewhere far away, all on his own and trapped. And if he could be brave, then so could she.

She squares her shoulders instead, meeting Lusa's guilty eyes. "Can you get a message to them?"

Lusa flinches. "I...I can try. What do you want me to say?"

"Tell them…" Katara racks her brain. "Tell them that I'm here, we're here, and we don't plan to be quiet about it. Tell them we need all the help we can get." She glares at the tiny figures of all the Fire Navy soldiers patrolling the wall behind the prison, at the mounds of packed snow and ice glittering under the midnight sun. "Tell them to be ready."

Lusa's eyes widen in shock. "You're serious," she breathes. "I can't believe you, Katara. You're crazy, and you're going to get us all killed -"

"Is this really the life you want to live?" Katara thunders back. "How can you be such a coward?"

But Aang's hand closes around her wrist urgently. "Someone's coming!"

Katara nods, before casting a final, resigned glance at Lusa, who blanches with fear. "Just…just get the message to the others, okay?"

She doesn't wait for an answer, turning away before the older girl could respond.

Then she follows Aang back to another of the secret tunnels leading them safely away from the darkened, melting city.

He barely notices the mist sliding down the banyan-grove tree's hollowed trunk. It settles around him like an ancient shroud, touching his skin with its damp caress. It floats along the thick arching roots in soft rolling clouds, somehow bringing the images into sharper relief.

They dance atop the water's gilded surface. His gaze remains slack and unfocused, no longer needing to see them with his eyes to know them.

A land far away, a land he had seen in his dreams gleaming under a starlit sky. The inside of a tent, glowing orange with roaring firelight. The softness of the animal hides piled on the snow-covered ground, the sharp lines of whittled wood sculptures and baleen scrimshaw decorating its corners. A woman singing to herself softly as she sits by the fire, her hands working methodically.

Two children push through the swaying tent flaps, one laughing, the other stumbling close behind. Their faces barely visible under the thick furs trimming their hoods, but still bright and rosy-cheeked.

"Mom," the little boy complains, stomping on the ground petulantly, "make her give my boomerang back!"

"Uh-uh!" taunts the other, already dashing to her mother and hiding behind her skirts. "I won it, fair and square!"

"No she didn't! She cheated!"

"Stop being a sore loser!"

"Only when you stop being a cheater!"

"That's enough, you two," the woman chides, laughter hiding in her steady voice. "Katara, stop harrassing your big brother. Sokka, be nice to your little sister."

The effect upon both children is immediate. "Yes, Mom," they chorus, crossing their arms in a huffy sulk.

Mom, something within him whispers with a sudden glow. Not of finding something that had been lost…but rediscovering what had always been there in the first place.

Kya. My mother.

"What's all this then?"

Someone else lumbers into the tent, and a lump forms in his throat at the sight of him.

Dad.

Hakoda sets down his sack and his heavy club, already cleaned and oiled and polished to a shine. Sweeping his thick dark hair over his shoulder, the strong planes of his face crease into a smile at the sight of his two children clamouring around their mother.

"Are these two tigerseal-whelps giving you trouble?" he asks, flashing a grin at Kya.

"No more than usual," Kya answers primly, the tease glimmering in her eyes as she glances at him appraisingly. "You should wash up. Supper's almost ready."

"Yes, Mom," Hakoda retorts, the infectious grin still wide on his face. His gaze flits to the child skulking behind her mother's skirts, before he drops to a kneel and spreads his arms open wide. "Won't you give your old man a hug, Katara?"

But his daughter only peeks at him furtively with fearful blue eyes, before ducking further behind her mother's legs.

"Dear, I think it's high time you got rid of that beard," Kya admonishes dryly, patting her daughter's trembling head. "I don't think it's growing on her one bit."

Hakoda throws her a wounded look, a hand raising to stroke the growth of dark hair sprouting around his mouth. "But I like it," he protests lamely, turning to face his son entreatingly. "Sokka likes it too, don't you, son?"

The young boy dashes into his father's arms, staring up at him with unadulterated awe. "One day, I'm going to grow one just like it!" he declares. "And I'll be a great warrior just like you, Dad!"

"Oh no!" Hakoda shakes his head, his deep voice booming with a laugh. "You'll be better than I ever was."

The young boy giggles as his father ruffles his hair, already scraped back in a small wolf-tail.

He blinks and the images dissolve away into trails of colour swirling through the eddying mists. His hands find the tears wet on his cheeks, the hair still tied back at the nape of his neck. The sound of the little boy's giggles echo loudly in his ears.

People we've lost. People we've loved.

The surface of the water shimmers and goes dark, before a new image replaces it. The same cold, wintery land, the same shoreline piled high with snow and curving against the foam-capped waves.

His breath hitches at the stars shining in the night sky, a milky expanse obscured near totally by the giant glowing curtains cascading from the heavens. Ethereal washes of light shifting from green to purple, filling the silence with their unearthly crackle.

The small family sits outside their tent, part of a crowd huddled around a great bonfire. The little boy, grown a few years older, the youthful roundness of his face visible in the light of the flames. He plays absently with a toy boomerang, much smaller than the one currently tucked into his belt, pressed against the soft swamp-grass.

In the water, the little girl slumbers next to her brother, her head resting on his shoulder as she snores softly.

Both of them pay little attention to the quavering voice of the old woman sitting across from them. But everyone else - their mother, father, other members of the tribe gathered around the fire - are enraptured by her words.

"...and so the great bridge between the worlds was felled, and the great Sky and Earth were torn asunder. One rose to meet the heavens, the other crashing down in an eternal torment. And so forever have we looked to the skies, the stars, the other half of our soul, and longed for them. Even now, they say the great spirits look down upon us from the celestial lights. Even now, we can see them...if we remember how to look."

He sees them hanging onto the story she weaves. Her voice rises and falls with the artful skill of a storyteller. Her hands move with a life of their own, their gestures nearly hypnotizing as her voice drops to a hush. "But as the world turned, all has been forgotten. All has been lost. And the great rift between the realms grows every year, connecting only at the last peak of the material world. Where the sky meets the ocean, where the sun sets in the west."

The golden light of the fire clashes with the unearthly glow of the southern lights, illuminating the old woman's animated facial expressions. Her eyes glitter as she leans forward. "And so it goes on and on, until the day a great warrior will emerge from the west to set things right. Rebuild the bridges and bring balance back to the world."

"A great warrior?" the little boy asks, dropping his boomerang into the snow. He gazes wide-eyed at the storyteller's face. "What kind of warrior? Who is it, Gran-Gran?"

"No one knows." His grandmother cups a hand over her mouth as she whispers loudly, "but they say it will be an extraordinarily powerful bender. One of the greatest the world has ever seen."

"Oh." The little boy hangs his head, the better to hide his disappointment. Idly, he plucks the boomerang from the snow and begins twirling it in his fingers again.

"But that's all just hearsay, my little warrior. Do you want to know what I think?" Gran-Gran's lined face creases into a warm smile. "I think it could be anyone. Why, it could be someone sitting right here among us!"

The little boy stares awestruck at his grandmother's encouraging smile. "Really?"

But then his little sister lets out a loud snort, before waking abruptly with a yawn. The boy glares at her, the story's spell dashed completely. "Nice going!" he snaps. "Way to ruin the story!"

"Sorry," the little girl mutters sleepily, rubbing her eyes. "I'm just so tired. Can't we go to sleep now, Gran-Gran?"

To his dismay, the image fades and swirls again. "Wait!" he cries uselessly, even as it shifts before him and settles into something new.

Folks we think are gone. But the swamp tells us they're not.

At first, he thinks it's a part of the same vision, with the same night sky and snow piled high atop a towering, steep cliff. But instead of the dancing celestial lights, only the full moon illuminates the sky. The great bonfire and family tent had vanished also; in its place sprawls a magnificent walled city, glittering like a carpet of jewels in the night.

"Is it always this cold up here?"

Something inside him still remembers to sigh at the lovely young woman standing atop the cliff. Her fingers clasping the hand of the lanky boy next to her. The braided coils of her long white hair, the flounces of her rich purple attire, the curve of her bare, swanlike neck peeking through the furs of her collar.

"Not if you're with someone." A lazy grin spreads over the gangly boy's face, drunk with euphoria and reaching into his pocket.

Instinctively, he slips a hand into his pocket too. But the whittled carving is no longer there, and its absence weighs heavily in the palm of his hand.

"Yue," he breathes, suddenly feeling afraid as he remembers his nightmares. Where she stepped off the edge of the swamp, to be swallowed by the water too.

But within the vision reflected upon the lake, she reaches out to the lanky boy to caress his face. "Well then," she whispers, leaning in close, "I'll always be with you."

He reaches for the water reflexively. "Wait!" he cries.

But when his fingers touch the pool's surface, it ripples and goes dark, the images disappearing entirely.

"Damn it!" he curses, lunging to his feet wildly. The unsettling serenity slips off him like a cloak.

A giggle in the distance snaps him around. He glances over his shoulder to see the little girl flit past. His chest tightening desperately, he bounds after her. "Hey, wait up!"

The mists dance around him, growing thicker and reducing the running girl to a mere blur of blue.

He chases her up a broad, steep root that rises out of the ground, far above the mud and stillwater pools that had led the way thus far. A band squeezes around his chest, and it becomes harder to breathe. The mist curls around the thick leaves, the canopy of foliage drawing nearer as he climbs higher and higher.

Behind him, the entire swamp opens up, a sprawling murky expanse connected by the thick, spreading roots of the banyan-grove tree. He barely notices, his entire being focused on catching up with the little girl, his sister, remembering what he had lost.

"I let you go once," he swears under his breath. "I'm not losing you again."

The root beneath him flattens abruptly, bringing him to the spot where the branches of the colossal tree twine outward. Faint light from the muted grey sky streams through the gaps in the leaves, touching the little girl with a strange halo.

He stares at her and she smiles back at him. Up here, where the mists couldn't reach, her face is sharper somehow, as though the looking-glass revealing her to him had been polished clean.

"You took your time," she remarks, tilting her head at him.

"Yeah, well, I had quite the detour," he retorts, rubbing the back of his head. A strange feeling flits through him, I'm close, so close... "What's next?"

"Next?" The girl asks curiously. "But you've already seen it."

"I have?"

Time is an illusion...and so is death.

The images bombard him then, with such force he staggers backward. Whether it's a trick of the light or memories held deep within the recesses of his mind, he no longer knows.

He sees her, Katara, his lost sister, in so many different ways. Where she had been crying and helpless in his visions before, he watches her stand against her enemies, proud and strong, a master of her own element.

In awe, he watches as she spins around, lunging into what looked like a waterbending form just as a burst of lightning hits her.

No, he starts to say, before his jaw drops in disbelief.

For the lightning passes through her as easily as water would have, redirecting harmlessly out through her fingers. Then a small crowd forms around her: a black-haired blind girl, a bald kid with blue arrow tattoos, a stout old man with a receding hairline...

He recognizes none of them except the firebender with the demonic scar. His stomach tightens in low anger at the sight of him, but instead of attacking her, he is the first to help her.

He blinks, barely understanding as he watches the two of them fight, back to back, dressed in matching armour. When she tumbles to the ground, he grabs her by the forearm to help her up, just before a whizzing boulder crashes into the spot where she had fallen.

An icy feeling cascades through him as she collapses in agony again. The puddles of water useless and unresponsive to her motions, even as incoming bursts of flame threaten her limp form. But then the scarred firebender throws himself in front of her, fending off the fire with a fierce desperation that makes his stomach flip. "Go on!" the firebender shouts without looking back. "Get out of here, go go go!"

The boy with the scar disappears, but his sister finds her feet again. His breath hitches in his throat as he sees her marching at the head of a formation of women. All of them wear the characteristic blue armour of the Water Tribes, their faces gleaming with stark grey and white war paint. Katara's hair is gathered in an intricate array, the beads clacking in her braids and from the tassels hanging against her chest. She barks out a harsh command and the women behind her lunge in unison, their hunched forms reminding him uncomfortably of the Southern bloodbenders.

A battle rages in an unfamiliar land, abundant with blue water and lush trees lining the slope of a towering mountain. At its peak, fire crashes everywhere in a multitude of colours, while the sky glows the angry colour of blood. With building amazement, he watches as Katara lunges across a burning courtyard of stone, her thick purple cloak trailing behind her. He recognizes the firebender fighting to meet her, his face gaunter and hair shorn of its length but the twisted scar unmistakable.

Then he nearly chokes as she throws herself on him in a desperate hug. The firebender's arms grip her tightly, holding her as though nothing else mattered even while the world burned around them. Her voice echoes through his ears, a rousing command floating through a sunlit sky. We will teach Ozai once and for all that all fires bow to the sea, it declares amid deafening cheers.

He frowns, trying to understand as everything fades away in a conflagration of explosions and hot blue fire. "But what about us?" he asks. "How do I find you again?"

It ends where it all began, at the edge of the land where the ice meets the water. But instead of a little boy and a little girl pelting each other with snowballs, the shoreline is packed with people dressed in blue and red and other colours. The ice gleams fresh in broad daylight, menacing ships bob silently on the ocean.

And a man he recognizes as himself dashing through the crowds, shouting her name as she turns in shock. Her mouth moving wordlessly before he throws himself on her. Her hands tighten into his shoulders as she collapses against him and sobs.

Nothing on this earth can keep you two apart for long, his mother's voice reminds him. And as the image fades, leaving him standing alone amid the foliage of the great banyan-grove tree, he finally believes it again.

He reaches for Katara, turned away from him. But when his hand closes on her shoulder, he realizes it isn't Katara at all.

When the man turns around, he sees his own face grinning back at him. "There you are, Sokka," he says, his voice as familiar as an old friend. "What took you so long?"

He stumbles back, blinking furiously to get the mist out of his eyes. His feet trip on a raised root and he falls to the ground, to the place where all the branches of the banyan-grove tree met and parted.

But when he glances up again, he finds himself alone, except for the streams of sunlight pouring in through the gaps in the leaves.

Not alone, he thinks to himself numbly. Not anymore.

He gets to his feet and staggers to the edge of the banyan-grove tree. The entire swamp stretches out before him like the remainder of his life. A living breathing growing thing that would endure, on and on until it too faded into obscurity.

I'll find you, Katara. I'll find you this time. I promise.

In the weak grey light streaming through the gaps in the motionless leaves, Sokka wipes his wet eyes, remembering.

Lee vanishes like the last of the curling mists evaporating before the muted glow of day.

Chapter 51: abandon hope

Chapter Text

disclaimer. only netflix is allowed to profit off shitty atla fanfic ha ha

author's notes. thank you to everyone who's been following so far! hope this one makes up for the wait

warning that this chapter does contain some references to heavily implied sexual violence, so please exercise caution if this is triggering to you.

i give you...

southern lights

chapter li. abandon hope

beware of the wolves that haunt us
they are not all the same

"unchain utopia" / epica

"Well, this is a most interesting and unusual problem."

Mai struggles to keep her eyes from glazing over as she stares listlessly out the window of Azula's study. The waters of the Budo Bay reflect the slate grey sky, thick with clouds obscuring the sun behind it. More shouts rise from the bottom of the mountain as yet more rioters clamour for attention. By now, it had become a near daily occurrence.

"What do you think, Mai?"

She blinks, diverting her attention back to where Azula sits imperiously behind her meticulously organized desk, barely visible behind towering stacks of papers. "Huh?"

Azula glances up at her with slightly narrowed eyes. "This Blue Spirit fellow," she clarifies, motioning with her brush before setting it back down to continue her scribing. "He's been causing a lot of chaos recently."

Mai makes herself breathe very slowly, praying that the princess couldn't hear the way her heart begins to drum. "Something like that," she answers feebly.

"You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?" A mirthless smirk tugs across Azula's mouth, but she doesn't look up from her writing. "It's alright, Mai, you can admit it. Politics was never your strong suit, after all."

She bites back her sigh of relief, snatching at the opportunity before it slipped away. "Fine. You got me." Smoothing her clammy hands along the folds of her robes, she makes herself believe it. "My dad's been going on about it for days now...it's dreadfully boring."

"Boring?" The brush stops mid-stroke as Azula glances up at her sharply. "Another minister disgraced and forced to resign from my father's cabinet last night - the third in a week. Prison wardens abandoning their posts, important prisoners secreted from their cells. Factory workers refusing to work, the commoners incited to dangerous riots...all thanks to this masked traitor's actions." She lets out a dry, humourless laugh, shaking her head. "Only you would find such a thing boring, Mai."

"At least I'm consistent," Mai counters flatly.

Azula's smirk widens before she lowers her brush. The characters bloom across the paper's surface in neat black lines. "So what next?"

Mai blinks. "What do you mean?"

"Well, things simply cannot continue as they are." Azula sets down her brush with a sigh. "Father is furious. Understandably so. This Blue Spirit is making a mockery of him in front of his subjects. He must be stopped."

Mai's fingers twist among themselves. "So stop him," she makes herself say dismissively, trying to ignore the frantic pace of her pulse. "I'm surprised you haven't caught him yet."

"Hmm." The princess sniffs disdainfully, rolling her neck to stretch out the stiff tendons. Mai winces at the unpleasant popping sounds that crack through the air. "There's a thought," she mutters.

Mai tilts her head, frowning in confusion. But before she could open her mouth to speak, a knock at the door interrupts her.

Azula smiles bloodlessly. "Ah. Right on time," she remarks before raising her voice. "Enter."

The door slides open almost noiselessly. "You sent for me, Princess?"

Mai tries to hide her surprise as Kei Ling's low voice spills across the room.

"I did. Take a seat. And close the door behind you."

The inscrutable governor obliges, settling into the plush armchair next to Mai, directly across from Azula's seat behind the desk. Her blunt features remained impassive, but excitement flashes faintly in her brown eyes. "I haven't yet thanked you, Your Highness," she remarks casually, before carelessly inclining her head. "For placing me on the governing council so swiftly."

"Not so fast." Azula raises a finger. "My father is on edge these days, and there is no love lost between you two. Should matters persist as they are, it will not be long before the blame will fall on you."

"I gathered just as much," Kei Ling answers, steepling her fingers. "You are still weighing what you have more use for. A servant...or a scapegoat?"

Azula's smile widens, but she says nothing.

"But the truth is, I think you have discovered that you already have both," Kei Ling continues, leaning forward intently. "Why else have you waited so long to apprehend the masked vigilante terrorizing the capital?"

Azula reaches into the small tray beside the inkwell. "What gives you that idea?" she asks, sprinkling a fine layer of sand over the papers in front of her.

"Please." Kei Ling raises a hand dismissively. "This Blue Spirit, as they call him, has turned out to be the biggest thorn in your father's side since the colonial school debacle. And by extension...he should be yours too. Yet night after night, he roams freely, wreaking havoc unchecked." She lounges back in the simple armchair as though it were a throne, surveying Azula regally under hooded eyes. "Why?"

"You underestimate him," Azula answers evenly, without looking up. "It seems he has a knack for wriggling out of tight spots, slipping about unseen...and a thorough knowledge of all the secret pathways this city has to offer." A shiver runs down Mai's spine as Azula's voice gains an edge.

"I find that explanation as pleasing as your father did," Kei Ling retorts scathingly, before she raises an eyebrow. "Unless you gave him some other explanation?"

"What else is there to say?" Azula traces a pattern in a pile of sand with a sharpened fingernail. "Every night that the Blue Spirit runs freely is a resounding failure on my part."

"Now we are talking in circles." Kei Ling places a hand on her forehead, rubbing wearily at her temples. "Save your games for someone else, Princess. But if you will use this Blue Spirit's chaos to your own advantage, I suggest you find a way to be less transparent about it."

Azula frowns. Her nail scratches at the gleaming wood surface of her desk.

"It's very clever, I grant you. After all, every inept buffoon that this masked traitor removes, represents another opportunity for you to expand your own sphere of influence. But be careful...lest this Blue Spirit turn on you, too."

"He wouldn't dare," Azula counters, her voice hard. "He is a coward in a mask, and his fate is sealed should he dare to cross me."

"If that's so, then why wait for him to come to you? Why not seek him out? Set a trap for him?" Kei Ling tilts her head in amusement. "I do love a good trap myself."

Azula opens her mouth, before faltering.

"Ah. I see. Because a weakened Ozai means a more powerful Azula, is that it?" The governor straightens in her seat as Azula suddenly blanches, until even Mai can see the fear dancing in her eyes. "Or not quite there yet? Maybe a weakened Ozai needs his precious daughter, more so than any other bone-headed advisor he has come to trust." She laughs again, shaking her head. "Agni, how utterly predictable."

"Enough," Azula snaps, her teeth clenching together irately. "I didn't bring you here to waste my time."

"Then why did you bring me here, Your Highness?"

"Only to remind you where your loyalty lies." Azula's nostrils flare as she squares her shoulders. "I made you the Interior Minister, after all."

"Is that all?" Kei Ling clicks her tongue disapprovingly. "I am your humble servant, Princess. Use me."

How in Agni's name did such a spitfire of a woman raise such a spineless brat? Mai wonders mildly to herself.

Azula frowns again, weighing her options carefully. "You have strong ties to the people," she says at length. "Perhaps you can start by bringing order back to the streets, and the workers back in their factories."

"I'll see what I can do," Kei Ling answers, far more confidently than Mai would have expected in the face of such a demand. "What of the trouble brewing on Ma'inka island?"

"What about it?" Azula waves a hand dismissively. "We have enough trouble here in the capital, Kei Ling. Why would you waste my time with some insignificant island in the west?"

Kei Ling raises her eyebrows. "Because my sources tell me that Lady Mao has resurfaced, and I wasn't sure if you knew."

A blank silence greets her words.

"I take I assumed correctly, then," Kei Ling remarks, resting her chin on her hand.

"I don't understand," Azula says at last, finding her voice again. "I thought the Maos were…were all taken care of that night."

"You thought wrong." Kei Ling crosses her legs, jiggling a foot nonchalantly. "Lord Mao regrettably did not survive the ill-fated night of his daughter's wedding. But the same cannot be said of his wife – or widow now, I suppose…"

"She survived?" Azula's voice keens with incredulity, but Mai isn't sure if she imagines the fear in it.

"Apparently," Kei Ling answers, her smile turning wry. "And Lady Mao is made of far sterner stuff than her late husband. She counts the Saowon dynasty among her ancestry, after all, and her family, like all the others who live on Ma'inka, traces its descent all the way from the ancient Sun Warriors." She pauses dramatically. "Some might even say those old clans are where the true stock of Fire Nation nobility reside."

"Spoken like an upstart from the harbour slums!" Azula snaps. "What would you know of nobility?"

"Nothing but stories," Kei Ling admits. "But word in those slums say that Caldera and its imperial palace are where you'll find classless aristocrats who made their riches off Empire colonies. But you won't find the wealth of the old world here. Or dragons."

Azula blows a strand of hair out of her face, but says nothing. Mai wonders if that meant Kei Ling had hit a nerve.

Probably for the best, she thinks sardonically. Imagine how insufferable Ozai would be if he had a dragon on top of everything else. The world wouldn't be big enough for his ego.

"But Lady Mao, on the other hand, has all of those in spades. And the word is that she has returned to her home safely, and with an idea for vengeance in her head." Kei Ling shrugs. "Anyway, she's set to work rallying all the old clans of Ma'inka and raising their armies. I can only assume that she means to march on Caldera at some point."

"She'll do no such thing," Azula declares, rolling her eyes. "In case Lady Mao's forgotten her place, have my dear cousin's widow send her a letter and remind her, would you?"

Kei Ling inclines her head. "As you wish, Princess."

"Good." Azula plies her with a pitiless glare. "And don't think you can change the subject so easily with all this talk of vengeful mothers and dragons. These daily riots and strikes are becoming a nuisance. I want an end to them."

"Yes Princess," Kei Ling agrees. "But you must understand. The people feel helpless. They have been robbed of their voices, and they fear their country is slipping away from them. Now your father and his council have dragged them to war, to famine, to toil with no end in sight."

"I didn't ask for your excuses."

"It's not an excuse, Your Highness. But indulge me." Kei Ling leans forward, her eyes glittering keenly. "For the Blue Spirit gives them hope, even as he moves against your father and yourself. Capture the Blue Spirit, strike him down, and you will ignite these festering tensions into something ugly."

Azula exhales sharply, twin puffs of smoke curling from her nostrils. "Contain these riots. That's an order," she commands, before turning away slowly. "Otherwise, I will personally throw you to the ravening mob and let them tear you apart."

A vaguely insolent smile crosses Kei Ling's face as the princess preoccupies herself with shaking sand off the dried ink and rolling her letters into little scrolls. "I am yours to command, Princess Azula," she answers. "It will be done. But I will need some time." She runs a hand through her grizzled flyaways with a contented sigh. "Even I cannot perform miracles overnight."

"Very well." Azula doesn't look up from her work, plucking a stick of red wax from the corner of her desk and setting it alight with a pointed finger. "You may go now."

Kei Ling's unsettling smile widens as she rises to her feet with a lumbering grace that belied her massive frame. Her shadow spills in front of her, darkening the spot where Azula sits, heedless of her presence.

"You know," Kei Ling remarks in a conversational voice, "this Blue Spirit may be causing mayhem. But I think we could use it to our benefit."

Azula snorts, but says nothing. The melted wax pools along the seam of the scroll, sealing it shut.

"His sway over the people's hopes and imagination could be a most useful tool indeed. Why get rid of him when you could control him instead?"

A chill runs down Mai's spine at the suggestion. But Azula's frown only deepens. "He is a masked vigilante with no name and no honour," she replies scathingly, pressing the back of her signet ring into the cooling wax seal, stamping it with the flame insignia of the royal family. "How could we possibly control him?"

"Simple. We find out what he wants." Kei Ling's smile widens to bare small, sharp teeth. "Unless we start believing in spirits and all that nonsense, there is a man under that mask, after all. Someone who has gone through great lengths to hide his identity while stoking up the common people and registering his displeasure with your father's reign."

Mai's mouth runs dry as Kei Ling taps her chin with a thoughtful finger. Azula doesn't bother hiding her stare, oblivious to the melted wax dripping into a pool by her elbow.

"Someone who only bothered to take action after winter's end. Or was it that he only showed up in the capital after winter's end? It's so hard to keep track." She shrugs nonchalantly but Mai doesn't miss the crafty gleam in her eyes. "Someone with, as you mentioned, a thorough knowledge of the city and its secret passageways."

Azula's eyes narrow suspiciously. "What are you trying to say?" she asks stiffly.

"Nothing." Kei Ling sighs. "It could be anyone, truly. Forgive me, I spoke out of turn."

She turns and crosses the study with the stride of a moose-lion wading through water. Mai fights to contain her relief as Azula returns to her work with a brow furrowed deeply in thought.

"Oh, by the way," Kei Ling calls from where she pauses by the door, a hand already grazing the doorknob. "I am told that the Blue Spirit actually spoke to Lord Ikeda, just before he fled. One of his guards, dazed but not unconscious, overheard the exchange. I found it most intriguing."

Mai's breath hitches in her throat. Azula accidentally sets her sleeve into the puddle of cooling wax congealing on her desk.

"It seems Lord Ikeda asked him why," Kei Ling continues lightly. "And the Blue Spirit merely said that he still had the will to do something when nobody else would...and that was something that Ozai could never take away." She lets out a huff of dry laughter. "Quite the dramatic flair, I thought."

Azula fiddles with her ruined sleeve, cursing in dismay. "I've heard that one before," she says suddenly, straightening in her seat. "The ballad of the Painted Lady. It was my brother's favourite when we were young. He would recite it all the time, until Father forbade him -" She cuts off, her eyes widening slightly.

Something slides into Mai's stomach with the cold bite of icewater.

"I'm sure there must be other disgruntled noblemen out there with a similar knowledge of Fire Nation poetry," Kei Ling comments with a knowing smirk. "No matter. We'll get to the bottom of this one way or another, Princess. You can count on me. We want the same thing, after all."

Azula swallows hard, and when she speaks, Mai strains to hear her voice. "And what is that?" she whispers.

Kei Ling only spreads her hands disarmingly, her answer a sly purr trailing in the cloying air long after the door clicks shut behind her.

"Everything."

If there were spirits up there at all, Katara thinks to herself savagely, they were surely watching this latest venture with no small amount of amusement.

From where she crouches amid the rubble of one of Aujuittuq's toppled city walls, she clearly sees the dozen or so Fire Navy ships bobbing in the wreckage of the harbour. Their streamlined silhouettes are framed along the ruins of the melting ice manses that had once lined the main avenue. Every now and then they are illuminated by the patrollers with their small fires. They march along the slushy, muddy streets from the periphery of the occupied city, where their equipment and bases had been set up, to its heart, and then back again in a predictable pattern.

She glances at the nearest weapons storage unit, an unsightly contraption erected from a block jutting out into the far side of the bay. In the shifting orange glow of a soldier's firelight, the smooth metallic surfaces of more tanks wink back at her through the narrow slits of its windows.

Another gust of wind makes her pull her cloak even more tightly around herself. Her back stiffens at the sound of a low grumble, the squelch of mud underfoot.

"The guards will change over soon," observes Soma, running a tattooed hand from her short-cropped hair to the glider strapped securely to her back. "Are you sure you want to go ahead with this?"

Katara grits her teeth, wishing that Toph and Aang were with her instead. But they were stationed elsewhere, closer to the heart of the city where they could make a quick escape through the labyrinthine underground tunnels. "We'll give ourselves away if we pull out now."

"Katara is right," agrees Master Sutra of the Eastern Air Temple, still gazing over her shoulder at the cliffs ringing Aujuittuq in the distance, atop which their sky bison all waited, hidden from sight. "If there was a time to turn back, we have long since passed it."

"I understand," Soma says sullenly, folding her arms across her chest. "But this is a risky idea. Too risky."

Katara chews on the inside of her cheek, trying to search for a spark of calm. She thinks of the night she lost her bending. How, when all hope seemed lost, Zuko had still thrown himself in front of the soldiers to help her escape. Whatever lay before her now was risky, of course, but surely it asked no more of her than what Zuko had already willingly, unhesitatingly given that night?

"Playing it safe won't help us now," she declares in a low, fierce voice. "We have to try."

"But if we fail?" Soma presses.

Katara shrugs. "We already lost, didn't we? How can it get any worse than this?"

She straightens her broad hat, adjusts the long lawn veil cascading over its brim. Next to her, Soma lets out a dark chuckle. "Do you really want to find out?"

By night, the streets of the lower city choke with the smell of smoke.

Zuko melts into the thick shadows covering the window fronts as a nearby lamppost splinters and falls over. The crash of its landing splits the eerie silence, the blackened wooden beam crumbling to dust as it hits the warped ground. The embers of the burning lamp splutter in a weak spurt of red coals, briefly illuminating the slightly-soft, reflective sheen of the sticky tar lining the road, before dying with a hiss and a puff of smoke.

He listens for the sound of patrollers, but this far away from the aristocratic quarter atop the caldera, the city guards and Imperial firebenders were nowhere to be found. Instead, the poor and the disgruntled scurry around the streets of the harbour slums like rats in the night - and given just as much notice.

In the dead of the night, it's almost difficult to see the damage the riot-fires had inflicted upon the shabby wooden buildings. But the closer he creeps to the waterfront, the more the decrepit houses turned into burnt-out husks and piles of wrecked timber. The displaced and newly homeless slumber uneasily in large groups under makeshift shelters erected from crooked beams and weathered tarps. The ocean breeze flaps against the stretched fabric plaintively.

Anger glimmers in the pit of his stomach at the pitiful assembly of people, families, all of whom had lost their homes and slept as hungry as he did. Forgotten victims of the mounting unrest, already cast aside without notice and forgotten by his father and his men.

Careful not to wake any of them up, Zuko slithers silently past the lean tos. The softened tar squishes beneath his feet, sticking to the soles of his boots. Gritting his teeth, he leaps into the air, scaling a peeling building that creaks beneath his weight. But even though the people slept with one ear open, nobody noticed the sound.

He sighs, making his way toward the large grain silos that line the remnants of the harbour. They were the only structures made of stone – commercial and therefore built to last. The darkness cast by the shadow of the dormant volcano swallows the wreckage of the harbour and its slums, hiding it all from sight. Their identical domed shapes towering before the edge of the Budo Bay, silhouetted against the ocean.

Zuko follows the path of the ruined port, pieces of burnt wood crumbling beneath his feet, falling to the waves. The water devours them longingly, its hunger unsated.

He stops at the silo furthest out to sea. In the faint starlight, the blackened scorch marks mar the stone blocks, and not even the forceful spray of the bay had washed it away yet. The smell of fuel still chokes in his nose.

Then he pushes at the rusted iron doors, broken at the hinges. They buckle inward with a deafening screech.

Squinting in the darkness, he marches inside. Dried husks of wheat crunch beneath his boots, but even without a torch or a flicker of flame in his open palm, he can see that it lies empty. The entire place stinks of mildewy rock and burnt fuel, and a sweeter grassy smell of old grain. For a moment, he closes his eyes and imagines the crowd of homeless people sleeping under the makeshift shelters. He imagines their hunger that miserable day the Butcher had set loose upon them. The sheer desperation that had spurred them to break into a silo like this one. And then their wrath, their utter despair, at finding it empty.

Then, a sudden crunch in the corner of the silo jolts him back to reality. He spins around, just as a quiet voice rises out of the darkness.

"So, the Blue Spirit is real after all."

Zuko shifts into a defensive stance, his fingers grazing the pair of stolen broadswords strapped to his back. Crouching under the faint light streaming through the slitted window, he can barely make out a single figure, dressed head to toe in black, and sporting an equally colourful theatre mask.

He tilts his head in confusion, but before he could draw his swords, another voice rings out. "Of course he's real! I told you he saved me, didn't I?"

His hand drops from the hilt of his swords as a young boy steps into the narrow slash of grey light dappling the grimy stone floor. "Hi there, Mr. Blue Spirit! Nice to see you again."

Zuko raises a hand in awkward greeting as Nikko, the boy he had rescued earlier, offers him a bright grin. "Thanks for showing up! I wasn't sure if you got my message…"

"Or if you'd even come," interjects the other masked figure, still skulking by the wall, sizing Zuko up warily through the eyepiece of his mask.

"Oh, come on, Kuba. Just give him a chance, you'll see -"

"Has anyone told you that you're entirely too trusting, Nikko? What were you thinking, giving us away like that? He could be a spy for the nobles!"

"Then where are the guards?" Nikko turns to flash Zuko an apologetic smile. "Sorry. Don't mind Kuba. The past few months've made my older brother pretty paranoid."

Join the club. Zuko only shrugs.

"Of course I am! And if you had half an ounce of sense left, then you would be too!" Kuba, the boy's older brother snaps. "Or if you get thrown into prison again, they might be expecting this one to come free you." He jabs a thumb in Zuko's direction.

Nikko turns his big shining eyes to Zuko pleadingly. "Aw, come on! Tell him he's overreacting!"

But Zuko only shakes his head slowly. He's not wrong.

"Thank you!" Kuba huffs, crossing his arms stubbornly. "If you won't listen to me, will you at least listen to the crazy masked murderer who at least seems to speak sense?"

"Fine," Nikko grumbles, pulling a brightly coloured wad of fabric out of his pocket and sliding it over his head. "I'm all masked up now. Happy?"

"I'm never happy," Kuba retorts, rubbing at his temples wearily. "But it's a start."

Zuko bristles, frowning beneath his mask. A crazy masked murderer? Is that what you think of me?

"Well, isn't that what you are?" Kuba challenges.

I don't kill people.

"And yet, how many of your victims wind up dead or missing?"

Once they leave Ozai's protection, their actions mark them for the justice they are owed. Zuko narrows his eyes. Or would you prefer that the Butcher of Blood Bay to still run around free after his crimes?

To his surprise, Kuba laughs darkly. "Right. That was your first gift to us, wasn't it? The Butcher Asaka's head on a platter…or in a barrel, rather."

If I recall correctly, he was alive when I left him in your associates' hands. Zuko tilts his head, gesturing dismissively. So who's the murderer now?

Kuba laughs again, a harsh grating sound bouncing off mildewy stone. "I like you, Blue Spirit," he declares, pushing off the wall to approach him. "I think we understand each other."

He steps into the grey light streaming through the high window. It illuminates the bright red cloth of the grinning dragon pulled over his face. Zuko studies it carefully, examining the neat stitches, the small tears already forming along the seams under its chin, the mismatched spots where it had been painstakingly hand-patched back together.

"And more importantly…I think we can help each other."

Zuko's gaze doesn't waver from Kuba's masked face, moving with every slightly muffled word. He shakes his head, a single gesture. No.

"Why not?" Kuba presses, taking another step forward. Zuko notices that unlike him, the boy had no weapons. Instead, he carries himself with the proud, upright posture of a firebender, and a sufficiently trained one at that. "You've spooked half of Ozai's lackeys out of their posts, and we've created such an uproar that he can't sit easy in his throne anymore. Imagine what we could accomplish if we worked together."

Zuko stares at him, his gaze flitting to the faded spots along knees and elbows where Kuba's black garb had weathered grey and shabby. What did you have in mind?

"Ozai's a usurper. He must think we're all stupid. That we believe his fables of the Dai Li murdering Prince Lu Ten upon his wedding bed, and Emperor Iroh withdrawing to mourn, and his war against the colonies to exact revenge." Kuba snorts derisively. "But if that's true, then where is the Princess?"

Zuko scratches at the back of his hood, confused. Azula?

"No. Princess Consort Ayumi. Prince Lu Ten's widow." Kuba's voice hardens. "She was the only one who witnessed the attack on her late husband, but nobody has seen any sign of her since that night. Why would Ozai hide her…unless what she saw proves his treachery?"

Unbidden, the memory returns, so vivid that Zuko has but to blink and he's there again. Standing in the wedding chamber, facing the bloodstained bed, broken glass crushing beneath his feet. His cousin's bride with burns across her skin, staring at him wide-eyed and quaking in terror. And how could she not? a cruel voice whispers in his ears. Doesn't everyone tell you how much you look like your father?

"The key to Ozai's undoing lies with her," Kuba continues, heedless of Zuko's sudden stillness. "Her and her mother and all the other old clans holed up in their corner of the Fire Nation."

The dragonriders, Zuko acknowledges with a curt nod.

"Yes. Lady Mao has emptied Ma'inka island's garrisons. They stand ready to march." Even through the darkened slits of the red mask's sockets, Zuko can perceive Kuba's eyes glittering keenly. "Ozai swept the rug out from under Emperor Iroh by a cheap, disgusting trick. And now the dragonriders mean to make him answer for what he's done…or they would, if Lady Mao's only daughter wasn't their prized hostage."

Zuko closes his eyes, his breath stilling in his lungs. It spins in his head, a single tile on the pai sho board, its significance as yet uncertain, but for all the empty spaces where it could possibly fit. All within an emerging pattern that had yet to reveal itself to him.

But he could still guess at its shape.

If the princess wasn't his hostage, he gestures slowly, she would need somewhere safe to go.

The red cloth mask stretches with Kuba's widening smile. "Her safety would be assured without question," he answers without missing a beat. "If she were to somehow find herself no longer a prisoner…she would find her way back to her mother's side very quickly and discreetly."

Zuko's frown deepens as he thinks of his nighttime escapades, turning over the immaculate streets of the aristocratic quarter in his mind. Lord Ikeda had long deserted his post, and nobody had been keen to fill it since. Nobody wanted to risk the Blue Spirit's ire.

I know where they're keeping her. He jabs a thumb into his chest decisively, raising his chin. And I know that security is pretty shoddy these days.

Kuba regards him silently for a lingering moment. "Well," he says at last, "then it shouldn't be a problem for someone like you."

Then maybe we have a use for each other after all. Zuko stretches out a gloved hand, spanning the small space between them.

But Kuba doesn't move, gripped by some wordless consternation. He stares at the proffered hand, at Zuko's masked form from head to toe as though trying to size him up.

"You wield the dual swords, and yet you carry yourself like a firebender." Kuba swallows hard. "Like someone regal, like a prince."

Zuko flinches.

Kuba lets out a sigh. "Don't worry. We all have our reasons for hiding our faces." He clasps Zuko's hand with a surprisingly tight grip, shaking it firmly. "If you are who I think you are, then you put yourself in more danger than I could ever imagine." He tilts his head curiously. "Why do it? Why involve yourself in these matters at all?"

The answers spring to Zuko's lips in the span of a heartbeat, brimming on the tip of his tongue. Because I have no choice. Because I object to everything my father and Azula stand for. Because they took everything away from me and this is all I can do about it. Because I'm a dead man anyway.

But his hands remain motionless by his sides and the mask gives nothing else away.

The last of the Fire Navy soldiers march on past, the rhythmic plod of their solid boots dissipating into the rising scream of an unnatural wind. It ripples along the water, whipping its gilded surface into tiny foaming waves. The ships sway slowly in their wake, their iron joints creaking and groaning in the distance.

"Any minute now," Master Sutra whispers hoarsely, her breath straining in her throat. "They must be on their w - there!"

Her finger shakes as she points. In the shadows across the bay, from the rooftop of one of its low, squat buildings, the bright red light of reflected fire winks at them in a series of short, successive flashes.

"That's our cue," Katara hisses, already leaping upward. "Come on, let's go!"

In answer, a glider snaps open decisively behind her. Master Sutra pulls a small white whistle from her belt and blows into it. But the only sound was the shrill call of the wind, picking up speed from across the water.

Katara tilts her head curiously. "Are you sure that even works?" she asks with a frown. "Sounds broken to me."

"Oh it works, all right," Master Sutra assures her, pocketing her whistle and glancing back at the clifftops towering in the distance with a faint smile. "You'll see."

The wind shrieks in her ears. It was the same as the sound strangling in her throat, welling against her teeth clenched firmly shut. She glares up at the sky, dim with the light of the midnight sun. At the gaping black void where the moon should have hung. No matter which way she looked, everything led back to its loss. Nothing they did could ever outweigh that single heinous act.

But Zuko had thrown his life away for far less a hope. And if he was still out there, fighting for his life, then so could she.

Hastily, she dashes at her eyes with the back of her hand. When she looks back up again, she notices a small shape silhouetted against the stars. Pale and airborne and growing larger with every passing second.

No, not larger. Closer.

The sky bison cuts a path straight toward them, flying low to avoid being spotted. The screaming wind whips to a frenzy, drowning out the low roar of the flying beast as it lumbers closer, and the resounding thump as it finally lands before them.

"Good boy, Buwa," Master Sutra says, patting its sloping forehead affectionately. She glances at Katara over her shoulder, her smile widening. "See? I told you not to doubt the bison whistle."

To Katara's dismay, instead of the smooth leather saddle she'd grown accustomed to while riding Appa, the sky bison's broad shaggy back lies completely bare.

"Alright," Master Sutra declares, leaping onto the bison's head with gravity-defying ease, "everybody hang on tight."

"Um," Katara tries, grabbing fistfuls of long soft fur with mounting anxiety, "what exactly are we supposed to hang on to?"

But the airbending master twists her tattooed hands into the reins. "Okay Buwa," she barks, deaf to Katara's misgivings. "Yip yip!"

The world pitches steeply upward and it takes all of Katara's self-control to bite her shriek behind her teeth. She tightens her grip on the handful of fur lining the bison's back, her knuckles turning white. The flap of Buwa's flat tail fills her ears, competing with the shrill wind buffeting around them. A small whimper escapes her as they gain speed, her fingers threatening to slip loose of the silky fur as the slipstream lifts her body clear off the bison's back.

This is it. This is how I'm going to die. She squeezes her eyes shut, trying not to think of the frigid black water opening up below them, or the multitude of jagged icebergs gnashing like teeth against the iron ship hulls in its midst. It would take so little for her to slip and plunge to certain doom…

"Here we go," Master Sutra remarks, cutting through the all-encompassing swirl of her panic. "Not a moment too soon, either."

The world rights itself and Katara lands back on the mass of soft fur with a small thud. She lets out a small squeak of relief, pressing her face into the sky bison's back.

"See," Soma points out, trying to sound reassuring, "you made it after all."

"Maybe I'll stick with Appa on the way back," Katara protests feebly, her tongue feeling numb in her mouth. "Or someone who believes in saddles and safety."

"We wouldn't have let any danger come to you," Soma says, and to Katara's chagrin, she had the gall to sound reasonable about it.

"Maybe," she allows, wiping her sweaty palms along the carpet of fur heaving below her. "But that's easy for you to say. You know how to fly, after all."

"Glide, technically," Soma corrects with a wan smile. "And so do you. You're the Painted Lady, after all. Don't you trust us?"

Like I have a choice, Katara longs to say. Not for the first time, she longs for Aang's calming presence instead. No matter how many times she had done it by now, surrendering herself to someone else's bending never ceased to be short of terrifying. But at least with Aang, she knew he would never forgive himself if he let anything happen to her. And also, that Toph would probably murder him if he did.

She slumps in relief as another flash of light in the distance captures her attention. Three short bursts in quick succession, flickering across the length of the ruined city shoreline.

This is it. Her heart pounding an anxious breakbeat somewhere in the region of her throat, she nods tersely at Soma. The young Air Nomad meets her eyes, her face blanched sickly pale in the darkness. Then she unfurls her glider with a decisive snap.

Without another word, she glides off, disappearing over the flat roof of the navy's weapons unit.

Master Sutra digs her heels into the side of the sky bison's head. "Buwa, yip yip!"

They barely make it off the ground by the time the first explosion rocks the nearby building. Katara yelps as Buwa jerks violently beneath her, in an effort to dodge the angry red backdraft lashing up toward them. Her sweat-slicked fingers twist into the animal's fur, desperately clinging on with all her strength.

"Sorry!" Master Sutra calls back to her over her shoulder, yanking at the reins with grim purpose. "It's going to be a bumpy ride!"

Oh great. But the complaint barely makes it past Katara's lips before another blast rings out behind them, and then another. The glare of fire nearly blinds her as it consumes itself into glowing orange coals. Her mouth drops as the smoke curls like a thick black cloud, parting slowly to reveal the cratered remnants of the makeshift barracks and weapons store.

"It worked," she breathes in disbelief, as shouts of alarm rise up from the streets below. A wailing alarm pierces through the air, bellowing a warning to the invaders occupying the land. "I didn't expect to even make it this far."

"Well, we're not in the clear yet," Master Sutra observes, just before she curses loudly. "Monkeyfeathers, they spotted us!"

Katara flattens herself against the curve of the sky bison's spine, trying to burrow as deeply into its shaggy fur as humanly possible. Columns of fire punch upward, roaring and keening in the frozen night air. Scalding heat emanates from the flames in shimmering waves, licking her skin, nearly singeing the long shaggy fur straight off Buwa's giant paws…

The great sky bison lets out a roar of pain, swerving abruptly in the air. Katara shrieks as the force of the rushing wind pummels at her, sending her sliding across the animal's back as though it were greased with butter.

Scrabbling desperately, fingers clinging on to anything she can catch for purchase. She doesn't realize she's shrieking until everything begins to fall. Her stomach jumps upward, the world spirals nauseatingly. Her feet hang over the edge of the bison's back, dangling over oblivion.

Buwa cannonballs downward with a speed that belied his size. His growls surround her, clashing with the bursts of fire erupting all around them. Somewhere far below, growing closer with every gut-wrenching moment, clamour the yells of Fire Navy soldiers littering the streets.

Through slitted eyes, she glimpses them assembling swiftly with iron-drilled discipline. Rows and rows of firebenders in matching plate armour, the spikes and featureless masks stretching out within reach of Buwa's paws. They move in rolling unison, the spring of their bodies cascading down the formation like a cresting wave.

Master Sutra tugs sharply at the reins. Buwa suddenly bounds skyward. Katara's breath catches in her lungs as everything goes alarmingly vertical. The pouring flames crash aimlessly somewhere behind her, sputtering out to clouds of smoke with a flap of the bison's flat tail.

She doesn't dare to exhale until Sutra steers them along the skinny wooden buildings lining what was left of Aujuittuq's main street. With a groan and a thump that reverberates throughout her entire shaking body, the sky bison lands atop a steeply slanting rooftop.

Master Sutra drops the reins with a sigh of relief. "Oh, that was gripping! Are you okay?"

"Gripping?" Katara hisses, struggling to loosen her white-knuckled grip from Buwa's fur. "They nearly killed us!"

"It was certainly closer than I would have expected or liked," Sutra admits, slumping back in her perch. "But it was worth it. Look!"

Katara follows the direction of her outstretched, tattooed hand to gaze out at the mayhem unfolding along the wreckage of the harbour. Instead of the silent, sleeping streets that had lain before her mere moments earlier, the entire city is illuminated as brightly as though it were daylight. Fire leaps in every direction, rushing into the air in blinding golden tongues, chasing the half dozen or so more sky bison now circling the skies. Every now and then, another explosion rips through another building, hurling rubble out into the water and lighting the sky with a vivid orange glow.

The soldiers flit about in confusion, their neat rows dissolving into chaos. Katara watches them with grim satisfaction, as they oscillate between attacking the mounted Air Nomads dodging easily out of reach, and putting out the fires raging along the wreckage of the destroyed buildings. The harsh glow of the flames illuminates their soot-stained face plates clearly, but from her vantage point, they all looked the same.

"And the best part," Katara declares with an impish grin, "is that our real prize isn't anywhere near here at all! I wonder how the others are doing…"

"Wow," Aang remarks, leaning forward from his perch atop a sputtering chimney-stack with widening eyes. "I know it's probably causing a lot of chaos and destruction, but it sure looks pretty from here. Don't you think, Toph?"

"Meh." Toph's voice rises up nonchalantly from the ground below. "You've seen nothing once, you've seen it a million times."

He resists the impulse to smack himself across the forehead. "Well," he recovers, face flaming hot in the mild night air, "that's some nothing, that's for sure."

In the distance, the sky glows with bursts of warm light. Streams of bright golden fire spilling along every surface, harsh yellow sparks dancing like fireflies along the undulating black waters. Great explosions detonating along random buildings in plumes of angry red flame crowned with mushroom-shaped smoke clouds.

Something so destructive had no right to appear so beautiful, he thinks to himself ruefully.

"What do you think?" he asks, trying to tear his gaze away from the distant conflagration. "Is the coast clear?"

"As clear as it's gonna get," Toph declares. "Come on!"

He jumps down from his vantage point in two easy leaps, floating through the air as weightlessly as a feather. The thatched rooftops slide out of sight, yielding to the weathered building-fronts and shuttered windows lining the darkened streets.

Toph raises her head as he lands lightly, barely making a dent in the mud. They flit through the lengthening shadows, the ground wet and sucking at their feet. Apart from the distant yells and crashes filtering through from the harbour, everything else remains silent.

A shiver runs down his back. He should have been grateful for its concealing shroud and yet, there was something unsettling about the eerie stillness of Aujuittuq's streets in the dead of night.

"There," he pants, pointing at a nondescript building at the end of the narrow road. Revulsion rises in his gut as he stares at it, partly illuminated in the distant shifting firelight. "That's the one."

"You sure?"

"No. But that's what Katara and the others said. If they're there, they're there."

She shrugs. "Good enough."

The building towers before them, square and partially-melted, the snow of its upper floor drooping alarmingly and propped up by uneven lengths of splintered driftwood. He wasn't sure what its original purpose had been, but the sinister darkness skulking behind its windows and doors makes his skin crawl.

"Oh man." Toph's face scrunches with distaste. "So this is it, huh?"

He nods mutely as she marches up to one of its warped outer walls, placing a hand on the deformed snow. Her eyebrows lower forbiddingly into a fierce scowl. "It's not that bad," she announces at length, after some focused consideration. "Most of them probably picked their pants back up and ran out at the first sign of trouble."

Aang winces at the thought. "How many left inside?"

"Just a couple." Toph cracks her knuckles loudly. "One for each of us. How's that for timing, Twinkletoes?"

"Some call it timing. I call it the karmic justice of the universe," he retorts in a voice that sounded far lighter than he felt. He casts one last glance over his shoulder, at the orange-stained sky crackling behind them. "Too bad Katara isn't here."

"Yeah, we can't really call it karmic justice if we don't have Sweetness with us." Toph purses her lips. "Still. We could always tie one up and bring him back for her."

"Somehow, I don't think she'd appreciate us bringing some Fire Navy jerk back to our hideout," Aang replies delicately. "If any of them got wind of our operation -"

"Then we just make sure he never gets the chance to leave," Toph says darkly.

Aang shudders, raising his hands defensively. "Um. Let's just stick to the plan for now, how about that?"

But before Toph could open her mouth, a sudden cry rings out, followed by a nearby crashing and clanking.

Both of them immediately shrink into the darkened space between the buildings. Aang flounders, torn between staring at the blind earthbender and the narrow slit of street visible to him from their corner. "Is it coming from inside?"

Toph shakes her head, her face draining of colour. She jabs her thumb in the direction of the street, where the noises grow steadily louder.

His heart drums wildly in his chest as he recognizes the jeering taunts of more Fire Navy soldiers, coupled with the high-pitched shouts of a Water Tribe prisoner. "I thought you said the coast was clear!"

"I said it was as clear as it was gonna get!"

He tries not to kick himself in frustration. Instead, he stares with narrowed eyes at the trio of people appearing at the head of the street. Or more specifically, at the pair of soldiers hurling fire at a skinny Water Tribe youth, tripping over the chains linking his feet together and squirming along the surface of the snow.

" - that's what you get for sneaking off to join your friends -"

"Thought you was gonna blow up some Fire Navy soldiers while you had the chance, big guy?"

The chained boy rolls out of the way, dodging a blast of fire that nearly scorches the back of his long braided hair. Hissing flames sputter along the snow, its wavering blood-red light clearly illuminating the boy's grey eyes. Aang's chest tightens as he reads the fear plain in them - the fear that he was going to die.

"Twinkletoes, what are you doing?"

He barely hears Toph's hissing whisper, leaping into the fray in a single adrenaline-fuelled heartbeat. With a bat of his glider, a blast of spiralling wind flings one soldier bodily into the other. The pair of them trail through the air in an arc, slamming painfully into the ground.

Then, with an almighty rumbling of shattering earth, a pillar of rock springs out of the mud beneath the dazed soldiers. The force of it propels them high into the air, almost to the level of the rooftops. Until gravity kicks in and sends them plummeting back with a sickening crunch.

The blood roaring in Aang's ears gradually fades to the ringing silence reigning once again upon the darkened street. He turns gratefully to Toph, picking her way out of the small alleyway. "Thanks for helping me out."

"No problem." She raises a hand nonchalantly. "Anyway, the sooner we get this over with, the sooner Sweetness and the others can get out in one piece."

"Right." He holsters his glider, before extending a hand to help the fallen Water Tribe boy sprawled by his feet. "Here, let me help you -"

The boy grabs his proffered hand gratefully, rising to his feet with a grimace of pain. "Thanks. I think I'd have been minced meat if you hadn't saved my hide, Master Aang."

His eyes widen before he stares more closely at the skinny youth, his chestnut hair still woven into long beaded braids, his stained clothes hanging off his frame loosely and held together only by a sealskin belt knotted to its tightest clasp. "Do I...know you?"

The boy's face creases into a wry smile. "You probably knew my grandfather, Onartok. He was in the band of chiefs, before Hahn took over." He thrusts out a hand, chained at the wrist to the other trailing alongside it. "I'm Jukka."

"Right," Aang remembers with a sudden rush of clarity. "You tried out for Team Avatar, didn't you?"

"Yeah, and other stuff. But, here we are, and here you are. Speaking of which..." The boy's eyebrows lower into a puzzled frown. "What brings you two here, Master Aang?"

"Uh, just Aang is fine," he corrects, rubbing at the back of his head bashfully.

"And we're here to bust those girls out of that hellhole your stupid chief dumped them in!" Toph interjects, bristling indignantly. "So if you've got a problem with it, tough guy -"

"Problem?" Jukka echoes disbelievingly, before shaking his head. "No - no problems here! Just a normal guy, trying to live his life and stick one to the Empire before he croaks."

"Oh." Toph shrugs. "Well then. Carry on."

"Wait!" Jukka cries, holding out his hands. The chain binding them together clinks woefully. "Um. Can I join you?"

Toph crosses her arms stubbornly. "What?"

"I want to join you," Jukka says quickly. "I'm tired of skulking around fighting in chains. I know you guys have a plan and I want in. Please."

She turns her face in Aang's direction, wearing an expression of absolute incredulity.

Aang struggles to find his voice. "I don't see how one more could hurt," he tries at last.

Toph rolls her head slowly, the tendons in her neck stretching and popping one by one. "Fine. But if he gives us any more of his sexist crap, he can fall on his ass for all I care." With a rough flex of her fingers, the chains around Jukka's wrists and ankles burst open.

Jukka rubs at his chafed skin gratefully, his eyes widening in awe. "Thank you - thank you," he gushes, falling to his knees. "I won't let you down, I promise!"

"Yeah, yeah," Toph grumbles, already turning away to march on the half-melted building. "Let's go already."

Aang casts one final sympathetic glance at the freed Water Tribe youth before dashing ahead. He falls in step with Toph, just before she plants a hand on its solid front door and slams it open.

The door buckles on its hinges, its flimsy wooden frame nearly collapsing under the force of her blow. Aang trails after her as they step into a darkened hallway, lined with curtained doorways. A pair of flickering tapers hanging on the wall served as the only source of light, illuminating the packed snow surfaces held together by more brittle wood. The faint yellow flames touch everything with its oily yellow glow, making the entire place appear distinctly unclean.

Jukka stumbles to a halt behind him, staring on in growing horror. "Is this...is this where they've been keeping them?" he asks hoarsely.

Aang closes his eyes, trying to ignore the roil of disgust churning in his stomach. Instead, he follows Toph toward the first set of doors, the curtains trembling feebly in their wake.

"You wait out here," he tells Jukka, as Toph pushes her way inside. "Keep an eye out, let us know if anything changes."

Jukka nods tersely.

"Good." Trepidation clenching in his chest, he pushes the curtain aside and, taking a deep breath, wills himself to step inside.

A swift onceover reveals a room that was hardly more than a cell, empty except for a pile of furs piled against the far wall and a beam of wood holding up the ceiling where it drooped in the corner. And the young Water Tribe girl chained to it by the wrist, now curled up asleep on the bare ground.

Aang glances up despairingly at the roof, where a cell identical to this one must lie beyond. He nearly retches thinking of all the curtained doorways lining the hallway. All the cells behind them, all the girls trapped within.

But then Toph rouses the girl, who snaps awake with a gasp and a start. She blinks repeatedly, staring at them with disbelief plain in her clear grey eyes. Her mouth works wordlessly, even as her entire body begins to tremble.

"We're friends of Katara," Toph tells her in an uncharacteristically gentle voice, even as her face scrunches in recognition. "You're Bunik, right?"

"Yes," the girl rasps, her eyes wide and over-bright in the cramped space. "And I know who you are, Toph. Aang."

"Katara always spoke really highly of you," Aang says, his fingers tightening on his glider reflexively. Elsewhere, Toph's hand clamps on the girl's handcuff, breaking the metal effortlessly. "She said you were really strong."

"Katara always believed in us," Bunik whispers, rubbing her hand as though unable to believe that it was free. "Even when we didn't believe in ourselves."

"That's Sweetness for you. A terminal optimist if there ever was one," Toph quips, before tilting her head. "Can you walk?"

"I think so." Bunik winces, ignoring Toph's proffered arm before clambering to her feet. Her thin blue dress hangs off her frail form, fluttering with every movement like a battleflag.

"Bunik, we're going to break every single one of you out of here, and get you out of the city," Aang tells her. His voice rings loud and clear in the suffocating space. "I hope you're okay with that plan?"

She gives him a wan smile. "Thrilled," she returns dryly. "But how?"

Toph pushes the curtain aside, directing the girl back into the hallway. "We built an escape tunnel just outside the building. It leads back to our hideout. Twinkletoes, show that Water Tribe guy where the entrance is, put him to some use around here."

"Right," Aang calls, as she already disappears into the next cell over. "Hey, Jukka, get over here! We don't have all night…"

The sound of someone landing lightly on the rooftop next to her tears Katara from the havoc spreading below.

"That was fast," she comments, glancing up at Soma and watching her brush soot off her airy saffron robes.

The young Air Nomad shrugs. "I finished setting the charges. Now we wait." The fine black particles swirl through the air lazily.

By now, the occupying Fire Navy soldiers had regained more of their characteristic discipline. The neat rows were still nowhere to be found, but they had broken off into more organized clusters, working in coordinated units to bring down their skyborne opponents, hovering just out of reach.

In the air, the Air Nomads wheel and break effortlessly, dodging enemy fire and pinning the small groups of soldiers against the harbour's edge. Wind charges from every direction, ripping doors off building-fronts, whipping bits of rubble into flying shrapnel, flattening men to the ground. The surface of the water churns, its moored navy ships groan loudly with every violent sway. Some even threaten to topple over.

Still, the Fire Navy soldiers fight on doggedly, bracing themselves against the grueling devastation step by painstaking step. Katara winces, thinking of how the wind at such speed could tear and gnaw at the skin until it flared red raw in agony. Even firebenders weren't immune to its bite.

A blast of fire ricochets off the building next to them, and she ducks below the apex of the slanting rooftop. Through the shouts and the crashes and the shrill shriek of the wind, she manages to hear the deep rumble of an approaching sky bison.

Craning her head upward, she spots wiry Master Gyatso perched atop Pola, with General Iroh mounted safely on the wide saddle strapped to its back. Envy stabs faintly through her at the sight of it, as Iroh leans forward and cups his hands around his mouth. "Any news?"

"Not yet!" Katara calls back, crestfallen at the stubborn darkness gripping the inner city core. "We have to wait a little more!"

"Then we hold," General Iroh declares, even as his shoulders slump with worry. "But we cannot maintain our position for long. Already they are starting to regroup and regain their strength. And they outnumber us ten to one."

"I know," Katara grits out through clenched teeth. "Just a little longer, okay? We'll relay the signal as soon as we get word."

"I wish they would hurry," Iroh grumbles, before giving her a terse nod. With another loud roar, the sky bison takes off, plunging daringly toward the heart of the whirlwind twisting across the ground.

She exhales sharply, forcing herself to remain calm. Somewhere in the darkness, Toph and Aang were single-handedly freeing as many of the Water Tribe girls as they could find and ferrying them to safety. There were any number of reasons why they could be taking longer than expected. Perhaps there were more imprisoned girls than they had anticipated, perhaps they had found where Yue and the chieftains were being held, what if they're being ambushed right now and I couldn't help them even if I was there -

"Look!" Soma's clipped voice cuts urgently across her panic. "Over there!"

Katara snaps around, staring blindly for a moment before registering the quick succession of flashes beaming from the top of a darkened building, deep in the heart of the city.

"The signal!" she gasps, her face splitting into a stupid ear-to-ear grin. "That's them! They made it out, they did it!"

Soma rises to her feet, her silky robes flapping loudly in the wind. "It's time. Are you ready?"

Katara inhales deeply before clambering up, finding her balance on the narrow beam of wood running along the apex of the roof. The air rushes fitfully around her, skimming the whorls of paint long dried on her skin, sweeping her cloak and veil into a billowing mass. But the shivers winding down her taut nerves aren't from the cold, but anticipation.

"I'm ready," she says.

In the corner of her eye, Soma nods tersely. With one hand steady on her glider, the other grabs a spark-bomb from her belt and lobs it high in the air. The emitted sparks flash bright like stars hanging in the night sky.

She isn't sure if she imagines the grim purpose suddenly gripping the Air Nomads flying through the sky. One by one, they break away from the embattled Fire Navy soldiers, soaring high into the air. The soldiers charge forward, the wind whipping their jets of fire to towering heights. In a trice, the flames grow and multiply, spreading along the length of the street and licking at the bits of wood exposed from the collapsed buildings.

But instead of dwelling on that, she turns her attention to the dozen or so Air Nomads leaping off their sky bison and gliding, barely visible without their mounts. They land on rafters, on chimneys, on the masts of the darkened ships still swaying in the water. All in a safe perimeter directly encircling her, all crouching into position, preparing for a unified airbending slice.

She clenches and unclenches her clammy fists, her heart juddering in her chest. Swallows hard once, twice, steeling herself against the instinctive, paralyzing fear.

Then she steps off the edge of the building, and into thin air.

Something in the pit of her stomach rises sharply, her breath sticks in her chest. The air like water rushing along her skin and swallowing her whole - for a moment, she thinks she's drowning. Every second drags out like an eon.

Until something curls beneath her feet and pushes back. She opens her eyes, unaware of when she had closed them, and stares at the empty space hovering between her and the ground far below.

She bites back her croak of relief, forcing herself to stay composed. The initial plummet was always the worst. Even if she knew, logically, that she wouldn't hit the ground. There was something primally terrifying about not having solid ground under her feet, no matter how many Air Nomads tried to convince her otherwise.

"Look! Up there!"

"It's her!"

"She's back!"

A bloodless smile curls along her painted lips. She extends her hands slowly, relishing each motion. The current of air beneath her feet bears her from side to side, and from what she could make of the few cowering Fire Navy soldiers visible to her, she guessed that the effect was just as unsettling as intended.

Good.

Katara sweeps one arm to the side. On cue, an angry torrent of wind gushes down toward the nearby soldiers. They scream as it bats them carelessly into the water.

The air current sweeps her across the length of burning street, twirling the hem of her skirt. Some of the soldiers draw back as she approaches, tripping over themselves to scramble out of her way. But more still hold their ground, brandishing their fists at the ready

She raises her hand sharply. A fierce gust rattles past her from behind, battering the attacking soldiers and extinguishing their flames before they could fully form.

More of them scatter and run away screaming as she draws nearer. But a final few remain stubbornly, assembling quickly in a neat formation before squaring off to face her bravely.

"You might be a spirit, but you're still an enemy of the Empire!" one of them yells at her, rather boldly. He lunges forward, his fists flexing dangerously. "Come any closer and we'll find out tonight whether spirits can burn too!"

Wrong answer, Katara thinks grimly. The wind whips around her to a frenzy, even as she hovers perfectly still in the air. Out of the corner of her eyes, the anchored Fire Navy ships bob on the water, shadows floating on liquid darkness. Small shapes whiz off their streamlined prows like flies.

Her hands shoot upward. Someone below actually gasps in fear.

The Fire Navy soldier has the gall to laugh. "Oh no, she raised her hands! Maybe she'll unleash some spirit magic on us if we're not careful -"

Suddenly, everything turns bright as day. A deafening sound splits across the harbour as explosions rock the imperial cruisers. One by one they go up in flames, bright red fire clashing with plumes of thick black smoke. Pieces of metal arc through the air, slamming into the ground, into other ships, or back into the hungry depths of the waiting water.

A dreadful wail assaults her ears. Katara resists the urge to clamp her hands on them, to drown out the ringing from the explosions, the terrified screams of the men fleeing below her. Overwhelmed captains struggle to maintain order, yelling out commands that the stampeding soldiers don't hear.

But one of them rings out clearly through the din. "They're on the roofs!" it snaps. "Get them!"

To her horror, she spots a soldier, surrounded by the raging flames. Pointing straight at the building where Soma crouches, a small silhouette barely visible atop its angled roof.

"Get out of there!" she bellows, just as fire lashes out toward them. It strikes the building, igniting the worn wooden crossbeam. Soma leaps out of the way of the flames, the shock on her face illuminated in its orange glow.

The air current holding her up suddenly falters, losing its buoyancy with Soma's distraction. Katara's dismay turns to alarm, and then, as more fire races upward, dread.

Fuck.

Panic sets in as her feet kick aimlessly, struggling to stay afloat as though the empty air was truly water. But with a sharp jolt in the pit of her stomach, the current weakens, growing thinner and thinner until she feels herself start to fall.

Her limbs flail with a mind of their own. The ground springs upward, nauseatingly closer - the snow-covered ground covered with rubble and leaping crazy-hot fire -

A gust of wind buffets her sideways, slamming her bodily into the charred skeleton of a building that still stands halfway intact. She grabs desperately at the flimsy wooden beams. Gulping, she tries not to look down, her feet dangling over the rising flames. Already, the hem of her dress starts to smoulder; the heat licking her legs nearly unbearable.

She grits her teeth, trying to pull herself up onto the remnants of the building's existing floor. Around her, the fire crashes and burns, growing like a living thing.

Come on come on come on -

Then, the sound of cracking wood fills her ears like a death knell. Her blood runs still as the wooden beams beneath her fingers start to peel and disintegrate, buckling under her weight.

"No," she gasps, scrabbling for purchase as the flimsy wooden structure starts to collapse, "no no no -"

The broken bits of wood dig into her palms. She still clenches at them tightly as she falls, as though the stupid splinters could hoist her to safety.

She closes her eyes as the roaring fire rises to meet her. Her heart races, this isn't how I meant it to go, I can't, not yet, and she makes herself look away as the scalding heat intensifies and -

A whoosh of wind strikes her, its icy breath as cool and merciful as water. The roar of the fire suddenly goes silent.

Somehow, it manages to cushion the worst of the impact because her bones remain intact. But shockwaves ring through her entire body, dizzying, sickening, brutal. Her ankle collapses, wounded a lifetime ago in another desperate struggle, the first of so many.

"See! She's not a spirit after all!"

"Just a little girl wearing a disguise. She'll burn just like the rest of them."

"Wait until the Admiral finds out."

The gloating voices rattle in her skull, surrounding her, growing ever closer. Silhouettes of approaching soldiers appear in the flames.

Gritting her teeth against the dull pain lancing in her ankle, she struggles to find her balance. In the periphery of her vision, she catches the underside of a sky bison passing overhead before it lands heavily next to her.

"Come on!" General Iroh shouts at her, extending his hand as Master Gyatso fends off incoming fire.

Katara gapes at him stupidly, before grabbing him and struggling to climb the sky bison's saddle. She barely manages to grab onto the side of the leather saddle when they take off. Pola's flat tail slams down behind them, emitting a blast of wind that flattens the small number of pursuing soldiers, and the air around them remains mercifully free of fire as they hurtle toward the sky.

"That was too close," Iroh reproaches, shaking his head as he pulls her on-board and settles her gasping against the saddle's cool, wonderfully solid edge. His worried eyes fill her vision. "Are you alright? You didn't get hurt, did you?"

"I'm okay," she chokes out through chattering teeth. Shivers course through her entire body, the chill consuming her having nothing to do with the cold. "I'm fine."

"We should never have put you in such a dangerous situation," Iroh says, kneeling back on his haunches before her.

"I knew the risks," she heaves out, somehow managing to feel annoyed in the face of Iroh's concern.

"I should have been more prepared," he continues to lament, as though he hadn't heard her. "A dozen Air Nomads working together, and it still wasn't enough…"

"What does it matter anymore?" she bursts out, crossing her arms defensively across her chest. "My cover's blown. They know it's all a ruse."

"It was only a matter of time," he agrees solemnly. "At least you are safe."

She scoffs darkly. "What good am I if I can't even fight as the Painted Lady?" She huddles into a ball, curled up against herself, seeking some comfort, some solace anywhere.

"Here." Iroh unclasps his cloak, settling it delicately over her shaking shoulders. "Before you catch your death of cold."

A lump forms in the back of her throat. She clutches at the folds of the heavy black cloth, its warmth encasing her like a hug. "Thanks," she croaks.

Iroh smiles at her, his eyes twinkling like one of the many stars dotting the inky sky. The sounds of the fighting grow quiet and distant, until the whoosh of moving air is all that remains, and the ground below them turns flat and featureless again.

"Your worth isn't measured just by what you can do on the battlefield, Sifu Katara." Iroh's voice cuts across the grateful, exhausted silence. "You forget yourself."

Katara narrows her eyes, tilting her head in confusion. "What do you mean?"

To her surprise, Master Gyatso swivels around from his seat atop Pola's head. "We've received word from the encampment," he informs her, his lined face positively beaming. "Toph and Aang are back...and with a great many survivors too!"

Her breath catches in her throat. "You mean…" she stammers, her face splitting into a delighted grin, "it worked?"

"Yes," Iroh tells her warmly. "It did. Your disguise may have been compromised tonight, but we managed to accomplish everything we set out to do."

"Destroyed some ships, spooked some soldiers, freed some prisoners," Master Gyatso supplies with a mischievous wink. "More than some, from what I hear! A small army, is how they described it!"

"A small army?" Katara repeats incredulously, her jaw dropping. "But - but how?"

"I'm not quite sure. The relays were rather short. But very specific." Gyatso shrugs, before turning his attention back to the reins. "Either way. It appears we will have many friends waiting for us when we return."

"Indeed," Iroh agrees, settling back to seat himself more comfortably. "Many old friends of yours, Katara...and even one of mine, it appears."

She frowns at him in confusion. "Huh?"

Something like triumph gleams in Iroh's amber eyes. "It appears a guest stumbled into our encampment with important information. I believe you too will be pleased to see him again."

"What?" She leans forward, her curiosity piqued. "Who? Who is it?"

"Your waterbending master. My good old friend, Pakku."

Zuko had never appreciated the utter silence of the capital city before sunrise, until now.

Despite the dim glow of pale blue light lining the horizon, the streets remain blanketed in darkness, the lamps extinguished and windows drawn. It eases his flight back to his prison cell, dodging the infrequent guards patrolling the streets of the seedy outer city.

The inner quarter with its sprawl of noblemen's mansions ringing the palace complex was a different story altogether. The streets were wider, well lit, with guards posted at every gate. The rustle of trees and well-manicured flowerbeds threatened to expose his movements at every corner, and it took nearly every lesson in stealth that Mai had taught him, and then some, in order to pass through.

He pauses near Mai's house, skulking in the shadow of its back wall to peer up at her window. But it was darkened and quiet, the same as the rest in the city. If she lay awake in her bed, unable to sleep out of worry for him, she gave no indication of it. Typical Mai.

The towers of the palace loom in the distance, a constant presence bristling with security. Ever since his nightly pursuits became more frequent, the tension gripping the aristocratic quarter had mounted. Breaking into his childhood home remained an impossibility - for now. Yet he still glares at it nonetheless. Somewhere within its walls, his father slumbered peacefully, heedless of the destruction he wrought with every breath he took. Zuko considers the distance lying between him and the self-proclaimed Phoenix King...and all the dangers that lay therein.

Soon, he tells himself grimly, flitting through the growth of conifers surrounding the grim stone fortress of the prison. Dawn was fast approaching and with it, hope.

The cool night air whistles along his ears, the heavy mask warm against his clammy face. Sharp green needles prick at his clothing from where the tree branches rub against him, pine cones littering to the ground in his wake. A single bird screeches into the morning air plaintively before winging into the starlit sky; beneath it, the ocean slumbers on, still as the grave.

The sky has already started to grow pale with light by the time he presses up to the top of the hill, waiting at the edge of the thinning forest. A patch of trees still lay scorched at the back of the prison, from the pursuit of the guards the first time he had escaped. He lingers some distance away from the blackened earth, hiding in the scrubby brush that lined the ground instead.

Pairs of guards march around the periphery of the prison wall, while others stand vigilantly at every gate. Atop the walls, more guards patrol back and forth in a blurred pattern of crimson and black. Every watchtower manned, every sentry brandishing their alarm horn, ready to signal at the sight of intruders.

In spite of it all, he smiles wryly under his mask. After all, if the extra prison security made it harder to get back to his cell every time he ventured forth, he had only himself to blame.

Overhead, the advancing sunlight swallows the stars in the sky one by one.

He waits until the nearest pair of guards have turned the corner out of sight before dashing headlong across the outer grounds. By the time another pair rounds the bend, he has already leapt atop the building wall and quietly scales its cobbled stony side, blending in the shadows cast by the flickering torches and moving as silently as one too.

That was too easy, Zuko thinks to himself with no small amount of triumph as he finds the mouth of the air duct and pushes inside. He follows the path that he has learned by heart now, through the labyrinthine network traversing through the building like veins to arrive at the pipe landing just outside his cell window.

Clambering out, he is momentarily blinded by the rising disc of the sun cutting along the horizon. Its scorching gaze pummels him against the back wall, illuminating the entire surface in its piercing yellow glare. Zuko shrinks away, instinctively raising a hand to shield his eyes, and loses his grip on the weathered stone.

He teeters for an unpleasant moment that stretches out far longer than it should have. His gorge rises in his throat, the ground swaying dizzying below him. The distant treetops gnashing like teeth, longing to dash his body apart to pieces. The calls and rhythmic footsteps of all the guards patrolling the prison, marching below his airborne feet.

Then he reaches out blindly, grabbing at the jutting window-sill with his free hand. The stone locks against his scrabbling fingers, and he springs upward desperately. Shockwaves ring through his bones as he lands on the ledge, and he clutches feverishly at the iron bars, now warm in the light of the sun. He still feels its angry rays beating down on his back, the sweaty black clothes amplifying their heat.

With no small relief, he slips through the bars, jumping down on the scoured flagstone floor more forcefully than he should have. He winces as the sound reverberates around him, half-expecting the guards to pile outside his door at any moment. But outside the four stone walls of his cell, the world took no notice of him, as usual, and he resigns himself to trudge back behind the barred door undisturbed.

Or, so he thought. He pays little heed to the telltale prickle creeping up his neck as he slides the door shut and twists the blade in the lock with a resounding click.

He slumps against the metal grille, covered in icy sweat and struggling to catch his breath, when all of a sudden, out of nowhere -

"Oh look who we have here," a horrible, familiar voice rises out of the darkness, dripping with amusement - "The notorious Blue Spirit, alive and in the flesh."

Zuko whips around, his hands halfway to the swords strapped to his back. Someone steps out of the darkened corner, pushes their hood back. His blood freezes at his sister's face illuminated in the cold sunlight, her painted lips curved into a triumphant smirk.

"Now," Azula says, leaning forward. Her eyes gleam with an excitement that makes his stomach roil. "I wonder who could be under that mask."

Chapter 52: inner strength

Chapter Text

disclaimer. nothing recognizable are belong to me

author's notes. thank you to everyone who's been following along, y'all amaze me with your insight and your patience! it might be worth pointing out that we're finally heading into the heart of the whole story...so buckle in, it only hits the rails from here!

as always, you can find me on tumblr at colourwhirled-writes.

content warning for this chapter as it touches again on some of the heavier/darker aspects of survivorship.

i give you...

southern lights

chapter lii. inner strength

i lie and wait and stare into
the sprinkling of earth
a dark and endless night

"hour of the wolf" / ulver

Once, when Zuko was much younger, he waded too far into the water behind their family's vacation home at Ember Island. Azula, barely a toddler then, had tumbled on the soft white sand, and the waves had swept away her favourite hairpin. With every moment, the current bore it further away from the shore. His sister's wails loud in his ears, the merciless fists of saltwater pummeling him every which way as he kicked desperately, trying to find solid ground somewhere below him.

It had been his father who dove in afterward to pull him gasping and retching back to land. For several days afterward, Zuko couldn't stop coughing up seawater. But when his sister dashed over to his side, she found his fingers clenched tightly around her hairpin. For the rest of their vacation, she stayed by his side to nurse him back to health.

Now, instead of the small jeweled ornament, the cold iron bars dig into his palms instead. His father would sooner have him drowned, and judging by the uncomfortable gleam of triumph in Azula's eyes, Zuko imagines she would gladly watch the waves snatch him under. The sensation of water rising over his head and filling his nostrils still remains, but the days when she would have helped him were far gone.

The bright golden sunlight streams through the window, illuminating her face clearly above the nondescript dark cowl rippling around her neck, its folds neatly concealing the cut of her regal red robes. Her lazy smirk widens fractionally. "Won't you take that ridiculous thing off? I can't take you seriously with it, Zuzu."

Zuko struggles to breathe, the air in the cold damp cell seeming to instantly turn to saltwater. The mask weighs down on his prickling face, the only armour he had left to him in the entire capital. And Azula had just as well as torn it to shreds with her clawed fingernails.

Reluctantly, he reaches for the straps holding the mask in place and undoes them with gritted teeth.

"That's better," Azula says, tapping her chin with a tapered fingernail. "Honestly, Zuzu, your face isn't so monstrous that you have to hide it beneath that ghastly thing."

Zuko bares his teeth at her with a growl. "What do you want, Azula?"

She raises an eyebrow, but her smile only widens infuriatingly. "So eager to get to the point already? I thought you would be thrilled for a visit from your favourite sister."

"Skip the nonsense already!" Zuko snaps. "I'm the Blue Spirit. You caught me. Quit your gloating and tell me what you want."

"But the gloating is my favourite part," Azula returns with a pout. "You're ruining all the fun, Zuzu."

"Yeah? Well, I've been up all night and I'm tired. So, if you're not going to tell me why you're here, I'm going to bed."

"For Agni's sake, you're so tedious," she complains with a loud groan as he turns his back to her. "Lighten up, will you? I just wanted to talk."

He throws her a ferocious scowl over his shoulder. "Talk? You?"

She shrugs innocently, running a hand along the strands of hair framing her face perfectly. "Is that really so hard to believe?"

"Maybe," Zuko says suspiciously, his eyes suddenly darting around the rest of the darkened cell. "How many of Father's men are waiting here, and how long before you spring your trap?"

Azula lets out a loud snort. "Father's men," she repeats mockingly, shaking her head. "As if I was in any danger from you. Especially without your bending. How are Mom's potions, by the way?"

"That depends," Zuko snarls, the mask slipping from his shaking fingers. "Compared to seeing you? I'd rather take the poison."

"Well, keep up that sunny attitude and you might not have a choice," Azula warns sourly, crossing her arms.

He frowns at her, his curiosity piqued despite himself. "So, why are you here then? And why haven't you told Father that I'm the Blue Spirit?"

"Who says I haven't?"

"Because if you did, I'd have bigger problems than having to look at your face," Zuko replies witheringly. "Father isn't renowned for being subtle."

"It must run in the family," Azula agrees flatly.

"As though family means anything to you!" he bursts out, something within him snapping at the word. He lunges toward her, pressing his face up against the metal grille with such ferocity that she inadvertently takes a step backward. "You killed Lu Ten! Our cousin, on his wedding night, and you murdered him!"

Azula sighs, running another hand along her hair before glancing pointedly at the space between her slippers. "Don't be ridiculous, Zuzu. I was nowhere near him that night. Which you'd know, if you'd been around instead of shacking up with some Water Tribe peasant."

"We're not talking about me," Zuko hisses, his fingers tightening against the cold iron bars. "You think that just because you didn't slaughter him yourself that your hands are clean? Think again, Azula. He died that night, and his blood is on your hands!"

"Father said it was necessary," his sister mumbles defensively, her voice dropping so low that Zuko has to strain to hear her. "What would you have preferred? One clean death at a wedding, or thousands more to perish in battle?"

"Neither!" Zuko shouts at her disbelievingly. "Why did anyone have to die? Did Father explain why that was necessary too?"

Her jaw tightens. "I don't have to sit here and listen to your theatrics, Zuko. Uncle was leading this country down a path we could not follow -"

"Oh, and you think Father's doing such a great job in his place?" Zuko presses, glaring at her and wishing with every fibre of his being that he could bend again, just for a moment.

But to his surprise, she meets his gaze at that, with a strange look in the golden eyes that they both shared. "Actually," she says, rubbing at her temples wearily, "he isn't. Not really, no."

He snorts derisively. "Well, what a surprise. Who could have seen that coming?"

"Don't get me wrong," she corrects hurriedly, her voice rising in pitch as she glances around furtively, as though expecting to find someone else skulking in the shadows of his prison cell. "When it came down to it, Father and Uncle were never going to see eye to eye. All this time wasted on useless deliberations and appeasements. And between the two of them, I still think Father makes a better ruler than Uncle."

Zuko raises his eyebrows as she trails off, sounding more worried than her nonchalant facade suggested. "But?" he prompts.

Her eyes narrow as she sizes him up swiftly before she takes a deep breath. "Father is who he is, I won't deny that. But lately, he's surrounded himself with some advisors whose qualifications are...somewhat questionable, if I have to admit."

"Zhao," Zuko supplies dully, without missing a beat.

She scoffs. "Yes, him...and others. I don't understand it. He's so obsessed with finding Uncle and humiliating him that he won't even listen to me or any of my brilliant ideas to bring order and stability to our empire!"

"And there it is," Zuko mutters dryly.

She frowns at him, tilting her head questioningly. "What?"

"The reason for all this," Zuko explains, motioning vaguely at the space between them. "The reason you're here conversing with a wanted criminal. You're tired of being sidelined, aren't you?"

She splutters indignantly, spots of colour instantly blooming on her white face. "What? No -"

"You were always Father's favourite," he continues, barreling over her feeble protests. "But now that he's gotten everything he wanted from you, it's all changed, hasn't it? What, are you scared that in my absence, you're no longer the golden child anymore?"

"Don't talk like that!" Azula thunders back, stung. Clearly, he had hit a nerve. "Unlike you, my loyalty has never been in question! Father understands my worth, he appreciates everything I've done for him!"

"Yeah, that sure sounds like Father," Zuko mutters sarcastically, crossing his arms. "Understanding and appreciative...definitely two words I'd use to describe him."

Sparks dance dangerously from her clawed fingertips, skittering along the grimy stone floor. "I don't have to stand here and listen to your treachery, Zuko."

"Then go," Zuko grumbles. "I'm not enjoying your company as much as you think I am."

"You're impossible!" she rages, turning away with a swish of her black cloak. "I came here because I saw an opportunity for us to be of use to each other, but now I see that I was mistaken! Go rot in here for all I care -"

"Wait." He rubs at his ears, convinced he had misheard. "You - you what?"

Azula sniffs imperiously, glaring at him over her shoulder. "Oh, now you want to talk? How magnanimous of you, Zuzu."

"I just want to make sure that I'm not completely losing my mind," Zuko returns, pinching the bridge of his nose exasperatedly. "You...wanted to work with me?"

"Believe me, I'm not thrilled by the prospect either," she fires back, her lip curling contemptuously. "But count your blessings Zuzu, and don't be a simpering fool about it either. Because your work as the Blue Spirit is causing a lot of terror among Father's band of idiots...and I could use it to my advantage, actually."

He scowls at her, affronted. "What makes you think I would ever help you?" he asks scathingly. "After everything you've done, how do you expect me to trust you?"

"Trust me?" Azula echoes, before laughing mockingly. "Who said anything about that? No, I believe we have some...temporarily aligning interests, and working together would be the most harmonious way of seeing these through."

He stares at her blankly, at a complete loss for words. A strange buzzing sound seems to fill his ears.

Her nostrils flare as his silence drags on. "It means," she explains disdainfully, as though she found him slow-witted, "that I think we can help each other."

"I don't want your help."

"That wasn't a request," Azula threatens, her voice gaining a steely edge. "Because either we help each other...or I go straight to Father and expose your entire sorry charade."

Zuko opens his mouth to argue further but winds up chewing his lip instead. Her threat coils like a noose around his neck, promising to rip away the only purpose left to him in the bowels of his father's prison.

He lets out a growl of frustration, before glaring at her. "Fine," he spits, disgusted by the entire notion. "Let's say I accept. What do you want from me?"

Azula's face brightens smugly and the sight of it makes him sick to his stomach. "I knew you would see sense, Zuzu," she purrs with satisfaction. "It's not like I'm asking you to do anything you aren't already doing. I just thought I'd add my own names to your list, that's all."

"Oh, of course," Zuko snorts, shaking his head disparagingly. "You never saw anything of mine that you didn't try to control and contort for your own ends. Why should this be any different?"

"As long as you're bent on harassing and intimidating those idiots out of Father's favour, why should it matter?" Azula argues.

"Bold of you to assume that your name isn't on my list too," he warns her darkly.

She laughs again, wiping a tear of mirth from the corner of her eye. "And how do you propose to do that, oh venerated Blue Spirit? You have no bending, and I know your little secret. Your tricks and tactics won't work on me."

"I'll find a way."

She arches an eyebrow at him in amusement. "I'm sure you'll try. And fail, like you always do."

"Oh really? Then maybe you should lower your voice, before the guards find you in here cavorting with such a known failure!"

She rolls her eyes. "You sound hysterical, Zuzu. You should be thankful for this chance. After all, this way we both get what we want. You get some fresh air and a chance to play hero, and I get to replace Father's stooges with more qualified people. Win-win, really."

"You mean, people who are loyal to you," Zuko corrects nastily. "Planning another coup already? The dust has barely settled from your last one."

Her face blanches to a horrified shade of white. "Don't you dare say that!" she gasps, recoiling at once. "You might have turned your back on your family, Zuko, but I will never betray Father. He knows my heart. He knows my loyalty." She presses a hand into her chest, breathing so heavily that Zuko was no longer sure who exactly she was trying to convince - him or herself. "He loves me."

He's not capable of love, Zuko longs to tell her. One day you'll learn that too. But the brightening sunlight streaming through the window only highlights the maniacal, desperate fire blazing in her eyes. There would be no reasoning with her. He holds his tongue instead.

"You were a disgrace and a miserable failure. But I will be the child he deserves," she continues vehemently, standing as rigid and tall as she could. She raises her chin, glaring at him haughtily. "I understand why you would be jealous."

He scowls at her. "I may be a lot of things, but jealous isn't one of them."

"Suit yourself. Just don't muck it all up." She pulls her cloak more tightly around herself, turning away from him "It goes without saying that this conversation never happened."

He raises his good eyebrow at her. "Who am I going to tell? You're the one who needs to keep your mouth shut."

"Please. Don't flatter yourself," she retorts dryly, raising a dismissive hand. "As if I would ever be caught dead conspiring with you. Even if someone found out about it, nobody would ever believe it!"

"Could you imagine the humiliation?" he returns sarcastically. "I never imagined you would ever be so desperate as to require my help eliminating your political rivals."

She stares daggers at him, and for a brief moment Zuko swears that she would end him on the spot. "Mind what you say to me, Zuzu," she whispers viciously through gritted teeth. "Or you'll find the Blue Spirit's secret identity won't remain secret for very much longer."

"You know what? Go right ahead!" Zuko taunts, already sick of her thinly veiled threats. "And then I'll say that I was working for you this whole time."

She smirks at him knowingly. "You wouldn't dare. Besides, Father would never believe you."

"He doesn't have to believe me," Zuko spits, staring her down levelly. "He just has to doubt you."

The smile vanishes instantly from her face.

"So maybe you should follow your own advice, and mind what you say to me," he finishes, savouring her aghast expression. "After all...you sought me out. We're in this together, now. If you dare strike me down, know that I'll take you with me."

Azula stares at him like a child discovering the bite of a turtleduck for the first time. "Give me one reason to suspect that you've breathed a word of this to a single other soul, and you'll be on your own," she hisses, turning on her heel and already marching toward the door. "I won't help you."

"Don't worry," he shouts at her retreating back, before the door slams in her wake. "I was never going to expect that from you anyway."

"What do you mean you can't find him?" Suki demands hotly.

She struggles to rise from her pallet on the ground. The abrupt motion jostles her plaster-encased leg and she lets out a grunt at the sudden lancing pain.

Ty Lee places a calming hand on her shoulder, arresting any further movement. Suki closes her eyes, breathing steadily through her nose, before turning back to face Haru as he hovers haplessly over her.

The shifting light of the glowfly-chandelier touches his puzzled features with a wan green glow. "Just what I said. Lee ran off on us in Gaoling, and we haven't seen him since."

"But where would he go?" Suki asks, her face crumpling in confusion. "And why would he just run off like that?"

To her mounting annoyance, Haru only shrugs again. "Beats me. Things got a little heated between him and, uh…" He glances furtively at the pair of waterbending twins, standing some distance away and conversing quietly with one of Bumi's generals.

Suki glowers at them, understanding immediately. "Typical. They cause friction and one of us has to pay the price," she says bitterly. "You know, none of them would even be here if Lee hadn't extended an olive branch...and this was after he found out they murdered Jun!"

"I know," Ty Lee consoles her, running a hand down her arm soothingly. "For someone who takes pride in being such a jerk, it was pretty big of him to do that." A shadow passes her face as she hangs her head. "I don't know if I could."

"Same," Suki agrees, her temper flaring uncontrollably. "And what do these people do? Instead of being grateful, they drove Lee away! Who knows where he is, if he's even okay -"

"Of course he'll be okay," Haru assures her with infuriating steadiness. "He's Lee. After all the traps he's wriggled through, this is nothing."

"But he's always had the resistance to come back to," Suki argues. "If he ran away...who's to say he's ever coming back?"

A commotion in the far corner of the expansive underground cavern interrupts their argument. Suki squints at the small crowd forming around one of the walls, at the gap in the rock face slowly sliding shut with a low rumble.

"What is going on over there?" she mutters in a low voice, watching as more of the resistance fighters rush over, followed by Bumi's Generals. The crowd swells, their excited voices mingling chaotically in the subterranean air.

But Haru's face lights up. "It's Lee!" he exclaims, clapping his hands together. "He's back!"

Suki's breath hitches in her throat. "What?" she chokes out, scrabbling to get to her feet again. "Are you sure?"

"Careful," Ty Lee sighs, kneeling next to her and hooking an arm around her shoulders. "You'll hurt yourself again. Here -"

Between their combined efforts, Suki finally manages to hoist herself upright. Leaning heavily on the whittled driftwood staff and on Ty Lee's shoulder, she hobbles behind Haru at an agonizingly slow pace.

She hears his voice long before he comes into view, and relief washes over her at the familiar sound. An unbidden smile springs to her face, even as she elbows her way through the crowd with a vehemence that surprises her.

"Agni, Suki," Ty Lee remarks airily, "I haven't seen you this excited since that time you kicked that shopkeeper's butt last year!"

She smirks at the memory. "Oh yeah, that was fun…Not that I'm going to be kicking anyone's butt anytime soon." She taps at her broken leg ruefully with a sigh.

"Soon enough," Ty Lee assures her, hooking her arm in her own. "You'll heal up in no time! You'll see!"

"Yeah," Suki mutters, her face turning instantly sour as they pass more of the Southern waterbenders huddled up front. "Those folks just had to go lose their bending, did they?"

"Well...we wouldn't have escaped if they hadn't," Ty Lee points out wryly.

"I know, but I could really have used some magic healing water," Suki laments with a sigh. "Oh well…"

They press through the crush of people, until the crowd finally thins out and permits them to see the young man standing at its head.

Suki frowns, even as her mouth goes dry at the sight of him. For it should be enough for him to be standing there, alive and intact and unharmed from his silly wolf-tail to the soles of his mud-stained boots. And yet, the longer she stares at him, the more the sensation niggles uncomfortably at her.

Something was off about him.

She can't quite put a finger on it. After all, he still wears the same nondescript brown cloak and boots that he had donned when he set out on his stupid mission. He doesn't sport any new bruises or injuries lining his smooth brown skin. He doesn't limp or clutch at any broken bones, he's not in any visible pain whatsoever.

Lucky guy, she thinks enviously. Her leg stabs furiously with pain as though in response.

The sound of his voice, the infuriating screechy cadence of his words and stupid jokes. The arrogant posture and animated gestures, all unchanged. And yet...

Suki scowls, leaning heavily on her crutch. "What's up with him?" she mutters to herself.

"What?" Ty Lee asks, only half paying attention to her.

Suki stares at her plainly. "You don't notice anything different about him?" she asks suspiciously.

"Different?" Ty Lee echoes, her face creasing with confusion. She tilts her head, studying Lee intently before shrugging. "Looks the same to me."

"Shh," Haru hushes them, pressing a finger to his lips as he turns his attention back to the front of the crowd. Suki and Ty Lee exchange an unsure glance before falling silent.

"Slow down, boy," burly General Wat admonishes, jamming his hands on his hips. "You're not making any sense. First, you run off mid-mission and then you have the nerve to show your face around here? Spouting utter lunacy?"

"I know, it sounds far-fetched," Lee admits, running a hand along the freshly shaved back of his scalp. "But you have to believe me! Those waterbenders, they tampered with my memories - I'm not who I thought I was." His blue eyes glitter with newfound purpose. "Lee was the name Master Piandao gave me when he found me wandering the streets of Ba Sing Se. Wang Fire was the name I used to disguise my identity when I fled New Ozai." He swallows hard, before his fists ball together tightly in determination. "But my real name, the one my parents gave me...is Sokka."

Suki's mouth drops even as her brow furrows in immediate understanding. "Of course," she mutters, glaring suspiciously at one of the freed Southern waterbenders standing off to the side, surveying the gangly young man with an inscrutable expression. "Who could have seen that one coming? Oh yeah, all of us."

"My father was Hakoda, chief of the Southern Water Tribe," he announces, to the bewildered audience gaping before him in disbelief. "My mother was Kya. They perished in the raids, with the rest of my tribe." His gaze hardens as he faces Arrluk and the other waterbenders gathered around him. "You were right about who I was. I'm...I'm one of you."

Something clicks uncomfortably in the pit of Suki's stomach, burning with dull anger. It wasn't surprise that she was feeling, but something far less vivid - and just as potent. Because anyone with a working pair of eyes could have spotted the family resemblance between Lee - no, Sokka - and Katara, though he had denied it until he was blue in the face. Even the freed waterbenders had guessed as much.

In fact, the more Suki thinks about it, the more she realizes that the only person who seemed truly surprised by the revelation is Lee himself.

Which only infuriates her more, for reasons she doesn't quite understand.

"How could you not be?" old Atka asks, stepping forward with trembling, outstretched arms. "To think that all this time, Hakoda's son walked among us, a victim of our misguided efforts to avenge his people." She hangs her head, the beads in her braided hair clacking forlornly. "Will there be no end to our shame?"

Arrluk lays a consoling hand on her thin shoulder. "It's a blessing in disguise that we lost the moon," he says quietly. "Yes, our bending is gone. But without it, Sokka would never have remembered who he was so quickly. At least now he knows. At least now we can lift our gazes from our feet and consider the path ahead."

"Sorry," Lee - Sokka, she corrects vehemently - interrupts baldly. "But I can't stay here a moment longer."

Suki chokes on her spit, spluttering in disbelief.

"Excuse me?" General Wat demands in a voice booming like thunder. "What do you mean, you won't stay? You're a vital member of our resistance, and our plan to oust the Dai Li is already in motion! We need every last man! You can't leave now!"

"You already took Gaoling back without me," Sokka argues without missing a beat. "This resistance is doing really dangerous work, I know, but…" His jaw tightens implacably as he stares down the burly General. "But there's something I have to do. Someone I have to find. And it can't wait."

"And what would that be?" General Wat demands.

"My sister. Katara," Sokka explains simply, and Suki stops coughing instantly. Next to her, Ty Lee goes rigid. "The last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe. She's out there somewhere, waiting for me." His face darkens momentarily. "At least...at least, I hope she is…"

"No way!" Ty Lee hisses into Suki's ear. "You mean...Lee was actually Katara's brother this whole time?"

"Looks like it," Suki whispers back numbly.

"Wow!" Ty Lee's eyes widen. "Small world! Of all the people we had to bump into! Katara's going to be so excited when she sees him again!"

"That's very noble of you," General Wat comments, cutting through their whispered conversation. "But you can't abandon your mission to go off gallivanting in search of your sister! How long has she gotten by without you? You think another moon or so would make any difference to her, when you've already been gone for years?"

"I left her behind," Sokka explains stubbornly, something blazing in his blue eyes that makes Suki's stomach coil inexplicably. "Not just once. Over and over again…" His voice breaks off, before he clears his throat to continue. "Now that I know who I am - now that I know what I've done...I can't stay here a moment longer."

"Freeing the Earth continent from the Dai Li is the most important thing you'll ever do!" General Wat thunders, spittle flying from his mouth.

But Sokka's mouth curves into a small, wistful smile. "No," he answers evenly. "No, it's not. I've already failed at the most important thing I was meant to do. I have to set things right. I have to find her."

"And how do you propose to do that?" General Wat scoffs, rolling his eyes. "Do you even know where she is?"

For the first time since she'd seen him, Sokka looks worried. "Um," he stutters, his fingers fidgeting anxiously, "actually…"

"She's probably with General Iroh's army!" Ty Lee speaks up, to Suki's surprise. Eyes snap to her curiously, but she holds her head high and even dares to give Sokka a reassuring smile.

"Is...that a good thing?" he asks tentatively, the corners of his mouth twitching, as though even now he was too afraid to smile.

"That depends on your perspective."

Heads turn as Master Iio strides down the length of the crowd parting before her. The airbender's face remains calm but disquiet glimmers in her colourless eyes.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sokka asks, tilting his head in confusion.

"It means there are two sides to consider," Master Iio explains patiently, holding out her tattooed hands. "If she is indeed with Iroh, then we know she will be up with the rest of his troops, stationed in the Northern Water Tribe."

Suki's breath hitches as realization suddenly flickers through her.

"But," Master Iio continues, as though voicing Suki's worst fears out loud, "then that would mean she fought in the siege of the North...on the losing side."

"No," Suki gasps, her blood running cold. She glances furtively at the other Southern waterbenders, how even to her eyes, they appeared diminished and broken without their bending. Was that what had happened to Katara too? Had her friend even survived the battle?

Sokka's face turns sickly pale as the blood drains from it. "She's a waterbending master now," he insists weakly. "She's got to be out there somewhere."

"The Fire Empire destroyed the moon," General Wat reminds him, though his voice softens somewhat. "She would have lost her bending. Along with the rest of the Northern tribe. They suffered a crushing defeat, after all."

Sokka shakes his head obstinately. "I don't care. She's alive. She has to be. If - if anything happened to her, I'd know." His shaking hands ball into fists, curling into his sides. "She's up there, and she needs me. I have to go to her."

"You mean after everything you've done for this resistance, everything you've risked, after we've come closer than we ever have to defeating Long Feng...you're just going to leave?" General Wat demands incredulously.

"Yup," Sokka answers without missing a beat.

"I don't believe this!" the general rages, his hands clapping to the sides of his head. "Do you even have a plan? How will you find this sister of yours? How will you even make it to the North Pole? Don't tell me you plan on walking there!"

"Actually," Master Iio speaks up, a very small smile playing about her mouth, "there is a faster way to get there."

Both Sokka and General Wat stare at her in growing disbelief.

"Not you too, Iio!" the burly general complains, rubbing vehemently at his temples. "Don't tell me you've also been possessed by this boy's madness!"

"It isn't madness," Master Iio replies patiently, tucking her hands into her sleeves. "Most of my people from the Western Air Temple are fighting up north too. They need my help just as much as you do." She tilts her head thoughtfully, her long black braid rustling against the small of her back. "And besides...Buri hates it underground too."

General Wat groans loudly. Sokka flashes her a grateful smile. "Thanks, Master Iio," he says with a dip of his head. "I really owe you one."

The Air Nomad's pale eyes glitter in the dim green light of the glowfly-chandelier. "Come," she says, already turning away. "It is already late."

"I'm right behind you," Sokka retorts quickly, before turning back to face the general stiffly. Then, he bobs into a short bow. "Thanks for understanding, General Wat," he mumbles. "I know you guys will kick some serious Dai Li butts, even without me."

The burly general's eyes widen before he gestures to Master Iio's retreating back. "Just go," he mutters with a sigh. "And good luck."

Something in Suki's chest tightens as Sokka beams at General Wat before rushing past him. She isn't sure what possesses her to step forward, just as he brushes past. "Wait!"

He freezes in his tracks, blinking stupidly as though seeing her for the first time. Then his grin widens, a pair of dimples appearing in his thin cheeks, and blood rushes hotly to her face. "Suki!" he cries, leaping toward her. "Suki, you'll never believe what happened -"

"You got your memory back," she supplies wryly, leaning unsteadily on her crutch. "You were Katara's brother all along. Like I said when I first met you."

"Right," Sokka says awkwardly. He clears his throat, faltering uncomfortably as she stares at him expectantly. "Well! Since you know what's going on, hold down the fort for me while I'm gone, yeah?"

"Excuse me?" Suki demands, stepping forward and nearly collapsing onto her plastered leg. "While you're gone? You're not leaving without us, are you?"

To her chagrin, he lets out a discomfited chuckle even as his gaze drops sheepishly. "Suki...you're injured. I can't bring you with me this time."

"You think a stupid broken leg is enough to stop me?" Suki argues hotly, biting her lip to stop from wincing in pain. "Katara might be your sister, but she's my friend too. I have just as much reason to go north as you do!"

"I'm sure you do." But then his face turns uncharacteristically somber and Suki swallows nervously at the sight of it. "But it's going to be dangerous, Suki. And I can't let you get hurt because of me again."

"This isn't about you!" Suki insists futilely, even as Ty Lee lays a calming hand on her shoulder.

"I know," Sokka admits, giving her a crooked smile. "But do me a favour? Let that leg heal before you go rushing off into danger again, yeah?"

She chokes on her spit, spluttering and utterly lost for words.

His big blue eyes crinkle with his smile, sparkling in the waxing light of the chandelier. Suki finds herself unable to look away, even as he gazes past her to throw a wink at Ty Lee. "Keep her out of trouble, won't you?"

"I'll try my best," Ty Lee replies, before she grins brightly. "Say hi to Katara for us when you find her!"

"I will," Sokka replies, already turning away.

Suki fights the maddening urge to follow him, to grab his arm and make him stay where it was safe. But then somewhere beyond the crowd of people, Master Iio calls for him again. In the falling light of a thousand glowflies settling into a slumber within their crystalline confines, she watches him go, shrinking into the distance until the darkness swallows him up.

The growing light of the rising sun slants through the openings of the tunnels hollowed into the great ice-plane topping the high cliffs surrounding Aujuittuq. It flashes and glitters off the hard, shiny surfaces, illuminating the cavernous labyrinth with a brilliant rosy glow.

Katara pushes through the twisting tunnels, hard on Gyatso's heels. Usually, they were occupied by the remnants of the fragmented coalition that had managed to evade the occupation thus far. Tartok and the other remaining Water Tribe warriors, stripped of their bending and ambling to find some sense of purpose, just like her. They avoid her gaze as she passes them, as usual. But instead of contempt, she isn't sure if she imagines the shame clouding their averted faces.

Can't be. Must be in my imagination. She pulls the shaggy fur shawl tighter, though under its heat and the mild warmth in the air, she begins to sweat. She doesn't even want to know what she looks like, with the painted stripes smeared along her skin and her undone hair cascading in feral tangles down her back. She presses on, every step sending dull pain lancing through the old injury in her ankle.

Air Nomads mill about in their airy saffron robes. Most of them still settle their weary sky bison into the trenches dug into the snow outside the tunnels. And then there waits Iroh, and the soldiers still loyal to him. Even now, the firebenders work tirelessly to expand the tunnels and dig new ones. The gentle light of the flames flickering in their outstretched palms winks against the slick melting snow.

But the hollow cavern at the nexus of the winding tunnels bustles with even more bodies than usual. Katara brightens at the buzz of excited conversation, and - illuminated by the gleaming sunlight reflecting off the smooth ice walls - Toph and Aang, surrounded by a crush of familiar faces. She speeds up, limping in spite of her protesting ankle, when a voice speaks directly into her ear.

"Katara?"

She whips around, her eyebrows knitting together in shock as she registers the young Water Tribe Warrior waiting before her. Her frown deepens as she recognizes Jukka's face, his blue parka worn to rags and hanging loosely off his wiry frame.

Somehow he had grown even more gaunt since the last she'd seen him, and the hair scraped back tightly from his face only emphasizes the numerous scratches and bruises blooming across his giant forehead.

But instead of planting himself against her, he claps a hand on her shoulder instead. She nearly buckles under the weight of it. "So it is you," he comments, smirking. "I should have known. Only you'd be crazy enough to pretend to be a spirit and throw yourself at a bunch of armed Fire Navy soldiers without your bending."

Katara stiffens indignantly, drawing herself to her full height as she glares at him. "Go flatter someone else, Jukka," she snaps, jamming her hands on her hips. "I'm not interested in hearing it."

He throws an injured look at her, gaping stupidly. "What - what did I do?"

"You mean you don't remember?" She stares him down unblinkingly. "You don't remember how you claimed to be my friend, Sokka's friend, and then turned on me the minute Hahn told you to, like his little dog?"

"I didn't have a choice!" Jukka splutters, dark splotches of colour suddenly appearing in his thin cheeks. "Hahn's my chief, Katara, I had to do what he said! And you should have too!"

"Right. If only we'd all listened to Hahn," she snarls, already turning away. "You know, at least the other guys had the decency to be honest with me about where they stood."

In the corner of her eye, she sees him slump, as though she had gutted him. But after everything that had happened that night, all the terror and exhilaration, Jukka's hurt feelings didn't matter.

So she limps onward, toward her friends and the small crush of Northern girls around them.

"Katara!" exclaims Woka, the grin spreading across her face not quite masking the disquiet lingering in her eyes. "You made it!"

"So did you," Katara retorts, skidding to a stop among the liberated girls of the Northern Tribe. She scans them swiftly, taking in all the subtle ways they had changed in the short time away.

Short for us. Probably a lifetime for them.

Their clothes in tatters, their eyes burning bright like fire in their lean faces. Some of the girls are thinner. Shila's long black hair, once so shiny and voluminous, hangs dull and lifeless down her back. Bunik hunches her shoulders where before she had stood tall and proud, a chieftain's daughter. Woka no longer smiles as easily. Ulva doesn't smile at all…

A low rage simmers in the pit of Katara's gut as she takes it all in. Every girl she had known, their bravery and their thirst to prove themselves, their hunger for everything she could teach them. For all the cruelty the Empire inflicted upon them, it had not broken them. It hadn't taken all that away from them. They would endure, they would fight, they would rise above it all.

She places a gentle hand on Woka's shoulder, meets all of their furtive gazes one by one. "I know how hard this must be," she says quietly. "But you're here, and you're safe now. I promise."

A weighted silence trails her words uncomfortably. "Thanks, Katara," Woka chokes out, her voice turning hoarse. She pulls away, wrapping her arms around herself. "We'll make those bastards pay, somehow."

"But how?" Ulva spits, fire blazing in her pinched face. "What can we do now that we couldn't do when we were trapped back in there?"

Katara rubs her temples, feeling as though red-hot spikes were driving straight through them. No matter what they did, how many little victories they pulled off, it still wasn't enough. Without the moon, they were no closer to freeing the North. They were in no position to put up a real fight, to make their way back to the Empire homeland, to free Zuko from whatever fate Ozai had in store for him…

"Well," interjects a sardonic, old man's voice that takes Katara aback with its perfunctory familiarity, "then we must find a way to fight back, musn't we?"

She gasps, whirling around on her heel. Beams of sunlight reflect off the polished white walls of the icy cavern, filling it with a dazzling golden halo. It touches the faces of all the remaining Water Tribe survivors to the colour of burnished copper, chief among them the tall, wiry man standing at the mouth of one of the melted ice-tunnels. His nondescript clothes were stained from travel and more than a small number of skirmishes, traced onto the plain blue cloth in singes and tears. His hairline had receded more since the last she had seen him, the fall of his hair turned more white, but still woven through with little braids and beads that clacked with every step he took.

And despite the sour tilt of his rawboned, lined face, he still wears a wry smile at the sight of her.

"Master Pakku," she breathes, dropping into a bow as her old master steps closer. "It's been so long."

"So it has." The faint crunch of his footsteps cuts abruptly as he pauses in front of her, tilting his head quizzically. "You've grown into a bigger pain in the rear than I could give you credit for, Katara. However do you manage that?"

A snort of surprise escapes her as she straightens, reads the amusement twinkling in the old man's smirk. "I don't know," she confesses, rubbing the back of her head. "I guess I had a great teacher."

A stunned silence grips the rest of the onlookers at her cheeky reply. Then, to their astonishment, Pakku throws his head back and laughs. "Now that's the Katara I remember," he declares, wiping at the corner of his eye. "Feisty through to the end, aren't you?"

Katara shrugs noncommittally, her old master's praise sitting oddly after everything that had happened. It felt like a lifetime ago when she had been his student, convinced him to abandon his stubbornly held convictions about women and waterbending. Almost as though all that had happened to a different person, that the girl he spoke of with such fondness no longer existed.

Yet Master Pakku had always believed in her, in his own grudging way. And for all that had passed since then, at least that hadn't been taken away from her either.

"Sorry to break up this little reunion," someone interrupts, pushing past the ring of girls assembled behind Katara impatiently. "But what did you mean by find a way to fight back? Isn't that what we're doing?"

Katara scowls at Tartok as he marches past her, shoving her unceremoniously to the side. She jams her hands on her hips as the burly young warrior drops into a respectful bow before Pakku's feet.

But the old master only raises a thin eyebrow. "Who are you?"

Tartok clears his throat awkwardly, but doesn't rise from his deep bow. "My name is Tartok, Pakku. Son of Chieftain Keelut."

"Ah." Pakku's lip curls with distaste. "Keelut, eh? From Siliktok? You had an older brother, didn't you?"

Tartok nods enthusiastically.

"Well, as the younger son, I would have expected you to know a little more about respecting your elders," Pakku snaps sternly. "How dare you presume to speak in the place of your older brother? And it's Master Pakku, by the way."

Katara fights to stifle the giggle brimming in her throat.

The sliver of Tartok's face still visible to her flushes a deep red. "I - I meant no disrespect, Master Pakku!" he splutters, dropping to the ground on all fours in a show of greater submission. "My brother is still missing, one of our many warriors lost from the battle against the Empire's besiegers." Somewhere behind her, Katara hears Shila let out a piteous wail. "I don't have much hope in his survival. He was never renowned for his fighting prowess."

Pakku folds his arms across his chest, staring down his nose at the boy cowering before him. "If this is how you conduct yourself toward those you respect, I should hate to hear what you have to say about those you truly disrespect."

"But," Tartok pleads, wilting before Pakku's unwavering scorn, "but that is our way! We don't follow a man's blood or his claim. We follow his strength."

"Oh?" Pakku's gaze hardens. "But you didn't hesitate to shove Master Katara out of your way when you decided to insert yourself into a situation that did not concern you at all."

Katara chokes on her spit, and from the wheezing sound that Tartok emits, she gathers that he had probably just done the same. "But - but Master Pakku!" he protests, so aghast that he pushes back to sit on his haunches. "How can you say that? Katara's a woman."

"And so you think that exempts her from the ways of our people?" Pakku demands in a tone as unyielding as iron. "In all my travels, I have never heard of anything so illogical as weakness and insecurity masquerading as power. You should follow strength, but only if it is a man's strength? How does that even make sense?"

Tartok's mouth works wordlessly, and Katara swears she can see the wheels in his head straining into overdrive, struggling to comprehend what the old master had just said. But low, scandalized whispers erupt from all around them, as more of the Water Tribe warriors draw closer in collective disbelief.

"It doesn't."

Heads turn to face Jukka in mounting surprise as he pushes through the throng of scandalized Water Tribe warriors. Katara frowns as he passes her, pausing only once he reaches Tartok's side, his head already bowed respectfully. "My grandfather always believed that the spirits never meant for us to live like this," he pronounces, his long face uncharacteristically solemn. "That the old band chiefs twisted the old stories and perverted them to enact their own ends. He always insisted men and women live like equals back in Nagojut, and everyone thought he was touched in the head."

"Nagojut, huh?" Pakku raises both his eyebrows, staring hard at the top of Jukka's bowed head. "So that'd make you old Onartok's grandson, wouldn't it?"

"Yes," Jukka answers softly, still staring at the snow between his knees.

"Onartok was a good man," Pakku says at length, his voice growing unusually hoarse. "He and Arnook were probably the only two men of honour left, back in the day when I sat on the band of chiefs."

"He's a good man," Jukka acknowledges, his shoulders stiffening. "He didn't deserve to be removed so unceremoniously from his position by Hahn."

"Hahn," Pakku spits, his face twisting darkly. "The apple didn't fall far from the tree, I see. Natok's madness spread to far too many among the band of chiefs. None could make him see reason. Finally, I did the only thing I could." He hangs his head shame-facedly. "I left."

"Grandpa always spoke highly of you, Master Pakku," Jukka tells him gently.

"He was a braver man than I," Pakku admits heavily. "Water is the element of change. But life up here felt more like ice. Rigid, brittle, an unyielding monument to the past. Frozen in some distant bygone era while the rest of the world moved on." His jaw tightens implacably as he glares at the snow. "At first, I told myself that as long as I sat on the band of chiefs and defended the old ways, I was doing the right thing. Not like our brother, Chief Hakoda, who was impulsive and impatient with his talk of allying with the Empire... but as the river that cut its path across the face of the mountain. Progress was a slow but sure thing, and I believed that when the right moment for change came, I would recognize it in my heart"

I never knew. But it didn't take a genius to wonder why he had never mentioned any of this before. Even if shame hadn't stopped his tongue, she isn't sure she would have wanted to know anyway.

"But when Natok convinced the rest of the band to abandon Hakoda to face Ozai's wrath alone…" Master Pakku falters, shaking his head violently. "The blood of our sister tribe...spilled by the fears of paranoid old men. How could I live with myself after allowing such a thing to happen?"

Katara's vision swims with unshed tears brimming hot in her eyes.

"I ask myself the same thing every day."

Arnook's hollow voice echoes around the crowded ice-cavern. Katara spots him easily where he stands next to Gyatso and Iroh, by the gaping mouth of yet another tunnel. The brilliant sunlight dims briefly, as though a cloud had passed over its golden face.

"Chief Arnook," Pakku greets, inclining his head respectfully. "Forgive me. I have been gone for a long time."

"There's nothing to forgive, old friend," Arnook answers softly. "And I'm no longer the chief, in case you haven't heard."

"Mm." Pakku grimaces with distaste. "I had hoped I heard wrong."

"Unfortunately not." Arnook lets out a heavy sigh. "I suppose I deserve no less for wedding my only daughter to that duplicitous viperfox."

"Really, Arnook," Pakku chides, shaking his head. "What were you thinking?"

"I don't know," the former chief laments. "There's much I have to answer for, old friend. If only I had left with you."

"Don't be daft." Pakku snorts. "You had a duty to the tribe as chief. I had no such obligation."

"You have no idea how envious I was," Arnook whispers hoarsely. "How the days have haunted me since."

"That's why I couldn't stay here any longer." The sunlight brightens again, its flickering golden patterns dappling their feet. "It was only through my travels that I found my purpose again. To prepare one of the bending masters who would unify the four nations and bring balance back to the world."

Katara swallows hard, her bottom lip quivering dangerously as Master Pakku's pale blue gaze lands on her. She fights hard to keep her back ramrod-straight, to be the image of the strong young soldier he had trained her to be.

"And when it finally showed up on my doorstep in the form of a young girl from the Southern Water Tribe, I shouldn't have been surprised. Hakoda's own child - his daughter. To teach her to become a waterbending master would be to turn my back on everything I had once believed in." His eyes soften, clashing oddly with the hard lines of his face.

Katara's breath catches in her throat. She was used to Master Pakku's dry wit, his sharp tongue, his salty rancour. She had known him to be sour and touchy as a prickle-pear, as fearsome as the storm at sea, and gentle when it calmed. And yet, a strange disappointment rings hollow inside her.

For she had always credited her own skills, her powers of persuasion in convinicing him to reluctantly take her on as his student. It never occurred to her until now that perhaps something else had been responsible for that miracle altogether. The revelation is double-edged: both cheapening her accomplishment somehow, but also bringing with it the sinking realization that Pakku would never have changed his mind otherwise. He would have remained as stubbornly opposed to the idea of her bending as every other man in the Northern Water Tribe that she had encountered.

She owed everything to the guilt shaking in Master Pakku's voice, where a crowd full of intractable Northern Tribe men could unwillingly hear them. Anything she could say or do to prove herself would never matter in their eyes, compared to a word from someone like Pakku.

"But I saw it as penance. A sign from the spirits that the balance was already starting to reset. And so I taught her, willingly." Pakku's face splits into a smile and she nearly chokes. Because it wasn't the wry smirk he usually wore when he was amused. Instead it was a warm genuine thing that made him appear almost kind. "In all my years, I never had a student like her."

But even in the stunned silence filling the cavern, Katara doesn't miss the indignation blooming over the faces of the remaining Northern men crowded around them.

"What's that supposed to mean?" someone asks snidely. "You expect us to believe that she's some sort of prodigy or something?"

"Hah!" Pakku scoffs, pointing a finger at the offending young man. "You could have amounted to something too, Itigyak, if you'd applied yourself in a single one of my lessons. Who knows, you might have even become a half-decent waterbender yourself." He crosses his arms imperiously, as the single man falls silent, lowering his head sheepishly. "No, Katara showed something far more promising than mere talent. Drive."

"As in, she drove him crazy?" someone sniggers within earshot.

"No student of mine had ever demonstrated such a fierce determination to prove themselves, shown such discipline and hard work, consumed my teachings with such hunger." Blood rushes to Katara's cheeks as Pakku raises his chin haughtily, plying his skeptical audience with a challenging stare. "You all grew up coddled and spoiled, with everything handed to you on silver platters. But Katara fought tooth and nail for every scrap. That is why she's a waterbender master, and the rest of you are not."

Katara winces, bracing for the inevitable backlash from the rest of the Northern guys. But apart from a couple of awkward coughs and some mutinous muttering, Tartok and the others remain silent. Perhaps they had run out of things to say, or more likely, perhaps they had decided that even Pakku, as old and respected in the tribe as he was, had branded himself an outcast with his words.

"Well," Tartok finally says grudgingly, "if Master Pakku vouches for her...I mean, I'm not sure I agree. But who am I to argue with him?"

Katara inhales a mouthful of spit, choking violently. Eyes watering, spluttering loudly in her disbelief, as more of the Northern warriors exchange doubtful glances among themselves before chorusing their reluctant agreement.

"Well," Toph remarks into her ear, "if only you'd known from the get-go. All you needed to be accepted here was for a man to say so. Guess you can throw in the towel and sit pretty now, Sugar Queen."

"Well, that's all fine," Jukka speaks up, and relief washes over her as everyone's attention shifts to him instead, "but what do we do now? Yeah, more of us are free, but without our bending, what difference will it even make? There's only so many times Katara can dress up as the Painted Lady."

"Actually," she speaks up nervously, balking under the intense scrutiny of the Northern men, "I can't. They know it's just a trick. It's not going to work anymore."

"Oh, just perfect," Tartok huffs, shaking his head sourly. "Did you have to give yourself away this time? Couldn't you have been more careful?"

"Hey now, Caveman," Toph warns, raising a hand to silence him. "I didn't see you rushing to throw yourself on the front line."

"Yeah!" Woka chimes in, finding her voice. "At least they were able to free us!"

"Whatever good that does!" Tartok snorts, his face mottling even darker. "What was the point of risking our only edge over the firebenders just to free a bunch of girls? We should have tried to find Sangilak and the other warriors instead, then at least we could do something -"

"Like what?" Jukka argues, crossing his arms as he scans the room skeptically. "Seems to me that we're not exactly lacking for numbers down here. What difference would Sangilak and the others make? Without their bending, they might as well be a bunch of girls!"

"Exactly," Bunik speaks up, her voice as hard as iron. "Besides, Katara taught us how to waterbend too. We might not be as practiced as your warrior friends, but we're not nothing." She glares at Tartok, who wilts under its ferocity. "You should really be grateful that we're here at all."

"Grateful?" Tartok bristles at the word. "The last time I checked, a bunch of firebending maniacs invaded our home, captured and enslaved and possibly even murdered our families and friends, and made us fugitives in our own land! Oh, and they also destroyed the moon, so we can't fight back! We might as well try to rebuild Aujuittuq one snowflake at a time! What can we even do without our waterbending? What's the point?"

Murmurs of agreement rise in volume, bouncing off the glistening ice walls in a confusing mass of sound. It swells like the desolation steadily flooding the cavern, threatening to engulf them all slowly but surely. Even the firebenders in the corners had stopped their work on the ice tunnels, the steady light of their flames puffing out in forlorn trickles of smoke.

"I am afraid that Tartok is right." Katara's eyes widen at the despair clouding thick in General Iroh's voice as he stretches out his hands. "For all our efforts, we are no closer to ousting Admiral Zhao's forces than when we first set down this dark path. At this pace, we have no hope of freeing ourselves before Sozin's comet returns at summer's end." Dread claws through the pit of Katara's stomach at the thought of it as Iroh claps a hand to his forehead bitterly. "It is hopeless."

It's as though all the light in the cavern had suddenly gone out. Even though the sun's golden rays still stretches along the ice, bouncing off its mirrorlike surfaces, a dark cloud seems to block out its brilliance.

And how couldn't it? No brightness could penetrate the curling smoke, the defeated stillness. The ugly black teeth of despair gnawing at everyone, swallowing them without mercy.

Hopeless, Iroh's voice echoes in Katara's ears as her breath hitches in her throat. For he was right, after all. How could he not be? After everything she had done, everything she had risked, she still had nothing to show for any of it. Rescuing Zuko was a laughably impossible notion when there was barely anything she could do to save herself, and staying free was a constant battle waged day and night.

They're right, the same insidious voice whispers to her cruelly. What's the point of any of this? You might as well give up. You're all doomed, you're never getting your bending back, and you'll never see Zuko again.

Hot water swims across her vision, welling until everything blurs into a kaleidoscope of grey.

You lost him the same way you lost Sokka and everyone else you loved, her inner voice continues relentlessly, every word cutting deep and true. Why keep fighting and throwing yourself in danger when you could flee and hide in safety? Why keep going on at all?

She chokes, gasping suddenly for breath, blinking the tears out of her eyes. They trail down her stained face, until she tastes salt on her lips. But the air is mild against her skin, as it rushes through her nose and into her lungs.

Breathing unsteadily, she wipes her face with the back of her hand, until the tears and the soot and the dried paint all come off. Under the thick fur shawl, she realizes that she's sweating profusely. The sun's light in the small of the morning, still powerful enough to reach them even within the twisting labyrinth of tunnels they had burrowed under the ice.

Something rises unexpectedly in her chest at the thought. For all the horrors the Fire Navy had wrought, they still couldn't keep the sun's warmth from them. It still shone, the seasons still turned.

And they were still free.

Their resistance might be pathetic and slow and ineffective, but they still fought, and not for nothing either. They had liberated Nutjuitok, they had freed so many of the enslaved Northern girls. Katara remembers how broken she had felt the day she awoke to find her bending gone and the North soundly defeated. Everything they had accomplished so far would have sounded impossible to her back then.

But they had still done it. They had still done the impossible, somehow.

So why keep going? Why not break down and give up like the silent voice of despair in her mind urged her to?

"A crazy old man once told me," she hears herself say, "that in the darkest times, hope is something you give yourself."

Through the sullen silence and the crowd of survivors, she meets General Iroh's amber eyes as they widen in surprise, until the day's humble glow touches them to the colour of sunlight.

"This can't be where our story ends," she insists, raising her chin defiantly the way Zuko must have done when he met his fate. "I can't accept that. No, I refuse to accept it."

"Katara, you've had some wild takes before, but this is madness!" Jukka counters hotly. "I hate to say it, but I think Tartok's right. This is a fight we can't win. It's not something you can just choose to accept or ignore - it's literally impossible."

"So was freeing the other girls! So was driving the Fire Navy out of Nutjuitok!" Katara presses, something within her snapping under the weight of all the hopelessness. Or perhaps it had turned to iron instead, simply refusing to break. "So was surviving each skirmish, each raid, with just one more gain than when we first started!"

"It's not enough."

"How does that matter?" She shakes her head, her voice rising in volume feverishly. "Losing the moon should have ended it for us. But we're still here, and everything we've done up until now was something we once considered impossible. So why should we stop now?"

"Common sense!" Jukka snaps impatiently, rubbing at his temples. "Look, I don't want to admit defeat either. None of us do. But we're outnumbered and we have no bending! We don't have a hope of winning this."

"No. I refuse to believe that." She exhales sharply, the twin jets of air rushing out her nostrils feeling like steam curling in front of her face. "I can't give in, not now. Not after everything we've done, not with so much left undone. To accept that this is how it ends is to finally make it real. And this is not the reality I choose."

"You were always tenacious, Katara," Master Pakku says finally, his voice raw. "But we don't get to pick and choose the world we live in."

"Don't we?" She stares him challengingly. "You were the first Northern master to teach a woman how to waterbend. How many lives did you change just by doing that?" She gestures emphatically at the host of Northern girls arrayed silently behind her. "We change the world around us with every choice we make. That's our real power."

Shoulders rising and falling from the effort of each ragged breath, her voice rises with growing fervour. "Yes, the Fire Empire destroyed the moon and stole our bending! But they can't take away our will. To fight, to live, to dream. And that's where our strength is." She clutches at the thick fur shawl, where it bunches against her chest. "Here. Not in our bending, but in our hearts. Our spirits. That's what they should really fear."

Her words echo off the shining walls in a ringing crescendo. Somewhere above the surface of the snow, the sun climbs higher into the sky, the slanting light of its rays shifting to cover all the sloping ice walls with a hopeful golden glow.

"You are right," General Iroh says finally, after a weighted silence that rumbles like the thunder of shattering earth. He takes a weary step forward, his shoulders squaring upright again. "Our enemies have not conquered us until we admit defeat. And we cannot do so as long as there is hope in our hearts."

Her mouth drops as he inclines his head respectfully to her, pressing a fist into the heel of his hand in a picture-perfect Fire Empire bow. "Thank you, Sifu Katara. Your strength runs far deeper than even I could have imagined."

She swallows uncomfortably, made all the more difficult by the lump growing in the back of her throat. Chewing on her quivering lip, before she returns the gesture, bowing in return.

"Ozai and his men didn't break us before," she whispers fiercely. "They won't break us now, either."

"That's all very admirable, Katara," Master Pakku comments, sounding suspiciously like he was close to tears himself. "But bold words will only move us so far, so long as we are physically powerless. We cannot win this fight through trickery alone."

A growl of frustration escapes her. She grabs at her hair, pulling it vehemently. "If only there was some way to help us help ourselves! But with the moon spirit dead, we don't stand a chance!"

"Perhaps not."

Everyone stares wildly at Arnook as he steps forward tentatively. "My daughter, Princess Yue…" Fear suddenly appears in Arnook's eyes, even as he steels himself to continue speaking. "When she was an infant, the moon spirit imbued her with some of its life force, so that she could survive. She may be our last connection to it." He averts his gaze, but Katara still sees the tears trailing down the craggy lines of his face, glittering like burnished gold in the reflected sunlight. "Maybe she could find a way to bring it back."

The sudden outburst of babble swells throughout the cavern like the incoming tide. But where the tension before had stretched taut with unease, now it shifts to a manic sort of anticipation.

"Of course," Master Pakku breathes, shaking his head in wonder. "If there's anyone with a hope of restoring the moon spirit, it would be Yue. Where is she?"

"Nobody knows," Arnook laments, his gaze still dark and fixated upon the ground. "Admiral Chan took her and the other band chiefs hostage the night of blood moon. We haven't heard from her since."

"We tried to press Chan's soldiers, to see if they knew," Ulva interjects, somehow managing not to balk at the scandalized Northern men who stare at her. "But either they didn't know, or they weren't prone to pillow talk." Her mouth twists in remembered revulsion.

"Hm." Master Pakku scratches his head, thinking hard. "That does pose a problem. Without Yue, without the moon...and the summer has already advanced past its zenith."

"Um." Katara ventures, staring at Arnook intently. "If the moon spirit gave Yue its life, then...wouldn't she be in danger if she brought it back?"

She doesn't miss the way Arnook flinches violently, at the uncomfortable glances the men exchange among themselves. A chill settles over her, unease churning her stomach.

"It is a risk we must take," the former chief of the Northern tribe forces out at last. "But it hardly matters. We do not know where she is, if she is any safer as Admiral Chan's hostage. If she even lives…" His voice breaks off again, trembling.

"Of course she's alive. She has to be," Katara argues, something quailing inside her at the thought. "Admiral Chan is a lot of things, but even he wouldn't be stupid enough to kill off an important political prisoner for no reason."

"But how do we find her?" Master Pakku asks, running a hand along his thin white beard.

"You found your way to us easily enough, old friend," General Iroh points out with a small laugh. "Can't you think of a way?"

Pakku shakes his head. "It's one thing to journey north and track down a contingent of hidden survivors. But finding a single political prisoner amid all of Chan's fortifications will be like finding a polar bear cub in the snow. And that doesn't even get into what awaits us if we do manage to find where they're keeping her."

"But we have no other choice," Iroh argues gently. "If all our hopes rest on recovering the Water Tribe princess, then we must make that our first and foremost priority."

Katara stares at the old men, their arguments somehow growing in volume and fading into an indistinct buzz low in her ears at the same time. She stares at Jukka and Tartok, at the rest of the Northern warriors gathered around, wearing their consternation as visibly as their armour. She stares at Toph and Aang, silent and white-faced behind her, a constant, heartening presence. At the throngs of freed girls, still standing straight-backed and tall in spite of everything.

She thinks of Yue sitting next to her in the oasis on the night of her wedding, and all those that had followed since. How many weeks, how many moons had passed since her capture, and yet it still felt like mere moments since she had seen her last. Who knew if she would ever see her again?

But yet, what was that compared to all the other impossible things left for them to face? She sees it all twisting like the labyrinth of ice-tunnels melting under the snow, rising before her like some insurmountable mountain. Freeing the North, saving Zuko, getting their bending back. Defeating Ozai before the comet returned at the turn of the season.

The angle of the sun tilts as it rises higher still to the pinnacle of midday. Its gleaming rays shift along the crystalline surfaces of the ice-packed ground and walls, refracting until it nearly blinds her with the intensity of its light.

She looks away, eyes watering and temporarily sightless. Blinking, as it suddenly, finally clicks into place. A glimpse of clarity amid the storm.

She sees it as clearly as though it lay before her, stretching out in one straight line. All the confused threads tangled and interconnected, but at its end lies Zuko, trapped alone in the distant reaches of the Fire Nation homeland, a prisoner in his father's clutches. To have a hope of crossing the ocean and saving him, she needed her bending back. That couldn't happen without the moon spirit. And as long as its mortal body lay dead in the depths of the spirit oasis, she was stuck hiding in melted ice-tunnels, blowing up ships and playing cheap tricks to survive another day.

But to have a hope of getting the moon back, they needed Princess Yue. Who had been taken hostage alongside the rest of the band chiefs, and nobody knew where she was kept.

Except Admiral Chan.

Her blood runs cold as she remembers that formidable man, clamouring against Iroh for showing her mercy. His hatred palpable in every word he spat at her. Even his own son's friendship with her hadn't been enough to sway him. He had still commanded the Fire Navy fleet alongside Zhao to crush the North and enforce its occupation. He still hungered for revenge, she was sure of it.

Katara takes a deep breath. The warmth of the air turns chill in her lungs, flooding her body like the cold sense of purpose rattling through her.

"What?" General Iroh asks, watching her carefully. "What is it, Katara?"

She sets one foot in front of the other, the snow crunching decisively under her weathered boots. "I know what I have to do," she declares in a low voice. Countless eyes stare at her disbelievingly as she lifts her chin with all of the strength and courage she's no longer sure she possessed. "I know how to get Yue back."

Iroh's eyes soften as they meet hers, seeming to see straight through her with that uncanny ability of his. "Are you sure?" he asks her sadly.

Her heart quails in her chest. Truth be told, she wasn't. There was no reason to think her plan would succeed. There was every possibility that she could find herself facing the same fate she had just dodged earlier that night, and that this would all end with her plummeting through thin air, or incinerated into flames, or worse.

But as long as there was a chance, no matter how small or fleeting, she had to take it. Zuko had done far more to let her live. Now it was her turn.

A single chance. That was all she needed.

She nods curtly instead.

"Very well," General Iroh answers with a sigh. "We will work together to bring the Water Tribe princess back safe and sound."

"Indeed," Master Pakku speaks up, his pale eyes alight with determination. Golden rays of sunlight enhance the fire glittering in their depths. "And then once we do that, we can perhaps discuss taking advantage of a rare window of opportunity."

Katara tilts her head in confusion, and from the murmurs erupting all around them, she can tell she's not alone. "What do you mean?" she asks, her heart pounding fearfully.

A breeze whistles through the ice-tunnels, surprisingly warm. The beads in Master Pakku's white hair clack together in a faint rhythm, like the blood pounding loud in her ears.

"I'm talking about something most interesting that I learned about our firebending friends," he answers patiently. "Many moons ago, I had the dubious fortune of going on an intelligence-gathering mission into the heart of the Si Wong desert…"

Chapter 53: northern souls

Chapter Text

disclaimer. after all this time, atla still isnt mine.

author's notes. *shows up a million years late with starbucks*

they say better late than never, right? turns out, wrangling five million different plot threads to come together all at once takes forever to refine! here's hoping this was worth the wait and the next ones push out a bit more quickly!

as always, feel free to find me on tumblr at colourwhirled-writes, i always love hearing from you beautiful people!

i give you...

southern lights

chapter liii. northern souls

seasons change
you're holding on to each other's pain
the price you pay is so high
but it is too late for turning back

"high above of me" / avalon

The sun rises to its zenith, a fiery golden coin in a clear blue sky. The liquid gold of its light glitters along the water stretching out before Aujuittuq's ruined harbour, threatening to spill over the breakers and flood the walkways. The level of its surface swells higher, not with the incoming tide, but with the long-overdue summer thaw instead. Elsewhere, the snow was no longer a sleek, undisturbed sheen of white, but lay instead in dirty slushy clumps, slowly baring the barren rocky landscape that had slumbered beneath its thick shroud.

Katara breathes in the mild midday air. Fidgeting with her flowing red dress, her sloping hat, the trail of her translucent lawn veil spilling over its brim. By now her costume hangs along her feet in tatters, marred by rips and soot stains and dark char marks. Tales of battles fought, tiny victories scraped from luck and sheer desperation, written into its very folds.

She wonders if one day, in some distant future, a new generation of children would gather around a nighttime fire, spellbound by stories of the headstrong woman who had disguised herself as the Painted Lady to snatch a chance at freedom. If that much of her would survive the impossible, insurmountable hurdles that lay stacked before her. If she perished, would they find the tattered, singed scraps of her veil at least? Would they hold it sacred among the tribe's most precious heirlooms, or discard it like the last trace of the outcast that she was?

But such thoughts were useless. Whatever happened afterward no longer mattered. Only the present moment did.

Zuko, she thinks instinctively, clutching at her chest as though to ease the fear clawing there, Zuko, I thought I could be brave like you. But I'm so afraid.

A gentle breeze sweeps along the water's edge, tasting of salt and deceptively warm. It brushes against her painted skin, rifling through the fall of her undone hair with reassuring fingers. As though he stands next to her; in fact when she stills, she can almost hear his voice whispering in her ear now, steady and gentle. That's okay. That's the only time you can be brave.

Had he been this scared, the night he decided to throw himself into the line of fire? Or if he had been given more than a moment to contemplate that choice, would he too have balked?

"It is time." The slush squelches as General Iroh takes a halting step toward her. "Shall I give the signal?"

Katara nods tersely, her nails biting into her flesh. "I'm ready."

The intensity of Iroh's worry seems to burn into the back of her head with his stare. "Sifu Katara...you have already proven your bravery. You don't have to do this -"

"I said I'm ready." How could she admit that if she hesitated, the meagre scraps of her courage would fade? And yet, how could she be anything less than brave after what Zuko had done to save her?

Iroh heaves out a discontented sigh in response. "Very well. Today, let us glimpse the face of destiny."

With a sudden whoosh, hot golden fire leaps from his open palm up into the air, stretching in the clear blue sky like a second sun.

Opening her eyes to witness the sudden movement flaring along the edges of the ruined city, perfectly visible in the relentless summer light. Countless figures hooded and masked and dressed in identical blue coats weave through the rubble lining the streets, their footsteps smooth and soundless along the sheen of slippery melting ice. They strike out in unison, working quickly to encircle the occupying navy's remaining fortifications.

The sun blazes a golden trail in the sky, illuminating the scores of crimson-clad soldiers pouring suddenly forth. Plumes of fire arch back and forth through the air, rushing to meet their attackers head-on.

She worries at her lip, watching as some of the blue-clad fighters sweep into spiralling motions. Gusts of wind beat the flames back, whipping them back to dance atop the surface of the water, or wink out into oblivion. Pressing on, until the Fire Navy soldiers give up ground, step by grudging step, pinned against the jagged remains of the docks where they break off into the water.

A sudden roar rings out from somewhere overhead. Tearing her eyes away from the grim scene unfolding below, she glances back to find Gyatso and Pola landing with a whump behind her. The elderly Air Nomad adjusts the thin blue coat draped loosely over his characteristic saffron robes. The wind gusts insistently, flapping against the folds of Katara's dress. Teasing at the hem, her sleeves, the trailing length of the threadbare veil.

Wordlessly, she clambers atop the broad leather saddle. Iroh barely makes it on before Gyatso snaps at the reins. "Pola, yip yip!"

The sky bison takes flight. Wind rustles through the length of Katara's loose hair. Without any braids, without the beads and blue leather thongs to hold it in place, it whips to a weightless dark halo, flapping around her face like the flowing lengths of her borrowed spirit costume.

She peeks over the saddle's edge, heart racing. The entirety of their burgeoning guerilla army gathers along the harbour, pinning rows of Fire Navy soldiers against the water. And yet still, more poured forth from the depths of the twisting city, slipping and sliding against the melting ice. They rush to bolster their flagging ranks, cutting off the unassuming blue fighters until they're completely outflanked by more of the soldiers in red.

Gyatso sighs, muttering something indistinct under his breath. Then he yanks sharply at the reins again.

Wheeling about from the small circles he traces in the sky, Pola whips his flat tail. Gravity hooks into the pit of her stomach as the sky bison bounds earthward, gaining speed. Her fingers dig into the cold hard leather, her knuckles white and bloodless with the force of her grip.

The ground hurtles closer with nauseating, dizzying speed. Mustering her resolve, Katara plants a hand on the saddle's rim. The other clutches at one of the smoke-grenades clipped to her belt.

Zuko, she thinks faintly, Zuko, wish me luck.

Then she leaps over the edge and into empty air. Flings the grenades down below, watches them fly.

The impact of her landing rings dizzyingly through her bones. Her weakened ankle throbs angrily in protest. Tottering, fighting to regain her balance, she squints through the thick shroud of smoke covering the wreckage of the harbour.

Answering pops of more smoke-bombs ring out along the length of the docks, followed by profuse coughing and cursing of Fire Navy soldiers. Somewhere beyond, the sound of boots swishing against ice, the snap of gliders whooshing through the air.

By the time the smoke clears, the fighters in blue have already vanished. Leaving her alone in the middle of the walkway, surrounded by the Fire Navy soldiers.

Her heart judders nervously; she swallows hard to calm its anxious rhythm. Instead, she raises her arms. The wind gusts with unnatural power, billowing through the loose fabric of her costume.

In a trice, the Fire Navy soldiers move to surround her, keeping a wide berth nonetheless. She surveys them under the downturned brim of her hat: the anonymizing white faceplates, the hard lines of their firebending forms…

"So. The Painted Lady, in the flesh at last."

Her body coils with instinctive fear at Admiral Chan's familiar voice. She glances up to see the soldiers parting to allow their commanding officer passage. He pauses directly across from her, barely distinguishable from the rest of his men. Only the Admiral's crest pinned to his chestplate gives him away.

His voice booms behind the confines of his metal helmet. "This is why you should pay no heed to your local superstitions!" he calls out, pointing at her with a gloved hand. "All this time, the dread spirit you all feared...is just a Water Tribe girl in disguise."

A low, angry buzz of murmurs swells through the air in his wake. "That's right," Katara breathes, her voice hoarse through the tightening of her throat. "It was me all along."

She holds his incredulous gaze, slowly lifting her hand to remove the wide-brimmed hat and the long trailing veil. Baring her face to the bright midday sunlight, still recognizable behind the swirls of freshly dried paint.

"Katara of the Southern Water Tribe," the Admiral says gruffly. "I might have known."

A curling strand of hair blows into her face and she brushes it away impatiently. "I'm here to make a deal with you, Admiral Chan," she makes herself say.

He scoffs. "A deal? What kind of deal?"

"Call it a trade. An exchange of hostages, if you prefer." She doesn't blink as she stares him in the eyes, speaking slowly even as her heart races with trepidation. For this was as far as her actions could take her, the end of the road that she could see. Everything else lies in flux, suspended in time, hinging on this moment and whatever came after. "Me, for Princess Yue."

The Admiral's short laugh rings out in the wind. "What?"

"Give us Princess Yue...and I'll surrender," Katara declares. Tremours course through her entire body but somehow, her voice remains miraculously steady. "It's more than a fair deal, Admiral."

"You're in no position to bargain." Admiral Chan steps forward. His eyes, barely visible through the bone-white faceplate, narrow suspiciously. "You're cut off from the rest of your friends and completely surrounded! Who's to say we couldn't take you where you stand?"

Breathe, she reminds herself, wiping her sweaty palms against the folds of her skirt. Just breathe.

"You think you can take one unarmed girl?" she croaks. "Go ahead and try. But remember." She raises her chin defiantly, and to her satisfaction, uncertainty appears in the Admiral's flinty eyes. "Just because I'm cut off from the others doesn't mean I'm alone."

"So?" he snaps, though clearly taken aback by the steel in her voice. "We still outnumber you all."

"Yes. You do," Katara admits, before taking a deliberate step forward. Shards of melting ice crush to pools of slushy liquid under her foot. "But how many more ships can you afford to lose? How many equipment stores, how many bunkers? I know how much you must hate me, Admiral, but does crushing the North under your boot make so much loss worth it? Is it really worth all the innocent lives? Not just my people but your own soldiers too, who won't ever return home again?"

The Admiral makes a choking sound, muffled by his helmet. Katara tries not to wither under his glare, piercing her through in search of a bluff.

"The princess," he says at last, his voice softening reluctantly. "She can't be really all that you want. What sort of trick is this, waterbender?"

"It's no trick. And I can't waterbend anymore," Katara tells him grimly. Without breaking eye contact, she raises her palms, the universal gesture for surrender. "So what will it be, Admiral Chan? One of the most wanted fugitives in the Empire...or a weakened Water Tribe princess?"

The wind cries in her ears, screaming in lament. The sun climbs higher into the sky, the land sweating under its perpetual blazing light. A clamour of suspicious murmurs swells all around her, but Katara remains as still as ice, watching the Admiral wrestle with himself. As though his life - or that of someone dear to him - hung in the balance.

At last, his hands curl into fists and he jerks his head into a curt nod. "Very well," he concedes grudgingly. "I accept your surrender, waterbender. Holding the young princess captive has been weighing heavily on me of late anyway."

A trickle of fear crawls down her spine. "What do you mean?"

"She's not doing well," Admiral Chan answers bluntly, his impassive voice concealing any guilt he may have harboured. "She's in a severely weakened state. It will be a relief to our medics to send her back to join her people."

Spirits save us all. Pushing past the dismay crashing over her, she musters the last of her courage to hold her head high. "At least some among you still remember how to value life. I'm relieved, Admiral."

But the man lowers his head in challenge, a chill radiating from him. "Don't preach at me, waterbender. You nearly murdered my son in cold blood, and then the Phoenix King himself! Did you remember how to value life then?"

"I didn't start either of those fights," she retorts tightly, even as her gut churns at the memory of Ozai struggling under her thrall. What would Chan have said if he had been here? The last time she had seen him, he had defended her from his father's ire. But he had probably perished in the chaos since then, and only the hateful Admiral remained, refusing to surrender his grudge. "But you sailed all the way up here, intending to destroy us." She narrows her eyes at him, hurling her words like daggers aimed straight for his heart. "At least your son turned out to be a better man than you."

The Admiral lets out a low growl. Sparks spit dangerously from his flexing fingers. "Bind the girl's wrists," he hisses, pointing at a pair of nearby soldiers. "It doesn't matter if she can't waterbend. As long as she walks free, she's a threat to us all."

"Not so fast," Katara warns, her fingers twitching instinctively. "How do I know you'll honour our arrangement? First bring Princess Yue out here where we can see her. After that, I promise I'll come along quietly."

"You," Admiral Chan seethes, before pulling the faceplate out from beneath his heavy red helmet. She tries not to quail under the full weight of his glare, amplified by the sour twist of his mouth, the heavy dark brows lowering forbiddingly. "If I were to end you where you stand, no one would mourn you."

"Maybe," Katara allows. "Or it would be the last thing you'd live to regret."

"You're bluffing."

"Are you willing to risk the consequences if I'm not?"

His jaw tightens implacably, smoke curling from his mouth and nostrils. "Fine!" he barks, and the soldiers flanking him start in alarm. "Yei, go fetch the Water Tribe Princess and bring her safely ashore. Eien, Len Fu, check the waterbender." He rubs wearily at the small part of his forehead that wasn't obscured by his curving helmet. "I want her ready for transport to the brig as soon as possible."

"Yes, Sir." Three separate soldiers drop into identical Fire Navy bows before springing into motion. One turns on his heel and marches toward Admiral Chan's towering flagship. The other two flank her easily, standing so close to her that they pin her arms to her sides with the intimidating bulk of their bodies.

She rolls her eyes, even as the back of her neck grows slick with cold sweat. "Right. Real heroes, the lot of you," she mutters to herself.

The sun's warmth builds as the moments stretched on, but she scarcely feels it through the iron grip of tension encasing her entire body. Somewhere, lurking behind the clouds and within the myriad tunnels underground, the rest of their mismatched group waits. Perhaps finding it as hard to breathe as she did.

A sudden hush falls, accenting the sound of weak footsteps ringing along the vibrating gangplank. A pair of figures falter along its steep inclining length. One red and the other a softer blue.

A band of tension winds tight across her chest.

Admiral Chan hadn't lied. As Yue steps onto the docks, staggering along its crumbling, slippery surface, Katara's eyes widen in shock.

She looked terrible. The luxurious blue gown hangs off her body loosely, the rich hue of its expensive dye appearing somewhat faded in the bright sunlight. In fact, the closer Katara looks, the more it seems that every part of Yue had lost its colour. Her skin, her eyes, her lips - all washed out and drained, steadily bleaching to the lifeless white of her limp hair.

"Yue!" she cries, as the accompanying soldier pulls her to an unceremonious halt. "Yue, are you okay?" Unable to contain herself, she dashes forward, only to feel the bite of two gloved hands clamping down mercilessly on her shoulders. She struggles against their unyielding grip. "Stop - let go of me!"

"We have produced the Water Tribe princess, as agreed," Admiral Chan intones coldly. "Now take her away. Master Katara gave us her word that she would come along quietly, after all."

A slow exhale shudders through her clenched teeth. The soldiers grab her wrists, stretch them out in front of her before looping a coil of rough rope tightly around them.

Fear erupts in shivers throughout her entire body at the sensation of rope against her skin. Her throat closes up, the band around her chest tightening painfully. Water brims in her eyes, but she blinks furiously. Zuko had faced captivity with dignity and honour. She wouldn't go down crying like a frightened little girl. She could be brave, like him.

She squares her shoulders, fighting to breathe. In, out, slow. Just like Iroh's lessons, so many moons ago.

Everything goes silent except for the beat of her pounding heart. As though she was sinking far into the depths of an ocean. Watching the waves of her terror crash over her, a paralyzing maelstrom thrashing against the surface. Everything hurtles out of control, a moment away from certain disaster.

And the only way out – the only way to make it through at all - was to stare into the heart of that unyielding storm, and take one step forward. And then another.

Her feet slip along the slippery ice, losing purchase as the soldiers drag her behind them. She stumbles, struggling to regain her balance when suddenly -

"...Katara?"

Suddenly Yue stands before her, leaning heavily on the Fire Navy soldier who had escorted her off the ship, but still watching her with too-bright eyes.

"You're safe!" Katara cries, grinning madly despite it all, because at least this much of her far-fetched plan had worked, Admiral Chan had taken the bait and Yue was within reach. Severely weakened and frail, but alive, and nothing else mattered. "Yue, thank the spirits you're safe!"

The princess smiles weakly, her gaze sliding in and out of focus. "What...what are you doing here?"

Katara swallows hard, trying not to look at the disapproval clouding Admiral Chan's face. "I made a deal, Yue. We're getting you out."

"I don't understand," Yue whispers, her forehead creasing with worry. "What's going on?"

"Don't worry," Katara tells her urgently. "You'll be okay. Everything will be okay, Yue, trust me."

"And you?" Yue's gaze bores into her. "What about you?"

Katara tries not to choke, her bright reassurances dying in her throat. But then the Admiral makes an impatient motion, and the soldiers tug at her bound wrists again. She nearly slips again, bumping against the hard metal plate of an Imperial cuirass.

Craning her neck, trying to peer over the wall of more soldiers materializing behind her, boxing her in. But all she sees of her friend is the faded blue of her gown, a stark contrast against the rows of undisturbed red armour. The fall of her hair gleams bright white in the summer sunshine.

Then, with a sudden deafening crack, the ice splits beneath Yue's feet.

Admiral Chan spits out a command. A dozen nearby soldiers lunge in response, already too late. In the blink of an eye, the Water Tribe princess vanishes, swallowed up by the earth itself. Only a smoking crater in the ground remains, a thin layer of slush gently steaming above it.

Katara allows herself a secret smile of triumph, even as the soldiers jostle her roughly, steering her further away. The last thing she sees before she's whisked away is the fury twisting the Admiral's face as he curses loudly.

Wisps of faint white steam curl harmlessly through the air, its spirals and crescent-moon shapes already vanishing with the wind.

Not a word is exchanged between her and the crowd of soldiers as they lead her aboard the Admiral's flagship. She blinks in the sudden darkness of its dimly-lit hallways, already scanning the vessel's layout for familiarity. The deck, the corridors lined with heavy metal doors, the narrow steel staircases at the corners all leap out at her, larger in scale but not so different from the one in which she and her friends had escaped the Empire's capital.

Someone kicks open the door to the hold, in what she would have called an unnecessary show of force. But when they steer her through the darkened corridor, at least their hands were gentler on her bound wrists. Blowing a wayward strand of hair out of her eyes, she sends a silent prayer of thanks to the spirits, for her skin was already chafed and blistered raw under the rope's friction.

Katara had never explored this part of Iroh's ship, and so she had nothing to compare the bottom level. But the air hovers close and stifling, the light of the few small torches afraid to penetrate the thick shroud of darkness enveloping the place. The corridor down here was far narrower than the ones above, so much so that the soldiers clump closer together and even shift formation into rows of two across. Unease roils through her gut, striking a visceral warning as her hackles rise in heightened alert. For she had seen places of despair and depravity before, and this place reeked of it.

But when the soldiers finally halt and slam another door open, they wait in the hallway wordlessly. Cold fear rises with the sick feeling in the back of her throat as one of them pushes her into the small room, thrusting a small bundle of cloth into her arms.

"No funny business now," he warns, his voice hollow through the tines of his faceplate. Before she can protest, he withdraws a knife from his belt and raises it in the air. In the dim torchlight pouring in from the hallway, its silver edge glimmers coldly.

She closes her eyes, wincing as it whistles through the air. But instead of the kiss of its sharpened blade, the ropes around her wrists crumple to her feet in a heap.

"Be quick about it. You've got five minutes before we come in to check."

Blinking stupidly at the soldier, already retreating with brisk efficiency. She opens her mouth, unsure of what to say when the door slams shut, plunging her into darkness.

In the space of one hesitant breath to the next, a candle flickers alight, its soft yellow glow illuminating the small space around her. She swallows hard, taking in the windowless room, barely more than a closet. A bucket stands in the corner, already filled with water, a rag draped carefully along its rim. She frowns, before holding the bundle up to the light and squinting.

They had given her a threadbare tunic and trousers. A prisoner's uniform, perhaps? Or something more sinister?

Old fear courses fire through her veins as she wonders what twisted depravities Admiral Chan and his men had in store for her. She stares at the lumpy clothing suspiciously, thinking of Bunik and all the other girls they had rescued from the makeshift brothel in Aujuittuq. Had she simply traded places with them?

Yet if that were so, why would they bother giving her privacy to wash and change? Why would they bother unbinding her hands? Why pretend to be civilized about it all, after everything they had already done?

No time to worry about all that now. Like it or not, she was at their mercy either way.

Reluctantly, she reaches for the washcloth, dipping it into still-warm water.

By the time someone bangs on the door again, yelling at her to hurry up, she has already slid on the issued tunic and trousers. It hangs loosely on her, reminding her of the oversized army uniform she had worn during her first months back at General Shinu's base camp. She smiles wistfully at the memory, belting the billowing tunic with shaking fingers. The dark weave is coarse and stiff against her hastily scrubbed skin, but still better than nothing.

Then the door slides open and another soldier appears. Without a word, he snaps a pair of cuffs onto her blistered wrists and drags her out. The candle snuffs out silently behind her.

Blinking heavy damp hair out of her eyes, she grunts as they kick another door open. It bounces off its hinges, slamming into the wall behind.

"Smarten up, gentlemen. You've got company."

Then someone shoves her inside and she lands heavily on the cold hard floor. Stars dance in front of her eyes as boots march past her. Someone grabs her by the handcuffs, sliding her bodily to a patch of wall, right underneath a small porthole window.

The brig swims into view, its grimy interior illuminated in the faint light streaming through the tiny windows. Her mouth drops as she registers the other figures cuffed and chained along the wall, dressed in dark crimson prison uniforms just like her. But the braids and adornments in their hair still clack with every movement as they glance at her curiously, and then with scowls of disapproval.

"We'll give you a moment to catch up," one of the soldiers crows before they march out.

The door slams shut and then the lock clicks. Leaving Katara alone in that dark, damp brig with the dozen or so Northern band chiefs imprisoned alongside her.

The wrath of the fire guarding the Phoenix King's throne boils the air with its sweltering heat. The hissing of its swaying tongues rings loud in Mai's ears, an unearthly sibilant sound that reminds her of a dragon's open jaw, framing the mouth of hell.

Below the dais, the small square table threatens to buckle under the weight of all the papers stacked atop its polished surface. A handful of noblemen crowd around its four sides, their knees cramming into each other. The rustling of scrolls, as different ministers flip through their correspondences to make their reports, shaking nearly as badly as their trembling, reedy voices. Aside from the harsh red light of Ozai's fire, and the few yellow lanterns hoisted on poles by the nearby attendants, the rest of the emperor's throne room lies darkened in shadow.

Mai feels the darkness as though it was a living thing. Its chill seeps along the skin above her collar like the breath of a beast. Every day it grows stronger, the reach of its claws of despair encompassing more of the stark audience hall. All while the solitary king behind his wall of fire grew fouler in temper, sparing fewer of his advisors the brunt his ire.

She watches with practiced indifference as one of the military consultants rattles off a report originating from the Earth continent. His knuckles are white where they grip the charred scroll, its green wax seal crumbling under his clipped nails. The swell of his throat bobbing up and down nervously, belying the hard-won steadiness of his voice.

Brave man, Mai couldn't help but think to herself. Considering he was the fourth to occupy that position that she had seen in the past two months. Two of his predecessors had been short-lived indeed, barely lasting a week each before the infamous Blue Spirit had driven them off. It had become such a frequent occurrence that Mai no longer bothers remembering their names anymore.

"Captain Hanying," Ozai hisses at last, interrupting the hapless consultant mid-sentence. "I fail to understand the significance of your report. I asked you to present your plan for the invasion on the summer solstice, when Sozin's Comet returns. Why are you wasting my time with minor reports of some backwater Earth colony town?"

"Y-Your Brilliance," stammers the unfortunate Captain Hanying, rolling the scroll back up in a swift motion, "I only m-meant to provide some c-c-context! Gaoling may be a colony town, b-but without it -"

"Zhao left everything in working order during his service among the colonies," Ozai cuts him off coldly. "How those idiot Dai Li lost control of it so quickly is no concern of mine."

"Well, perhaps it should be." To Mai's surprise, Azula speaks up boldly. "Gaoling was a Dai Li stronghold. That the rebels have now assumed control of it is a significant concern for our allies across the sea. The resistance seems to have grown from a pesky nuisance to a unified and very real threat to Long Feng's power." She strokes her chin thoughtfully. "Perhaps we should try hedging our bets and send out envoys of our own to befriend those within the Earth colony resistance, now that they're becoming more powerful."

"Nonsense!" her father snaps, as sparks spit out from the base of the raging red flames shielding him from view. "Parleying with a motley rabble of Earth colony peasants is beneath our dignity. Besides, it will only be momentary. Long Feng will recoup and crush them eventually."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Azula muses, her mouth pressing into a hard line. "It sounds like whatever tactic the Dai Li had used to subdue the population hasn't quite done the trick ever since the destruction of the moon." Her nostrils flare distastefully. "I know Zhao delivered us some notable military victories, but I believe the verdict is yet to be decided for the one he claimed in the North."

"You have made it no secret that you opposed our invasion of the North Pole, Princess," spindly General Bujing protests, his pinched face twisting into a glare. "But to deny Admiral Zhao the credit that is his due is a most dishonourable position to take, especially for a -" child, "...royal."

Azula arches an eyebrow, plucking a wooden marker from the map stretched out on the table. "I meant no disrespect, Bujing," she remarks, twirling the small carved figurine in between her clawed fingers. "But I'm not sure how anyone sees any gain in provoking a battle that nobody wished to fight. By destroying the moon spirit's mortal body, he somehow managed to cripple our Dai Li allies' hold on the Earth continent, and weaken us on two fronts directly." She replaces the marker back onto the map, pointing to the clusters of green and red arranged along its surface. "Now we are overstretched supporting a useless occupation in some forsaken end of the world with no strategic value, while losing control of our own people domestically."

"It was a necessary sacrifice," Ozai rasps from behind the curtain of fire. "But we will be victorious in the end. Even now, Iroh is running out of options. He will surrender any day now, defeated and humiliated. I know it."

"Actually, Your Radiance," Captain Hanying supplies sheepishly, cowering as he withdraws a small square of folded-up paper from his sleeve. "The latest update from the Northern front suggests that General Iroh remains at large. And uh…" He clears his throat awkwardly as he unfolds the message, taking time to smooth out the deep creases before plunging ahead resignedly. "According to this, he's...heading up a resistance of his own."

Mai fights to keep her face appropriately somber, while exclamations of surprise erupt around the small table.

"What?" Ozai roars. The red flames swell in size, exploding upward in sudden fury. They flicker dangerously close to the velvet drapes lining the battered walls, threatening to set them all alight.

Hanying swallows hard, mustering his courage. "He...he's banded together with the Air Nomads and whatever survivors he could find, and mounting a series of coordinated guerilla attacks against Admiral Chan's holdings." The man's eyes narrow in confusion as he reads the rest of the message. "They say...they say the Painted Lady leads them -"

Azula's snort of laughter cuts him off. "Of course she is," she comments airily, shaking her head with growing mirth. "The Painted Lady leads the North, the Blue Spirit picks us off at home. Apparently, destroying the moon did not endear us to the spirits after all. Who knew?"

"Azula," Ozai growls warningly. "This is no time to be flippant. I expected more from you, my daughter, instead of relishing in your own mediocrity."

The amusement melts off Azula's face, to be replaced instantly with fear. "F-Forgive me, Father. I meant no disrespect -"

"Is there nothing in this kingdom of fools that is going right?" Ozai barrels on, deaf to Azula's stammered apologies. "Why am I hearing about every last failure and folk tale, but not about the one thing I convened this council for? Where are the plans for the day of Sozin's Comet?"

"Your Glory," Captain Hanying squeaks, his fair face flushing nearly as crimson as his velvet hanfu. "General Bujing and I worked on a plan as you commanded...if y-you would like to hear it -"

"Sometime before your untimely passing, Hanying."

The young captain bobs his head, exchanging a furtive glance with white-haired General Bujing. An unspoken dialogue flickers between them before the older general finally rises to his feet, waving at one of the pages hovering along the periphery. One of them scurries toward him and deposits a freshly-sealed scroll into his wizened hand.

It seemed to Mai that the entire room holds its breath as he cracks the red wax, straightening out the heavy cream parchment. From where she sat, the glaring red light of Ozai's fire illuminated the black ink scripted evenly on its other side.

"At summer's end, one month hence, Sozin's Comet will return after one hundred years of Fire Empire glory…"

Mai resists the urge to yawn as the general drones on, peppering descriptions of battle plans with frequent praises and venerations. For nearly a quarter of an hour, he speaks uninterrupted, holding the riveted attention of the entire council. Except for Mai, who fights to keep her eyelids from drooping shut at the babble of military jargon. She forces herself to watch Azula, hoping to discern some meaning from the stiffening of her posture, the hard lines furrowing the set of her face.

"I'm not sure I understand correctly," the princess speaks up when old General Bujing finally falls into an expectant silence. She steeples her fingers, her eyebrows lowering formidably. "Your brilliant invasion plan is to amass an airfleet...and burn down the Earth continent? Is that it?"

"That is correct," Captain Hanying interjects, obviously keen to share in the adulation that he thought would follow. "Of course, we will need to ramp up production at Jang Hui and the secondary factories too -"

"No elaborate tactics, no subterfuge or clever strategies?" Azula demands, her voice rising in disbelief. "Just...raze it all to the ground and hope for the best?"

The young captain shuffles awkwardly on the spot, flushing under the princess's unexpected scrutiny. Doubtless, he had anticipated a far warmer reception. "We - we thought that having too many moving elements in the plan would introduce far too many variables to control," he stammers, struggling to maintain his composure. "As such, the advantages of keeping the plan as simple as possible -"

"Simple?" Azula lets out a disparaging scoff. "How is your plan any different from the ones that have previously ended in disaster? Did you learn nothing from the Mad King's rebellion, from the polar wars -"

"Silence."

The cold hiss of Ozai's quiet voice resonates around the entire darkened throne room, punctuated by the whoosh of red fire growing and sparking to an angry yellow glare. "You forget yourself, Azula. Is this so-called Blue Spirit not outfoxing you at every turn? Perhaps you should spend less time overestimating the value of your inexperienced military insight, and more time restoring order to the city."

Azula recoils under the whiplash of his displeasure. Mai winces, waiting for the princess to collect herself and swallow her pride, as she always did when it came to appeasing her father.

But to her utter surprise, Azula bristles instead. "Fine," she announces, rising sharply to her feet in a fluid motion. "If my presence here displeases you so, Father, then I withdraw my contributions. Let your precious advisors fill your ears with baseless fantasies. Meanwhile, I have the entire homeland to administer, by your leave."

Mai feels her jaw drop as she watches Azula drop into an offensively curt bow, before spinning on her heel and storming out of the throne room. Elbowing pages and attendants out of her way, her shoulders still square and solid beneath the sharp lines of her deep red mantle.

The heavy double doors swing open, and then slam shut in her wake. A stunned silence reverberates around the small table, punctuated by some uncomfortable coughs and nervous laughter.

"Teenagers," someone mutters with a sigh. "They really do think they know everything."

"I remember when I was that age. How impulsive, how foolish…"

"Let her go," Ozai declares, the wall of fire shrinking back to its usual height, its cool red glow yielding to the darkness that consumes the audience hall once again. "I will deal with her later."

Mai gulps nervously, barely able to focus on the rest of the council's discussions. Her own father interjects dryly, pointing out some flaw or other in the invasion plan, but she doesn't hear it over the blood rushing deafening in her ears.

What got into her all of a sudden? She frowns, thinking of the fear that had paralyzed Azula whenever Kei Ling had so much as hinted at reclaiming her own agency. Not a week ago, it had been like pulling teeth for Azula to admit to a single one of her father's flaws, so staunchly and blindly had she been devoted to him. Where had Ozai's slavish pet suddenly found the spine to bite back at him so viciously? Zuko had been burned and banished for far less a slight.

But Azula had none of his hot-tempered foolishness. She was shrewd where Zuko was impulsive, cautious where Zuko was pigheaded, composed and calculated where he was stubborn and defiant to a fault. She should have known better.

So what had changed?

She mulls over it for the remainder of the council session, unable to think of anything else. What did the empty bleating of short-sighted old sycophants even matter, compared to Azula finally snapping under her father's manipulations? What could possibly counterbalance the fear and the misguided love that drove her so doggedly under his heel?

Barely noticing as her feet carry her through the winding halls, passing the palace servants who work silently to repair the damaged stone walls and the burnt draperies. Until she reaches Azula's study and barges in without knocking.

The princess hunches over her desk, its surface cluttered with a storm of disheveled papers. The books in their cases lie askew, suffering from an intense rifling. The two plush armchairs arrayed before the desk sit crooked where they had been shoved out of the way unceremoniously.

"What was that all about?" Mai hears herself ask bluntly. "Are you trying to get yourself exiled?"

Azula blows a wayward strand of hair out of her face. "Don't be ridiculous," she snaps, twin spots of red appearing in her cheeks. "Father couldn't exile me now. He'd have no one left."

Mai raises an eyebrow, studying the princess's feverish eyes, the smudges where her lipstick had smeared along the corner of her mouth. "Are you sure about that?" she asks carefully, unconsciously taking a step backward. Being around Azula at that moment was like being around an injured moose-lion. There was hardly a more dangerous time to engage her.

"Of course I'm sure," Azula snarls, her eyes fixed on the paper under her shaking brush. Wet ink smears along the freshly scribed letters, staining the underside of her wrist and the pressed red velvet of her sleeve. "He can't treat me like Zuko. He won't. I won't let him." Her grip on the calligraphy brush tightens, until her knuckles gleam white. "He will learn to value my worth, or he'll find himself all alone."

Mai weighs her chances. "You know," she ventures, feeling the room sway unsteadily around her, urging her to leap, "instead of waiting for him to open his eyes, why don't you just take matters into your own hands already?"

Azula's brush snaps in half. "Who says I'm not?" she replies tightly. Ink spills everywhere but she scarcely notices it.

Mai stares at her unblinkingly, puzzlement rising within her. "You said you would never turn against him," she probes, wondering what had finally possessed the princess to finally break. "That it was treason."

But then Azula smiles shakily, and it sends a chill running down Mai's spine. "He's not the only one who can play this game. He thinks the Blue Spirit outfoxes me at every turn? If only he knew the truth."

The bottom drops out of Mai's stomach as Azula's smile widens, making her appear slightly unhinged. "He has no idea what kind of chaos would engulf the homeland if I wasn't around to take care of it. Well, maybe it's time he found out." She wipes at the corner of her mouth, inadvertently transferring wet black ink along the curve of her jawline. "It isn't treason if I teach him exactly what I'm capable of."

The sun dips close to the horizon, a brilliant sphere low in the midnight sky. Clouds swirl past it, streaked in bands of bright orange and deep blue. The occasional rumble of a passing sky bison as it flies overhead, the mounted Air Nomads scouring their surroundings with militant vigilance.

Yue barely notices any of it, gasping for breath. Everything spins before her, the cramped underground passageways suddenly giving way to open tundra - or rather, what remains of it in the height of summer.

Wind whips past her flushed face, and she gulps it down gratefully. Fresh air, tinged with the scent of saltwater, of loamy soil freed from the melt, small animals crawling forth. The advance of the seasons, a time for life.

And yet, the sense of wrongness gnaws at her. Beyond the scream of the wind, there lingers an unnatural quiet. The tides of the ocean, the heartbeat of the world. Silenced.

She presses a hand to her own chest instinctively. Beneath her fingers, her own heart strikes a hesitant rhythm, its pulse thready and weak, barely summoning enough strength to go on. As though whatever wound they inflicted upon the world, they had inflicted upon her too.

Or whatever purpose her brief, insignificant life had would finally be fulfilled.

"Yue." A man's voice, thick with sorrow and achingly familiar. Wizened grass crunches underfoot. "Do you...do you not know me?"

The world swims before her. She blinks, trying to set it right again.

"Yue…" the man whispers haltingly, sounding inches from tears. Strong arms wrap around her frail, wasted form, lending their strength to her own. "My beautiful girl, my brave girl…"

It strikes a chord somewhere within her. "Father?" she murmurs, glancing up.

Her father's eyes widen, before more tears spill from them. "Yue! You're safe now, thank the spirits -"

The spirits…

Her breath hitches in her throat. Only you can save me now, one of them had whispered before they took her and killed her. What had she meant?

"I thought I'd lost you," her father continues, oblivious as he hugs her tightly. She chokes, struggling to breathe. "I thought I would never see you again."

"Me too," she breathes, every word an effort. "At least...at least this way...it's better -"

"Shh." He strokes her hair, heedless of the way it coils lank and unwashed down her back. "Enough for now. Save your strength. Right now, listen to Master Pakku."

She frowns in confusion, wondering if she had misheard. "Pakku?" she repeats thickly. "I thought - he left -"

"So I did. But it appears destiny had other plans." Another face swims into view, older and thinner and more sour than her father's. But it still breaks into a fond smile when it sees her. "My, how you've grown."

Yue straightens, trying to disentangle herself from her father's crushing embrace. The world lurches abruptly around her. "What - what's going on -"

"Careful. Here, now." A pair of hands on her shoulders, easing her to sit more comfortably. "No sudden movements. Arnook, keep her steady -"

Between the old master's calm instruction and her father's strong grip, the world stops swaying. Sweat beads along her skin, cooling in the swift nighttime breeze. Blinking, taking in her surroundings as they slowly crawl back into focus. Her father and Master Pakku, the soft bed of moss upon which she sits. A sprawling green plain striped with bands of shrinking snow, studded with numerous small structures hewn directly into the earth, as far as the eye could see. Dwelling-houses, or shelters perhaps.

People mill about around them, hunched over, conversing quietly, keen not to be overheard. Some guide lumbering sky bison away from the makeshift encampment, toward the pens erected along its periphery. The smell of burning peat, faint red coals glowing here and there. Grey mountains sloping in the distance, the sky weakly lit by the midnight sun. Its rays touching the clouds to swirls of brilliant orange fire, but still not bright enough to hide the jagged void where the moon had once shone.

A wave of nausea batters at her. She closes her eyes, clenching her teeth. Sensation dances on the edge of her awareness. Pain, pressure, intensity. Ripping, tearing, pushing all at once -

"Give her some space," her father barks.

Stars litter her field of vision as she finally relaxes, pushing back at the strands of hair plastered to her clammy face. "I'm okay," she whispers faintly, straining with each sound. "I'm - I'm okay -"

A sea of familiar faces stare back at her, watching her closely. Her father's hovers close to hers, tight-lipped and pinched with worry. Behind him was old Master Pakku, conversing with Crown Prince Iroh and the Air Nomad elders in a low mutter. And just beyond, the sight of them lifting her heart, more of the girls. Bunik, Ulva, Woka, countless others interspersed among what was left of the Northern defenders. She picks out Tartok's broad shape, Jukka's gangly frame as they exchange words with some of the girls.

She even recognizes Katara's friends, the blind earthbender and the young Air Nomad, standing just apart of the small crowd, silent and forlorn. But there's no Katara, nor the scarred prince either

Odd. They were inseparable. Where did he go?

Other faces appear in the crowd, smiling at her, beckoning her to join them. She frowns, staring into their strange faces, inhuman and unfamiliar, lit from within with an otherworldly glow. One of them stares at her with ice-pale eyes, her long white hair flowing as gossamer-thin as her cascading white gown.

Everything suddenly muffles into quiet. The light of the midnight sun disappears, everything swallowed by darkness. The only light radiates from the glowing white woman, staring at her with a face that Yue had longed to see for the past eight years.

"Mother?" she breathes, scarcely believing her eyes.

Soon, her mother soothes, pressing a finger to her lips. Very soon. But not yet.

"Is it really you?" she stammers, hardly daring to believe it. "After all this time?"

Listen to me. The world lies in darkness, and only you can lead them out of it, when the moment is right. Are you ready?

"Ready?" She shakes her head, before the world threatens to lurch again. "Ready for what? Mother, I don't understand -"

You will. Her mother wears a sad smile; the light slowly begins to fade from her. The path before you ends in darkness. But the choice will remain yours.

"Choice, what choice?" Yue straightens, reaching desperately for the spectre of her mother fading before her eyes. "Mother, come back! Don't leave me!"

I am always with you, her mother's voice whispers in her ear. I am a part of you. Where you go, I go. Where you live, I live. My life is your life, remember?

And, then, like a sudden puff of flame, she disappears altogether. Yue stares at the empty stretch of damp grass where her mother had been, where only a faint curl of mist remains.

She wipes at her eyes with shaking hands, her mother's voice echoing in her ears. Had she imagined the whole thing, or was she finally losing her mind?

"You have been touched by the moon spirit."

The world returns back to normal, so suddenly that Yue swears that she had just woken from a dream. Drawing a shaky breath, wiping her wet hands on her faded blue dress as General Iroh kneels before her, his gaze level with hers. His amber eyes shine with warmth. "You have a connection with it," he continues, as though nothing was amiss.

"Some of its life force lives in me," Yue answers hoarsely.

"And now, with the darkening of the moon, it may be the only connection to the spirits we have left," he says softly.

Yue tilts her head in confusion. "Darkening?"

A shadow passes over Iroh's face before he lowers it in shame. "One of my countrymen discovered the mortal body of the moon spirit. Whatever remains of it lives only in you now."

A sick feeling rattles in Yue's chest, in the empty space where her heart struggles to beat. She remembers the night of the invasion, sitting by the pond in the oasis, the agitated fluttering of the koi fish. She remembers fire and anguish and a moon turned red with blood, before everything went dark.

After that, there was little else to remember.

"I must be plain," Iroh says flatly, even though his eyes remain impossibly tender. "We have a month, maybe a little more, before Sozin's Comet returns at the turn of the season. If we cannot find a way to restore the moon spirit, we lose our last hope of stopping my brother before he wields its power against the rest of the world."

The world lies in darkness. Only you can lead them out of it.

"Don't mince words, General," her father spits with a vehemence that surprises her. His fingers dig protectively into her shoulders. "Ask her plainly what you intend for her to sacrifice."

"You misunderstand me," Iroh replies patiently, not taking his eyes away from hers, watching her carefully for any reaction, any clue. "By assuming some of the moon-spirit's life force, Yue is, in essence, a tether to it. She may be able to bridge the rift between the worlds and summon the spirits."

"You're out of your mind!" Her father snaps, shaking his head in denial. "No human has ever been able to bridge the rift and enter the spirit world. The spirits haven't allowed it, not since the age of the Avatar ended! What makes you think my daughter can succeed where the greatest shamans in history have failed?"

"Because destiny is upon us," Iroh answers firmly. "Yue is part of the moon spirit, and it is a part of her - by its own design, no less! The spirits turned their backs on humanity when we destroyed the great bridge, but Yue is one of theirs as much as she is one of us." He bows his head reverently. "If this is not destiny at work, then I do not know what else it can be."

Her father makes a non-committal sound but says nothing more.

"Time slips away from us," the General continues, staring entreatingly at Master Pakku. "We have exhausted all other options, and now our last hope lies before us. We must act before it is too late."

"But not too early either," Master Pakku cautions, scratching at his receding hairline. "Losing the element of surprise too quickly will drag us into a drawn-out fight that we cannot sustain. We have so few opportunities left, and we do not even know if this will work."

"But we must still try! Otherwise we will fall where we stand, and there will be no hope left at all…"

Yue closes her eyes, something under her skin buzzing unsettlingly as the old men's argument washes over her. The path before you lies in darkness, her mother's voice reminds her softly.

But the choice will remain yours.

"I'll do it."

Her voice is a weak thread of sound, but it dashes everything else to a stunned silence. "I will do my part. Whatever I can." She squares her shoulders, tries to lift her chin high, as dignified as a princess of her stature ought to be. But tremours convulse through her, making every movement difficult. "The moon spirit gave me life. Perhaps I can find a way to give it back."

"Yue," her father pleads, somewhere between horror and years, "please, listen to me. You don't have to do this."

"I know." A helpless smile flits across her mouth. "But it's what Mother would have done if she was in my place."

"And look where it got her!" His voice breaks, softening to a whisper. "You're all I have left of her. I can't lose you too."

Something quails in her hollow chest. She clutches at his strong hands with as much strength as her frail fingers would allow. "It's my duty, Father. I was never the son you would have wanted. Perhaps this will restore our family's honour among the tribe "

But to her surprise, her father makes a disparaging sound. "Our tribe's honour was stained with blood many years ago. A son would not have redressed that." His hands find her shoulders, holding her at arm's length as he studies her searchingly. "Not the way you have."

Something wells inside her throat, making it difficult to breathe. She swallows carefully instead, before turning back to meet General Iroh's expectant gaze. "What must I do?"

An uncomfortable silence trails in her wake.

"We don't know," Iroh finally admits, raising his hands haplessly. "Nobody has tried to summon the spirits in living memory." He clears his throat awkwardly. "As someone with part of the moon spirit living within her...we – we had hoped you might know."

She shakes her head, her heart sinking. Her mother had said she would understand when the time came, and yet she was still letting her people down. They needed someone brave like her mother, strong like Katara, wise like Ahnah.

Instead, they had only her.

Spirits help us.

"If only Tupilek was here," someone mutters darkly in the distance. "He's the chieftain of Tomken! If anyone would know what to do, it would be him."

"Tomken." Yue snatches at the name instinctively, something clicking within her mind. "The spirit oasis! That's it!"

A dozen puzzled stares settle upon her, but she notices none of them. "That's where we have to go. To Tupilek's village, to the spirit oasis. That's where we'll find the spirits."

Master Pakku clears his throat, kneeling down next to Iroh to look at her directly. "Are you sure?" he asks, his voice uncharacteristically hesitant.

Yue nods, an overwhelming sense of certainty settling over her. "Yes," she answers. "That was where they destroyed the moon-spirit's body. If there's any place where we can restore it, it'll be there."

"I see." But rather than appearing relieved, Pakku's lined forehead creases with worry. He and Iroh exchange a wordless glance before he heaves out a sigh. "That will not be easy. We're halfway out to Nutjuitok. Tomken is barely a stone's throw from Aujuittuq."

"Where Admiral Chan has concentrated most of his forces," Iroh continues raggedly, stroking his chin. "It was hard enough to evade capture today. And without Sifu Katara…"

"Katara sacrificed her freedom so that we could have this chance!" Everyone's heads turn in surprise as the young Air Nomad steps forward, his grey eyes blazing. "If there's any chance at all that this could work, we have to take it."

"What Twinkletoes said," the blind earthbender affirms, tilting her chin defiantly. "We have a little time left, right? We can find a way to get the princess into the spirit oasis."

"I spent enough time stuck in Aujuittuq to get a good idea of their defenses," Jukka speaks up, adjusting his sealskin belt. His pale eyes glitter with excitement in spite of himself. "They've got a strong perimeter set up outside the city, but the route to Tomken is pretty weakly guarded. We could probably take that with enough planning and trickery."

"And we could help!" Woka cries, to everyone's surprise. "I heard that Painted Lady disguise worked really well for Katara!"

Tartok scoffs, whirling on her in an instant. "As if that would work now," he derides, staring down his nose at her. "The Fire Navy knows it was a trick. Besides, there are men here to take care of this. We don't need the help of women."

"Oh?" Yue raises her head to stare at Tartok unblinkingly. "You don't? Then I suppose you can go find a man to summon the moon spirit instead."

Tartok gapes at her stupidly, colour rising to flush his milky complexion. "B-But Princess Yue, that's...that's completely different -"

"How?" Yue demands. "How can you continue to justify this asinine tradition? Because it's cultural, or because of the spirits? Because I don't think it's anything other than your own fragile ego! Because you're too proud to admit that maybe you're not as strong as you think you are!"

The young warrior recoils under her onslaught, suddenly unable to meet her gaze. Grim satisfaction blazing through her veins, Yue turns away. Glares instead at the rows of men, her countrymen, assembled before her and now intently studying their boots shamefacedly. "Look around you! Look at where clinging to the old ways have gotten us!" she cries, pointing to Woka and the other girls crowded behind her. "Our home, invaded. The moon, gone. Our sister tribe, destroyed! What good have they brought us? Isn't it time we let them go!"

"But the spirits -"

"The spirits abandoned us eons ago! Do you honestly think they care?" Yue shakes her head, breathing heavily. Stars dance before her eyes again and she presses a hand to her forehead. "Women have been throwing their lives on the line to help fight back against those who took our home. And yet you would still rather have us imprisoned or enslaved in Fire Navy brothels than fight alongside us? Why would the spirits ever save you? You've done nothing worth saving!"

She expects them to push back, to argue, to speak over her and remind her of her place. But, to her utter shock, only a strangled silence answers her.

Seizing the moment, she totters to her feet. If she could speak, then she would speak her mind. "There's no way left but forward," she says harshly, a princess's royal command. "If I'm good enough to help you out of this mess, then so are the rest of my sisters. From this day forth, women will live alongside men as equals. They will be treated with dignity and respect. They will be allowed to waterbend, to govern, to hunt and sail and fight as the men do, if they wish." She exhales sharply through her nose, wishing she could breathe fire and inflict the fear of all the spirits in the men cowering before her. "Or, I will decide that I need not conserve what remains of my strength to seek out the spirits. You can all die as you lived - weak, ungrateful, shameful cowards to the end."

A chorus of uncomfortable mutterings swell in protests. But when she plies them with her hardened glare, nobody raises their voice to object.

"The Princess speaks truly," Master Pakku finally agrees, setting a hand on her shoulder. "Too long have we allowed fear to cloud our judgment. If we are to face the spirits, we must make ourselves worthy of their mercy." He hangs his head. "We were not born that way simply because we are men."

Yue stares at him in mounting surprise. She takes a good look at him for the first time, finally noticing how his travels had changed him, in so many ways.

"I now understand why the spirits gifted me with a daughter," Yue's father rasps, stepping forward to stand resolutely by her side. "If I had a son, he would not have been worthy to face them. Perhaps the moon spirit would not have spared him." His hand touches her cheek gently. "But it saw something in you, Yue. Something worth giving up its own life for. No matter what, don't forget that."

Yue's breath hitches in her throat. "I won't," she whispers, covering his hand with her own. "I won't allow myself to be used ever again. But this is my choice." She closes her eyes, a calm settling over her. "I choose to fight for a better world, in whatever way I can."

"And we live by Princess Yue's example!" Master Pakku calls out, a stern edge entering his voice. As though he dared any of his fellow countrymen to disagree, as though nothing would give him any more satisfaction than teaching them the error of their ways. "Come, let us put our heads together. Summer's end is barely a moon away, and we still have an uphill battle ahead of us -"

"Wait." General Iroh raises a hand, frowning as he glances up into the air. "Do you hear that?"

A sudden silence breaks across the darkened encampment. Through the cry of the nighttime wind, Yue vaguely perceives the faint whistle of a body moving stealthily through the air. Growing steadily louder as it approaches, bearing down on them with incredible speed.

Panic sets in. "Is that an airship? Is the Fire Navy coming?"

"We must hide!"

"Quick, everyone below ground -"

"Sutra, Vayu, round up your best fighters and get to the bison. Everyone else -"

"Wait!" The blind earthbender holds up her hands. Her face scrunches with concentration, her head tilting upward. "It - it sounds like a sky bison."

Everyone freezes with sudden confusion.

"That's impossible," old Master Gyatso says urgently, scanning the rapidly dispersing crowd intently. "All of our patrollers are back, and all our bison are accounted for. You must be mistaken."

But the blind girl shrugs, blowing her overgrown bangs out of her face. "Well, I don't know what to say, Pops. I hear what I hear, and I say it sounds an awful lot like a sky bison." She points sightlessly into the air. "Right there."

Yue cranes her head to follow the direction of the earthbender's pointed finger. Everyone around her does the same.

Blood rushes loudly in her ears, roaring with fear. She stares into the midnight sky, empty except for the light bands of clouds and the endless expanse of darkened blue.

And then, so faint she wonders if she imagines it, she finally sees it. A tiny speck, low in the sky, moving at the speed of a falling star, straight toward them.

It grows bigger the longer she stares at it. A darkened shape, emitting no light of its own. It cuts across the face of the midnight sun. The dim orange glow throws its expanding silhouette into sharp relief.

"It is a sky bison!" she exclaims, her heart rising. "Look - over there -"

"Toph was right!" the young Air Nomad sings out jubilantly, clapping his hands together. "It must be a friend!"

"But who?" Master Gyatso presses, scratching at his bald head. "And how did they find us?"

"Well, old friend, take it from a seasoned pathfinder," Master Pakku cuts in dryly. "You weren't exactly difficult to find."

A hubbub of conversation breaks out, half excited and half confused as the lone sky bison draws closer. She squints, staring at the shaggy beast as it finally lands in the clearing before them, blasting a puff of wind with a flap of its flat tail.

"Master Iio?" Gyatso chokes out, sounding as perplexed as Yue herself feels. "How did you - what are you doing here?"

The sky bison lowers its head. Yue stares, wondering if she's hallucinating again as a willowy woman floats to the ground. The midnight sunlight glimmers off her arrow tattoos, her saffron robes, and the wry tilt of her thin mouth.

"I thought you might use a hand," she remarks, adjusting the glider in its holster. "But, in truth, we also came here to find someone."

"We?" Gyatso echoes curiously, as Iio points to the large saddle strapped to her bison's back.

A dreamlike sense of inevitability washes over Yue. She lets out the breath she doesn't realize she had been holding, watching as though in slow motion as someone else vaults to the ground.

As he rises, brushing dirt off his knees, she stares into a face she had thought of countless times, every day since she had lost him. Her fingers find her mouth, hanging open in shock.

"Hey there. Sokka, Southern Water Tribe." He draws to his full height, jamming a thumb into his chest. "I heard Katara was here." His blue eyes glimmer solemnly as he steps forward, a hand grazing the sword strapped to his back. "Where is she?"

Chapter 54: the element of change

Chapter Text

disclaimer. still property of bryke, last time i checked.

author's notes. i live! thanks to everyone who's still trucking along and following! i promise your patience will be rewarded, big time. we're on the cusp of a really wild ride, and i can't wait to share it with you as everything falls into place.

as usual, feel free to find me on tumblr at colourwhirled-writes. drop a line, say hi, lurk around, it's all cool.

i give you...

southern lights.

chapter liv. the element of change

this is for our sins
yours are stained with red

"death in a garden" / lowercase noises

The last of the sun's light disappears from the narrow slit of window in the corner of Zuko's cell.

By now, impatience has forced him to wiggle the loose stone block out of the corner and tear off the scratchy prison uniform hanging loosely off his wasted body. Crumpling into a pile and tossing it unceremoniously into the small square hole in the wall, sliding the tight-fitting blacks instead.

He is halfway through sliding the hood over the thin growth of his hair when the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps gives him pause. Zuko freezes, his hands still clutching the scant cloth, wondering whether he had enough time to change back before the guards saw him.

But then the door opens to reveal Azula, and he lets out an unexpected sigh of relief. "Finally," he hisses, pulling the rest of the hood down along his neck. "What took you so long?"

In the dimming light, Azula's pale skin seems to glow as she glances over her shoulder. Then she shuts the door behind her as discreetly as possible. "There's been a change of plans."

Suspicion gnaws at him like the merciless dust mites that lay hidden in his straw pallet. "Why? Father doesn't suspect, does he?"

But Azula only lets out a bitter laugh. "Father suspects anything and everything...but this is surely beyond even his paranoia." Then she turns to face him and the smile slides off her face. "Not that it's any concern of yours."

"Whatever," Zuko huffs, smoothing the edge of his hood against the line of his jaw. "Just as long as nobody finds out we're working together."

"Believe me, brother, I fear that discovery as much as you do," Azula spits, glaring at him darkly.

Zuko raises an eyebrow. "Does your life also depend on keeping this little understanding a secret?"

"Why yes," Azula allows, her mouth still pressed in a severe line. "You see, if people found out, they would start to associate me with you. I don't think I could bear the shame."

"Well, I'm not exactly thrilled by the prospect either," Zuko grumbles. "Thankfully, neither of us are here to enjoy each other's company, so how about we get to business instead? The nights aren't exactly getting any longer."

"Actually, they are," Azula corrects with a sniff. "We've advanced well into the summer."

Zuko rolls his eyes. "You know what I mean."

"Not exactly." She tilts her head in amusement. "Although I understand that the passage of time might not mean much to you, cooped up in here with no purpose."

He lets out a growl, wishing he could breathe fire. "If your plan is just to barge in here and waste my time -"

"Relax, Zuzu." Azula raises her hands with a resigned sigh. "Your time isn't worth nearly as much as mine, so don't flatter yourself." Running her fingers along a strand of her hair, she frowns thoughtfully. "Tonight, I want you to do something a little different."

Zuko listens to her in patient disbelief as she outlines her plan, exacting and meticulously planned down the finest detail. His cell has plunged into near-complete darkness by the time she finishes speaking.

"Well?" she prompts impatiently, when he remains silent. "What do you have to say about it?"

Zuko regards her levelly, his nerves buzzing with something other than fear and adrenaline for the first time since his capture. "Are you asking what I think?"

He hears her scoff, just before a plume of cool blue fire erupts from her outstretched palm. "Don't flatter yourself. I need to know if you're capable of seeing this through without making a mess of things like you usually do."

He ignores the barb with well-practiced ease. "But…but I don't understand. Why are you doing this?"

He isn't sure if it's the leaping blue light that makes Azula's face appear more haggard than usual. "That's none of your concern. I just need you to do as I say, and if you can't, I'll find someone halfway competent to do it instead."

He pinches the bridge of his nose wearily. "Actually, it is my concern. This…this is a whole other level of disruption. If you go through with this, you're going to plunge the entire homeland into chaos and civil strife."

"I know," Azula says slowly, as though talking to a dim-witted child. "That's the point."

"Father will be furious," Zuko continues, holding her unnerving, slightly unhinged stare. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

He expects her to recoil, to shrink back into the simpering golden girl she always became when it came to pleasing their father. But instead, she lashes out with a vehemence that takes him aback.

"Father still treats me like a child! After everything I've done for him, it's never enough!" she seethes, hurling a ball of glowing white fire into the corner of his cell. Zuko shields his eyes as it crashes into the damp stone, wincing at the sound. "He still doesn't see my worth, he still values his idiot sycophants when they haven't done a fraction for him, compared to me. And he has the nerve to question my leadership?"

Zuko watches her as she rages on, pacing back and forth in front of the prison bars like a feral mooselion trapped in a cage. "Why are you telling me this?" he finally asks, when she pauses to draw a single, shuddering breath.

She recoils, as though finally remembering where she is. The blue light emphasizes her sneer. "Who do you have left to tell?" She runs a hand through her hair, the myriad fine strands escaping her loose topknot to cascade haphazardly over her brow. "Just answer me. Will you do it or not?"

Zuko narrows his eyes, taking a step toward the metal grille that separates them. "I don't know. This won't be easy."

"If it was easy, I would have done it myself." Azula rolls her eyes.

"You should have told me sooner. I need time to get in touch with my contacts, get everything ready…" He rubs at his temples, already exhausted with the daunting prospect. "I'm not a miracle worker."

"You're the famed Blue Spirit!" Azula tells him mockingly. "What's a little prison break after every other sordid thing you've done?"

"Fine!" Zuko snaps, already sick of the conversation. "You said your piece, I'll see it done. But I hope you know what you're getting into."

His sister shrugs, already turning away from him. "Between the two of us, you were never the one renowned for your foresight, Zuzu."

"Then you know that if we go ahead with this, there will be chaos. You understand that, right?" His hands close around the unyielding iron bars. "People will die. And Father, he'll be itching for someone to take the blame –"

"I know what to expect," Azula cuts him off irritably. "I'm ready for it."

"I don't think you are," Zuko tells her, anxious despite himself for reasons he doesn't fully understand. "Not really. You've never failed him before. You've never borne the brunt of his anger. And…" he swallows in remembered fear, his scar prickling reflexively. His voice lowers to a thread. "Azula, he can be terrifying when he's angry. More than you can imagine."

Azula pauses, and for a moment, he wonders if she's returned to her senses. But when she turns back to face him, he's aghast at the wry smirk curving along her mouth. "Well, I can't say I saw this one coming." She tilts her head, surveying him with growing amusement. "Don't tell me you're concerned for me, brother. Not after all this time."

His teeth grind together. For Azula had a point, after all. He might as well show concern for a tigershark in water, and it would be a better use of his time. After everything she had done, didn't she deserve the consequences of their father's wrath too? He certainly hadn't and he still bore those marks.

All the same, he meets her gaze steadily. "You came to me," he tells her grudgingly, and she at least has the grace to appear aghast at the reminder. "We're in this together whether you like it or not." His forehead knocks against the bars - whether out of frustration or resignation, he isn't sure. "I'm putting my life on the line to trust that you know the difference between being bold and being brazen."

"I'm not interested in listening to your lectures, Zuzu," Azula dismisses him, picking at the underside of a sharpened claw. "I know the risks involved." She arches an eyebrow at him. "Don't worry. I've got my own people in place to contain the fallout."

Zuko's brow crumples as he tries to understand. "Kei Ling?" he guesses slowly.

She shrugs nonchalantly. "The woman has useful connections of her own. And Captain Hanying's residence is surprisingly poorly guarded." Her smile widens innocently. "It will be easy enough to frame him for aiding a known criminal and compromising a critical asset to our domestic security plan."

A chill runs down Zuko's spine as he considers it.

If they went through with this, their father's wrath would be unavoidable. And not that Zuko particularly cares if his sister got caught in the crosshairs for once. But if Azula cracked, she could potentially expose him too.

Zuko has put everything on the line to stay alive another day. He would be damned if Azula's hubris got the better of him.

But while their father's wrath burned hot, he would be unlikely to think too carefully beyond its immediate placation. By providing an easy scapegoat within his inner circle, Azula would both exonerate herself from her failure to capture the Blue Spirit, and remove yet another unwanted advisor separating her from Ozai's ear.

Simple, ruthless, precise. Everything he had come to expect from Azula.

"It's a good plan," he grunts at last. "Hopefully it works."

"What do you mean by hopefully?" Azula demands, flaring up indignantly. "Of course it'll work! I have it plotted down to the very last detail, I have accounted for every possible outcome –"

"I'm sure you have," Zuko cuts her off, leaning against the grille. "But this is real life, and things can get messy sometimes."

Azula blanches.

"I'm sure it'll go smoothly," he continues, reaching for the laughing blue mask lying in its hiding spot in the corner of his cell. "Nobody can scheme the way you do. But just be prepared in case something goes wrong and I have to improvise."

"Improvise?" Azula thunders, looking like she had just swallowed a swamp toad.

Zuko sighs irritably. "Ugh, forget it. You told me what I need to do. Just give me a couple of days to prepare. Then one morning, you'll wake up and it will all be done."

She nods curtly. "Good."

He twirls the mask in his fingers before raising it to his face. "I just hope you know what you're signing up for." The smooth plaster is cool against his skin as he ties it in place. "You can't get cold feet now. Once we start, there is no coming from this."

"I know," Azula declares. Her eyes glitter, fever bright. "I'm ready."

Silence settles over the grassy plane, broken only by the nighttime wind, bearing a slight chill and heavy with stagnant water. Not a bird or scurrying insect disturbs the quiet, nor does a single sound from the stunned crowd of mismatched fugitives gathered around the sky bison and the two new arrivals.

It's for the best, Yue thinks faintly, scarcely able hear anything over the deafening roar of her blood rushing through her ears. Her trembling hand finds her chest, feels her heart beating beneath it. Once so thready and weak, her pulse now races fitfully. Instead of spinning out of focus again, the world around her seems to sharpen into stark relief.

Even in the dim light of the midnight sun, she sees him clearly. Absorbs all the ways the years had changed him: the sword, the height, the muscles beneath his worn dark clothing. She swallows hard, her eyes flitting from the broad slope of his shoulders to his face, his eyes, the set of his posture. Though the intense determination gripping him is unsettlingly unfamiliar, the rest of him thankfully isn't.

"Um." The blind earthbender's voice rings out as though from a very large distance away. "How about we ask the questions here, Snoozles?"

Everyone turns to stare at Toph in mounting confusion. Yue watches Sokka's face twist, first with vague recognition, and then disbelief. "Snoozles?" he asks, frowning.

But Toph crosses her arms. "Well, yeah. Seeing as the last time we met, you'd just woken up from a nap." Her face hardens as she raises her chin defiantly. "A long nap, on the Sun Warrior's island, back when you were a Dai Li sleeper." Her fingers drum against her upper arms rhythmically. "Any of that ringing a bell? That was you, right?"

"What are you talking about?" Yue stutters, her widening eyes flitting disbelievingly from Sokka to Toph and then back again. "He's been missing for so many years! He - he couldn't have been a Dai Li sleeper - what's a sleeper?"

But to her rising consternation, Sokka only rubs the back of his head bashfully. "Actually…"

"What the young earthbending master says is all true," Master Pakku cuts in dryly, raising an eyebrow as he gives Sokka a swift onceover. "Lee's part of the Earth colony resistance, founded by King Bumi - it's a long story." He tilts his head wryly. "Although that doesn't really explain what you're doing here, Lee."

"Bumi?" General Iroh asks sharply, flinching at the name. "He's still out there?"

"Lee?" Yue shakes her head, everything starting to spin again. "What's going on? Master Pakku, you had already left us by the time Sokka came here, and how do you know him, anyway?" She jams her hands on her hips, directing the last part at Toph.

"Okay, okay, hang on." Sokka raises his hands defensively, a disarming smile sliding onto his face. "How about everyone stops butting in out of order and I can explain everything without making Yue's head explode?" He frowns at Pakku. "Seriously, Grampakku, I didn't expect to bump into you here either. I completely forgot you were heading north too!"

"You weren't alone in that regard," Master Pakku returns, unsmiling. "And please stop calling me that."

"Sure thing, Grampakku," Sokka replies without missing a beat. Yue lets out a huff of sudden laughter before stifling it with a hasty fist pressed against her mouth. The world staggers around her; her father's hands clamp down upon her shoulders, settling her back down upon the soft bed of moss.

She brushes him off feebly, gasping for breath. "I'm fine," she insists, clutching at her chest. "Really, Father, I'm fine…"

She isn't sure if she imagines Sokka's eyes creasing with worry as they study her swiftly. Yue tries not to stare at him, her face flushing hotly. How many years had it been since she'd last seen him? Three, maybe four? So long without a trace, they'd all given him up for dead.

And now he had the gall to show up when she was sick and weakened, when a single huff of laughter was enough to flatten her. Only Sokka could have that kind of nerve.

She finds herself running her fingers along the lifeless hair spilling over her shoulder, wondering what he must think of her in her current state. It was a lovely young princess that he'd fallen for, after all. She hadn't felt that way since the Fire Navy had taken her captive and destroyed the moon.

No. Before that. Her fingers touch the ornate stone carving of her betrothal necklace, cold and heavy against her neck like one of the metal shackles she'd worn aboard the Admiral's flagship. You're a married woman now, remember?

"So, uh, the gist of it goes like this," Sokka supplies, scratching at the back of his head, where the hair was still shaved short. "When I left from here, I went to find the Earth continent rebellion, just as Chief Arnook and I agreed. And I found them...but not quite in the way I expected."

Before she can stop herself, Yue finds herself remembering the feeling of the rough prickly stubble against her fingertips. But that was all in the past; everything had changed beyond repair now.

Shaking her head in quiet despair, she forces herself to focus on Sokka's elaborate tale instead. How many nights had she lain awake at night, longing for these very answers? She would have to content herself with them; they would have to be enough, for now.

"By the time the resistance finally found me, I was already captured by the Dai Li," he continues, the earnest expression on his face beginning to falter. "They made me forget my alias, my name, my memories...everything." He swallows hard, his hands curling into fists. "In turn, they gave me a new name and a new identity, so that I could spy on the resistance for them."

A dumbfounded silence follows his words.

"Sorry, buddy," Jukka speaks up, jamming a finger into his ear. "They did what, now?"

"I know, it sounds crazy," Sokka admits with a shrug. "But it's true. The Dai Li wiped my memory and somehow replaced it with an entirely new identity."

"You're joking." From next to Jukka, Tartok lets out a loud snort of laughter. "You always could spin a tall tale, Sokka, I'll give you that. But you seriously expect us to believe - what, the Dai Li brainwashed you or something?"

"Pretty much." Sokka waves at him half-heartedly. "Nice seeing you again too, Tartok. Where's your brother?"

"Stop trying to change the subject!" Tartok snaps. "Do you think we're all a bunch of simpletons, to fall for such an obvious lie?"

"Actually, as far as the Dai Li and their methods are concerned, he's telling the truth," Master Pakku speaks up, glancing at Tartok with disapproval plain on his weathered face. "Their brainwashing operation was fairly well-known across the continent. A travelled man would know that." He turns to Sokka, sniffing haughtily. "If you're standing here, I take it you survived Laogai then. Quite the accomplishment."

"Don't sound so surprised," Sokka chides playfully, even as Pakku's mouth presses into a tighter line. "Turns out, they were using bloodbenders to turn their sleepers!"

Yue chokes, hardly able to believe her ears.

"Bloodbenders?" Woka chokes out loudly, amid the chorus of shocked gasps rising from among the other girls.

"There's more?"

"I thought Katara was the only one left."

But Master Pakku only frowns, deep furrows creasing his forehead. "I've never heard of such a thing," he pronounces with a twitch of his nose. "What exactly is bloodbending, and is it as much of an abomination as it sounds like?"

"Bloodbending isn't an abomination!" Bunik argues, lunging forward in growing indignation. "It's just another extension of waterbending. A Southern waterbender taught Katara how to bend blood, and she taught the rest of us." She folds her arms decisively. "And then we figured out how to become better healers because of it."

"And better waterbenders," Woka chimes in, glaring at the old master. "At least, before Hahn and the others locked us up."

Pakku raises his thin eyebrows, before glancing at Yue's father as though for confirmation.

But her father only sighs, clapping a hand to his forehead. "It's been busy here, Pakku."

"I can see that," the old master remarks dryly, stroking at his thin white beard. "Bloodbending, eh? And now the girls are all learning waterbending, and without anyone's permission either!" He lets out a short laugh. "Who would have dreamed it?"

"You haven't heard the half of it yet," Sokka declares, his face splitting into a grin. Yue's mouth goes dry at the twin dimples appearing in his thin cheeks; reluctantly, she turns her gaze back to the safer sight of the ground between her feet. "The bloodbenders working in Lake Laogai were all Southern Water Tribe refugees!"

The commotion that follows his exclamation batters loudly against Yue's skull. She closes her eyes, wincing at the babble of shocked conversations unfolding everywhere.

"What?"

"That's impossible!"

"The Southern waterbenders were all rounded up and killed at the start of the polar wars!"

"That's what we thought too," Sokka answers patiently, his eyes sparkling triumphantly. "But we found a bunch of them, alive and working for the Dai Li!"

"But...but why?" Master Pakku demands incredulously. "Why not escape north like the rest of the survivors, or head back south to raise their homes again?"

"They didn't know," Sokka answers. "They'd been held in Fire Empire prisons for so long, that they didn't know what had become of the wars or their home. And then the Dai Li lied to them, told them the only way to free themselves of the Empire was to throw their lot in with them. They didn't know anything different until we found them."

General Iroh lets out a sigh of anguish. "From the boiling kettle straight into the fire," he laments, hanging his head in shame. "Those poor, tortured souls. And as much as my brother orchestrated those wars, I too played a part in allowing them to happen. How can we ever begin to right so many wrongs?"

Sokka regards him levelly. "Wait, who are you?" His eyes narrow, again with that curious flicker of recognition, before it shifts to suspicion. "You look like Fire Empire. Actually…" Sokka takes a step back, his hand reaching for the sword strapped to his back, "there're a lot of firebenders hanging around here!"

His voice rises in mounting alarm. Yue closes her eyes, her ears ringing against the grating screech of sharpened metal bared to the night.

"Put down the sword, boy," Master Pakku tells him witheringly. "This is no ordinary firebender. This is General Iroh, the Crown Prince of the Empire -"

"Ozai's brother?" Sokka yelps. A stumble and a thud and a harsh cursing as he trips over his own feet in apoplectic shock. "What's he doing here? And with all his soldiers, too? And - and -"

"Calm down, before you manage to make an even bigger fool of yourself than any of us would ever deem possible," Master Pakku orders, and Yue manages to glimpse the swift roll of his eyes. "Clearly, there is far more at play here than you understand."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Sokka grumbles, pushing back onto his knees thunderously. "Clearly I can't be the only one whose head got messed around with, if you all think hanging out with the guy who started the polar wars is a good idea!"

"Not everything is as black and white as you describe," Pakku answers calmly. "You know this better than most. Iroh has worked hard to protect the world from his brother's madness."

"Sure, and I'm sure he probably brews a mean cup of tea as well, but that's besides the point." Sokka brandishes his sword at the ready, staring daggers into Iroh's lined face. "How can we trust him, or any of his men, after everything they've done to us?"

His accusation hangs pointedly in the air, as sharply-edged as the honed metal of his blade.

But to Yue's surprise, Iroh raises his hands in resignation. "You cannot," he answers hoarsely, his broad craggy face appearing suddenly aged and weary. For the first time since meeting him does Yue perceive him as an old man. "It is not for me to persuade you of my trustworthiness, after everything that I allowed to happen."

Sokka raises his eyebrows skeptically, his sword still raised threateningly in the air.

"In the end, you can only trust your instincts, and those of the people around you," Iroh continues doggedly, not breaking eye contact with the wary young warrior. "Master Pakku, former Chief Arnook, the rest of the Northern tribe survivors...they all accept my presence here."

"And Katara?" Sokka demands, his voice hardening. "Did she trust you?"

Iroh frowns, his brow crumpling in thought. "Trust is a complicated thing when there are no right answers left." He lets out a heavy sigh. "I would never presume to speak on Sifu Katara's behalf. But she was willing to work with me and mine against our common enemy."

"Common enemy?" Sokka repeats suspiciously. "What, don't tell me you've also got an axe to grind with your loser brother?"

But Iroh only smiles mirthlessly. "I would not call him a loser. So far, Ozai seems to have all of us cornered in a very tight spot."

"Does he though?" Sokka presses. "You're not stuck here like everyone else. Why risk your life and your men in a hopeless struggle? You're never going to free the North this way. Why not march right back to your homeland and face your brother head on?"

"With what army? And what ships?" Iroh lets out a hollow laugh, shaking his head. "I may be from the Fire Nation, but right now, we share the same plight. If we only focus on the old bad blood between us, we will never lift ourselves out of this trap."

Sokka stares him down. "You said Katara trusted you."

"I said she tolerated my presence," Iroh corrects, his face darkening. "Whether willingly or as a necessary evil, it is hard to say."

Yue's stomach coils with tension as Sokka freezes, the sword trembling in his hands. His slitted blue eyes rove from the old general to the rest of the individual firebenders littered among the crowd, distinctive in their stained red uniforms.

Then, with a groan, he lowers the steel reluctantly. "Well, if it was good enough for her," he says at last, sheathing it back into its holster with a decisive click.

"Indeed," Master Pakku cuts in, observing the entire exchange with mild disdain. "Katara wasn't exactly what I'd call a reasonable girl -"

"You can say that again," Yue hears her father groan under his breath.

" -but even she came to see the value of putting her pride aside," Pakku finishes, before tilting his head inquisitively. "Oh, and that reminds me. How do you know Katara, again?"

"How do you?" Sokka pushes back, crossing his arms defensively.

"I taught her waterbending."

"How come you never told me?" Sokka explodes disbelievingly. "All the time we knew each other -"

"Why would I? I had no idea that you knew her until a few minutes ago." Pakku's nostrils flare with annoyance. "As a matter of fact, I always thought you were some boy from the Earth colony villages. But now I take it you're one of us, eh?"

"Yup." The impudent grin slides back onto Sokka's face as he jabs a thumb against his chest. "That's me. Sokka, Southern Water Tribe. Only...I didn't know that until the bloodbending wore off and I got my memories back. Courtesy of the moon vanishing, actually. So, uh…" He turns to Iroh awkwardly, his cheeks flushing dark red. "I guess I should thank you guys for destroying it? I'd be stuck under Laogai forever if you hadn't."

But Iroh shakes his head bitterly. "It may have been a firebender who murdered the moon spirit, but he is not one of us," he vows with an intensity that sends a chill down Yue's spine. "I would never condone such a heinous act, and nor would anyone remaining under my command."

"Ah." Sokka shrugs. "Well, it might have crushed the last bastion of the North and erased waterbending from the face of the earth, but at least I'm not some brainwashed Dai Li sleeper anymore! We've still gotta look at the bright side, right?"

Yue chokes on a snort of laughter, just as the young Air Nomad lets out a gasp. "Wait! But that would mean -" He swivels to face the blind earthbender standing next to him, positively beaming with excitement. "Toph, don't you remember? On the Sun Warrior's island, during the battle, when Katara ran off -"

"And you got crushed by that nice pointy rock trying to follow her?" Toph supplies tonelessly, her expression stony. "Yeah I remember."

"She went off to chase that sleeper! This guy!" Aang exclaims, his eyes shining as he stares at Sokka in open-mouthed delight. "Her brother."

Toph gasps audibly. Her mouth drops as she points in Sokka's direction. "Wait. You mean -" She frowns, trying to piece it all together.

"That's why he ran off and left her that time!" Aang barrels over her, barely able to contain his excitement. "Not because it was the wrong guy, but because he got brainwashed. Like Jet!" His voice softens as he shakes his head in wonder. "Katara was right. She was right all along..."

Toph clears her throat uncomfortably. "If only she was here," she murmurs, her voice unusually soft.

The atmosphere around the darkened grassy knoll grows subdued. Sokka takes a hesitant step forward, his face suddenly stricken. "I take it you know my sister, then?"

"Know her?" Toph snorts. A wistful smile curves along her mouth. "Yeah, you could say that."

"We fought the Dai Li together on the Sun Warrior's isle!" Aang explains helpfully. "Among other things."

"You too, huh?" Sokka remarks, pinching at the bridge of his nose. "Is there anyone here who hasn't fought with Katara, by any chance?"

A low murmuring swells around the gathering of people. Yue catches General Iroh and Pakku exchanging loaded glances, Jukka nudging Tartok with a cheeky grin. Toph crosses her arms with a smirk while Aang rubs the back of his head bashfully. Even the remaining Northern girls giggle among themselves.

Her own father heaves out a weary sigh. "Your sister had quite the talent for fighting, it seems."

"Yeah. Sounds about right," Sokka agrees, though the corners of his mouth still quirk upward. "So...where is she, then?"

Everyone falls silent again. The wind blows haplessly, rustling the grass, tingeing the air heavy with guilt.

"She's gone," Yue speaks up, summoning her courage. "She turned herself in to Admiral Chan. She's...she's his prisoner now."

"She did what?" Sokka yelps, nearly tripping in his distress.

"It was an exchange," Yue explains softly. "She did it to set me free." She lowers her head somberly, something as inevitable as fate settling its weight upon her shoulders. "Because I'm the only one who can bring back the moon."

She tries not to crumple under the force of his wide-eyed gaze, his jaw hanging open in a daze. "You...you're bringing back the moon, now?" he asks, shaking his head. "This just keeps getting weirder and weirder…"

"I don't know if it'll work," Yue confesses, biting her lip. "But I'm the only one who can. Even if there's a chance, no matter how small…" A lump wells in the back of her throat; she swallows hard, pushing past it, annoyed by her hesitance. "Katara gave up her freedom for it. I have to try."

To her surprise, he gives her a lopsided grin. "She believes in you, doesn't she?"

Yue nods weakly, suddenly unable to speak.

"She's crazy." Sokka shakes his head before his face hardens with determination. "But if she thinks it could work, then we might as well take a stab at it. Besides," his eyes glimmer with an intensity that makes her shiver, "if it all works out, I can finally see her again!"

"Get in line, Snoozles," Toph remarks bluntly. "You're not the only one who misses her."

Sokka bristles at her, spluttering in indignation. "Get in line? I'm her brother - I am the line!" He tilts his head quizzically, narrowing his eyes at her. "Who are you, anyway, and why do you keep calling me that?"

It isn't until Sokka and the others have finished bickering that General Iroh tactfully steps in, suggesting they withdraw for the night.

"We will convene in the morning, once we are all rested," he says, placing a hand on Sokka's shoulder. "A man needs his rest."

Sokka stiffens, before shrugging him off. Muttering darkly under his breath, he watches the mismatched crowd disperse, flitting back into the discreet thatched shelters raised from the earth.

"Yue," her father says softly, his voice at her ear. "Come along. It's been a long day for you, and you must be so exhausted -"

"It's okay, Father," she hears herself say, her eyes fixed unwaveringly on Sokka. She clears her throat obstinately. "Go rest. I'll be fine on my own."

He hesitates, but thankfully doesn't protest any further. She tries not to balk under the weight of his scrutiny as he retreats, wondering what he must think of the whole matter.

But none of it matters anymore, for the moment had finally come. After so many years, once again everything whittles down to just her and Sokka, alone under the starry sky, illuminated by the weak rays of the midnight sun.

He takes a step closer. She swallows again, her tongue oversized and useless in the dryness of her mouth.

"So," he remarks, settling across from her within an arm's easy reach. "I leave and everything falls apart, is that it?"

Choking on a snort of laughter, she glances up at him with a smile. So many things to say to him, all clashing at the tip of her tongue. "It's good to see you," she settles, finally. Her hands close around his sleeves, instinctively trying to pull him close.

But then his gaze slides down to her neck, to the small stone carving peeking out from under her collar.

Her breath hitches in her throat, her blood freezing in her veins. Beneath her touch, Sokka's entire body goes rigid.

"So you're married now, huh?" he observes.

Yue watches him sadly, the cavalier tone of his voice not quite able to hide how how he strains for control. She clutches at her betrothal carving with white-knuckled fingers. "I'm sorry -"

"No." Sokka's hair tumbles over his brow as he lowers his head, shielding his eyes from her view. Maybe it's better this way. "It's my fault. I was gone for so long…" The words slip out of him, soft, reluctant. "I never meant for you to wait so long."

I would have waited if I could, she longs to say. But her mouth works wordlessly, the stone seeming to sear the flesh of her palm. An overwhelming urge grips her, to rip it off and hurl the stupid thing into the dirt, never to be found again. Sokka was back, Hahn was still a prisoner of the Admiral, and who knew if she would ever see her worthless husband again?

But she tucks it back under her collar instead before lowering her hand to her side. "It's alright," she says hollowly. "At least...at least I got to see you one last time."

Sokka gives her a funny look. "What's that supposed to mean?"

She shakes her head, unable to explain the overwhelming sense of foreboding crashing against her with the breath of the nightly wind. Already it looms over them, a darkness that even the midnight sun couldn't pierce, and somewhere in her heart, she understands that it's no greeting that she exchanges with him.

It's a farewell.

"You should go help the others," she says simply, turning away from him. "We're running out of time. We can't let all of this have been for nothing, we have to get this right."

Perhaps he hears the urgency turning her weakened voice to iron, because he thankfully doesn't argue. "I'll do what I can," he says softly, before stepping away. "Anything to set this right."

She nods, unable to look at him. Instead, she stares at the endless swathes of dull green grass, swaying in thrall to the insistent breeze. At the slopes of the distant mountains, their ice-tipped peaks shrinking in the heat of the summer. And the endless expanse of stars stretching out above her head, the black patch of sky where the moon had once shone. That hole torn through the fabric of their world, an empty void that no light could pierce.

And it stares back at her, matching her terror with its own. If she closes her eyes, she hears it calling her name, pleading with her to become one with it, to end its loneliness.

Home. It begs her to come home.

The muted afterglow of sunset has finally faded from the sky by the time Zuko reaches the gate.

"You're late." A low male voice rises out of the darkness of the low brush accusingly. Zuko glances down from his perch, to the wiry young man slowly climbing out of the unkempt shrubbery.

He shrugs, still unable to stop thinking of Azula's visit two nights earlier. Had he grown unaccustomed to her usual intensity, or was she finally starting to slip? And if she was, was he following her into a deathtrap by seeing this through?

"You'd better not have been followed," warns Kuba, brushing withered leaves off his shoulders as he straightens to his full height.

I wasn't. Zuko's eyes narrow beneath his mask, as he slides the bar out of place. The gate swings open a crack, squeaking quietly on its hinges.

Kuba wastes no time slipping through. In the summer starlight, he's barely more than a shadow, dressed head to toe in inconspicuous black. Like Zuko, only the garish colour of his theatre mask gives him away. Tonight it's in the shape of a monkey's head, its lips pulled back over its teeth in a challenging snarl.

Together, they shut the gate and lock it in place, melting into the shadows noiselessly, without a trace. By the time a pair of curious guards wander over to check, they have disappeared into the night. Only the prints of their feet in the soft mud give any indication that they were ever there.

"We'd better not run into any more delays," Kuba grunts, as they cut through the cover of the well-manicured hedges lining the streets of the aristocratic quarter. "You didn't give us much time to prepare. My contacts had to scramble to make it in time. And they're not renowned for their patience to begin with."

Zuko doesn't spare the young rebel a glance. Well, he gestures as clearly as he can manage, then let's make it worth their while.

Sidestepping the paces of the security guards on their rounds, he leads them further into the peaceful quiet of the sprawling estates. They scale an ivy-covered wall easily, cutting through a darkened garden to avoid the burning lamps illuminating the walkways. Sweat covers Zuko's flushed face, the narrow slits of his mask making it difficult to breathe. Vaguely, he wonders how Kuba was faring, but the obstinate young rebel trails hard on his heels without complaint.

In the absolute dark of night, everything appears threatening. The thick foliage rustling in the breeze, the crunch of grass and soft dirt beneath their boots. The clouds heavy with rain, gathering overhead to blot out the stars. Zuko can taste the damp in the air, pressing down on them with the threat of discovery.

But by the luck of whatever spirit, or maybe Agni himself, they don't encounter any more guards as they squeeze past a gap in the hedges to skulk at the edge of yet another wealthy estate.

"Is this it?" Kuba pants in his ear, his shoulders rising and falling heavily with exertion. "Captain Hanying's manor?"

Zuko nods tersely, waiting.

They lurk in the shadows, crouched amid the thick flowerbushes lining the periphery of the sprawling gardens. The fat blossoms open to the night sky, drinking in the humid air with thirsty white petals. Their cloying fragrance wafts toward Zuko, a sweet heady perfume that hangs thick in his nostrils and nearly gives him a headache.

Ignoring it, he focuses on the rows of flowerbeds and sculpted bushes, the carefully kept rock gardens and young bamboo groves surrounding the low, square house at the heart of the property. Guards standing on high alert at every entrance. Every window shuttered and drawn.

They wait until the nearest security guards passes by, whistling a low tune under his breath. Compared to the tense hostility of the Imperial guards patrolling the lower harbour city, breaking in and out of the aristocratic quarter was a laughing matter.

There. Zuko points at the sole window on the upper floor, conspicuous with its rows of iron bars gleaming dully in the dim night glow.

In the periphery of his limited vision, he manages to see the snarling monkey mask nod tersely. "I'll wait for your mark," he mumbles, shrinking further into the bushes.

Good.

"And don't be late this time," Kuba hisses after him as he sprints off, closing the distance between them and the main house. The night air whistles against his ears as he flits from one shadowed crevice to another, every sense on high alert to dodge the idle footsteps of the bored security guards.

But by now, he's well practiced enough to avoid running into trouble head on. Instead, he doubles back, scaling a tree and hiding in its foliage until the coast lies clear before him. Then, with a faint rustle and a small grunt of exertion, he leaps off the nearest branch and jumps onto the upper window-sill jutting out of the walls.

His feet scrabble at the smooth red stone before finally finding purchase. Gritting his teeth, he hoists himself up to clamber onto the narrow strip of siding. His heart knocks fitfully against his ribcage, his breath heavy in his lungs. The faint whistling of the security guard as he passes below rises up to greet his ears; he clutches tightly at the bars and flattens himself against the window reflexively.

Overhead, the groan of thunder rumbles low in the distance. Fat drops of water plink against his mask, slow at first, and then pelleting down hard in a torrential downpour.

His eyes snap to the spires of the royal palace, rising up in the distant heart of the caldera. The last time it had rained like this, it had been Lu Ten's wedding. The night that had changed everything. No matter what he did now, the fabric of his life remained torn and frayed, the damage irreparable. Katara wasn't here this time to carry him to safety. All that's left to him is staving off the inevitable until the comet arrived.

And with that, he slinks through the bars, reaching for the lock fastening the windows shut. A grim smile springs to his mouth as he works on it with the thin blade Mai had given him. If she had been here in his place, she might have rolled her eyes and asked for a challenge, at least. But she would never do that; she preferred her safety in the comfort of her father's house.

The lock springs open with a click. He pushes the window; it gives easily beneath his weight. He leaps inside, the soft carpet lining the floor absorbing the impact of his landing.

A voice rises out of the darkness, fearful and trembling. "Who - who are you? What are you doing here?"

Zuko turns around slowly, midway through wiping rainwater off his clothing. He blinks at the candle flickering brightly in his eyes, its light nearly blinding him to the gaunt young woman cowering behind it.

Lu Ten's widow, the unfortunate princess consort.

He takes a step closer, watching the colour recede from her face as she stares at him. Her mouth drops open, ready to shout for the guards.

Then he pinches at the candle. The flame fizzles out beneath his fingertips, leaving only darkness behind.

Chapter 55: the rift between the worlds

Chapter Text

disclaimer. what a world it would be if it belonged to me!

author's notes. fasten your seatbelts folks, this one's a ride and a half.

the next chapter is almost ready too, as an extra special thank you for the indescribable patience you've all shown in making it this far in. so keep an eye out for that within the the week or so.

without further ado, i give you...

southern lights

chapter lv. the rift between the worlds

i walked down to a river and sat in reflection of what had to be done
an offering of crimson flowed into the water below
a wound of spirit from which it floated and faded away

"in the shadow of our pale companion" / agalloch

The chains clank loudly against the heavy cuffs, looped around her blistered wrists. It echoes dully in the confines of the brig, awkwardly punctuating the apoplectic stares of the dozen odd Northern chieftains shackled to the walls.

Katara meets none of them, instead intently studying the chains holding her in place. The thick metal links run from her hands to a ring embedded in the floor, and then along the periphery of the small room. If she had been able to waterbend, it would have been short work to break free. But without the moon, the Empire had made her a common prisoner.

"Well, if this isn't a sight for sore eyes." Hahn's mocking voice cuts across her thoughts, a grating yet familiar sound. "Katara of Sivusiktok, here in our midst."

Her gaze flicks upward, cool and contemptuous while his glitters with provocation. Slowly, insolently, she studies the shadows under his eyes. The haggard lines of his face visible under the uneven growth of a sad scruffy beard. The greasy black hair tumbling to his shoulders and over the heavy purple chieftain's mantle, now as grimy and dishevelled as he who wears it.

Hahn bristles at her unperturbed silence, visibly irritated that he could no longer goad a reaction out of her. "Or should that be Katara of nowhere?" he tries again, his eyes narrowing. "I distinctly remember exiling you, after all."

Katara shrugs nonchalantly. "Yup. I distinctly remember that too, Hahn." The chains jangle as she places her hands in her lap.

He grits his teeth in rising aggravation. "You dared return to the Northern tribe under pain of death?"

"Well, yeah." Katara raises her eyebrows. "The North is under new management now. Since you lost the siege and all." She smirks at Hahn, watching his face mottle up with fury. "They may still have you wearing that pretty cloak, but you're no chief, Hahn." Tilting her head in mock confusion, she raises her shackled hands to tap thoughtfully at her chin. "Or should that be Hahn, Chief of Nowhere?"

Someone snorts loudly, before Hahn directs a murderous glare at him. The offending chieftain falls silent immediately, averting his gaze.

"Brazenly foolish to the end, I see," Hahn hisses, leaning forward threateningly. "You'd better pray we never see the outside of this cell ever again. If we ever get out of this alive, the first thing I'm going to do is get rid of you."

"Sounds fun," Katara remarks airily. "I'd love to see you try."

"Don't be so arrogant, woman!" he snaps, spittle foaming at the corners of his mouth. "Without your bending, you're no threat to anyone at all."

She holds his gaze in open challenge. "That's just what you want me to think," she answers quietly. "But my bending isn't what makes me dangerous. You've forgotten that, and so has Admiral Chan."

Hahn's mouth drops wordlessly. For a moment, something like fear flickers through his pale eyes.

But then he manages to compose himself, his face contorting scornfully. "Is that so?" he sneers, his voice shaking with uncontained mirth. "Well then, how did someone as dangerous as you manage to end up stuck in a Fire Empire brig with the rest of us?"

"Because I made a deal with the Admiral," Katara replies. "Me for Princess Yue."

"Yue?" Hahn thunders, aghast. "Couldn't you have thrown yourself away for something more useful? A tract of land, a city, a port, anything? What did you need that woman for, she's barely alive as is!"

Katara glares at him, revulsion writhing her stomach into coils. "Because she's our only hope left," she says slowly, "and I believe in her."

Hahn rolls his eyes. "Absolutely ridiculous," he huffs, with a glance at his father chained next to him. "This is what happens when women do things. They get all sentimental and squander every advantage you can think of."

"Yue is our princess." To Katara's surprise, giant Chieftain Suluk straightens where he sits, occupying most of the far corner. He glowers darkly at Hahn, his voice rumbling like a small avalanche. "And your wife. How dare you dishonour her thus? You should be thanking Katara for setting her free. Not whingeing and grubbing about like an arctic hen pecking for scraps!"

Hahn scowls at the giant chieftain but then stops. Perhaps to consider the size of Suluk's hands - big enough to easily snap a man's neck in two. "I meant no dishonour," he answers in a voice of forced calm. "I only meant that Katara could have traded herself for anyone! Why Yue when she could have freed any of us?"

Suluk shakes his head. "Isn't it the duty of the strong to protect the weak?" he berates. "We are men - the band chiefs of the North. Why do you snivel at this woman's feet like a coward, Hahn? It is our responsibility to free ourselves, no other's."

"Responsibility." Katara latches on to the word with a frown. "What sort of responsibility can you expect from someone like him?" The chains around her wrists clank loudly as she points accusingly at Hahn. "You say I made a bad deal? What about the one you all made with Ozai, when you threw my tribe to the wolves so that the Empire could spare you? How did that work out for you?" She gestures at the brig, the bars lining the locked door. "Responsibility is the last thing I expect from hypocrites like you. When we get out of here, I'll be glad to see the back of this place!" Her breathing grows harsh as she raises her chin haughtily. "It's an honour to have been exiled from here."

A stunned silence fills the cell, as the band chiefs glance uncertainly at each other. Hahn's mouth works wordlessly, as he struggles to find something, anything to say without losing face.

But Chieftain Atanek finds his voice first, his gravelly voice unusually hoarse. "So you do have a plan to get out of here."

Katara sighs, slumping back against the wall. "Yes. But it won't be easy." She glances up above her, at the tiny porthole window high above her head. "It might not even work at all."

"Or it might be our only chance for freedom," Atanek prompts, exchanging a sidelong glance with Suluk. "What did you have in mind?"

"Well…" Katara trails off, staring at the inky darkness of the star-studded sky with the last shreds of her hope. "It's out of our hands now. All we can do is wait for the right moment...if it even happens."

Suluk coughs disbelievingly. "And when would that be, exactly?"

"Trust me." Katara says grimly. Her lips press together in a firm line. "When you see it, you'll know."

The sun hangs low against the horizon, a dim orange ball of light glowing barely strong enough to drown out the stars in the lower sky. A breeze sweeps along the tall grass freed from the summertime melt, growing lush and green now that there were no waterbenders to maintain the thick layers of snow that usually blanketed the plains surrounding Aujuittuq.

In spite of its mildness, Yue still shivers. Clutching at the heavy furs wrapped tight around her, once enough to keep her warm through the winter, but somehow no longer enough to ward off the damp nighttime chill. Her entire body quivers, her thoughts sluggish as though consumed in the jaws of a raging fever. Sweat beads along her clammy skin, her long white hair sticking insistently to her forehead.

She gasps, barely aware of the anxious bustling unfolding around her. Air Nomads and firebenders pair off atop groaning sky bison, Water Tribe men and women daub grey and white paint onto their faces. In a corner of the open field, Toph and Aang huddle in a grim silence, perhaps considering everything they had lost so far. And everything they had yet to lose.

Her eyes linger upon Sokka, aimlessly swinging his boomerang around, cutting a vehement path through the empty air in front of him. A brief moment of clarity settles over her, just as his hand clutches at the handle of the fine sword strapped to his back.

Then Jukka calls him and he leaps to answer, stashing his hand into his belt. She follows his retreat in a daze, before the empty black void hanging in the sky calls to her.

She stares at it blankly, the blank space where the moon had been torn from the world. It fills her mind with the weight of its absence, a crushing weight heavy in her chest, threatening to choke the life from her.

Soon, she whispers to it, a soothing promise amid the silent chaos steadily unfolding around her. Just a little longer.

Time barely seems to pass as their group dwindles in size. The roar of sky bison taking flight, one by one, disappearing into the night sky until they become tiny, indistinguishable specks flitting among the clouds. Small groups of warriors, Water Tribesmen paired off with the women, with the odd firebender stationed among them, sneaking off into one of the many tunnels branching from their hideaway, toward the myriad settlements studding the occupied tribe. All taking pains to remain out of sight of the occupying Fire Navy forces, strangers to a melting land, where the ice and snow could no longer shelter them.

"My friends!" General Iroh calls out to the small group of them remaining, finding his voice as the anxious bustle grows to a standstill. "Tonight is the night we have planned for so long. The last moondark of this strange summer...or so it would have been, if not for the murder of its spirit."

"You know your roles in this," Master Pakku adds, staring sternly at the determined faces of everyone gathered before him. "The board is set, its pieces already moving. The plan is in motion. It now falls to us to play our parts with courage."

A faint cry of approval rises up by the front of the small crowd. Yue manages to smile at the sight of Woka and the other Northern girls, raising their fists and barely recognizable with the war paint still dripping fresh along their faces. Only the cut of their clothing gives them away.

"This is our chance. Our very last chance," Master Pakku enunciates carefully, his pale blue eyes narrowing intently. "By this time tomorrow, we will be free...or we will have fallen in the effort." His jaw tightens, a muscle straining visibly in his neck. "Either way, history will remember that we did not give up without a fight."

A chill runs up Yue's spine as a ragged cheer rouses around the remnants of their small group. Even though only a small number of them was left, and they were afraid to draw attention to their location from the Fire Navy patrols hawking the shoreline, she can still sense the anticipation thrumming through everyone present. It winds through the air, drawing it tight like a bowstring, held and quivering at the ready, waiting for the moment of release.

She closes her eyes, feeling it flow through her. It is time, something whispers in her ear, a benevolent voice drawing her out of herself with a force as insistent as gravity. It is time for you to come home.

Around her, the rest of the encampment dissolves into a flurry of organized chaos. Water Tribe warriors arm themselves with grim efficiency, the remaining firebenders strap on their helmets in tight-lipped silence. In their corner apart from the rest, Toph and Aang grip each other by the forearm, their fingers shaking and their faces drawn pale white in the dying light of the midnight sun.

Sokka is already gone, eager to play his part in the events to come. Perhaps it was better that way, she thinks to herself dispassionately. If he had been there, if he stayed with her until the end, then maybe she would falter, lose the strength to do what needed to be done.

"It is time." This time, the voice speaks aloud, rather than disembodied within her mind. Yue turns to find herself facing her father, his eyes already glimmering with the dread of another loss.

She nods, her throat choking up. What could she tell him that he didn't already know? And what more could she do against the inevitable? "I'm sorry, Father," she whispers, her vision blurring with unshed tears.

Arnook shakes his head vehemently, placing a tender hand along her cheek. "You have nothing to apologize for," he tells her fiercely. "You are my beautiful, selfless daughter, and you are as wise, as brave as your mother." He chokes, momentarily lost for words before steeling himself to composure again. "If only I had known how little time we had together...if only I could have done right by you, as you deserved."

Something inside her breaks. She leaps forward, throwing her arms around him, holding him with what little strength she had left. It was too much to say goodbye.

But his body still trembles with unspoken grief, his halting whispers almost inaudible against her hair. "No matter what happens, I will always be honoured to have called myself your father."

A rotating beacon of light illuminates the muddy terrain in rhythmic intervals, the bright golden strip nearly illuminating the tips of their boots before sweeping back across the empty stretch of land surrounding the fortifications of Aujuittuq.

Where once a sea of glittering ice buildings had towered, now lies a sprawl of rubble and slush, melting into the rising sea. Even the endless rolling planes of tundra that had once enveloped the city on all sides have finally started to recede, the unusual warmth of late summer shrinking the mounds of packed snow to dirty patches studding an expanse of damp green scrub.

Sokka blows his hair out of his face, waiting impatiently. The clamour of Fire Navy soldiers manning the fortifications echoes in the distance. Whirring, clanking machinery collides with the booming voices and harsh laughter ringing out from under metal faceplates. Somewhere beyond the makeshift parapets, he can faintly see the blocks of shabby lean-tos where the rest of the prisoners were kept.

"Are you still sure this is going to work?" Jukka asks, jamming his sling into his sealskin belt. "Sounds like an insane plan to me."

"Believe me, it's not that insane," Sokka tells him, instinctively shuddering at the memory of his venture under Lake Laogai. Jun's waxy face rises up in the back of his mind, a persistent, haunting reminder of arrogance and failure. "I've faced slimmer odds and I'm still here."

"You've got a point there, buddy." Jukka weighs the pouch tied to his belt, feeling the heft of all the slingstones tucked within. "We all thought you were a goner." His shoulders slump. "Except Katara."

Sokka's breath catches in his throat.

"She really gave Hahn a piece of her mind when he suggested you'd died." Jukka lets out a short chuckle. "Threw him across the room and into a table!"

"Did she?" Sokka grins impishly at the thought. "Good for her. I always hoped she'd make something of herself."

"Yeah well, that mental image keeps me going these days," Jukka declares, an unusual vehemence entering his voice. "Even though the Fire Navy invaded our home and made us break our backs working for them…at least I didn't get my butt kicked in front of the whole tribe on the day I married the princess!"

The smile fades from Sokka's face. Furtively, he glances back at the body of water stretching out behind them, separating the mainland from the lonely spires of the rocky island that was the territory of Tomken. At its heart lies the spirit oasis, ringed by high cliffs directly underneath the polar star. All compasses pointed north, to that spot, where the concentration of spiritual energy was the highest in the land.

And somewhere inside it, a small group of strangers - most of whom weren't even Water Tribe, and counted Iroh of the Fire Empire among their company - were already trying to slip past Admiral Chan's defenses unnoticed.

All for a chance to get Yue in a place to seek out the spirits...and find a way to somehow restore the moon.

"Maybe you're right," Sokka sighs dully. "This plan is insane."

"Yeah," Jukka agrees, cracking his knuckles loudly one by one. "But it's the only plan we've got, besides giving up."

Sokka gives him a wry smirk. "Well, we're already a bunch of losers anyway. How much worse could it get?"

But Jukka grimaces. "Let's hope we don't have to find out."

"Are you sure this is going to work, Twinkletoes?" Toph gripes from where she crouches behind Appa's head. "For someone trying to sneak past an angry firebender fleet, you're being awfully loud."

Aang grits his teeth in frustration, trying to remain focused on his airbending kata. "Sorry!" he retorts, sweat beading along his forehead. "But this is actually really hard without a waterbender." He tries not to sigh, because what good would that do? "I wish Katara was here. She made cloudbending look like a breeze."

Toph snorts, leaning over the edge of Appa's saddle. "Well, try not to breeze us out of the air, will you? This is no time for a swim."

A far distance below, the turbulent waters of Adlartok Bay gnash like a living thing, its white-capped waves snapping at them like foaming teeth. Aang winces at the thought of falling into those cold dark depths.

Through the swirling mass of cloud that conceals them, he manages to see the silhouettes of black ships, a long unbroken line following the curve of the shore. The creak of machinery and the groaning of their metal bolts all fill the night air. They bob fitfully on the water's frothing surface - only the skill of their crews keeps the vessels from accidentally plowing into each other. Long-distance weapons bolted to their decks glint dully with firelight, cannons and catapults pointing straight into the sky.

Aang gulps and closes his eyes. His hands push harder at the air currents, buffeting the curls of cloud enshrouding Appa's bulky form and dragging it along with them as they fly over the bay. Hopefully, the unfortunate sailors would only see a single, fast-moving cloud in the poor light of the midnight sun.

"Apparently Admiral Chan has been busy," remarks Master Pakku, one among the small party crammed onto Appa's back. Disdain drips from his voice. "It takes a strong will to place so many ships against the unfettered wrath of the sea."

"Fire is the element of power," General Iroh declares, leaning over the saddle's edge to take a closer look. "Although those poor sailors already have their hands full keeping their ships afloat. I sincerely hope Gyatso and the others don't go too hard on them."

"Mm." Pakku makes a noncommittal sound. "We would never dare sail such turbulent waters without a waterbender on board. Do you know what we in the Water Tribes call a man foolish enough to try?"

In the corner of his eye, Aang spots Iroh shaking his head mutely in confusion.

"Dead," Pakku intones, his lip curling mirthlessly. "A dead man, Iroh." He stares unblinkingly into the boiling surf raging below them, his teeth baring into a grimace. "They're all dead men, they just don't know it yet. The ocean has already claimed them for himself."

"The ocean claims everything in the end." Aang barely recognizes Princess Yue's voice, so soft and listless that it barely carries over the wind. "And he's angry. So very angry."

Aang can't help the chill that crawls along his flesh. He tries not to look at the water.

"I can feel it," Yue breathes, slumping against Master Pakku's shoulder. "Right here." She places a gentle hand to her temple in emphasis. "We're getting close."

Aang grunts, twisting another gust of wind around them. The thick fluffy cloud follows them almost reluctantly. "There! Up ahead!"

His heart leaps at the sight of the small, craggy island, drawing ever nearer with every flap of Appa's flat tail. Its cliffs tower high into the sky, the rock faces gouged and cracked under the weight of all the ice that for eternities had hidden it from view. Mounds of green stud its surface, the occasional scrubby plant springing from the harsh terrain.

And directly over the heart of the island, gleams the northern star. The bearing for all lost souls.

Appa grumbles loudly, descending lower as the island of Tomken draws within reach.

"C'mon buddy," Aang cajoles, his arms aching from the effort of maintaining their cloud cover. "We're almost there! Just a little further -"

He doesn't get to finish his sentence.

The world suddenly turns red with blinding angry light. A deafening roar, the swoosh of impending fire rushing headlong toward them.

Aang grabs blindly at one of Appa's reins. Everything lurches sideways.

Something crashes against one of the scythelike rocks jutting out from the base of the island. Gasping for breath in panic as it crumbles under the impact, falling into the waiting jaws of the sea.

"Oh monkeyfeathers," Aang curses, winding his hands tighter into the reins. "We've got company!"

On the lee of the island, previously concealed by its stony bulk but now emerging horribly into view, more of Admiral Chan's ships lie in wait. Aang's mouth goes dry at the sight of them bobbing atop the undulating surface of the water, anchored far out from the shore, but still close enough for their mounted smoking cannons to pose a threat.

But, with a sudden sick feeling in his gut, Aang understands that the cannons would be the least of their problems.

For bolted to the deck of each massive, flat ship, a horribly familiar machine strains at the chains holding it in place.

"You've got to be kidding me," Toph swears, her fingers flexing instinctively. Aang wonders briefly how her seismic sense could perceive the dozen or so airships, battered and clunky but somehow restored to airworthiness nonetheless. "How many times do we have to wreck these metal monsters before they stay down?"

"As many times as it takes," Aang answers weakly.

With an ear-splitting blast, another cannonball hurtles toward them, a streak of glaring fire slicing effortlessly through the distance.

"Hang on!" he yells, yanking at the reins. Appa swerves out of the way, spiralling through the volley of incoming fire. The sound of screaming shreds his awareness as they climb back into the sky.

But then with a drone of engines sputtering to life and the clink of falling chains, the remnants of Zhao's airfleet takes flight. Despair freezes Aang's breath in his throat as they slowly rise, the deafening roar of their engines growing louder with every second.

"This is madness!" Iroh shouts from Appa's back. "We cannot hope to defend against all of them!"

Toph growls, clinging to the edge of the saddle. "We don't have to. Twinkletoes, get us close."

Aang gulps as the elongated balloons float into an arrowhead formation, bearing down on them with alarming speed. "I don't think that'll be a problem," he manages weakly.

Still, his grip on the reins tightens. He digs his knees into the sides of Appa's head. Below him, Appa lets out a roar of assent, before bounding forward.

The leading airship flies straight toward them, blotting out all the stars in the sky. Still, Appa holds course, meeting its trajectory head on.

"Anytime now would be great," Aang urges through clenched teeth, his heartbeat skyrocketing as the lower decks fill to the brim with Fire Navy soldiers, moving, leaping, punching forward as one. "Hey, Toph -!"

She jumps to her feet, teeth bared in a snarl. Her hands tear through the air in a crumpling motion.

With an almighty grinding sound, one of its protruding fins rips down the seam. The ship immediately buckles to one side, dragged out of the air by the shorn fin, dangling precariously by a thin piece of metal.

Aang winces as the soldiers fall from the ship like red rain, their screams littering the air. Then a cacophony of sickening crunches and then, worst of all, no screams at all.

"Take note, Grandpa!" Toph declares, wiping her palms against her sleeves. "The best defense is a good offense!" She shakes a fist at the remaining airships hovering in the air. "Anyone else want to go for a swim?"

But, to Aang's growing amazement, the ships all abruptly change course. His jaw drops as they turn in unison, pointedly giving them a wide berth. Instead, the airfleet veers windward, to join the rest of the ships carefully guarding the mainland.

"Toph," he croaks when he finally finds his voice again, "you're a mad genius, have I ever told you that?"

She cocks her head smugly, her cheeks flushed with exhilaration. "You could stand to mention it a little more."

"That'll liven things up for Gyatso and the others," Master Pakku comments wryly, glancing sidelong at Iroh with a smirk. "I know you were worried that the naval fleet alone wouldn't give them enough of a fight."

"Careful!" Sokka hisses, yanking at the back of Jukka's collar to stop him from leaping out of the tunnel. He drops down to a crouch, snapping the trap-door roughly back open a sliver. "Freaky firebending dudes, incoming!"

As though to emphasize his point, a pair of Fire Navy soldiers march past, their mud-scuffed boots level with Sokka's eyes. He holds his breath, lowering himself quietly back into the dirt tunnel, so cramped that it was impossible to stand or walk upright. With a flash of annoyance, Sokka wonders whether a child had been responsible for digging all the tunnels in and out of Aujuittuq, or if he was the only one frustrated with crawling blindly through the narrow passages.

Jukka sprawls by his feet, exhaling loudly with relief. "That was too close for comfort."

"You're telling me," Sokka sighs, before sliding the door open further. He peers through the crack, eyes straining in the darkness. "Okay, I think we're clear. Come on, quick -"

He vaults out of the subterranean tunnel, landing with a squelch on solid, but soggy ground. Jukka follows immediately after him, barely rustling the scrubby grass.

They make for the nearest of the block of lean-to shelters jutting out from the remains of Aujuittuq's felled walls. Like two shadows in the night, they weave through the soft greenery lining the open plains like a thick spongy carpet.

"When this is all over," Jukka grumbles, shoving his hands into his pockets in a foul mood, "I hope I can at least swing a date with a decent-looking girl." He withdraws his slingshot from his belt, snapping at it vehemently. "Gramps kept trying to set me up with Bunik, but I don't know if she technically qualifies as a girl with that moustache of hers, you know?"

Sokka tilts his head, trying to remember. "Wasn't she a chieftain's daughter or something? You could do worse."

"Yeah." Jukka's face wrinkles with distaste. "Well, until Chieftain Mallik got kicked off the band of chiefs too."

"Ah." Sokka nods sagely. He tries not to stagger at how much everything had changed since he had left. Instead, he settles for nudging Jukka in the ribs. "Well, you don't have to worry about Bunik, since she could probably do way better than you anyway."

Jukka punches him in the upper arm. "Jerk."

Sokka grins at him teasingly. "Yeah, I'm sure you missed me too." With a wince, he rubs at the sore spot on his arm. "You didn't have to hit so hard, though."

"Yeah, well neither did you," Jukka grouses, even as his mouth curls into a smirk. "It is good to have you back, though. Now...where the hell are we?"

Keenly aware of the Fire Navy soldiers milling about like buzzflies in a swamp, Sokka points at the closest shelter, a shoddy structure cobbled together from uneven lengths of driftwood and held together by little more than ropes and knots.

"That thing looks like it's going to fall apart any second," he remarks.

Jukka grimaces at the sight of it, creaking and swaying in the wind. "Damn," he swears. "That's some seriously shoddy craftsmanship."

"Or that's where the jerkbenders keep their unruliest citizens," Sokka points out darkly. Unconsciously, his hand travels to his side, where the memory of fire against his flesh still burns. "Maybe we should go say hello."

He sprints off before Jukka could protest.

"Fine," Jukka huffs, keeping pace with him. "But if you get yourself toasted, I'm taking your boomerang."

Sokka lets out a snort. "As if you could ever pry it from my cold, dead hands." He slows to a stop in front of the small shelter with a frown. "Hey, wait a second. Isn't that -"

"Sangilak?" Jukka gasps, staggering into the shabby structure. "Sangilak, is that you?"

The slanted roof creaks loudly, the wind whistling through the cracks in the wood. The frame of the shelter had been set in place, but there were no walls to guard from the elements. Only some lengths of worn, weatherproofed hide, perhaps salvaged from a sail or an old tent, flapping in the brisk night air.

The space within was just as austere, barely more than a patch of scrubby ground with some blankets thrown over top. A small firepit lay propped against the wreckage of the old wall, its coals still warm with a dull red glow. Huddled immediately next to it are two sleeping Water Tribesmen, one shockingly large and enveloping the other, a small dark slip of a man.

Metal clinks loudly as the giant man stirs and sits up slowly. He blinks slowly, eyes widening in shock at the newcomers.

"Bastard?" Sangilak rumbles, scratching at the shaven half of his head, now overgrown and thick with small curls. "Bastard, is that really you?"

"Spirits," Jukka swears in shock, taking in the angry red welts scoring the man's face and shoulder. "Sangilak, what did they do to you?"

But Sangilak only shakes his head, scratching at his manacled wrists. "Can't be Bastard, must be a dream," he mutters, shifting closer to the dying coals. His feverish eyes flit from Sokka to Jukka and then back again. "That looks like Sokka, but he's dead, everyone knows that…"

"Hate to break it to you," Sokka interjects, taking a deliberate step forward. "But I'm very much not dead."

"Hm," Sangilak grunts suspiciously. "Sounds like something a dead man would say. This must be a dream where you two come to save me."

"Really?" Sokka asks baldly. "Why in the spirits' name would you dream of us coming to save you?"

Sangilak's eyes narrow. "So this isn't a dream."

"Nope." Sokka shakes his head. "This is the real deal, Sangilak, so thank your lucky stars we found you." He scowls at the heavy chains looped through the big man's manacles. "Do they always have you chained up like this?"

"Pretty much," Sangilak agrees. He shifts, sitting up straight, and Sokka tries not to wince at the half-healed burns visible through the rips in his torn tunic. "They didn't bother at first, but too many of us ran away. So…" He shakes his wrists, the manacles jangling with a dull clank.

"I assume you could've run away too," Jukka asks, unusually delicately. "Why didn't you?"

But Sangilak shrugs noncommittally, jabbing a thumb at the other sleeping Water Tribesman. Even though he was curled into a small ball at the edge of the blankets and Sokka hadn't seen him in many years, he still recognizes Imnek with a sudden sinking feeling.

"He barely survived the siege," Sangilak explains tersely. "I couldn't leave him."

"Imnek…" Jukka whispers, his face turning linen-white. "He's alive?"

"Barely," Sangilak croaks. "He needs a healer. Spirits, if we hadn't lost the moon, he could've healed himself! He's hopeless as a warrior, but he always had a talent for healing." He shakes his head vehemently. "But those Fire Navy bastards make him work with us from dawn till dusk."

"Spirits," Jukka breathes, covering his mouth. "That's... that's…"

"Some days he collapses from the pain," Sangilak continues bluntly, his nails digging into his palms. "I think those days are the kindest to him." He glances at Imnek's slumbering form, his eyes unusually soft. "Wherever his dreams take him, I hope it's far away from the pain."

Sokka suddenly finds it difficult to breathe, face-to-face with the Empire's cruelty after many long years. He exchanges an uncomfortable glance with Jukka, weighing his chances.

"Listen," he says at last, "Sangilak, I hate to do this, but we need you to do us a favour."

Sangilak stares at him blankly. "What kind of favour?"

"We need you to help spread word," Sokka tells him urgently. "To anyone and everyone who's been ground down by this occupation, who lost their bending and their freedom -"

"Spread word of what?" Sangilak demands.

"Our last gambit for freedom," Sokka replies, raising his hands defensively. "Hear me out. Even as we speak, Princess Yue is bringing the moon back." Something in his chest hurts at the thought of her, but he pushes it aside, because what did it matter anymore? "Now, once she does that -"

"The Princess is bringing back the moon?" Sangilak echoes disbelievingly. "How?"

Sokka flounders. "Um. That's a really great question," he acknowledges feebly. "One that I wish I had the answer to. But! That's strictly, uh, need-to-know information. And all you need to know is that...she's bringing it back."

He tries not to quail under the big man's quizzical stare.

"Anyway, if it works - when it works," he corrects, face flaming red as he stutters awkwardly, "then we all have to be ready."

"Ready for what?" Sangilak asks blankly. "To fight?"

"Well - yes," Sokka replies. "But, learning from our earthbender friends, we need to wait for the right moment to strike -"

"What do you mean by the right moment?" Sangilak scratches at his head. "The right moment is when the moon comes back, isn't it?"

"Well...not exactly -"

"Well, it should be!" Sangilak crosses his arms stubbornly. "Once the moon is back, we have to act quickly. Before the firebenders notice its return."

"That's technically all true," Sokka points out, holding up a tentative finger. "But you probably haven't been keeping track." He pauses, remembering the elation swooping through his gut when he had discovered it, purely by accident an eternity ago. During an unexpected encounter with a singularly unpleasant and belligerent Fire Navy commander, somewhere in the bizarre, otherworldly ruins that lay in the heart of the Si Wong desert. "It's supposed to be the dark of the moon now. The last one before the season ends."

Sangilak's face scrunches up with confusion. "Moondark? But that means -"

"That means we can afford to wait just a little bit longer," Sokka explains hurriedly. "We can afford to wait for an even better moment to strike. One where we can shift the balance even more in our favour! Where we have all the advantages, and the Fire Empire will be powerless." He grins at Sangilak's skeptical face. "That's the moment I'm talking about."

But Sangilak only snorts. "Sounds like you'll be waiting for a miracle," he scoffs.

"Just about," Sokka agrees, his grin widening. "Luckily, we seem to have one in the works."

Sangilak glances at Jukka, scratching his chin. "He's even more confusing than I remember," he complains.

"I'm telling you, buddy. Spread the word." Sokka punches at an open palm in earnest. "Make sure you're all ready. By midday tomorrow, the right moment will show itself to you."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that," Sokka agrees, turning away. "Oh, and when it does...please don't waste time."

"Hang on! Looks like a bumpy landing!"

Yue gasps as turbulence rocks the world. Appa dives out of the sky to plummet earthward. The rush of falling water fills her ears; in a daze, she stares at the slender waterfall gushing down the length of the high cliffs surrounding the spirit oasis. It lies far below them, a glittering green jewel amid the endless rocky crags of Tomken.

"Oh, come on -" Aang curses loudly, tugging on the reins again.

The force of Appa's swerve slams her back against the saddle's edge. A plume of fire singes the air, so close that its heat scalds her skin.

"Zhao must have ordered that the oasis remain protected," she hears the General say. "That's a measure of foresight I wouldn't have credited him with before."

"Stay close to the water," Pakku advises grimly, his eyes roving along the oasis, studying their enemies' positions in a swift glance. "We are outnumbered, but not by much."

The world spins dizzyingly as the bison barrels through the air. Bright flames blast into the cliff face behind them. Rock crumbles away into the air, falling with the cascade of water into the stream pooling around the oasis.

Everything around her turns to water, drenching them, drowning out all sight and sound. For a moment, it fills her nostrils and she chokes for breath, fearing that they would all drown.

In the end, I claim them all.

She blinks deliriously at the unfamiliar voice resonating through her ears. Deafening through the water and darkness and cold silence.

Then they burst out of the stream. Appa's paws graze the leafy treetops with his descent. They fly so close to the ground that she can see the koi pond, illuminated briefly in bouts of exploding fire.

Toph thrusts her hands forward. The ground writhes like an angry thing. Yue clamps her ears against the sounds of men yelling in fear, the grinding of living earth.

Fire rushes toward them. General Iroh lunges to his feet, swatting it away with a sweep of his hands.

With another groan, the sky bison lands heavily on the ground. Yue's bones rattle with the force of the impact.

She slumps against the saddle, barely registering the circle of firebenders staggering to their feet, closing in around them. The grim murmurs of her companions, the bison's low growls. The only thing that feels real to her is the void in the sky and the lifeless koi pond, both calling out for her to join them.

Longing to join them with a tug in her spirit, she totters to her feet. But a hand on her wrist stops her.

"Where do you think you're going?" Master Pakku demands, his voice very close to her ear.

The world sways. "The koi pond," she mumbles, pointing weakly.

Pakku is silent for a moment. "Iroh, go with her. You can protect her from the firebenders. The rest of us will hold them off, as best we can."

Everyone nods their assent with grim determination.

"Go!" Pakku commands.

As one, he, Toph and Aang all leap off the sky bison's back, charging toward the gathered firebenders, drawing them further away from the pond.

"Quickly," says General Iroh, his hand closing around her wrist. "This way."

Her feet have barely found the grass before someone in the distance lets out a roar.

Bright yellow fire rushes toward her, its heat threatening to singe the hairs on the back of her neck. She ducks, and her legs threaten to buckle.

Hands clamp down upon her shoulders, startling her out of her daze.

"Come on." General Iroh's voice loud in her ear. He tugs at her, bracing her limp weight easily.

It isn't under her knees give out that she finds herself at the water's edge once again. Where she had begged the spirits for help the night of the invasion. Where it had all started, with the murder of the moon spirit's mortal body.

And where it had to end.

"Agni's fire," General Iroh curses, his voice hushed in horror. "What happened here?"

Where the koi pond had once flowed clear and bright, now it is tainted cloudy black and motionless. As though it too had died. The plants lining its shallows lie choked and dying, and a horrible smell hangs thick in the air. The foul stench of death, decay, the rotting body of a large white koi fish, half-charred and tangled amid the pond slime.

She wrinkles her nose, the enormity of it settling upon her. The stars overhead carry their silent vigil of their fallen companion, and she swears she hears the rip in the world, screaming in pain as the moon had bled.

"Death," she whispers, her fingers settling upon her aching temples. "Death happened here."

Iroh grunts softly, kneeling to sit next to her. "How do we fix it? What do we do now?"

"Do?" Yue stammers, her eyes roving helplessly at the scene before her. The pond slides in and out of focus, lit by the occasional flash of fire. Distant screams trail across the air.

She stares desperately at the moon spirit's corpse, willing its guiding voice to speak to her again. But it remains as silent as its mangled remains bobbing lifelessly in the pond.

A wail escapes her, nails dig into her skin. "I don't know," she hisses frantically, shaking her head. "She - she said I would know what to do next, only I don't!"

She hears the slow rumble of Iroh's breath before he speaks again, softly. "Be calm."

"I can't!" she cries, tears welling fresh in her eyes. They blur out the dead koi fish and the black pond and the rest of the oasis, until nothing but darkness remains. "I'm just a weak little girl, and I'm so scared and - and now I've put everyone in danger -"

"Yue," Iroh cuts through her panic, his hand settling on her back with a warm, reassuring weight. "Breathe."

She chokes, the air stilling in her lungs for a moment before she can even remember how.

"In," he prompts gently.

Inhale. So many smells cloying in her nostrils, wet grass and mud and smoke and dead rotting fish all rolled into one.

"And out."

Exhale. The rush of her breath forced out through tightly clenched teeth.

"Good. And again."

Latching onto the lull of his voice, willing the rhythmic swell of her breathing to match.

"Just like that. Let your mind be free."

Fighting the helpless laugh welling inside of her, because letting her mind roam free was to revisit the dangerous thoughts that had drawn her here in the first place. The entire tribe fallen, firebenders steadily crushing whatever was left of their resistance, the moon spirit dead in the water -

Not dead, a different voice whispers inside her mind with the sudden glow of new purpose. Transcended.

Her gaze lands on the mangled remains of the burnt white fish, tangled in the reeds choking the edge of the pond. At the flash of pure white scales peeking out from underneath the ridges of seared, decomposing flesh.

She isn't sure what compels her to reach out. But when her fingers close around the soft, squishy corpse, something thrums throughout her entire body. Something that had lain dormant, biding its time patiently until now -

It awakens.

"What -" she gasps, clutching at the dead thing so tightly that its sharp bones prick her skin. "What's happening to me?"

Next to her, Iroh says something, his voice in her ears rising urgently. But she doesn't hear him at all. She doesn't hear anything except the roar rising in her blood. Resonant, vibrating, alive.

Her eyes find the water, polluted so black that it conceals the remaining koi fish still fluttering in its depths. Alone, grieving the loss of its eternal mate.

But she senses the enormity of his presence, with a clarity she had never felt before until that moment. Watching slack-jawed, her eyelids drooping lower and lower as the black koi breaches the shallows, swimming out to meet her.

A hand grabs her by the forearm, but she barely notices it. In the water, the ocean spirit opens his mouth, pinning her with the raw weight of his power, blinding her to everything else that moves.

She wavers, swaying unsteadily before hurtling off the precipice. The world around them vanishes, turning to pure white light.

Iroh blinks in confusion, gaping as everything settles around him. Where am I? The last thing he remembers is the young Water Tribe princess in failing health, collapsing before the edge of the water. Grabbing her by the arm before she fell in.

And then he was falling through emptiness. For a moment? An age? He isn't sure.

Someone groans next to him. He snaps around, momentarily dazzled by the bright white light drowning everything from his sight.

"What...what happened?" murmurs Princess Yue, her voice soft in his ear.

The light steadily fades, until he can perceive her hunched over by his side, leaning heavily on his arm. Her eyes and hair still glow faintly, as though lit from within.

Iroh chooses his next words carefully. "You mean you don't remember?"

She shakes her head gingerly, a hand resting upon her forehead. "I feel...strange…" she mumbles thickly. "What happened? Where is everyone?"

Swallowing nervously, he glances around him slowly, taking in what he could of their surroundings. "I don't mean to alarm you, Princess," he says gently, "but we are no longer in the spirit oasis."

Her eyes widen, the blue in them all but swallowed by that unearthly white glow. "We're not? Then where are we?"

The gentle air currents tease at his skin, still mild and tasting of smoke and water and decay. But the small pond with the polluted water and the spirit koi is gone. There are no trees, no high cliffs or raging waterfall spanning the distance from the summit. No firebenders, no sky bison, no Toph or Aang or another living soul except for the two of them.

"I think," Iroh breathes hoarsely, his blood flooding with sudden chills, "I think we're in the spirit world."

Her answering gasp of panic is nearly swallowed by the wind, now whipping to a howl against the peak of the mountain upon which the two of them now stand. In the distance lies an unfamiliar land, lush and dark and rich with colours he had never imagined. The sky is tinged red, otherworldly creatures with bright plumage wing along the tops of the strangely shaped trees. The entire place hums with an ancient, formidable power.

And between them yawns a canyon, a sprawling emptiness that would make the Great Divide look like just another crevice. The sheer size of it sends his mouth dropping open in awe.

For this was no ordinary gorge at all, no mere rent in the earth. This was the spot where, if the tales spoke true, the fabric of the physical and spirit worlds had touched in forgotten ages past. Where the great bridge between the worlds had stood, spanning the short distance separating them. But with the loss of the last Avatar, it too had fallen, and the two realms had torn asunder. Now it lay somewhere in the abyss, lost forever. And so both worlds lay divided, so close they could almost touch, but never did.

Or so the legends had said.

The rift between the worlds, they named it. And it stretched out before them, a bottomless expanse of darkness, separating them from the world of the spirits, where they needed to go.

Iroh stares into the swirling black depths. His insides shrivel with instinctive fear. "Do you know," he croaks weakly, his grip on the princess's arm tightening unconsciously, "they say those who fall into the rift, fall forever. I never believed it." He swallows again, quailing before the massive fissure. "Until now."

But before he can say anything more, Yue throws back her head. "I call upon the great spirits who brought us here!" she calls, her voice deeper and more resonant than ever before. "Come forth and show yourselves!"

The wind shrieks loudly in his ears, a wailing lament. It pushes against his back, threatening to drag him to the edge of the summit and topple him over. Send him hurtling down the side of the mountain and into the waiting jaws of the rift, hungry to swallow him.

But he steels himself, planting his stance as he had done a thousand times over. He had stared down living dragons, learned the secret of the eternal fire. The spirits were not for the weak of will; he would have to ensure that his own was unbreakable.

The air before his eyes shimmers and fades, a sound like electricity hissing throughout the empty spaces. He blinks, wondering if it was a trick of the light, before the world beneath his feet trembles.

Stumbling backward, tugging the princess back with him until he finds solid ground. The spot where they had stood crumbles away, the pieces of dry rock whistling as they fall into the rift, until only an ominous silence remains.

But when his gaze rises from his feet, his breath freezes in his throat. Agni's fire, he thinks numbly, the words springing to his lips but his voice utterly failing him.

Where there had been only emptiness stretching out before the mountain, now there appears...something else. Something as massive as the split between the fabric of the worlds, as dark as the void torn into the sky when the moon had been destroyed, as mighty and ill-tempered and ruthless as the seven seas.

It rises before them, dwarfing the very mountain atop which they stand. An unearthly sound fills his ears, the unsettling rasp of teeth against stone, of water carving the face of the world. A slow, steady, relentless power that nothing could withstand. Men perished in its clutches, fire drowned in its fury. Wind whipped its waves to greater heights, the earth itself shattered under its blows. Even light bowed to its vastness, unable to pierce its fathoms.

It hunches over and Iroh feels his blood curdle.

Water is the element of change, fire the element of power. The old adage flits through his mind, almost as though in mockery. For as he stares into the unbridled wrath of the ocean itself, its terrible face levelling with his own, he understands with jolts of primal fear coursing through his entire body just how ignorant the old sayings actually were.

No fire could save him from the impenetrable darkness towering before him. No dragons, no secret eternal flame, not even Sozin's Comet could withstand the force of the incoming tide. He could harness the sun itself and the sea would look upon it and laugh before claiming it all as its own.

Water, the element of absolution. He closes his eyes, wondering if it would be the last thought he would ever have. And fire, the element of arrogance.

"Arrogance indeed, son of fire." The monstrous abomination speaks. In its voice, Iroh can hear the gurgling horror of countless drowning sailors, their final screams before the tide engulfs them. "What power do you wield, that can save you from the deep dark of my wrath?"

Shivers wrack through his entire body, rattling his flesh, his blood, his bones. Iroh doesn't dare open his eyes, sensing the gaze of the awful presence considering him with the slow churning destruction of a maelstrom. His voice, squeezed through clenched teeth, is little more than a squeak. "None. Only humility." His legs buckle beneath him, sending him falling to the ground, prostrate before the ocean. "I surrender myself to you, great spirit of the sea."

His ears fill with the swell of rushing water, the crash of the tide against the rocky shore. The cold rock of the ground presses against his forehead.

"Humility," the ocean spirit sneers, its voice growing louder. "All your life, you have pretended at it, Iroh of the Fire Nation. But in the end, all fires bow to me. Arrogance and ambition. Hopes and dreams and fears. The weak and the strong, the old and the new, the pinnacle of civilization and all of its evils." It draws closer, a tsunami cresting to the full of its height. "In the end, I claim them all."

Iroh's teeth grind together, chattering despite himself.

"You dare venture forth to this place, to stare upon our shores and summon me from my resting place?" the spirit demands, hissing like foam rising from the depths of the boiling sea. "You and your kind, who destroyed the last bridge between our worlds, who have wiped our kind from the face of your realm. Why should I not smite you where you stand, human?"

Breathe. He wills himself to push past the fear, the quailing quiver of his own heart, and inhales deeply. The air drags in sharp bursts through his nostrils, tasting strongly of bracken and salt.

"There is no reason I can give you, great spirit," he whispers. "We came here, not for humble or selfless reasons, but to beg for your help."

"The moon spirit," Yue interjects, her voice stronger than his. "We came here to restore her. Part of her spirit lives in me; she guided me here."

"So it seems." The ocean spirit lets out a short laugh, dry and grating and full of scorn. "Yet you do not do this in good faith. You do not seek to raise my mate out of the generosity of your hearts, but to liberate yourselves. In intent and in deed, you are no better than those that killed her."

"Perhaps not," Iroh chokes out, summoning the last scrap of his courage. "But you will not find the men responsible for the death of your mate here, great spirit. You will find only us."

He flinches, bracing for the blow to follow. But the strike of the water that would snuff out his life does not fall.

"So, the proud and all-knowing Iroh of the self-styled Fire Empire wishes to plead his case?" the ocean spirit asks scathingly, the bubbling crash of its massive form swelling derisively. "Very well. I will hear what you have to say...and then I will claim you, and all you hold dear for your arrogance."

"So be it," Iroh rasps, his forehead pressing harder into the ground. "I know we have much to atone for. We squandered the age of the Avatar, we destroyed the great bridge between our worlds. We allowed everything to fall out of balance in a vain search for power. We cut out the heart of nature, we crushed the people who did not look like us. Under our watch, the world fell into such disarray that a man could murder the mortal body of the moon spirit without consequence." His fingers scrape against the dirt, gauging thin lines along its surface. "Perhaps an eternity of darkness, bereft of hope, is no more than we deserve for all that we have done."

He winces again, waiting for the ocean spirit's swift censure. But all he hears is the sound of his own breath, and the rhythmic swell of seawater, rising and crashing in a steady pulse.

"But despite all that...we bow before you," he continues, still not daring to lift his head and test the patience of the ocean. "We are not worthy of your mercy, but even in the darkest times, we will do anything to seek out the light. Even risk the wrath of the ocean." He swallows nervously, steeling himself against the brink of demise. "It is what makes us human, after all."

"There is still so much good left in us," Yue adds softly. Her hand finds his and squeezes it reassuringly. "Yes, the darkness brought out the worst in us. But it also brought out the best, too."

"Even when there was no hope left, we still fought to set things right," Iroh continues raggedly, steeling himself against the wrath of the sea. "We found the will to set our differences aside, to find the common threads between our people."

Unbidden, he thinks of the skirmish unfolding back in the spirit oasis. Toph and Aang, working together to protect them from enemy fire. Katara, walking empty-handed into the fire, throwing away her freedom to earn them a chance at finding the spirits. His own nephew, putting his life on the line and braving the horrors and torture Ozai had set in store for him, just to save his friends and let them fight another day. Four young teenagers, each so different, coming together to work in harmony and inspire a rag-tag coalition of fighters to taste victory, just before the moon went dark.

"We're still trying," he insists, finally straightening upright to stare into the face of the living ocean and the liquid fire of its glowing eyes, each nearly as big as himself when he stood at his full height. "We still believe. I still believe."

Hot water wells in his eyes as it all comes back to him, every choice and movement that had brought him to this spot to plead before the spirits. The rigid confines of his courtly upbringing, the ideals of his youth when he had founded the White Lotus with his friends. The crushing taste of ash in his mouth when Bumi had risen against him in revolt, the horror of facing the consequences of the polar wars. Katara's face, the spitting image of her mother's at her age, glaring at him accusingly, laying all his sins bare.

"I have been tested by the world at every turn," he breathes, staring desperately into the spirit's piercing gaze, willing it to see straight through to his beating heart. "I have lost everything."

His voice breaks off unsteadily as it flashes to the forefront of his mind, Lu Ten bloodied and dead on his own wedding bed. Leaving him behind to save himself, knowing that meant denying him a proper burial.

And Zuko, left to fend for himself until Katara dragged him to safety, lying paper-white and comatose in the ship's infirmary. Would he ever see his nephew again, or would their reunion be postponed to the afterlife, like that of his own beloved son?

"But still, I fight," he declares quietly. "I haven't lost faith. None of us have." His fingers rest in his lap, twisting violently at the fabric of his cloak. He stares unblinkingly into the merciless eyes of the ocean spirit, sees himself reflected in their churning depths. Small and powerless and completely alone. Just another insignificant life to be claimed by the sea, as they all were in the end.

"I beg you, great spirit. Do what you will with me. But we are not all the same, not in thought or in deed. So many of us have put our lives on the line, all for the fleeting hope of finding you and restoring your mate." He casts a sidelong glance at Yue, kneeling next to him, a blur of radiance burgeoning in the corner of his eye. "It may be for self-serving purposes, but what does that matter, so long as she is returned to you?" His throat suddenly closes up. But now was not the time to balk; to do so would be an insult to Zuko and Katara and everyone else who had sacrificed so much to bring them here.

He would see this through, even if he hated every word that spills from his mouth. "Now...now we kneel before you, and…the price of everything is the life of an innocent."

The rumble of the ocean swelling with the rising tide fills his ears.

"So we come to it at last. The ugly, unadorned truth," the great spirit hisses, coiling before him menacingly. "You kneel before me, on the brink of oblivion. And all that stands in your way is the sacrifice of one frail, innocent life."

Iroh hangs his head, the tears falling freely down his face. "Is there no other way -"

"No less will restore the spirit of my mate," the spirit cuts him off harshly. "It bound its essence to spare this young woman's life. To give it back, you must persuade this young woman to sacrifice herself, surrender to the fate that has awaited her since she was a child."

It laughs at him again, a cold hollow sound clanking like the wreckage of ships tumbling along the bottom of the ocean. "So, Iroh of the Fire Nation. What will you do now? Will you do whatever is necessary to save your world and restore balance? Will you willingly offer the life of one innocent princess in exchange?" Its voice turns mockingly soft as Iroh's eyes widen in horror. "Come now, it is not so high a price. All things considered, it is a generous bargain indeed. You are unlikely to come across a better one."

The sound of the waves grows frenzied and chaotic, louder and louder in his ears. Before him, the great spirit's mouth twists into a ghastly smile, widening to reveal blinding white teeth. Like the ravening of the ocean, they bare before him, longing to devour him, crush his body within their depths.

It takes all his strength to tear his gaze away from the mouth of the abyss grinning tauntingly at him. But he forces himself to look at Yue instead, gaunt, frail, and delirious, but still as lovely as she always had been. The profile of her face stares at the churning menace of the ocean spirit with grim determination; when she finally turns to meet him, he sees some of its fire blazing in her eyes.

She smiles at his haplessness, shaking her head softly. "Don't be afraid," she tells him gently. "I'm not."

Afraid. Lu Ten, dead in his bed. Katara, placed in the way of Zuko's lightning without a thought for her safety. The aftermath of the polar wars, Earth colony revolts stemmed with blood and fire…

"All my life, I was taught that pai sho is not just a game," he croaks in a broken murmur, barely audible over the deafening crash of the sea. "I was raised to view people as my pawns, and I used them carelessly. All in pursuit of a goal whose goodness I never questioned." His breathing grows harsh and uneven, his voice rising with conviction. "Now...I know what must be done, I know the cost of setting things right, and…and..."

A lump rises in the back of his throat as he glances at Yue again, serene and brave and far too young to die for any cause, no matter how noble, "...and I cannot do it."

His nails bite into the flesh of his palms, the tears pouring freely down his face. But instead of the spirit's cruel laughter or the swelling crash of the tide, a stunned silence rings through his ears instead.

"I cannot," he repeats, crumpling under the weight of his shame and his grief. "After everything I've done, everything that we've lost...and I still cannot pay this price."

Yue's hand gently rests on his shoulder. He wrenches away, collapsing to the ground in his despair. If Zuko or Katara or any of the others were here in his place, they would have found the strength to do what needed to be done. They would have been furious with him, for unscrupulously throwing lives away at every turn, only to break under a lifetime of guilt now, when it truly mattered.

But they weren't here. There was only him, and the sea.

"Go on," he urges, holding out his hands in offering. "Strike me down. I am too weak to do as you ask."

The spirit remains silent, contemplating him. The awful rictus of its mocking grin vanishes; only the blinding glow of its searing gaze remains fixed squarely upon him.

"You have learned much in your travels, Iroh of the Fire Nation," it says finally at last, the scorn curiously absent from its voice. "You pass the test."

Iroh stares open-mouthed and wide-eyed at the ocean spirit. "What?" he croaks, hardly daring to believe his ears.

But the spirit tilts its head, regarding him somberly. "It is the inhuman choices that make you inhuman," it remarks simply, before it shifts its probing gaze to the radiant young princess. "But perhaps there is hope for them after all."

In the corner of Iroh's eye, Yue clambers unsteadily to her feet. The wind whips her long white hair into a halo about her head. "I believe there is," she whispers. "Maybe it's time to rebuild the bridges that were broken."

The spirit leans closer; the world groans beneath its shifting weight.

Iroh's blood turns to ice in his veins as the white-haired princess faces him. "I always thought that when the time came, I would be afraid," she says wonderingly, swaying with the wind. "Thank you, General...for giving me the courage to make my mother proud."

A chill of dread crawls along his flesh. "Yue, you don't have to -"

"I know," she acknowledges, bowing her head in grace. The light emanating from within her grows brighter still. "But this is my choice."

His mouth works wordlessly as she meets the ocean spirit's relentless stare. "I will watch over my people, willingly, until the end of time."

Iroh galvanizes into motion. He lunges to his feet, already too late. "No! Wait -"

An unbearable white light surrounds her, driving him to his knees. The last thing he sees before shielding his face with his arms is the wistful curve of her smile. "Goodbye, General Iroh." Her voice echoes all around him. "Tell them my story. Honour my sacrifice."

And just before everything dissolves to a canvas of pure, empty white, it hovers before him. The unmistakable silhouette of a young woman, floating alone in the void.

Then she takes to the sky and everything turns dark again, the last light of the world disappearing with her.

The soft calls of the migrating birds ring out faintly in the sky overhead, singing their way back home. A breeze rustles at the leaves growing thick on the trees in the oasis. It tickles at his skin with a surprising gentleness, mild with the warmth of the late arctic summer.

Footsteps crunch erratically along the tall grass, stopping near the edge of the water.

"Where is she?" Pakku demands, clutching at his side in obvious pain. "Where's Yue?"

Heart still hammering uncontrollably, his breathing still laboured and heavy, Iroh finally opens his eyes.

Dawn breaks to reveal a cloudy grey sky, already bright with burgeoning daylight. The air stirs restlessly, dripping with the taste of the living sea, already swelling with its first breath.

It pounds loudly in his ears, the forgotten heartbeat of the world as the incoming tide stretches at long last with foam-capped waves. A long-awaited salute to the hidden body in the sky that had finally revived it.

Moondark, Iroh realizes. But instead of relief, he chokes up instead with grief. The last before the turn of the season.

Tears pour down his cheeks. He turns to the spot beside him, where Yue had kneeled. But the princess was no longer there; she had vanished with the mist at first light. Only an empty patch of grass remains in her place.

"She did it," Pakku breathes, dropping to his knees. He stares wide-eyed at the water, flowing bright and clear once again. "She...she did it."

But Iroh bows his head, sobbing uncontrollably.

Beyond the towering cliffs ringing them on all sides, the sun begins its slow climb from where it had slumbered upon the horizon. Its light pure liquid gold floating along the surface of the koi pond, where two fish now dance instead of one.

Chapter 56: dawn

Chapter Text

disclaimer. nope.

author's notes. this moment has been building for years and i absolutely cannot believe it's finally time to share it with you beautiful souls. i hope you find it as cathartic as i did.

i give you...

southern lights.

chapter lvi. dawn

hello mountain, remember me
child of your womb
i return from a perilous place
to the warmth of your hollow

"apex "/ unleash the archers

A deceptive silence unfurls across the waking land. To the weary, sleep-deprived Fire Navy soldiers, it's a welcome respite from the skirmish that had engaged them throughout the night. Instead, the crush of ruthlessly-organized Air Nomads and their sky bison had mysteriously retreated with the day's first light. Now, all that remains of them is a curiously persistent breeze that troubles the waters below.

The sun climbs higher into the sky, and the Fire Navy soldiers' hopes rise with it. They greet the day no differently, paying little heed as the waves bubble against the boat hulls. The thick white foam creeps steadily up the shoreline, trailing their steps with outstretched fingers.

The tide hasn't picked up since the night of blood moon, they reassure themselves. Maybe it's a sign. Maybe the winds finally blow in our favour again. Maybe we can sail home.

In their welling excitement, they ignore the able-bodied Water Tribe men labouring through the work camps. Usually by midmorning a scuffle or two would have broken out, but the workers remain surprisingly subdued. As though the chains clamped around their wrists and ankles had suddenly doubled in weight, concealing untold unseen burdens.

It's about time they forgot their pride, the overseers tell themselves knowingly. Maybe they're finally learning their place.

Admiral Chan hears it all but says little. His gaze flits from the rising sun painting the clouds in pink and gold, to the rows of chained Water Tribe men lining the thawed plains rolling along the distant shores. Cowed, broken, silent. But bent purposefully at their toil like a trickle of water carving a slow path through the mountainside.

He closes his eyes as the daylight grows brighter. The fire in him surges with the uncharacteristic warmth of the air. A glorious day, like the summers back home, his subordinates assure him as they venture below deck to check on the prisoners. Maybe today is the day. Maybe today we can start the rest of our lives.

But after so many years at sea, Admiral Chan has learned to fear its silence almost as much as its wrath. Still waters, he reminds his men, could deceive even the hardiest sailors from the storm churning and building within its depths to wreak devastation. That the waves have begun to move again worries him to his core, even as his men celebrate.

"Double the guard around the brig, and make sure the prisoners are secured," he barks at his retreating officers, turning on his heel. His eyes narrow. "I'll take no chances today."

Behind the barrier of the work compounds where Aujuittuq's great walls once stood, small groups of soldiers still patrol the streets dutifully.

By now the air is so warm, they sweat beneath their heavy armour and visors. Their boots no longer polished to a high shine, but caked with dirt from the perpetually muddy streets. The soporific lull in the air dulls their senses, their shoulders and eyelids drooping in defiance of iron-drilled Fire Navy discipline.

They had followed orders to sail with Admiral Zhao to crush the North and win the Empire another prize colony. And what a prize it had been! Aujuittuq had glittered like a diamond in the night, the last bastion of freedom for the uncivilized peasants who stood in defiance against them. And they had crushed it under their heel in a glorious victory that their children's children would tell tales of.

But Admiral Zhao had sailed back to the homeland to earn his accolades, while the rest of them scrabbled up in a barren wasteland. No glory awaited them, no honours or medals or extra rations. Without the waterbenders, the great Northern Tribe had melted into an empty expanse of scrub and squishy mud, barely worth a single battalion's effort to keep in line.

Instead, the Phoenix King ordered a continuous escalation. Domestic troops arrived to bolster their efforts, even as their morale flagged with faltering supply lines and cut rations. Their equipment battered and unreliable after whatever remaining survivors had banded together in a sort of guerilla resistance to hit them night after night. And then the rumours of a vengeful spirit. The Painted Lady, who had turned against them.

Or had it been a Water Tribe girl in disguise? The stories remained unclear.

But their orders were for them to follow, and tales of the glory that would await them when they finally returned home filled their ears. And so, with sunken eyes and hollow bellies, they continue their patrols of a dead city. Even if the men had been taken and all that remained for them to control were the weakened: the women, children, elderly and infirm.

Anything better than admitting the truth becoming increasingly obvious to even the lowliest reservist among them. That the occupation of the North was as futile an exercise as scrubbing the mud off their dirty boots.

The labour camps bustle with subdued activity, the silence broken only by the clanging of hammers against metal, the clinking of chains against shackles. Every now and then, the wind rises again, to cool the sweat beading along Sangilak's brow as he lugs a heavy sheet of metal toward the damaged ship beached ashore.

It takes every ounce of his patience not to throw his burdens down into the mud sucking at his shoes, to grab at the waves weeping slowly into his grasp. Fire Navy overseers slowly circle him like hungry buzzard-wasps converging upon the weak and dying. Every part of him longs to swat them onto their backs with a thick prong of water.

Instead, he waits. Focuses upon the water, a heavy weight concealed within the empty spaces of his shackles. When the moment comes, you'll know, Sokka had said. And Sangilak had thought him crazy, until the sun had risen that morning to reveal the new moon, hidden from sight but unmistakably restored.

So wait he would, until Sokka's alleged miracle revealed the correct moment to strike.

Or until an overseer's scornful voice cuts across the laden silence.

"On your feet, Imnek!"

Sangilak whirls around, so close to the sea that the waves lap at his ankles. Just in time to witness Imnek, tiny and waxen-pale a small distance away, buckling under the weight of his load.

He collapses to the ground with a cry of pain, the heavy metal parts tumbling out of his arms. Ducks in the nick of time as the overseer punches a plume of fire in his direction.

"You'd better find a way to make yourself useful, Imnek," the overseer crows, looming over the fallen Water Tribe man. "Or you'll find out exactly what the Fire Empire does to colony trash it has no more use for!"

A loud splash as Sangilak's scrap metal sheet clatters into the shallows, already forgotten. He springs to his full height, taking a single step out of line.

The butt of a spear jams into his throat. "I don't think so," sneers another Fire Navy sailor's voice from somewhere around his chest. "One more step, Sangilak, and you'll join your useless friend on the ground over there."

The wooden spearhaft presses deeper along the underside of his chin, an unspoken warning of its own. Just give me an excuse, it begs, itching with the monotony of an uneventful day. I'm bored and nothing would give me greater pleasure than to finally put you in your place.

Sangilak bares his teeth, growling with frustration. His fingers dig into his palms as he glances at the sky instinctively, watching the sun continue its daily climb. Its golden light dances through the breaks in the cloud cover like a signal flare.

Soon, it promises, setting his nerves on edge, but not yet.

Like ice melting under its steady warmth, he somehow steadies his breathing to a smooth swelling. Mirroring the push and pull of the waves crashing against the Empire's steel ships, the smaller pulse of water hidden in his chains.

I'm sorry, Imnek. He raises his hands, feigning docility. The spear falls away from his chin in answer, reluctantly. The only way I can help you now is to wait.

From across the muddy scrapyard, Imnek raises his head to meet his gaze. Almost as though he could hear his thoughts, even as the overseers crowd around him.

"That look in your eyes makes me sick," one of them crows. "Pride. Water Tribe pride."

He spits in Imnek's face, before viciously driving a boot into the pit of his stomach. The injured man clutches at his stomach, curling over onto his side.

"How about it?" the overseer jeers, placing his boot on Imnek's cheek contemptuously. "Tell me where you belong, Imnek." He leans over him casually, his smirk visible through the cover of his visor. "Tell me you belong right here...and I'll go easy on you."

Imnek fights for his breath in deep gasps. Blood trickles in a thin stream out the corner of his mouth.

Sangilak forces himself to look away, lest he give in to his fury and accidentally knock the man's teeth out of his skull. He glares at the Admiral's flagship bobbing offshore in the distance.

This plan of yours better work, Sokka, he thinks vehemently, his teeth grinding together loudly. Or I'll wring your fucking little neck.

"We can't just sit here!" Tartok hisses, already lunging forward. "We have to help him -"

Jukka's hand clamps on his shoulder, wrenching him back into the shelter of an empty compound. "You won't help anyone if you give us all away," he hisses. In the distance, the taunting jeers of the distracted Fire Navy overseers ring out from the scrapyard.

Tartok's fingers drag through the mud. "My brother's out there! I can't just sit here -"

"Yeah?" Jukka demands, slamming him back against the wall. "Then what are you gonna do? Take out a dozen armed Fire Navy lunatics all by yourself?"

"He won't be by himself!" Shila straightens from where she crouched in the corner, her olive face blanching paper-white at the scene unfolding across the yard. "Or do you not care if Imnek lives or dies?"

Tartok frowns at her, before shrugging out of Jukka's grip. "Who brought her along?" he complains, shaking his head. "And how did you manage to keep up with us, anyway?"

But Shila only raises her chin haughtily. "It wasn't that hard. You're not as in shape as you think you are."

"Shut up, all of you," Sokka mutters darkly, the sounds of their bickering buzzing loudly in his ears. The wind rustles through his hair, as shifting and restless as every last inch of his skin.

"I'm just saying," Jukka hisses, oblivious to Sokka's growing consternation. "We have a plan, remember? If we blow it now -"

"And in the meantime?" Tartok argues, struggling to contain himself. "Imnek's hurt, we can't just leave him there -"

"Imnek's a grown man, and he's not alone," Sokka bursts out irritably. "He's got Sangilak and a bunch of other big strong Water Tribe guys with him too." Not like Katara, she's all alone, who knows what the Admiral's doing to her - "We have to do our parts. And trust that when the right time comes, everyone else will know what to do to help themselves."

"Trust," Tartok snarls, clenching his fists. "After everything, I don't know how I'll ever trust again."

"Join the club," Sokka mutters, crossing his arms. "Look, I get it, okay? But we've only got one shot and we can't afford any doubts now. So sit back down and think of how to be useful!"

He glares past the sprawling muddy mess of work camp, its perimeter of ramshackle compounds and double file of chained Water Tribe workers waiting along the shore. Past the crush of Fire Navy overseers, tiny smudges of red blowing puffs of flame, bright against the backdrop of Imperial cruisers waiting in rows offshore. Their metal bones creak with every rolling wave as the waters of the Adlartok Bay swell and crest.

Katara was out there somewhere, a prisoner aboard one of those ships. All alone, out of reach, where he couldn't help her. There would be no team of guerilla fighters skulking in the shadows to watch her, no backup to protect her and make sure she didn't get hurt. He was too far away to be of any use to her at all.

But then his eyes fix upon the sprawling defensive fortifications running along the receding shoreline, still bristling with Fire Navy reservists. Only a stone's throw from the nearest ships, just a quick ride on the powered boats lodged in the harbour.

Abruptly, the wheels in his head sputter to life. "We need eyes on the main fort."

The others whirl on him in surprise. "What are you talking about?" Tartok demands hotly.

Sokka points at the dark structure looming in the distance. "We got in here easily enough, didn't we? Well, the cities and the workyards aren't heavily guarded now, but where do you think all the reinforcements will come from?" He punches the wall of the makeshift compound, wincing as it rattles noisily. "We have to make sure we've got them bottled up before they can go anywhere."

Tartok's milky face mottles red with mounting fury. "If you think I'm going anywhere and leaving Imnek to fend for himself -"

"You don't have to." Sokka raises his hands defensively. "You guys stay back here. I'll go hold down the fort. Literally."

"You?" Tartok echoes, sizing him up scornfully. "And just what do you think you're going to accomplish by yourself? You can't even waterbend!"

"Look, we're running out of time!" Sokka argues, jamming his hands into his pockets. "But you clearly have no desire to move from this spot, and I have to go." When all hell breaks loose, I have to be as close to Katara as I can. It's the only thing I can do. "So, I say we split up."

The others gape at him as though he had sprouted an extra head. "You're out of your mind, Sokka," Jukka remarks, the first to find his voice.

"Maybe." Sokka shrugs. "Or I've been out of my mind this whole time. But this is something I have to do."

"Sure you do. But not alone." Jukka taps his sling hanging from his sealskin belt. "I'm coming with you."

"I'm staying right here," Tartok huffs without missing a beat, sitting down cross-legged in the mud.

"Me too," Shila agrees, kneeling down next to him. "I'm not leaving Imnek like this."

But Tartok glares at her. "As if it makes a difference. You should go with the others, I don't need your help."

"Oh really?" Shila counters, raising her eyebrows. "Your brother looks like he needs a healer, urgently. Last I checked, a big strong man like you couldn't heal to save your life."

Tartok lets out an aggravated groan. "Fine! Just! Stay out of my way!"

"Sounds like you've got this under control," Sokka remarks, already taking a step back. "We'll be back if everything goes well."

"Good luck," Tartok grunts, his attention already diverting back to his brother's frail form collapsed on the ground far away.

Sokka's fingers brush against the trusty boomerang hanging from his belt. I'm on my way, Katara, he thinks grimly. Hang on.

Overhead, the sun rises higher into the sky.

"Get up."

Katara opens her eyes, from where she'd been sitting cross-legged in the corner of the prison cell, under the small porthole window. The manacles around her wrists jangle together as she places her hands into her lap.

She smiles bloodlessly at the burly man and the five subordinates filing in behind him. "Back so soon, Captain Yuan?" The small space of the brig seems to shrink in around their armoured forms.

"I have direct orders from Admiral Chan," the captain intones sternly, his voice tinny through the faceplate of his helmet. "Don't try any funny business, woman."

Katara shrugs, raising her shackled hands innocently. The chain looping through them jingles harmlessly. "You've got me locked up in your prison hold without any bending. What funny business could I possibly try?"

Without another word, two of the guards flank her on either side, each grabbing a hold of her hands. Their gloves bite into her skin as they bolt her wrists to the wall, her arms pinned uselessly above her head.

"When it comes to you, the Admiral said we couldn't be too careful," Captain Yuan answers flatly, locking her manacles in place before twirling the key in his fingers.

Katara raises her chin, staring up into the shadows behind the eye-holes of his helmet. "I'm truly honoured by how afraid of me you all really are."

The captain freezes, stung by her words. Her smile widens.

Sunlight dances off the surface of the pond in the oasis, flickering where two koi fish continue an eternal dance around each other.

General Iroh watches them, his heart and soul heavy with guilt. The sunlight on his skin is a balm to the fire burning within him, but he cannot take his eyes off the white koi fish, resurrected and yet still bearing a faint scar upon its fin.

"Well?" demands Aang, helping Toph clamber onto Appa's head. "Is it time yet?"

The lowing of countless sky bison resounding along the steep cliffs encircling them, the flaps of their flat tails rustling the wind as they take flight. But even if they hadn't all been hovering overhead in wait, Iroh senses the shift in the air, drawn taut with anticipation and purpose.

"It is time," he whispers, his voice barely audible amid the groaning sky bison and the swish of pondwater. But the koi fish hear him nonetheless, fixing him with their flat, unblinking stares.

Master Iio places a hand on his shoulder, a reminder, a call to action. Her sky bison plods toward them, the ground shaking with every one of its massive footsteps.

Iroh clears his throat, his voice gaining strength. "The day of reckoning is upon us," he says, whether to the spirit koi or to the empty wind, he isn't sure. But something thrums through him, the gravity of inevitability, the tug of an invisible moon upon the tides within. "It is time for you to take your destiny back into your hands."

In a single smooth motion, he rises to his feet.

Something like a cloud passes over the face of the sun, blotting out its indomitable golden fire. Unexpectedly, the entire world plunges back into the shadow of night, the liminal space between dusk and dawn.

A promise of resurrection and reversal, new life amid death and endless destruction.

A seed of light springing forth from the depths of pure darkness.

Abruptly, the sliver of daylight streaming through the window disappears.

Now. The voice whispers urgently; it is all that Katara hears. Quickly.

Captain Yuan and his men don't notice at first. They close in around her, their intimidating bulk still unable to disguise the panicked pulse of the blood in their veins, their fear and uncertainty a heady rhythm in her senses.

Her fingers flex imperceptibly, water whizzing toward her in all its hidden forms. The dampness collecting on the sides of the wall, the sweat gathering on the men's bodies. The faint droplets of moisture suspended in the air.

"What the -"

Before the captain can even finish his question, the water slashes at the metal bolting her wrists to the wall. Once, twice, before it clatters to the ground in pieces.

"She's bending!" barks Captain Yuan, already scrambling into an offensive stance. "Quick, take her down before -"

The six of them punch a slew of fire fists toward her in unison.

But only faint plumes of grey smoke trickle lazily toward her, fluttering harmlessly into the air.

"What?"

"What's going on?"

"Why can't I bend?"

And then all six men curl in on themselves, cowering in fear.

Katara rises to her feet and raises her hands, the broken chains dangling from each wrist menacingly.

Darkness covers the sun with the shadow of a forgotten world.

At first, Sangilak can't tear his gaze from it. Tears well in his eyes, one sliding unexpectedly down his cheek. In all his life, he had never seen anything so strange, so ominous...or so beautiful.

It worked, he thinks numbly, rooted to the spot in shock. I can't believe that Southern Tribe runt was right.

By now, the crowd of Fire Navy overseers have frozen in growing disbelief. Their heads slowly crane upward, to stare slack-jawed at the blackening sky.

"What's happening?" one of them demands, his voice rising to a high-pitched screech. "What's that?"

"Nightfall already? But it was daylight a minute ago?"

"You idiot, it's not night, it's an eclipse!"

"Nonsense, you can't have an eclipse with no moon -"

"You're right." From his spot on the ground, curled up in a protective ball, Imnek rolls over onto all fours, heaving for breath. He glares up through swollen, slitted eyes at the overseers warily staggering away from him. His voice shakes with the last dregs of his strength. "You can't have an eclipse without the moon."

Before anyone could think to stop him, his fingers flex weakly.

Suddenly, the chains around his wrist explode. The sound splintering like the foundations of a bloated empire, fractured under the weight of its own cruelty.

The Fire Navy men gape at him, their faces blanching with sudden fear. Imnek pushes painfully to his knees, doubling over to rub his bloodied wrists.

"Did - did he just bend?" one of the overseers chokes out, pointing with a trembling hand. "He...he can't do that!"

"You'll pay for that, Water Tribe scum!" another growls, already spurring into motion. He lunges for Imnek, his mouth bared in a snarl visible through his visor.

He punches forward, but no fire pours forth. Instead, a single, sad trickle of smoke trails harmlessly from his fist.

The man shakes his hands in growing frustration, before punching again, and then again to no avail.

Sangilak's mouth curls into a vicious smirk. "What's the matter?" he rumbles in the deepest, most menacing growl he can muster. "Something wrong with your bending?"

The overseer recoils as though burned, before whirling on him. "Someone stop this!" he yells.

The spearbutt jams into Sangilak's throat, harder than before. But Sangilak only laughs, grabbing at the waterlogged shackles heavy around his wrists.

With a shattering sound, they crush to pieces beneath his bare hands.

He grins wolfishly at the soldier cowering before him, taking a single step forward. Water spills over his palms, arcing into a shining streak suspended in mid-air.

"He's bending!" the soldier squeaks, backing away with a flinch. "Sangilak's waterbending!"

"Then stop him!"

But even after months of malnourishment and back-breaking labour, Sangilak is still quicker.

The water responds to his impulses like a limb that had long fallen asleep, slowly waking through pins and needles. Relishing in its power, he lashes out with all his might.

His opponent buckles under the force of his strike. He hits the ground easily, his helmet tumbling off to reveal the terror spreading across his face. His arms twist desperately into more firebending forms, producing nothing but more empty smoke.

"I can't bend either!" the fallen soldier cries, crawling backward in the mud. His eyes widen in horrified realization. "None of us can."

The sound rings out across the rising waters of the Adlartok Bay, swelling with the breath of the ocean's might. The keening of metal, shorn by the relentless force of expanding water, the breaking of shackles one by one.

The Fire Navy overseers back into each other, still punching as though hoping their bending would miraculously return. Around them, the men of the Northern Water Tribe slowly totter to their feet, broken lengths of chain dangling from their manacles.

"No," Sangilak declares, marching forth. He positions himself in front of Imnek, leaning into an offensive waterbending stance. A terrible grin splits through the bruised mess of his face, his teeth flashing white in the darkness. "But we can."

Overhead, the faint outline of the sun glows feebly, its bright core all but swallowed by the impenetrable darkness of a resurrected moon.

Honour my sacrifice, the princess had said, her last command to her people.

And as one, the freedmen of the Water Tribe obey, closing in on the terrified overseers with vengeance blazing in their eyes.

"Oof! Watch it, Twinkletoes!"

"Sorry!" Aang winces, his grip on the reins loosening hesitantly. "Just trying not to become cannon-fodder, that's all."

Toph narrows her sightless eyes, oblivious to the leaden ball whistling over their heads in a flaming arc. "Well, keep that up and we'll be tigershark-fodder instead!"

As though to emphasize her point, the cannonball falls into the writhing waters with a massive splash.

Aang nods, his lips pressing together tightly. "I make no promises," he says grimly. "Hang on!"

"I swear, if you make Appa try that barrel-roll one more time -"

Toph's remaining words cut into a shriek as the sky bison plummets through the air, weaving through the salvo of flaming missiles charging at them. From the cannons mounted to the ship decks, or lining the walls of the fortifications spanning the cliffside beaches, their deafening blasts ringing out across the bay.

Aang gasps for breath, his fingers striped red and white where the reins dig into his skin. The world around him rumbles with Appa's ferocious roar as he dodges another cannonball. It careens past wildly, littering small flames along the side of Appa's flank.

Toph bends the metal fragments overboard, before patting at the coals smouldering in Appa's long fur. She withdraws her hand quickly, her face twisting in pain. "Ouch!" she curses, sucking on her fingers. "Hot! Hot!"

"They're on fire. What did you expect?" Aang still peers over his shoulder to check on her. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'll live. No thanks to you and Fuzzy over here!"

He smiles weakly. "You sure sound okay to me."

But then Appa bellows loudly, alerting him to the communication tower rising up from the outermost edge of the Adlartok peninsula stretching into the Northwestern Sea. Aang's eyes narrow at the flags waving furiously atop the relay, the culmination of a long streak of bright red beacons displayed proudly on every mast, stretching from shore to the flagship, the entire fleet arrayed before it.

His fingers twist into the reins. "Hey Toph," he calls out over his shoulder. "You ready to do some damage?"

The smack of her fist punching her open palm greets his ears in answer. "I was born ready," she declares.

Aang gives her a grin that he knows she can't see, before his knees dig into the sides of Appa's horns. "Appa, yip yip!"

With an answering roar, Appa drops from the sky.

The force of it threatens to rip Aang's skin clear off his face. The pressure of gravity so immense that it wrenches his stomach upward, possibly somewhere level with his throat. The air rushes so fast it scalds, snatching the breath from his lungs and making it impossible to breathe.

Behind him, Toph screams something unintelligible.

Then, with an almighty crash, Appa lands atop the wooden communication tower. It snaps under his immense weight, crushing to splinters in an instant.

The shrieks of Fire Navy sailors fill Aang's ears. He twists guiltily to see them falling over the side of the collapsing tower, hitting the ground with unpleasant crunches.

"Ouch," Toph comments, her face scrunching with a wince. "That sounds like it'd hurt."

"Yeah," Aang replies dully, staring at the men in their uniforms, appearing like small red ants scattered along the mud. "I should've at least cushioned their fall."

She scoffs. "Don't sweat it, Twinkletoes. It's not like they'd do the same for us."

"I know." But he chews his lip anyway, his gut back in its normal spot but still churning. "That's why I should have done it. We're different from them, aren't we?"

A loud groan escapes her. "You're really annoying, you know that?" She huffs as she blows her bangs out of her face, crossing her arms in a sulk. "Especially when you're probably right."

He turns to stare at her in shock. "You really think so?"

But Toph only shrugs noncommittally. "Well, that's you, isn't it? Mr. Pacifist Air Nomad, always having to see the good in everyone." Her smile contradicts the sarcasm dripping from her voice. "Even when it's probably wasted on these guys."

"I don't believe that," Aang counters, somewhat petulantly. "A life's a life, after all. Yes, they've all done horrible things and they probably deserved to die, but…" He struggles, balking at the way Toph's smile widens. "I don't know. It's still sad to me. Ow!"

Aang rubs at his shoulder, stinging from the small pebble that Toph had carelessly flung. He glares at her, but then she clambers over to grab at his hand. "Of course it's still sad to you," she says to him patiently, her voice somehow clear through the chaos unfolding around them. "You're an Air Nomad at war. The day you're okay with it is the day we've all really got to start worrying." She smirks at him knowingly. "I know I sure wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of you, Twinkletoes."

"Uh," Aang stammers, his mouth suddenly going dry. "Thanks...I think?"

"You're welcome," she answers, giving his hand a small, reassuring squeeze. "And hey. You're a good person. Don't beat yourself up over it."

He looks away, his face flaming. A flicker of motion from the muddy beach below grabs his attention.

Far below, the fallen Fire Navy soldiers crawl along the shoreline. Slowly, painfully, desparately in need of a healer's quick attention… but unmistakably alive.

"They're okay!" he bursts out, unable to contain himself. "They're not dead!"

"Bummer," Toph grunts, crossing her arms. She tilts her head, perhaps sensing the skeptical glance he throws at her. "What? You're the good person, not me."

Aang rolls his eyes exasperatedly. "If you say so," he grumbles, trying not to smile. "Anyway, that fleet isn't getting rid of itself."

"No, it isn't," Toph agrees sagely. "You okay with killing some more Fire Navy sailors, Twinkletoes?"

"No," Aang retorts, deadpan. "Are you okay with not wrecking as many ships as you can possibly get your hands on?"

She bristles indignantly. "Where's the fun in that?"

"Toph, if we're all going to make it to the Fire Nation before the comet, we're going to need as many ships intact as possible."

She lets out a loud groan, covering her face with her hands. "Fine. Man, you do suck all the fun out of everything, don't you?"

"Oh man," Woka mutters to herself, cowering behind a thick wall of ice. "How does this even happen?"

Ulva glares at her, the twist of her face made all the more ferocious by the stark black-and-white war paint. "Well, someone decided to charge blindly into the street without waiting like I told her to!"

"How was I supposed to know they'd still have artillery?" Woka complains. As though to emphasize her question, a blast rocks the ice wall. Hairline cracks web through the smooth translucent face with a threatening crack.

"Eyes, Woka! You have two of them!" Ulva claps a hand to her forehead, before glancing despairing at the row of squat huts lining the street behind them. "How are we supposed to get past these guys without getting blown to pieces?"

Woka rubs at the side of her head, the freshly shaved hair prickling against her palm. "If Katara was here, she'd take out those tanks and everyone in them before they knew it!"

"Yeah, but she's not," Ulva points out severely, as another blast rattles the ice wall. Chunks fall away from it, landing next to them harmlessly. "It's just us, and we can't bend water we can't see!" Her lips purse with frustration. "Katara never got to teach us how to do that!"

"No," Woka allows, grabbing at the ice chunks littering the ground. "But she didn't teach us nothing."

Weighing the ice experimentally in her hand, she closes her eyes. Feel the push and the pull, Katara had said and maybe that worked for liquid water, but ice was frozen solid and how in the name of Princess Yue was she supposed to do that?

But then another blast slams into the ice wall, and the cracks running through it deepen into fissures. "Oh man," Woka mutters to herself, sweat drenching her undershirt to a cold, damp mess. "Oh man, oh man…"

"Woka," Ulva says sharply, lunging for her as she totters uncertainly to her feet, "Woka, wait -"

Without another thought for her safety, Woka hurls the chunk of ice at one of the Fire Navy soldiers mounted atop his armoured komodo-rhino. "Take that!" she shouts as it whizzes through the air, a sharpened dagger glittering with malevolent fire in the faint light of the solar eclipse. "Stand and fight, you mealy-mouthed sons of -"

The whistling sound of the ice missing its target and landing harmlessly in the mud with a soft plop stems her tirade at the root.

Ulva raises an eyebrow at her but says nothing.

"Oh, come on!" Woka curses, as the mounted soldiers charge toward them, their yells clamouring through the air. The ground rattles with the weight of the beasts' thudding footfalls, while the whine of the mechanized tank screeches high and shrill. Its rubberized tires whir as it rolls closer to them.

She splitters out a stream of curses, scrambling backward in apprehension. "Ulva," she says weakly, reaching blindly for her, "Ulva, let's go -"

But the young widow charges forward instead.

Woka's mouth drops as the feeble ice wall turns abruptly to liquid water, pooling back to the ground with a lively splash. Then, with a yell and a flex of her wrists, Ulva turns on the approaching soldiers.

The water races toward them in a building wave, towering quickly over the group of soldiers riding atop their armoured komodo-rhinos.

Ulva's fists crash down, and the wave follows, slamming headlong into the advancing soldiers and flattening them into the mud.

"Wow!" Woka exclaims, clapping her hands together in awe as the water calms and sinks into the mud, bubbling faintly. "Ulva, that was amazing -"

"We're not done yet." Ulva points grimly at the mechanized tank, its wheels turning uselessly in the mud but still pointing straight toward them.

"Oh hell," Woka says faintly. With outstretched hands, she tries to feel for the water, liquid and flowing and pulsing in the mud puddles sucking away at the tank's rubber wheels.

Push and pull, she recites to herself, her wrists finding the rhythm almost instinctively, push and pull, push and pull…

The water ripples, a glimmer of movement rising from the saturated earth. With a grin, Woka purses her lips before yanking upward.

Ice shoots up in a column, shearing the arm clean off the tank's armoured body. It bounces off the tires with a hollow clang, before landing back in the mud with a sad bloop.

"Now that's how you do it!" Woka declares, pumping a fist in the air. She turns on Ulva, eyes sparkling in excitement. "Did you see what I did?"

"Yeah, yeah," Ulva growls, freezing the water around the groaning Fire Navy soldiers, pinned under the weight of their fallen komodo-rhinos. "Very impressive. Now let's get a move on before we bump into more of them."

As though in answer, the sounds of more yelling echo along the corner of the street, growing ominously louder.

"I'm right behind you," Woka agrees, bobbing her head.

They slip past the groaning soldiers frozen to the ground, melting into the shadows as scattered artillery fire meets the whoosh of pressurized water, colliding decisively mid-air.

Meanwhile, chaos erupts all around them. The canals whip to a frenzy, teeming with the bodies of screaming soldiers and hijacked boats. On the muddy streets, a group of men beat back the city guards with their broken chains, cowing them into submission. By the sliver of docks that wasn't yet underwater, a squadron of firebenders still try to put up a resistance. They struggle desperately to bend something, anything at the formation of grim-faced waterbenders advancing upon them.

Then the icy pier beneath their feet crumbles. One by one, they fall into the water with a splash.

Woka whistles at the sight, punctuated by bursts of light clashing in the darkened sky, the ghostly outline of the moon blotting out the sun. "It's so pretty!" she breathes, stopping in her tracks momentarily. "Too bad we have to spend it all fighting these Fire Navy jerks!"

"Well, if you'd rather be their prisoners until the end of time, keep on standing there!" Ulva barks, before kicking in the lopsided wooden doors securing one of the huts.

"Alright," she calls, marching inside without another word of greeting. "Anyone in here who doesn't prefer being under the Fire Navy's boot anymore, now's your chance!"

A chorus of coughs punctuate the dry silence inside the hut. Woka pokes her head inside, momentarily blinded by the darkness within. "What Ulva said," she prompts, jabbing at her chest. "We've got to make the most of the eclipse -"

"Spoken like true traitors to our tribe!"

Oh great.

Woka grimaces at the unpleasantly familiar voice. She hadn't heard it in many moons but still manages to recognize Nerrivik's scornful drawl instantly, long before the frightful woman picks herself up from one of the long tables cramming the hut's small interior and moves toward the doorway.

"Look at these shameless women!" she continues, her face somehow even more pinched and lined than Woka remembered, but scowling disapprovingly regardless. "Impersonating our warriors and bending openly in the streets! No wonder the spirits abandoned us to the whims of the Fire Navy -"

"It wasn't the spirits that abandoned you," Ulva cuts her off witheringly. "The Fire Navy destroyed the moon spirit -"

"And then Princess Yue brought it back!" Woka interjects, rubbing a hand along her shaved scalp. "So drop the whole spirits nonsense already, would you?"

"You dare?" Nerrivik demands, repositioning her considerable bulk to block their path. "To even suggest this is blasphemy! My son, Chief Hahn, locked you all away because you were a danger to us all -"

"Nerrivik," a new voice interrupts anxiously, "Nerrivik, there's no time for this."

Woka squints along the rows of long tables, the benches packed with women bent silently at their craft. Her heart leaps as one of them also rises to her feet, hands jammed on her hips in protest.

Then, she steps into the light and Woka scowls at Lusa's face, illuminated clearly in the eclipse's dull glow.

Nerrivik whirls on Lusa, her frizzy grey hair dishevelled and flying everywhere. "You're a sensible girl, Lusa, unlike these grasping pretenders! Why, the Fire Navy never treated us half as disrespectfully as these girls!"

"Lucky you," Ulva growls, taking a deliberate step toward Nerrivik and closing the distance between them. Her painted face seems to glow like a disembodied spirit in the darkness. "But the rest of us didn't get off so easy, Nerrivik. If you cared at all about anyone but yourself -"

"Of course I care!" Nerrivik protests stubbornly, but still quailing before Ulva's scowl. "I want what's best for our tribe, I want what's best for you girls, even if you don't - oof!"

Woka's eyes widen in shock as a ripple of water flashes through the air. In a trice, it wraps around the matriarch's mouth. Nerrivik lets out a high-pitched squeal, clawing desperately at the makeshift gag before another jet of water pins her wrist to the wall.

"Sorry," Lusa says grimly, before freezing the water into shackles of ice. "If you want to stay stuck back here in the past, that's your choice. But you won't drag us down with you."

Nerrivik's protests muffle indistinguishably into the ice covering her mouth.

Brushing her hair out of her eyes, Lusa motions to the rest of the women tentatively sitting on the sidelines. "Well, you heard them! The eclipse won't last forever!"

With a deafening scrape of benches overturning, the crammed hut suddenly turns almost airless as the rest of the women leap to their feet.

"Alright!" Woka crows, pumping her fist in the air. "Waterbenders and bloodbenders, up front with me and Ulva! The rest of you, grab whatever you can get your hands on and stay behind us!"

She peers back out onto the street, where more Fire Navy soldiers already back away from another crowd of angry Water Tribe people, their tanks encased by bubbles of water that absorb their blasts with a deep gurgling sound.

"Ladies," Ulva commands, brandishing a sizable water whip and snapping it experimentally, "time to take back our city!"

A deafening cheer rises above Aujuittuq's humble rafters as they charge into the street, catching the retreating patrollers unaware.

"For Yue!"

"For Yue!"

"Well," Sokka remarks, cowering under the body of a stolen tank, "that certainly could have gone better."

Jukka glares at him from where he crouches, trying to prop up one of the rubberized wheels that had been blown clean off. "You think?"

Shouts echo from the tops of the walled defenses holding the rocky beach. A volley of cannon fire erupts in answer, smashing into the waves behind them and punching holes into the only tank that was their shelter.

"I mean," Sokka recovers, wincing as it rattles dangerously, threatening to buckle under the blows, "at least the Fire Navy soldiers don't have their firebending."

"They've got cannons!" Jukka barks in a panic. "How are the two of us supposed to take out a fort that's got cannons?"

"Well, you've got your waterbending!" Sokka argues. "Can't you do some cool tricks to take them out?"

"Yeah! If I was closer!" Jukka snarls, as another cannonball batters the ground near them. It shatters to pieces, metal fragments whirring toward them. With a grunt, he swats them away with a wall of water. "But this whole area's being bombed into a death trap!"

"Well, you guys said you'd taken care of all their weapons supplies!" Sokka counters, rubbing his forehead. "How was I supposed to know they were still sitting on a stockpile?"

Something bombards the side of the unsteady tank, sending its broken wheel spinning away, sliding into the shallows with a hollow splash.

"Look out!" Sokka cries, as an almighty groan fills the air.

Jukka growls, rolling out of the way of the collapsing body. With a sharp tug, a thick pillar of ice springs up from the creeping waves, propping it in place and preventing it from crushing them.

"Well that was close," Sokka declares, wiping his brow. "Thanks buddy!"

"Anytime," Jukka grinds out, scanning their surroundings desperately. "What now?"

Sokka tears his gaze away from the relentless cannonfire bombarding the beach around them, to the hazy corona of the sun's golden rays still peeking through the blackness of the moon. His breath catches in his throat at the sight of it, because it was impossible. All of it. Losing the moon, his memories, the entire Water Tribe… and he was still here.

Pinned in a corner, taking heavy fire from a fortress full of Fire Navy jerkbenders, but alive and fighting. All because time and time again, some reckless fool had refused to back away from an impossible fight and accept an inevitable, hopeless defeat.

Like Yue, who had managed to bring back the moon. And Katara, currently trapped alone on some boat to single-handedly force a surrender.

And him. The biggest fool of all.

"Hey Jukka," he says slowly, his gaze shifting from the eclipse to the nearest line of cruisers, their prows pointing to the wide plateau where all the work camps stand. More blasts ricochet through the air as their cannons fire upon the shore, the freed Northmen dispersing before them like little blue flies on the wind. "New plan."

Jukka lets out a groan. "Will I like it?"

"Probably not." He points at the powered boats anchored in the shallows, hidden in the shadow of the looming fortress. "Can you get us onto one of those?"

Jukka groans again, but says nothing more.

Another shout from up the beach, a Fire Navy captain waving at his men to shoot. The explosions split the air deafeningly. Cannonballs wreathed in sulfurous flames careen toward them. Sokka watches their arcing trajectory as though in slow motion, the leaden balls seeming suspended mid-flight even as they gain speed, growing closer with every passing second.

Then Jukka lets out a grunt, loud in his ears.

In the corner of his eye, he lunges out of the crumpled tank's shelter. With a sweep of his fists, the waves barrel up the sloping shore, rising high in the air to meet the incoming volley.

"Go!" Jukka screams through gritted teeth.

Sokka doesn't need telling twice. He dashes through the shallows toward the powered boats chained to the shoreline. The churning waves fight his progress with every laboured step.

Behind him, somewhere along the beach, he still manages to hear the muffled splash of water absorbing the flaming cannonballs. A flash of sudden cold and the towering waves freeze instantly into a thick wall of ice.

"Nice one!" he shouts, as Jukka scrambles into the water after him, hard on his heels.

"Thanks!" Jukka calls back, even as his face blanches tight and pale. "But I don't know how long it'll hold -"

Another cracking sound rings out threateningly, followed by the impact of another wave of cannons pummeling against the thick ice wall. Jukka's arms judder with the effort of holding it intact, as chunks of ice fall away from it and roll into the water.

He swears, turning to supplement the ice barrier with another tall wave. So focused on his waterbending that he doesn't notice the missiles dropping out of the sky around him.

But Sokka does. "Jukka!" he yells, twisting away from the powered boat bobbing within reach, and grabbing uselessly for the boomerang at his belt. "Jukka, look out -"

The waterbender hears him barely in time, swerving out of the way to dodge a nasty blow to the head. But he trips in the sliding stones tumbling along the bottom of the bay, and the cannonball smashes into his elbow instead.

Sokka grimaces as Jukka goes down, clutching at his arm and howling in pain. He wavers, caught in between the twin urges of turning back or pressing on.

As though reading his mind, Jukka's head splits above the surface of the waves, choking and coughing. "Go!" he splutters, still crawling stubbornly on. "I'll be okay!"

Then another blast peppers the water dangerously close to Jukka and he disappears under the angry waves again.

Jun's dead face flashes before his eyes, a perpetual reminder of the price of failure. Sokka reels, reluctantly letting go of his boomerang.

As if you had a chance. Boomerangs can't beat cannons.

Then, he turns tail and runs.

More blasts smash around him. He weaves through the angry leaden fire, the force of their impact splashing him with boiling water droplets that scald his skin, but thankfully do nothing worse.

Vaulting into the nearest boat, he slashes at the chains holding it anchored to the shore with a swing of his sword.

"Alright," he mutters to himself, settling into the front seat and frowning at the unhelpful assortment of buttons and dials and levers. "Now how do you drive one of these things?"

A distant shout from the fort presages the blast of more cannons. Instinctively, he ducks as they slam into the water all around him. The boat wobbles wildly, threatening to topple over.

He fiddles with the unfamiliar dashboard, pushing buttons and shifting levers to no avail. The boat coughs and sputters but, like the powerless firebenders crammed securely within their fortifications, it only emits feeble clouds of black smoke.

"Come on," he hisses, as another cannonball smashes into the boat parked next to him. "Work with me here!"

The acrid smell of motor fuel leaking into the water assaults his nose, bringing back a slew of memories. Of a humble mechanist's workshop at the base of the Northern Air Temple, and the arduous week of sketching blueprints for fuel-powered machines just like this one…

His foot finds the small, innocuous pedal hiding beneath the wheel.

"I wonder," Sokka muses, gripping the ignition lever tightly. Closing his eyes as another cannonball slams dangerously close, barely skimming the boat's blunt nose, he floors the pedal with all his strength.

With a loud sputter, the ignition catches. "Alright!" Sokka cheers loudly as the little boat roars to life, the propeller at its rear spinning furiously, pushing it further into the thrashing water. "Now let's see what these babies can do!"

He slams the pedal experimentally. The acceleration sends him jerking flat against the back of his seat, squeezing the air from his lungs.

"Okay…" he wheezes, letting up as the boat stutters to a halt. "Maybe not so hard, then…"

The boat swivels in the water, floating aimlessly away from the shore and the fort and the array of Fire Navy cruisers still firing upon the work camps.

He glances up desperately at the sliver of sunlight peeking through the eclipse, unsure if he imagines it getting brighter by the second. Time's almost up, he thinks desperately, slamming on the ignition again. If we don't get them to surrender before their firebending comes back, it's all over.

With a lighter touch, he grazes the pedal again. This time, the boat accelerates gracefully.

"Yes!" Sokka exclaims, pumping his fist jubilantly in the air. He steers the wheel delicately, marvelling as the boat's flat nose follows suit. "Now let's have some fun!"

This time, he's prepared for the crushing weight of the boat's acceleration as his foot presses harder on the pedal. Shifting the lever, the boat's roar grows deafeningly loud as it cuts along the surface of the churning waters, charging straight toward the keel of the nearest Imperial cruiser.

The crashing of cannonballs rip through the water frothing in the boat's wake. Sokka grins at the tiny firebenders manning the fort, waves at them mockingly. "You're gonna have to wake up earlier than that to keep up with me!" he calls, before swinging at the steering wheel to avoid crashing into the oncoming cruiser.

The boat nearly capsizes in response. Its port side dips low into the water as it spins into a hairpin turn, narrowly dodging the solid metal hull towering high above Sokka's head. He opens up the throttle, picking up speed as the boat charges along beside the ship, still drawing the fort's shortsighted cannon fire until -

"Haha!" Sokka crows, as a cannonball smashes into the ship's hull instead, tearing a massive hole into its body. "You idiots walked straight into that one!"

Cries of alarm echo from above him as the ship founders. Its sailors abandon their assault on the mainland, preoccupied with the water gushing into their vessel.

"I know, I know!" Sokka sings, as another cannonball whizzes by his head. "You must be so furious with me! How about you try actually hitting me, then, huh?"

He pivots the boat around, steering it around the sharp prow of the sinking ship and weaving through the empty stretches of water churning in between the arrayed cruisers. Cannon fire follows his wake, hitting the water and the hulls of the nearest ships, forcing them to abandon their assault on the work camps.

Ashore on the mainland, the little blue figures of the freed Northmen press further into the water, stirring its surface into a tempestuous force that threatens to knock the ships clean onto their sides.

"Man," Sokka remarks to himself, shaking his head as he manoeuvres the little boat through another line of Imperial ships. "I can't believe they actually fell for that..."

The sixth guard has barely hit the ground by the time Katara whirls on the other prisoners.

With a cutting motion, she slashes at their shackles. They tumble to the ground in a unison of hollow clangs.

"Come on, let's go!" she barks, rubbing at her wrists. The raw skin chafes to the touch, but far better than being chained.

The band chiefs seemed to think differently, staring at her quizzically as though she's possessed.

"What are you waiting for?" Katara demands when nobody answers. "You asked me how we were going to escape. This is how."

As always, Atanek is the first to find his voice. "There's a ship full of Fire Navy soldiers out there. You can't possibly expect to take them all -"

She gestures impatiently at the narrow windows lining the wall, and the blackened sky beyond. "See the eclipse? It means all those soldiers have no bending, and we do!"

"Even without their bending, there are so many of them," Hahn protests feebly, his voice rising to a high-pitched whine. "We'll never get through."

She lets out an aggravated growl, snapping her water whip into the empty air before him. "What's the matter with you?" she snarls, lowering her face to level with his cowed one. "Everyone in the tribe outside this ship is risking everything to fight for our freedom! All we have to do is force the Admiral to surrender...and you won't even do that?"

"To leave this cell would be a suicide mission," Hahn insists stubbornly, his weak chin quivering. "If only we had more help -"

"There is no help," Katara cuts him off flatly. She straightens back to her full height, glaring at the rest of the band chiefs still huddled against the walls. "No one else is coming. There's only us and our freedom." She points at the unconscious guards splayed across the ground. "And everyone else who stands in our way."

"It's reckless," Hahn's father objects, inching closer to his son instinctively. "What about when the eclipse ends and we find ourselves at the mercy of a ship full of firebenders?"

"You're already at the mercy of a ship full of firebenders!" Katara spits, and Natok shrivels fearfully. She whirls on the other chiefs, praying for them to come to their senses. "If you come with me, we can keep on fighting for our freedom! Isn't that a fight worth dying for?"

"What more could you expect from Hakoda's daughter?" Chieftain Keelut sneers, siding with Hahn and his father. "Senseless death is the only thing you know how to sow!"

"As if you've given us any better options!" Katara fires back. "If you stay here, Admiral Chan might take pity on you. Things might not get much worse. But I promise you, they will never get better."

A subdued silence trails her words, but still nobody speaks. Katara lets out a frustrated groan, glancing impatiently at the darkened windows.

"You cannot promise anything."

She turns, startled, to meet Chieftain Suluk's pale eyes as he frowns. His deep voice rumbles like brontide. "If we fail, we will never know how bad things might get. But our families and friends and the rest of the tribe..." He clears his throat, and Katara understands that this would be as close to nervous as she would ever see him. "They will be the ones to pay the price. Not us."

"They know," she answers softly. "They all accept the price of hope."

But Keelut lets out a snort, shaking his head derisively. "Hope!" he crows. "Leave it to a woman to conflate hope with madness at the hour of our direst need."

Her teeth grind together furiously as Hahn and his father chuckle. "You're wrong," she declares, and to her satisfaction, they all fall silent instantly. "Madness got us into this mess in the first place." She tilts her chin defiantly, staring down her nose at them. "But it's hope that'll get us out."

Hahn opens his mouth to retort but finds himself unable to speak under the intensity of her glare.

"In the Water Tribes, we don't follow a man's claim or his bloodline; we follow his strength." The old adage slides off her tongue effortlessly; some of the chieftains study their feet shamefacedly. "Well, you're the band chiefs of the Northern Tribe! How about you start showing some of that strength you expect us to follow!"

Her voice rings in the cramped brig like the keen of a blade, drawn forth in open challenge.

"She's right." To her surprise, it is big Suluk who squares his shoulders first, pushing himself to stand on unsteady legs. "We cannot ask others to take risks we are unwilling to face. It is now or never."

His words spur some of the others into tentative motion, shattering the hesitant silence. More of the band chiefs rise from the ground, while the older ones among them lament at their infirmity.

Atanek shakes out his leaden hands and feet, willing the life back into them. "There is a difference between living and surviving," he states simply, his narrow face twisting into a grimace. "I want to live."

"And if you should fall?" Natok asks incredulously.

But Atanek only shrugs. "Still better than living out the rest of my days with only you and your coward son for company." His eyes narrow contemptuously.

Katara presses a fist against her mouth, the better to stifle her choking snort of disbelief.

To his credit, Hahn still holds his head high. Perhaps that was his right, being the Northern Tribe's chief. Or, Katara privately thinks, perhaps the man no longer felt any shame at all. "Call me whatever you want," he insists, crossing his arms obstinately. "Go die if that is your wish. But I will do whatever it takes to survive."

"Even if it means losing every reason worth living for?" Katara demands furiously, willing him to see reason. "You would rather the whole Tribe burned, down to its last man, woman and child, if it meant you could save your skin? What kind of chief does that make you?"

"We don't have time for this," Atanek interjects, glancing urgently out the window. "He's made his choice. Leave him behind." He stares pointedly at the Northern chief and the others seated on the ground not out of necessity but out of stubborn choice. "Leave them all behind."

Katara casts one last pitying look around the brig. Hahn clutches tightly at the carved tassels hanging against his thin chest.

Then, she races out the door. Atanek and Suluk bound behind her, the floor rattling under their footsteps.

She spots the pair of guards dozing at the end of the narrow corridor long before they jolt awake abruptly. They turn in unison, poised for attack.

Before they even have the chance to try to firebend, Katara slashes viciously at the air in front of her.

Both guards freeze and contort, their eyes wide with fear. Then, like rag dolls cast contemptuously aside, they crumple silently to the ground

Katara doesn't look at the fallen bodies as they race past them. They crash through the door at the end of the corridor, stumbling into the base of the stairwell. The narrow landing echoes with the sound of confused shouts and lumbering bootsteps, growing ever louder.

Beneath their feet, the ship sways with the wrath of a wakened sea.

They race up the stairs, taking the metal steps two at a time. As they climb the first flight and round the corner, a door above them slams open.

Soldiers pour into the stairwell, a mass of crimson armour and bone-white faceplates. They rush down the steps toward them like a foam-capped wave. Their arms bend into useless stances, producing nothing more than the smell of smoke. A chorus of surprised, shocked gasps fills the stagnant air.

One still manages to charge ahead, bounding down toward them with a yell.

Katara flattens out of the way, and the lone soldier blunders straight past her. Suluk grabs him bodily and hurls him down the stairs.

The sound of the man's screams stops abruptly with a sickening crunch.

Somewhere beyond the ship's confines, the full moon darkens the sky. And even if she couldn't see it, she still feels its power coursing within her.

Her hands jerk into unnatural, twisting motions that had once filled her with such revulsion but now come as second nature to her. When the choice was to bloodbend or cower helplessly in Fire Empire captivity, she would choose bloodbending every time.

One by one, the soldiers fall to the ground.

She cuts a path through the tightly-packed stairwell. The other chiefs follow hard on her heels, the sounds of scuffle the only sign of their pursuit.

They battle their way up the stairs. Step by step, until a pile of Empire soldiers lie moaning and dazed at the bottom of the stairwell. The few that remain finally break before them, screaming and fleeing for their lives.

Then the only thing standing between them and the freedom of open air is the heavy door leading to the deck. Its hinges and bolts thoroughly welded shut, in a last-ditch attempt to defend from the threat advancing up the stairwell.

"Katara," Atanek gasps, struggling to breathe, "we need more water."

"I'm on it," she hisses, already straining, searching for water in all its hidden places. The sweat on her brow, drenching her clothes and everyone in the steep, winding stairwell. Evaporated into the air, hanging in invisible droplets that fills her nose with its pungent odour. Blood, seeping through Fire Navy uniforms and onto the ground in a congealing trickle.

A tug of her hands and it all whizzes toward her, coalescing into a revolting mass hovering shapeless in the air.

"Brilliant," she hears Suluk croak behind her. "How did she do that?"

"Must be healer stuff," Atanek mutters back, audibly perplexed.

"Nope," she grunts, her hands churning and spinning with growing force. "It's waterbender stuff. After all -"

She slashes again, flinging the water at the hinges of the door.

" - where there's life, there's water."

It topples under the pressure, popping off its hinges. The door slams open, swinging into the wall with a deafening crash.

Beyond it, the deck beckons. Without waiting, she darts toward it, sucking lungfuls of briny air gratefully.

The darkened midday sky yawns overhead, illuminated only by a hazy ring of faintest white light. Wind grazes her face, touching her lips with the taste of salt. The deck teems with Fire Navy sailors, now struggling to maintain balance as the ship careens wildly beneath them.

And all around them roars the sea, finally alive and swelling with the pulse of the tides.

Tears spring to her eyes at the sensation, cut off for so long and now finally, finally returned. The old familiarity settling in her bones, the push and pull of the moon and the ocean wrapped in their perpetual dance, moving in time to the waterways of her senses.

"You escaped."

Admiral Chan's voice rings out from where he stands at the prow of the ship, surrounded by a crowd of his men bristling and armed to the teeth. Katara narrows her eyes as he clasps his hands patiently behind his back. "You bode your time, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. The day of black sun." He shakes his head slowly. "Of course, an eclipse can only happen at the dark of the moon. And we thought Zhao's victory so absolute, we never saw it coming."

"That's right," Katara answers, finding her voice. "You and your precious Phoenix King played a dirty trick on us, Admiral Chan. But we found a way to even the odds." Her hands raise in front of her reflexively. "Now you and all your men have no bending, while ours has never been more powerful!"

But a strangely bitter smile twists across the Admiral's mouth, still visible through the gaps in his crested helmet. "Only as long as the eclipse lasts," he points out, glancing at the darkened sky overhead. "How much longer do you have? A minute, maybe more?" He raises a hand and as one, his men brace for attack, straining at the ready. "You may have your bending, but you're tired and vastly outnumbered. What can the three of you do before the sun returns our bending to us?"

Katara fights to keep her breathing steady. Her eyes dart from one masked face to another, to every man moving the fill the empty spaces surrounding her. The world rocks unsteadily, threatening to unseat her. But it was only the waves battering at the ship, and they bowed to her will too.

Beneath the surface of her skin, the pathways of chi surge through her body with the power of the living sea. A strange sense of peace settles over her, an acceptance that washes away all fear and doubts until only the path ahead remains, illuminated bright and clear.

I'm not afraid. She closes her eyes and inhales deeply. The salty air drags sharp against her lungs, fueling her with its might. Her arms move effortlessly, as though of their accord, flowing like the humble river that finally embraces the ocean.

Zuko...I'm not afraid anymore.

Wave after wave pummel into the ship, slapping it from one side to another. Shrieks rend the air as men go sliding across the steeply-tilting deck. Another grunt brings the rising water foaming over the railings and flooding the entire surface of the deck.

She plants her stance, freezing her legs in place as the better part of Chan's men wash away, moving freely with gravity as it pulls them from one side of the ship to the other.

"Surrender, or be destroyed!" she grates out, the waves calming momentarily to allow everyone a moment's respite to find their balance.

"Impossible!" the Admiral shouts, white-faced and thoroughly sodden. He backs into the railing, clutching at it tightly as he stares wildly at her. "You're bluffing!"

"I'm not bluffing," she warns, panting heavily. "This is your last chance, Admiral Chan. What's it going to be?"

He points a shaking finger at her, terrified. "Get her!"

A chorus of splashes follow as his men clamber to their feet. With true Imperial Navy discipline, they charge toward her as one.

Sparing a moment to glance over her shoulder, where Suluk and Atanek still stand, frozen in their shock. "Hang on!" she shouts. A yank of her hands traps them both knee-deep in ice.

Even as the chieftains splutter in dismay, she continues to push and pull with all her strength. As though possessed by a demon, by the black-hearted spirit of the ocean itself.

An almighty groan splits the air with its deafening rumble. The flagship jerks violently as the water rushes out from under the stern and pushes the prow sky high. The world turns slowly sideways, the ice creeping up her legs the only thing keeping her in place.

The rest of the men on board are not so lucky. With high-pitched cries of terror, scrabbling helplessly for purchase, they go sliding down the near-vertical incline of the deck. One by one, they get sucked into the mouth of the churning abyss, where the ocean swallows the ship's stern.

"Katara!" Atanek shouts behind her, his voice high-pitched with fear. "Katara, you're going to kill us all!"

In the corner of her eye, she perceives him, a blur of grey still frozen to the deck, holding on for dear life. As though to emphasize his point, the ice begins to crack ominously, as gravity tests its strength.

The screams of drowning men and groaning of the ship's metal bolts are barely audible over the roar of the sea. But all she can focus on is the Admiral, clinging desperately to the rail with his bare hands, trying not to stare at the empty air under his dangling feet. Such a long distance to fall through empty nothingness before he would break the water's surface to join the rest of his men.

"It's your choice now!" she barks at him, her entire body racked with cramps from the effort of pushing past its limits to hold firm. The ice around her legs continues to splinter warningly. "You can end this, Admiral! What would your son do?"

The Admiral sways in the air, buffeted by the wind in all directions. His helmet has fallen off, revealing his bone-white face staring wildly at the waves spilling over the steep incline of the deck like a waterfall, the remnants of his men caught in its torrential downpour. At the iron sea rising so high on either side of his flagship that even the eclipse's faint light is blotted out from sight with its uncompromising strength.

She watches his fingers slide off the railing, one by one, the implacable tightening of his jaw. This is it, she understands, struggling to hold on as the chieftains' screams dissolve into a buzz of cold silence. This is how it ends.

And this time, her hope had cost them everything.

Admiral Chan was a proud man and she had harmed his son. No matter what she did, he would never surrender to her.

He would never cave. He would never shelve his pride. He would rather die than forfeit his honour. It was the Empire's way.

Until the wind tickles her ears, carrying with it a faint sound from another world away, a man's panicked cry.

"Wait!" Admiral Chan yells finally, clinging to the railing with renewed fervour. His eyes lock onto hers, twin points of calm amid chaos. "I surrender!"

Katara staggers backward. The waves crash back down, releasing the ship's prow to plummet, gravity lending speed to its free-fall.

Behind her, Suluk and Atanek break free of their icy restraints. Quickly, they spring into motion, raising a sequence of smaller waves that soften the impact as the ship's hull hits the water's surface.

It still doesn't cushion the worst of the blow, sending shockwaves ringing through the entire metal frame. The deck beneath their feet thrashes with a frenzy that nearly matches the pace of her own heart.

Wordlessly, she stares wildly at the Admiral, wondering if she had imagined his voice. But he clambers down from the railing, shaking like a leaf in the wind.

And then, to her unending shock, he drops to his knees.

"I can't do this," he laments weakly, shaking his head. "I can't win. Not with you, not with my son. Not even with that Agni-condemned General Iroh, all on your side." He slams a fist into the ground vehemently, his teeth gritted together in anguish. "You're all the same, with your hope and your ideals and your stupidity and…"

He crawls across the wet deck, thoroughly drenched under his pristine Admiral's armour, until he kneels by her feet, hanging his head in resignation.

"I can't do this," he repeats, more forcefully. "I surrender the Northern Water Tribe to you, Katara." And even if her ears were tricking her again, he raises his hands in an unmistakable gesture of defeat.

"You've won."

Chapter 57: to touch the sky

Chapter Text

disclaimer. non

author's notes. well folks, this is it. this is what the entire fic has been building toward and i cannot believe that after years of wrangling, we finally made it here! *incoherent screeching noises*

i give you...

southern lights

chapter lvii. to touch the sky

everything is wrecked and grey
i'm focusing on your image
can you hear me in the void?

i will fight the tide and bring you back

"dark moves of love" / m83

On the farthest shores of the Northern Water Tribe, where the ice breaks from the towering cliffs in massive chunks, they all come together by the rubble of its former great walls.

By now, the sun has emerged again in full, the moon receding back into hiding under the cowl of daylight. The renewed light touches the liberated land with its hopeful glow, as cheers and songs of jubilation ring out faintly, rising into the air from the mainland and drawing steadily closer.

On that rocky shoreline where the churning mouth of the Adlartok Bay empties into the vast expanse of the Southwestern Sea sways a single ship. Admiral Chan's flagship, its keel beached in the shallows, the waves slapping loudly against its hollow hull. Its engines are silent, its smokestacks empty. In place of its usual crimson Fire Empire standard, a single white flag hangs from its mast, fluttering limply in the breeze.

The Admiral and his crew wait ashore, knee-deep in the water in a single long row. Overhead, the sky teems with Air Nomad on flying bison, guiding the remainder of the Fire Navy fleet away from the Northern mainland. One by one, the surrendering ships drop anchor offshore.

For his part, Admiral Chan appears at peace with his decision, if not nervously resigned. Some of his men still wear dark, mutinous expressions. But with their wrists bound before them, there is little else they can do in the way of retaliation.

Katara waits ashore, drawn to her full height with her hands clasped behind her back. The bright sunlight casts her shadow upon the rocky banks; it seems to stretch for miles on end, inhumanly long.

She waits on the beach, all alone save for Suluk and Atanek, flanking her with their greater height and stern presence. All three of them bear fresh scars - Suluk even holds a lump of ice to his bloody nose.

Katara offers to heal it but he waves her off. "It's my mark of honour," he rumbles, his chest puffing outward. "So many were lost here. The least I can do is bleed for them."

"Incoming!"

Katara wheels around as Appa lands with a thump behind her. "You made it - oof -"

The wind knocks out of her as Toph and Aang leap off the bison and crush her with a hug.

"You did it!" Aang cries. "That was amazing -"

"Way to go, Sugar Queen!" Toph punches her in the shoulder affectionately. "I wish I could have seen you take them all down."

Katara's eyes begin to well. "Thanks," she says softly. "I couldn't have done it without you."

Toph scoffs. "Don't sell yourself short, Sweetness. We just knocked some people around. But this was your day."

Katara smiles as the two of them let go, stepping back. She glances from Toph to Aang, and the empty space in between them where Zuko should have stood.

Aang doesn't miss the subtle flick of her eyes. "He'd be so proud of you too," he says gently, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"We'll get him back," Toph declares, punching a fist into the palm of her other hand. Her eyes glitter deviously. "If you could kick collective Fire Navy butt in ten minutes while you were still in chains, Ozai better watch out when Sugar Queen decides to come for her man."

"Toph," Katara admonishes in a low voice, glancing at the impassive chiefs looming behind her. But if any of them had heard, their stern faces give nothing away.

"We're with you, Katara," Aang promises, holding out a hand. "Every step of the way."

Toph grins as she places her hand on top of Aang's. "Hell yeah."

Katara blinks and a single tear runs down her cheek. "I know." She dashes at it hastily before clasping both their hands with her own. "I know. Thank you."

Then the moment dissipates as a herd of sky bison circle in the air before landing on the ground with a resounding thump. Groups of yellow-clad Air Nomads disembark smoothly with the remainder of General Iroh's army. They fall in line before the surrendering soldiers kneeling in the shallows and assume guard positions in front of them.

Iroh himself traipses slowly up to her, flanked by Gyatso and Vayu. His eyes widen as he surveys his surroundings. To Katara's relief, he sidesteps her and approaches Admiral Chan instead. "You surrendered, Admiral." His tone does not suggest surprise of any sort.

The Admiral raises his gaze to patiently meet the General's. "I saw the way the tide was turning. I could not see Zhao's orders fulfilled." His mouth settles into a thin line. "That dishonour will be mine. They will take my son's life for it."

"You fought against your orders because you saw them for what they were," General Iroh says softly. "Cruel and wanton. You have not dishonoured yourself today, Admiral. You stopped needless bloodshed from delaying the inevitable."

Admiral Chan laughs darkly. "I don't know if I agree with you or if I just wanted to stick it to that bastard Zhao. I thought I could do whatever was needed to protect my son, even enact the will of a tyrant."

"Your son would be proud of you today," General Iroh says. "Join with me, and I promise we will free him if we can."

The Admiral narrows his eyes. "You would welcome me to your side, even after everything I said and did to oppose you?"

"You acted according to your principles, Chan. But being court-martialled and executed back at the capital for defying your superior's orders will not right the wrongs you have committed, nor will it save your son." Iroh holds out a patient hand. "What will it be, Admiral?"

Admiral Chan stares at Iroh's proffered hand suspiciously. "After all the things I've done, what is one more?" He grabs Iroh's hand tightly, his thin mouth twisting wryly. "I pledge my service to you and your cause, General."

Iroh's eyes twinkle as he helps the Admiral rise to his feet. "And so it comes to pass, Admiral."

Admiral Chan's face scrunches disparagingly. "What do you mean?"

"I remember telling you in my pavilion, nearly a full year ago, that one day you would abandon your belief in Fire Empire superiority, and champion the cause of those less fortunate than yourself."

Katara chokes at the knowing smile that spreads across Iroh's face, even as Admiral Chan scoffs. "I wouldn't say that," he mutters, his ears turning red. "I did what I felt was necessary to protect my son's life. I'm no champion."

"No," General Iroh allows patiently. "But there is a long road ahead of us still." To Katara's surprise, he turns to her entreatingly, tucking his hands into his sleeves as though they were playing a game of pai sho, instead of negotiating the surrender of an occupying army. "Sifu Katara, what do you think?"

She shuffles uncomfortably, before exchanging a quick glance with Suluk and Atanek. "It's not for me to decide," she explains, her voice raw. Their faces flash before her, Bunik and Woka and all the other Northern girls, held for so long in makeshift Fire Navy brothels. All the dead lying in unceremonious piles along the streets of Nutjuitok, their families wailing songs of grief and mourning. "The ones who suffered the most at the hands of his men. They're the ones who should get a say, no one else."

"He was acting to protect the life of an innocent," Iroh points out, his voice irritatingly soft. "His own son. Perhaps to protect someone you loved, you would be driven to act in a way that you would regret?"

"I can't speak for what I would or wouldn't do, since this isn't about me," Katara answers tightly. "He can regret his actions all he wants. But what can he and his men do that can ever begin to make up for all the death and destruction they caused here?"

At least Iroh doesn't push the matter further. To her relief, he merely nods and strokes his beard, his forehead creasing deeply in thought. "We find ourselves at an impasse then." He tilts his head, his amber eyes surveying Katara and the two chieftains scowling on either side of her. "Where are Hahn and the rest of the band chiefs?" he asks curiously.

Katara smacks her forehead. "I knew we were forgetting something!"

"I didn't," she hears Atanek mutter under his breath. "Can't we just leave him in the brig?"

"He did elect to stay there," Suluk agrees, crossing his brawny arms.

Toph lets out a hearty guffaw. "And here I thought you band chiefs were all a bunch of prisses! But you're actually funny!"

"Amusing as it would be," Master Vayu interjects, the only one among them who manages to remain somber, "Hahn is still the chief of the Northern Water Tribe. To liberate the Water Tribes while leaving him imprisoned aboard Admiral Chan's flagship will not start off any future negotiations on the right foot."

"He's right," Aang agrees, before his shoulders slump. "Even if it would be easier on everyone to keep them out of sight and out of mind."

"General Iroh and I will go retrieve them," Gyatso offers, his sky bison already lumbering over. "Katara, Suluk and Atanek should wait here for the rest of their tribe. They will be coming soon."

Without another word, he and Iroh take off.

"Well, there it goes," Atanek laments, kicking a rock into the shallows. "The last of my peace and sanity."

Katara frowns at him. "If Hahn annoys you so much, why did you back his claim and let him take over from Chief Arnook in the first place?"

But the wiry chieftain only shrugs. "As if my voice alone could have made a difference." He glances pointedly at Suluk, before shaking his head. "Natok had been planning this power grab for years. And you, Sifu Katara, gave him all the ammunition he needed to place the chief's mantle onto his useless son's shoulders."

She bristles indignantly, jamming her hands onto her hips. "Don't you dare blame me for your own cowardice!"

"Atanek is not blaming you," Suluk speaks up, to her surprise. "He rues your bravery and your strength. Your determination to fight for change." He sighs, lowering his head. "Once, we had those too. But it has been leached away, after years of games and politics on the band of chiefs. Where the clear path forward is always obscured by complications and considerations."

"Excuses," Katara points out severely. "If this is the so-called strength that our chiefs have on offer, no wonder the entire tribe crumbled under the Fire Navy."

"Youth." Atanek smiles wearily, only infuriating her further. "When you get to my age, child, perhaps you will see differently."

"If I get to your age," she corrects, her tone like a knife thrust. "Since you have no problem letting the young lay down their lives to do what you're too afraid to do."

The man's mouth drops but he says no more. Katara looks away, satisfaction momentarily blazing through her. Sunlight dances across the foaming waves, the salty breeze carrying snatches of triumphant song drifting from the mainland beyond the towering cliffs. Somewhere along the rolling hills of the thawing tundra, far away from the short-sighted ineptitude of the tribal chieftains, scores of Water Tribe people shout and sing, celebrating their day of victory.

She tries to latch onto that instead of the defeated resignation in Atanek's soft, smug voice. Because out there, among the people of the tribe who had banded together and fought for their freedom alongside a ragtag coalition of allies...that was where the seeds of change would be sown. Not among its chiefs, who were the most stalwart guardians of an unyielding, unchanging past.

Pakku hadn't been wrong when he declared that life in the North had become as rigid and constricting as ice. But with the world out of balance for so long, most of the North Pole had melted away under a summer of unprecedented heat. She stares at the sodden brown scrub peeking through the shrinking white piles of snow, all that was left when everything else had been scraped away.

And where Atanek and the other chieftains saw defeat and decay, she sees hope instead. That perhaps this was what the North needed to finally let go of its restrictive past for good.

A clean slate.

And so, clinging to that single thought, she moves away deliberately, to stand with Toph and Aang instead.

"So," she asks, turning her back on the other chieftains, "what did you guys get up to during the eclipse?"

And revelling in the excitement of their voices, each trying to top each other with tales of their exploits, Katara waits along the sodden shore. A declared outcast to her people, but still at home among a tribe of her own.

But soon enough, more find her. Outcasts in their own right joining her small group at the southernmost point of the North Pole.

The first procession creeps down the winding path cut into the cliffs, where the great walls of the North had once stood. A blur of countless figures, dressed in faded grey-blue, moving at a careful pace. They had come all the way from Aujuittuq, singing and cheering in joyful disbelief - the injured and the elderly of the city. Flanked and led by the women - the healing apprentices that Katara had taught with her own hands. With eyes blazing bright in their painted faces, they guard the column of their people, their fierce protectors.

Katara's heart swells in her chest as they draw close enough for her to recognize their faces amid the crowd. Woka with her half-shaved head, waving a scrap of blue fabric tied to a stick. Bunik, supporting her limping father while her burly cousin trails behind sullenly. Ulva, always so stern and somber, now positively glowing, her white teeth flashing bright in a wide, earnest grin.

Even Lusa - green-eyed Lusa who had betrayed them all - marches at the head of another host of women. Still dressed in her demure work gown, but her unpainted face still shines with newfound radiance. Not even Nerrivik and her band of scowling matriarchs reluctantly bringing up the rear could dampen her joy.

Katara nods at her when their eyes meet. Lusa's face reddens before she looks away. But where the space between them had been fraught with tension, a new ease settles. The grace of another chance, another beginning.

They crowd along the shoreline, filling the rocky spaces between the cliffs and the creeping waves. Someone lets out a steady breath, already working to freeze the thawing ground and cover it with a layer of gleaming ice.

A smile curves along her mouth as they swarm her, all the young girls of the Northern tribe. She tries not to crumple under the force of their hugs, scarcely able to keep track of their excited chatter.

"I made an ice wall that held against two cannons!"

"I mastered the giant wave and washed away an entire street of patrollers!"

"I froze a komodo-rhino to the docks and helped some of the men escape!"

"I tried out the octopus form, and it was awesome!"

Katara grins at the light in their eyes, clutching at their hands with her own. "I knew you could do it," she says, over and over again. "I knew you had it in you."

Because this was how they would begin to rebuild. She sees it unfolding before her, as clearly as the icy debris lying scattered along the beach, rising steadily to reform into the great gates that would once again guard the North.

And beyond the newly frozen slopes, still more pour in from the liberated work camps that had studded the empty Chugiak plains. The men of the Water Tribe, their warriors and their fighters, whirling the remnants of the chains they had broken off their wrists and ankles. They descend along the cliffside, dancing and singing jubilantly, drunk with the fruits of their victory.

"Look!" Woka cries, pointing at the nearest column of fresh arrivals, advancing slowly through the fresh ice carpeting the ground. "It's Shila!"

The healer in question trudges at the head of the liberated men, in lockstep with another warrior, hoisting a third between them. Katara tilts her head quizzically, recognizing Tartok's brawny bulk, and a listless Imnek limping between the two of them.

"He made it!" Woka exclaims, clapping her hands to her face in relief. "There's Imnek, safe and sound. Now where's Sangilak?"

The giant warrior brings up the rear of their spontaneous procession, towering above the others, a sheer sentinel among men. He and a few others push at a makeshift ice cart, rolling its wheels along the freshly frozen ground.

"Who's in there?" Katara asks, frowning as Sangilak and the other men hew a sturdy platform of ice out of the clifftop and bend in unison to bring it sliding slowly down the slopes.

It lands on the rocky beach with a crunch, and only when they push the cart off the platform does Katara notice all the Fire Navy men in their uniforms, rounded up and imprisoned and clutching at the bars within.

"I guess that's where the rest of Admiral Chan's men are," Toph remarks, her face scrunching with the effort of applying her seismic sense. She sighs. "I know it's great that you guys aren't wasting time redecorating the place...but I'm gonna miss how easy it was to see around here when everything wasn't covered in ice."

Katara stares blankly as more of the Water Tribe warriors join them along the beach. Husbands and wives, fathers and their children. How many reunions unfolded around her now, how much untold joy fills the air? And how many would never find the ones they sought? How many would hide their grief behind smiles of gratitude at their freedom, unlucky like her?

"Master Katara of Sivusiktok," a voice says in her ear, startling her from her reverie. "I should never have doubted that we would see you here, at the end of it all."

She whirls around, to see Arnook and Master Pakku standing before her. Her old master wears a self-satisfied smirk, but Arnook appears sad, somehow. "But this isn't the end," she says, concealing her unease, her recognition of the grief brimming in the former chief's despondent eyes. "This is the beginning."

"Pure semantics," Pakku sniffs, though his smirk widens at the sight of her, his favourite student. "In the same way as all endings are beginnings...and all beginnings are endings."

She glances at him quizzically. "Sounds like something a crazy old man would say."

"I was only rephrasing what you said first," Pakku retorts, with a small snort. "So what does that say about you?"

"That I'm a crazy old man in the making?" Katara asks.

"Hah!" Pakku wipes at the corners of his eyes, shaking his head. "You'll be a great fit for old people camp one day. I knew I didn't waste that white lotus tile on you."

Katara's forehead crumples in confusion as her old master laughs inexplicably to himself. She glances at Toph and Aang, who appear equally as confused as she is, before turning back to Arnook. "What is he talking about?"

"Who knows?" the former chief sighs, his melancholy intractable and palpable. "He's as crazy as the Dragon General in his own way."

Katara smiles, before glancing around the crowded beach. "Where's Yue?"

The breeze stills, and even through the raucous sounds of celebration spilling into her ears, she swears that everything goes suddenly silent.

Arnook doesn't answer her, only wraps his cloak tighter around himself. But Pakku stops laughing at once, his mirth vanishing.

Katara swallows slowly, understanding at once. She glances up at the sky, where the sun hangs clear and undisturbed in an endless expanse of blue, as though the moon had never blotted out its light in the first place. "She didn't make it, did she?"

Arnook's silence is the only answer she needs.

"I'm sorry," she blurts out, her fingers covering her mouth in dull shock. "I...I hoped there could have been another way…"

"The moon spirit gave its life so that Princess Yue could live," Master Pakku says flatly, shaking his head. "She must have known that it was time to repay that debt. And still she had us bring her to that oasis, with her head held high." His voice turns unusually hoarse. "What a courageous woman."

"What more could we have expected of her?" Arnook laments at last. "She took after her mother, after all. There was never a princess as dutiful, as brave, as giving as my daughter." He gazes at the sky, as though in search of her still. "Many years ago, when Yue was only an infant, I had a vision. I saw a beautiful young woman become the moon spirit." He closes his eyes raggedly. "Now the day that I have always feared has come. And my daughter has taken her place in the sky, to watch over us all."

His voice breaks off as he bursts out sobbing, his tears falling without restraint.

Katara opens her mouth, not knowing what to say. There was nothing she could say, just as how there was nothing Arnook or anyone else could say to relieve the perpetual ache in her heart on account of her missing family.

To everyone's surprise, it is Aang who speaks next. "You must be so proud of her," he tries, placing a tentative hand on the man's shaking shoulder.

Arnook sniffs, wiping at his face with the back of a hand. "Yes," he chokes out unsteadily. "So proud...and sad. What an honour it was, to have been her father."

"It was an honour to know her," Katara mumbles, tearing her gaze away from the empty blue sky. "We owe it to her to keep on going. We can't let her sacrifice go to waste." She meets Arnook's tear-stained face with budding determination. "Let's make the Water Tribes a place she would be proud of."

Arnook smiles then, a fleeting, sad smile. "Yes," he whispers, his lower lip still trembling. "Let us rebuild it together."

But then a hand suddenly closes around her forearm, its grip tight as a vice.

Katara breaks off to stare at Toph, her clouded green eyes wide open and her knuckles turning white from how tightly she grabs at her arm. "Ow! Toph, what're you doing -"

"Sweetness," she says urgently, raising her other hand to point a shaking finger at the last two figures climbing down the summit of the high cliffs. "Sweetness, look."

Katara follows her sightless gaze, seeing but not understanding. The wind picks up, rifling through her loosened hair and filling her nose with the cold damp of salt and ice. It kicks up a spray where the waves crash into the thick layer of ice now capping the shoreline, prickling at her cheeks in a fine mist.

Somewhere amid the shallows, children run around laughing and pelting each other with snowballs.

And yet, she can't take her eyes off the pair of stragglers tottering down the stairs etched into the cliffside. A pair of Water Tribe fighters, she gathers, their deep blue clothing and white face paint leaping out against the stark cliff face. One scrawny and wiry, the other more solidly built, with something so familiar in his movements that it makes her heart ache. The thin one is wounded, barely able to walk; the other supports him, bracing his weight against his own.

The beach isn't that big, the distance between the base of the cliffs and the water's edge a short mad dash. She had run further in more desolate places, surrounded by enemies and wounded, for far less a hope of finding him.

But this time her feet fail her, as though her traitorous ankle remembers its old injury. As though the ice growing out of the ground has crept up her legs and roots her firmly, unmoving in place.

Her mouth moves, but no sound comes out.

And yet somehow, as though it was a secret whispered into the wind and carried on the breeze to tickle at his ear...he hears her.

She sees the surprise jolt through his body like an electric shock, as he reaches the bottom of the cliffs. She wonders if she imagines the recognition lighting up the painted lines of his face, hearing his voice breathing her name. Quietly at first and then shouting it, over and over again, until it splits through the deafening jubilation like a boomerang slicing through the air.

"Katara! Katara…"

He abandons his wounded friend, who collapses unceremoniously to the ground with a plaintive thud. Without a backward glance, shoving his way through the crowds of Northerners cramming the rocky beach, screaming her name all the while.

Tears well in her eyes, rendering him a rapidly approaching blur of blue. She dashes furiously at them, fearing that it was just a trick of the light making her hallucinate. That if she would blink and he would disappear, leaving her alone again. That if she were to run after him this time, that she would still lose him, that she wouldn't be fast enough to reach him.

But this time, it doesn't matter that she's the slower of the two of them.

Because all of a sudden, the distance between them vanishes and he's sprinting into her arms, hugging her so tightly that it makes it hard to breathe.

"I'm here," Sokka whispers fiercely, squeezing her with all his strength. "I'm here, Katara, I'm here, I'm not going anywhere -"

Her hands touch his face, as though making sure he was really there and not some figment of her imagination. "Sokka? Sokka, is it really you?"

He nods, his tears sliding down her fingers in hot wet drops. "It's me. It's always been me, Katara, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry -"

"Is this for real?" she chokes out, a sob starting in the back of her throat. Her fingers trace at his forehead, at the hair still tightly scraped back into its warrior's wolftail. If this is a dream, then I never want to wake up. "Are...are you really here?"

"I'm here," Sokka repeats, hugging her again like they were children, standing in the place where the ice meets the water. "I'm here, for real this time, and I'm not letting you go. Ever."

And despite herself, she lets out a tear-filled laugh, wiping her wet face into the front of his sweaty tunic, which still somehow smells like him and it makes her head spin. "Ever?" she repeats skeptically.

"Never ever," Sokka insists seriously, his cheek flat against the top of her head.

"Even though I just wiped my face all over your shirt and made it disgusting?"

He makes a strange sound, a cross between a snort and a sob that muffles into her hair. "Well, that's what sisters are for, right? To wash all the smelly clothes?"

She cries harder as he chokes out a small laugh. "No wonder you stink. You probably haven't washed your dirty socks since the last time I saw you."

"Why do you think I'm here? I ran out of clean socks," he retorts, his dimples flashing in the corner of her eye.

"Shut up." Katara punches at his shoulder without emphasis. "You just disappeared for three years and come back cracking awful jokes and expect everything to be okay?"

He shrugs. "What did you expect? That the Dai Li would mess around with my head and erase my memories and transplant my personality with a completely new one, and that'd be enough to be free of all my bad jokes?"

She punches him again, harder.

"Ow." Sokka rubs his upper arm, wincing. "That actually hurt."

"Good," Katara informs him, sniffing haughtily. "That's what you get for leaving me behind, you jerk."

"You think I wanted to?" Sokka demands, his voice rising in intensity. "You think I didn't fight every moment to find my way back to you?"

"I don't know. I didn't know what to think anymore." Katara hangs her head, still not willing to let go of him. As though by doing so, he would disappear and she would wake to find the whole thing was a dream after all. "What took you so long? Where have you been?"

Sokka lets out a long, rumbling sigh that tickles her forehead. "It's complicated," he answers softly. "Maybe once things have settled down here, we can trade."

"Trade?" Katara scowls up at him.

"Yeah." Sokka breaks away to hold her at arms' length, surveying her with his familiar dimpled grin. "I mean, you just freed yourself and kicked serious Fire Navy butt all by yourself in a place that didn't even allow women to bend? And that's just the bit that I was here for?" He ruffles her hair affectionately. "Yeah, seems like you've got quite a story of your own."

Katara takes a step back, her fingers raking through her hair to comb it back into place. "You have no idea," she mutters darkly.

"Eh, try me," Sokka scoffs, jabbing at himself in the chest with his thumb. To her mounting surprise, he glances at Toph and Aang, his blue eyes flickering with recognition before he tilts his head curiously. "I mean...those two check out. But wasn't there supposed to be a third one?"

Katara exhales slowly, amazed at how it was possible to miss her brother so much when he was this infuriating. "A third one?" she repeats, wondering if Sokka might have any underlying brain damage that she had to look into after all.

But he frowns, puzzled. "Yeah," he answers slowly, his eyes flitting searchingly between Katara and her friends. "There's the blind girl and the bald monk kid. But I don't see the firebender with the crazy scar."

Katara chokes on her spit, coughing furiously. "What?" she splutters when she finally finds her voice again, wondering if her face is as red as she fears. "How - how do you know about Zuko?"

Sokka shrugs casually. "I saw it in a magic swamp."

Katara blinks stupidly. "Okay, you're going to have to start from the beginning. A magic what?"

But she doesn't hear Sokka's answer, cut off by the swoosh of an incoming sky bison. It lands with an almighty thud in their midst, spraying bits of ice everywhere.

"A little warning next time?" Sokka demands, wiping his face indignantly. "Just because you have giant flying fluffy monsters doesn't mean you can just drop out of the sky whenever!"

"My apologies, Master Sokka." To Katara's surprise, General Iroh has the nerve to sound sheepish. But his gaze flits from her to her brother and then back again. "Ah, you found each other after all? I am delighted to see it." He smiles warmly. "You do such a credit to your people. I am sure Hakoda and Kya would be very proud of you both."

Sokka's jaw drops. "Wait - you knew Mom and Dad?"

Katara rubs at her temples wearily. "It's a long story."

Sokka opens his mouth to retort but is cut off again, this time by the sounds of bodies sliding down Pola's flat tail and hitting the ice in a chorus of successive thumps.

Katara's eyebrows raise to her hairline as Hahn pushes up to his feet. Him and his father and the few remaining band chiefs who had stubbornly elected to cower in the brig during the eclipse.

At once, all the excited songs and conversations evaporate at the sight of their chief, brushing bits of ice off his violet mantle, still grimy and matted from his long imprisonment.

"Well this is all very nice, isn't it?" Hahn asks smoothly, either not noticing anything amiss, or ignoring it with well-practiced aplomb. He marches right up to the place at the edge of the water, between Katara and the remaining chieftains. "Well done, everyone! Fighting off the Fire Navy couldn't have been easy...but your bravery is appreciated!"

Katara frowns, and Sokka scoffs in her ear. "You've got to be kidding me," he remarks witheringly. "Is this guy for real?"

"Sure is," Toph quips soberly. "He's probably waiting for you to give him a medal, Snoozles."

"Why do you keep calling me that?" Sokka hisses through clenched teeth.

Katara shoves a fist against her mouth to stifle a giggle.

Hahn turns to give her a very cold glare. "I fail to see what's so funny about this," he informs her haughtily before his eyes widen and all the colour recedes from his face. "Wait - is that Sokka?"

Her brother stiffens at the sound of his name, before plying Hahn with a wolfish, downright defiant grin. "Hey there, Hahn! After all this time, you still remember me?"

This time, Katara doesn't bother hiding her smirk as Hahn gulps audibly. "Of…of course. Who could forget Hakoda's son?" Fighting to regain composure, he forces himself to smile. Except on his face, it appears more like a trembling grimace. "It's so nice to see you. Alive."

"Yup," Sokka answers cheerfully, relishing the chief's obvious discomfort. "I'm still alive and in one piece, more or less." An edge enters his nonchalant voice. "Sorry to disappoint you."

"W-what?" Hahn stammers, his voice turning oddly high-pitched. "It's no disappointment - it's a joy!" He exchanges a wordless glance with his glowering father, his fury visible in his narrowed eyes. "It's such a thrill to see the both of you...Hakoda's children...alive and reunited after such a long time…"

"He'd sound more comfortable if he was trying to swallow a rock," Toph mutters, pressing her palms against her face. "You'd think for a chief, he'd be better at lying."

"Well, it's really thanks to you that we were able to find each other," Sokka points out, with a disarming flash of his dimples. "If you hadn't lost the siege and let the Fire Navy murder the moon spirit, I'd never have regained my memories in time for the eclipse! So really...thanks, Hahn!" He loops an arm around Katara's shoulders, giving her a tight squeeze. "Seriously, my sister and I really appreciate it!"

Hahn's teeth grind together audibly, and Katara marvels at Sokka's ability to play his insecurities like an instrument. She gives his hand a tight squeeze, its solid warmth still surreal to her.

"It's the least I could do," Hahn answers stiffly, before shaking his head and donning his usual haughty air. "Anyway! Now that we've taught the Fire Navy the error of their ways, let's go back home!"

Katara frowns, and from a quick glance around the crowded beach, she can tell everyone else is similarly unimpressed. Bunik actually rolls her eyes, while more of the girls whisper in hushed voices behind her, throwing dark looks at Hahn. Even the men, not just Master Pakku and his perpetual disdain, but the younger ones too. Sangilak and Imnek and even Jukka, who had limped his way over to his friends' sides. The night of Hahn's wedding feast, they hadn't hesitated to gang up on her in front of everyone. But now they mutter among themselves, their furtive glances darting from Hahn to Sokka and then back again.

"I know, you must all have many mixed feelings on this day," Hahn continues, his toothy grin faltering slightly at the thick black silence following his words. "But now, as your chief, I stand before you and ask -"

"Our chief?" Tartok's loud voice boldly rings out in the quiet. "What in the spirits' name gives you that idea?"

Katara rubs at her eyes, wondering if the midnight sun had finally driven her mad. Because Tartok was Hahn's self-proclaimed best friend, his most stalwart defender. He had declared as much over and over again, even used it to get her kicked off Team Avatar when he felt threatened by her.

And now he lets go of his wounded brother, stomping out of line to point an accusing finger at Hahn, in front of everyone.

Hahn's mouth drops open slightly before he shakes his head again and hitches it back into an entreating smile. "Come on, Tartok. Don't be dim. I'm the leader of the band of chiefs, remember?"

But Tartok only crosses his arms stubbornly, glancing at his brother Imnek who leans heavily on Sangilak's arm for support. The back and sides of his parka are gouged open and bloodstained, and Imnek's eyes are slitted half-open and hazy with delirium. "Maybe. But that was before we got invaded by the Empire. Why should we follow you now?"

Hahn laughs uncomfortably. "You can't be serious. We made a deal, remember? Your father and mine, we - we all agreed to this -"

"Political bullshit," rumbles Sangilak, stepping forward to stand beside Tartok. His giant hand is delicate where it supports Imnek's listless weight. "You expect us to follow that now?"

"We just defeated the Empire!" Shila calls out fiercely, stepping next to Imnek and tucking her hand under his elbow to better support him. "And where the hell were you?"

Hahn's face twists in disapproval. "I will not be spoken to by a woman in such a fashion!"

"Why not?" challenges Tartok, placing a hand on Shila's shoulder unconsciously. "The women actually fought alongside us, bled alongside us. What did you do, Hahn?"

"He sat in his cell and cowered!" Woka accuses, from where she stands with the other healing apprentices. "After he locked up all of us women when we just wanted to learn how to defend ourselves."

"I locked you up for your own good!" Hahn spits, his face twisting with every word. He takes a step forward in warning. "Now remember your place if you know what's good for you -"

"Or what?" Woka challenges. In a flash, she lunges forward and a jet of water leaps into her head, shining as sharp and sturdy as a sword. "What'll you do, talk me into submission? Because my sisters and I didn't fight through the eclipse just to be afraid of a coward like you!"

"Call me whatever you like," Hahn snarls, his nostrils flaring, "but I am your rightful chief -"

"By what authority?" Master Pakku's soft voice cuts him off, dripping with disdain. Hahn gapes at the old master, perhaps stunned to see him standing there in the first place. But Pakku only scowls. "In the Water Tribes, we do not follow a man's claim or his bloodline. We follow his strength. And it seems as though everyone has seen very little of that from you, Hahn."

Katara fights the urge to roll her eyes as Hahn outstretches his hands pleadingly. "Well, what exactly did you expect me to do? In case you forgot, the Fire Navy took me hostage, held me captive aboard their ship under lock and guard, in constant fear of torture or execution! I was in danger too!"

To the surprise of all, big chieftain Suluk's snort slices through the air. "Don't listen to him!" he disparages, shaking his head. "I was imprisoned with him, and I heard every pitiful deal he tried to cut with the Fire Navy to save his sorry skin." His broad hand hovers over the club tucked into his belt. "This man has no strength, no courage and no honour. Princess Yue lay down her life to set us free, spirits bless her name. But the only place Hahn would lead us is the inside of yet another cage!"

Hahn scoffs even as a chorus of assent follows Suluk's pronouncement. "Such bold words from you, Suluk. Is this it, then? Are you challenging me for the chief's mantle? Akluilak is no longer enough, so now you've decided to claim leadership over the entire tribe for yourself?"

But Suluk only laughs, shaking his head. "No. I don't seek the leadership for myself. Not because I fear you, Hahn, but only because I could never accept it." He lowers his head reverently, his voice softening to an awed hush. Yet somehow, everyone still manages to hear him clearly. "Not when another stands among us, whose strength far exceeds my own."

"Really? Well, who is it then?" Hahn asks dubiously, glancing all around him. "Don't leave us all hanging! Tell us, who is so strong that even the mighty Suluk would bow to him?"

But the giant chieftain steps toward Hahn slowly, looming over him until the smaller man is forced to step back nervously. "That brig broke you, Hahn. And it broke me too. Being held captive, in chains, a prisoner of the Fire Navy with the moon lost and my bending with it." He claps a hand against his forehead, his voice a booming lament. "I thought it was the end. I thought I would never see my son again, or my home, or my people. I lost hope. I gave in to despair, I gave up on fighting. We all did." He exchanges a glance with Atanek, who gives a quick, jerky nod. "All except one."

"In that darkest hour," Atanek speaks up, his voice soft but clear, "only one person in that brig held on to hope. Only one person among us all never gave up."

To Katara's utter shock, both chiefs turn slowly toward her. In a single, deliberate motion, Suluk reaches into his belt to point at her with the tip of his club.

"Katara of Sivusiktok," he announces to all assembled, his voice ringing loud and clear over the waves slapping noisily at the hulls of the metal ships. "When the rest of us succumbed to our despair, she still believed. She brought the whole tribe together, placed herself in harm's way over and over again, concocted this plan of sheer insanity to set us free. She gave us hope again. Even when held in chains, under lock and guard without her bending, she would not break." Katara's mouth drops open in disbelief as Chief Suluk nods his head in deference toward her. "Even the enemy recognized this. Admiral Chan did not surrender to Hahn, or to myself, or any other member of the band of chiefs. He surrendered to her." A strange look flits across his face. "There is no higher honour than the respect of your sworn enemy."

Hahn struggles to form words as Suluk turns to face the rest of the gathered tribe and raises his voice. "I move that Katara of Sivusiktok lead us from hereon in!"

Katara freezes, rooted to the spot at the unearthly roar of assent that follows Suluk's question.

Elsewhere, the din intensifies. But even through the hordes cheering their favour - Bunik and her father, Woka and the rest of the girls, Jukka and his band of friends, even Tartok - she spies the darkening glower spreading across Hahn's face, and of those gathering behind him.

"This is a joke," Hahn splutters as Suluk and Atanek finally flank her on either side to grab at each of her hands and raise them in acknowledgement to the cheering masses. "You want her to lead?"

The atmosphere on the beach suddenly grows quiet and tense.

"He's right," someone agrees. "She isn't even from the Northern Tribe."

"And she's a woman!" crows Nerrivik, moving to place her hands on her son's shoulders. "We clearly need a man to lead us! How can we risk the wrath of the spirits?"

"Princess Yue is a spirit now," Master Pakku snaps at her, his annoyance palpable. "And her last words to us before dying was to let women fight. Is it your intention to disrespect her?"

"Fighting is one thing," argues Nerrivik. "But leading? And someone as young as her?"

"Well, you're not exactly proving that age counts as a substitute for wisdom," Sokka interjects dryly.

"Hardly," Natok says smoothly, coming up to stand next to his son authoritatively. "But what about experience? Katara has never governed before, never been exposed to the political intricacies of our world. How can you expect such a young, inexperienced girl to lead us?"

"Because she led us to freedom, Natok."

Everyone's heads turn as Arnook steps forward, still standing as tall as he ever had. "Where have your political intrigues led us? On a road to damnation when you decided that your own safety was more important than the lives of our siblings in the South."

"Katara broke out of prison and single-handedly fought her way through a ship full of Fire Navy soldiers and got them to surrender to her within ten minutes," Sokka adds with a smirk. "And your claim to power is what, exactly? You know how to do paperwork?"

Hahn's face mottles in fury. "She's in thrall with the firebenders! Do you really want to be led by someone so friendly with our enemies?"

Katara's eyebrows knit together as all eyes land on her expectantly. "I -" she stammers, glancing at the chiefs next to her for help. "I might have some close ties with people from the Fire Nation…but we can't paint all of them with one brush." She gestures at General Iroh, whose eyes grow wide. "General Iroh stayed with us this time. He put himself and his soldiers on the line, gave up his chance of escaping safely and seeking his vengeance on his brother to help us win this fight. Mai warned us about the invasion. And even Zuko - the prince -" She chokes up, momentarily overcome with emotion at the thought of him.

"There! See!" Hahn crosses his arms triumphantly. "She'd be totally inept!"

"Prince Zuko sacrificed himself to save my life," Katara insists, angrily finding her voice with battle-sharpened instincts. "And if you're free because of me, then you're also free because of him and what he did for us the night of blood moon."

"Why would a prince of the Fire Empire, General Iroh's only heir, Ozai's only son, put his life on the line to save you?" Hahn demands, smirking as Katara glares daggers at him. "There's only one thing a woman can give a man to make him act thus."

The words burst out of her without hesitation. "Zuko and I share a deep bond. I saved his life and he saved mine. We love each other. We challenge each other, and we make each other better people. He makes me stronger, braver, happier. So what?"

A stunned silence greets her outburst.

She flushes at the horrified stares landing on her from every direction - her tribe, General Iroh, even her own long-lost brother. But what was all of their censure compared to what Zuko had done for her, what his bravery had inspired her to do in turn?

And so she forces herself to keep her head held high as she braces for the inevitable uproar.

Without missing a beat, Hahn claps his hands in delight. "See? She admits it! Under all that bluster, she's just a Fire Nation whore!"

Katara takes a very deliberate step forward. "You think I'm a whore? Go ahead. I've been called worse. But I'm not the one who sold out my own people to the Fire Nation to save myself. So what does that make you, Hahn?"

"Nothing you say to me matters!" Hahn continues gloatingly, before turning to face the rest of the tribe. "Put her in the leader's seat and you'll watch as the Tribe gets run into the ground! What's next? Women sitting on the band of chiefs? Men taking up healing? A complete and total disintegration of the sanctity of our traditional families? Under her leadership, we might as well have let the Fire Nation win, if we would have to live by their morals anyway -"

"Hahn," Katara interrupts darkly, "if you're so opposed to my leadership, you're welcome to fight me for it." Satisfaction wrings through her as Hahn's face turns sickeningly white. She leans into an offensive stance. "That is, if you think you can win this time. All you have to do is beat this Fire Nation whore."

A muscle works in Hahn's clenched jaw before he finally backs down, cowed. "It would be beneath me to fight a woman," he grumbles in a show of unconvincing machismo. "Who am I to speak against the rest of the tribe?"

"A giant stinking coward!" Tartok yells, amid laughter.

An awkward silence settles across Hahn's small group of dissenters. Katara breathes heavily, the wind teasing her hair, cool against her skin flaring angry and hot.

"It appears that neither Hahn nor any of his...rather vocal supporters have the courage to challenge Katara for the leader's seat," Atanek observes dryly, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "As such, their objections are baseless. The rest of the Tribe, please make yourselves heard." He raises his hands entreatingly. "Who is the strongest among us?"

Katara is not prepared for the sound of every voice of those gathered on the shoreline yelling as one.

"Katara!"

Atanek continues, unfazed. "Who will we follow from hereon in?"

"Katara!"

"Who is our new chief?"

"Katara!"

Katara is scarcely aware of anything other than the leaden weight of her entire body, and the sound of her pulse drumming a frenzied rhythm loud in her ears. She's utterly incapable of any movement, despite her best efforts to try to look capable or strong or anything. It was as though a fierce storm was sweeping through her, and she was trapped in its midst. Unable to fight back or alter its course, unable to do anything at all except surrender and allow it to consume her.

Except in this case, the storm was also her.

Atanek drops to his knees, and then the other chieftains. One by one, in a ripple of blue like the waves crashing upon the shore, everyone in the entire tribe lowers into a bow.

To her.

Arnook and Suluk march up to Hahn. The disgraced ex-chief doesn't speak a word in protest, only waves them off feebly and without emphasis. Silently, they strip him of the chieftain's mantle and turn their backs on him.

This can't be real, is all she can hear, a mantra repeating faintly in her ears. Everything feels surreal, right down to Sokka's presence at her side. The slopes of the fresh ice flats and tumbled rubble slides in and out of her vision, swallowed by a white haze as everyone moves out of the way.

The chieftain's mantle is draped gently around her shoulders, its oversized warmth a surprisingly heavy weight.

She should feel proud, so proud. But her senses are long dulled to any and every blow, a safeguard honed to an invisible armour over the years, and everything seems to grow numb instead.

Arnook smiles sadly, fiddling with the fastenings at the front. "We should have done better by your father, Katara. I'm sure wherever he is, he must be so proud of you."

Katara clutches at the crescent moon-shaped crest dangling from the fur mantle, her throat jamming up tightly and tears brimming in her eyes. "Thank you," she croaks, preemptively wiping at her face. "I wish he were here today." She returns Arnook's gaze. "I wish Yue could be here today too. To see what she did for us."

Arnook's face jerks upward to stare at her directly in the eyes before his smile warms. He rests a heavy hand on her shoulder. "My chief. Long may you reign, and wisely." He backs away, inclining his head respectfully before he raises his voice. "Where would you have us go from here?

Katara swallows her nerves and steels herself. The maelstrom surging through her suddenly seems to subside, the silence within her almost deafening in its wake. She takes a step forward, and then another, the mantle large and heavy on her shoulders, its tassels rattling with every movement. The wind picks up again, rifling the beaded braids of her hair and the furs lining her skirts. In the distance, the ocean continues to pound with the heartbeat of the world, matching the pulse thudding calm and steadily in her chest.

She clenches her hand to a fist and brings it to her heart, surveying the hordes of people surrounding her. The procession of the Northern Water Tribesmen, the remaining band of chiefs scattered before her. Hahn and his cronies slumping in their disapproval, still unconvinced. And then in a line backing against the ocean, Air Nomads and Empire soldiers of once divided loyalties, turned to a smudge of yellow and red and black painting the shoreline.

General Iroh lowers his head as her gaze settles upon him. Something thrums through her at the sight of him. A memory of anger that had once fanned bright, now burned down to embers that still warmed her through. Not quite vindictive, not quite stricken but somewhere in between. As though in recognition of their mutual loss, and the audacity of the struggle it had taken to get to this very moment.

"We've lost enough," she says at last. "It's time for us to take back what was ours, and rebuild what was broken."

She glances back at the assembly of her people, surrounding her as far as the eye could see, their gazes downcast in respect. A homecoming she had never even dared to dream for. Her voice rises in a commanding ring. "We will rebuild, both here and in the south. The two tribes will be reunited as one, as we were meant to be."

A cheer follows her words and she raises her hand for silence. "But not yet. Until there is peace on our shores, we cannot turn our gaze inward. Not yet."

A hush fills the air as she turns on her heel and marches up to Iroh, who appears all the more surprised at her attention. "This man turned the other way when his nation rained atrocities down on us. Time after time, he shirked responsibility under the illusion that he had none to bear when the sins of his brother were so great." Then her voice softens. "But this time, when all hope was lost to us, he stayed. He put himself on the line for us, helped us to take back our destinies." She smiles at him. "He has proven his friendship. Now, we must do our part in return."

Someone, she suspects Toph, lets out a whistle of approval.

"We will march to the heart of the Fire Nation," she declares, all doubts melting away from her like ice under the warm glow of sunlight. For the first time in her life, every part of her feels certain and in complete alignment. "And then...we will teach Ozai once and for all that all fires bow to the sea!"

The roar that greats her words is so loud it nearly knocks her off her feet. Everyone, from the girls and Jukka's band of prickly young men to the stoic band chiefs, screams loudly in their enthusiasm. Drumming up the wild euphoria of one impossible victory to hold against the prospect of a long and troubled path ahead.

"So this is what happens when you get brainwashed by the Dai Li," she hears Sokka mutter to himself. "You wake up three years later to find everything upside down. Firebenders aren't all evil, your girlfriend is the moon, the Northern Water Tribe lets women fight and is about to make your baby sister its chief." He shakes his head violently. "Am I missing something?"

"How about the part where your sister's also in love with a Fire Nation prince?" Toph supplies glibly.

Katara whirls on her, blushing furiously. "Hey! I thought you were taking my side!"

"I am." Toph shrugs. "You just admitted it in front of everyone, Sweetness. No point trying to unspill that tea now."

"The obnoxious blind girl does have a point," her brother cuts in, still maddeningly Sokka about the whole thing. "Besides, it's not like I didn't already know."

She gapes at him. "You knew?"

"Yeah." He taps at the side of his head wryly. "Magic swamp, remember?"

She lets out a loud groan, covering her face.

"Chief Katara." General Iroh takes a tentative step toward her, his head still bowed. "May I - may I express my sheer delight toward your chieftainship?"

Katara bites her lip at his reticence. A very small wave of guilt washes over her as she rests a hand on his shoulder. "Didn't you hear me, General? We meet as equals now."

Iroh raises his head slowly, his eyes wide with surprise before his face creases into a proud, fatherly grin. "So we do," he agrees, beaming. "Your bravery never ceases to amaze me. I know it is not my place to say this but...I am so proud of what you have accomplished, Katara. You truly are your mother's daughter."

Katara chokes at his praise. "Thank you," she whispers, before she hangs her head, blurting out, "And - and I'm sorry too, for everything I said before. I was really hard on you."

"It was a lesson I needed to learn," Iroh says quietly, a somber expression flashing across his jubilant face. "But you were right, Katara. I could not uphold a commitment to justice while defending the Empire I was raised to believe in." He hangs his head. "The Empire truly is lost."

"Let it die," Katara tells him kindly. "And then build something better. Not everyone in your country wants the same thing as your brother. Give them something they can stand for."

Iroh glances up at her with his piercing amber gaze. "My nephew is a lucky man," he remarks quietly and blood rushes to Katara's cheeks. "I understand now why he did what he did for you." His smile makes her heart twinge painfully. "If he were here, he would be so proud of you. He always believed in you."

It takes Katara longer than she would have liked before she can swallow the lump blocking her throat. "We'll get him back," she swears, twisting at the crescent moon hanging warm against her chest. "I promise. Whatever it takes. We're going to find Zuko. We're going to bring him back, safe and sound. And soon enough...we'll all be together again." Her fingers close around the crest tightly. "I believe it. I believe it with all my heart."

Chapter 58: high noon

Chapter Text

disclaimer. one big nope.

author's notes. happy holidays all you beautiful people! dropping in with a small offering as we officially move into the endgame.

as usual, i can't thank you enough for all the lovely feedback.

a gentle reminder that ozai is a walking trigger warning and still the Worst Fatherlord Ever. please proceed with caution if you find the subject matter upsetting.

i give you...

southern lights.

chapter lviii. high noon

deceiver says you belong to me
you don't want to breathe the light of the others
but i hear them now, inhale the clarity
hear the venom in what you say

"fear inoculum" / tool

Dark clouds roil across the sky, covering the slopes of the caldera with a perpetual gloom. In the enclaves of the burnt harbour, the iron waves of the Budo Bay thrash restlessly, with a new life of their own. They batter the crumbling piers, sweeping their wreckage out to open waters with the lowering of the tides. Rain drenches the sodden, smoking capital in a torrential downpour, flooding the gardens of the aristocratic quarter and churning the grimy streets of the lower city to a slippery wash of mud.

Even in the stifling confines of the throne room, Mai can still hear it pelting the outer palace walls, a constant low drone faint in her ears. Her temples ache with the pressure rising in the air, thick with humidity. Her summer silks, the lightest she owns, stick uncomfortably to her sweaty skin.

The barrier of flames still burns along the edge of the Phoenix King's dais, heedless of the sweltering heat building within the hall. The flickering of the flames the only source of movement in the entire throne room.

Everything else - the curtains lining the walls, the cabinet advisors, even the air itself - remains deathly still. Not a cough, or a rustle of paper, or even an ill-timed drawing of breath disturbs the absolute silence.

Only the Phoenix King takes his leave to break it.

"Zhao." His command is low, controlled, scarcely louder than the silence itself - yet no less menacing for its quiet. "Explain."

In the corner of her eye, Mai spots the Admiral's burly shoulders stiffen. An uncomfortable sound undulates around the low table - of Zhao's teeth grinding together, of the other councillors fighting to conceal their sighs of relief that their names hadn't been called instead…

"Your Worship," Zhao bites out, his fingers digging into his knees, "I...I am as lost as you are -"

A harsh laugh cuts him off. "Lost?" sneers Ozai's voice, and Mai can't tell if it is fury or mockery that underscores his contempt. "I granted you command of the Imperial fleet. And this is how you repay me?"

"I don't understand," Zhao answers breathlessly, a muscle working angrily in the square of his jaw. "There was no way they could have - I killed the moon spirit's mortal body! Left it dead in the water under constant guard!" In spite of his careful control, his voice rises, betraying his outrage. "How could they learn to bring the dead back to life?"

"Such fables belong in theatres and the mouths of old wives. They have no place in the presence of your king." The fire glows hotter and brighter; Mai looks away to stop her eyes from watering. "Do you expect anyone to believe that those ice-scrabbling peasants could somehow raise the dead?"

"I can't believe it myself, Your Radiance," Zhao whispers. "But what other explanation is there?"

"Obviously, that the moon spirit's mortal body was not killed, as you reported."

But Zhao shakes his head violently. "That can't be," he chokes. "It was dead, I saw it." Angry splotches of colour suddenly appear in his pale face. "This is all Chan's fault, not mine! I left the North under his command. He had but to crush it, and he couldn't even do that!"

"Hm." To Mai's shock - and everyone else's - Azula raises a hand to smooth the strands of hair framing her face. "If only you had stayed up north to ensure the continuity of your victory, instead of delegating it to lesser men," she remarks.

"Lesser men? Chan was an Admiral before my first hairs turned grey!" Zhao argues. "It's not my fault he chose not to crush the North when he had the chance! I practically handed it to him!"

"Yes, it was a squandered opportunity," Azula notes, her silky voice turning suddenly glib. "At least you were able to grace the victory parade with your presence."

Zhao splutters, incoherent and indignant. But Mai studies Azula's face with a frown, the slight upward quirk of her painted lips. She must be loving this.

"Enough." The Phoenix King's snarl claws through the flames, growing larger and more menacing in size with every passing moment. "Zhao's lapses in judgment will cost him steeply. But before I exact my price, I would hear what these - these upstarts dare demand."

A nervous hush descends over the huddled council. In the angry red light, Mai swears that all their faces blanch lifeless and grey. Flickers of reluctant movements, fearful old men quavering under pressed silk finery as they exchange mute glances. Each unwilling to be the one to speak next, to be the hapless messenger that invited their king's wrath.

"Well?" Ozai demands into the subdued silence. "That was an order! Bujing, read it to me."

Mai had seen the old general a thousand times before, his smile calm and bloodless in the face of a thousand atrocities. But today his face appears wizened and shrunken, his fingers bone-white and shaking. Under the weight of his General's uniform, he appears little more than a skeleton, a dried-out husk of a man.

Fear had done that to him. Fear had sucked the merciless arrogance out of his proud body and reduced him to a trembling old man scarcely able to unfurl a roll of weathered paper without dropping it a dozen times. The cracked white wax seal clicks softly as it hits the table's polished wooden surface, its tiny petals etched sharp and clear. The growing firelight turns it the colour of blood.

Bujing swallows nervously. "It's...it's from a group calling itself the Order of the White Lotus," he stammers, his eyes widening as he skims its contents. "They...they dare to address you, Your Glory. They write that this is their first and only warning. They ask that you stand down and cease all hostilities. Withdraw from the North and abandon your false war with the Earth continent." He falters, mopping at his shining brow with his sleeve.

"And why would I do that?" Ozai hisses, his voice dangerously soft.

"Your Radiance," the old general squeaks, his fingers gripping the missive so tightly that the paper starts to crumple, "they write that it is still not too late. You still have a chance - a final chance. Meet them halfway and find a peaceful solution. No more blood need spill anymore."

A stunned silence reverberates around the throne room, broken only by the crackling of flames. And then, at length, a full-throated predator's laugh.

"No more blood need spill?" Ozai crows from behind the fire. "Who wrote this? This has all the weakness and blundering sentimentality of that fool, Iroh."

Bujing's head jerks into an uncomfortable nod. "He is listed among the signatories, Your Worship," he croaks. "Alongside others… Gyatso, Sutra, Vayu and Iio, chief elders of the four Air Temples. And Chief Katara of the Water Tribes -"

"I'm sorry," Azula interrupts, struggling to mask an incredulous laugh. "Chief who, now?"

Mai can't help but raise her eyebrows, half out of surprise and half out of amusement. So, Zuko's waterbender was enough of a troublemaker to get herself declared chief, she thinks wryly, concealing a small smile into her sleeve. Imagine that.

But she's shocked to see a similar smirk playing across Azula's mouth as she taps her chin. "So Uncle liberated the North, consolidated all our enemies into a single force, and installed a teenager loyal to him to lead the Water Tribes," she muses, and for reasons beyond Mai, her smirk widens appraisingly. "Hm. Not bad for a Water Tribe peasant."

"Peasant?" Ozai's growl cuts through the barrier of flames, now flaring so out of control that they threaten to set the velvet curtains alight. "Kya was no peasant, and neither is her daughter." The fire swooshes erratically, its movements frenzied and glowing so bright that Mai has to look away. Temporarily blinded, she blinks water out of her eyes, even as Ozai continues his rant, "I offered her a place at this very table, by my side. If she would rather squat in that barbaric wasteland until the end of her days, then that is her choice."

Nobody dares to break the silence, but their heads tilt in confusion. Even Azula's smooth brow crumples at her father's bizarre proclamation.

"As long as breath remains in my body, I will never surrender. Not to Iroh, not to any whose loyalty should have been mine," Ozai continues raggedly, his voice gaining strength with every heaving breath. "I would rather die."

"My king. There is no need for talk of surrender or death," Zhao speaks up abruptly, each word clipped and desperate, a lifeline flung haphazardly into the air in search of purchase. "Can you not see? Iroh is afraid. The moon spirit may be restored, the Northern Water Tribe may be freed. All our enemies may have united under Iroh's banner...but he is still afraid. Why else would he still sue for peace?" Heartened by the sudden pause in Ozai's speech, Zhao licks his teeth in a wolfish grin. His chin tilts upward triumphantly. "Summer's end is upon us. In but a turn of the moon, Sozin's comet will return and grant us immeasurable power. Iroh and his grand alliance are stuck all the way in the North Pole. He knows he is already too late."

The Phoenix King still skulks behind his wall of fire, but Mai swears she hears the slow satisfaction spread across his face in a smile. "Iroh is too late," he echoes in agreement. "He cannot stop the world from being reborn in fire and ash."

Applause bursts out around the low table - resonant and victorious and tense. Yet Mai notices that Azula still sits primly in her spot, her hands unmoving where they lie in her lap. She doesn't smile or laugh or cheer with the rest of her father's council - instead, apart from the deepening of her frown, she doesn't react at all.

Until the wall of Ozai's fire shrinks back to its usual height, the flames once again uniform and cool red and carefully controlled. The sounds in the throne room shrink with it, until silence settles over the hall once again.

Only then does Azula clear her throat. "Fire and ash," she repeats, the frown vanishing from her porcelain face. "Yes, the invasion plan will promise a glorious day when the comet returns...or it would, if not for recent developments."

And just like that, the atmosphere in the hall turns abruptly tense again.

"Princess," Zhao bites through gritted teeth, "did you not hear me? The freedom of the Water Tribes, your uncle's alliance...they are all inconsequential. It is a long journey south for them, after all."

"Long for you and your fleet, perhaps," Azula allows. "But for an army that controls the sky and the seas? With flying bison and an entire tribe's worth of waterbenders to ease their passage, and the fate of the world hanging in the balance?" She waves a hand in the air dismissively. "But Zhao thinks they probably won't get here in time. So that just leaves us to contend with other threats. For example, there's the pesky matter of the old clans."

A puzzled silence greets her words.

Azula blinks, glancing around the table incredulously. "The old clans? The dragonriders led by Lady Mao? Surely you haven't forgotten about them already? I assure you, they have not forgotten about us." She withdraws a small scroll from her sleeve. "In fact, the latest reports say that Princess Ayumi has returned safely to her ancestral home...and with her, our last leverage. Lady Mao and the rest of the old clans are emptying Ma'inka island, raising their own strength to march on the capital." She shakes her head as though she found the rest of them painfully slow-witted. "How are we supposed to mount an invasion while defending our rear at the same time?"

"We still have the Dai Li allied to our cause," someone offers, and Mai fights to contain her snort.

"The Dai Li?" Azula sniffs, rolling her eyes. "The ones that are now holed up in Ba Sing Se, because this so-called resistance now has them pinned down and surrounded? The ones you plan to attack during the day of the comet?" She traces a pattern idly into the table's surface with a sharpened fingernail. "Oh, and in case it's not obvious yet...it's one thing to raze a defenseless, divided continent to the ground with little resistance. But you underestimated the resistance and now it's grown into a real force to be reckoned with. Lao Beifong stands behind them, and his coffers flow limitless - unlike ours."

Low murmurs of fear erupt around the table, but Mai still hears the frustrated grinding of Zhao's teeth, and the rising crash of Ozai's temperamental flames.

"Our conflict with the Earth continent is no longer some shadow war. Long Feng holds the region, but just barely. The accounts all say that the resistance is led by the legendary Mad King Bumi." Someone next to Mai actually shudders out loud at the name. "The Water Tribes declared independence and joined Uncle's alliance. It is now only a matter of time before the Earth continent does the same. And let us not forget that the Air Nomads, who would have remained neutral, have also sided with Uncle." Her voice turns pointed. "Because we had to needlessly destroy the Southern Air Temple and provoke them."

"It was a bold victory," Zhao interjects - rather petulantly, Mai thinks. "It was the right thing to do at the time -"

"And we have paid for it by painting a very large target on our backs, one that everyone in the world will rally against," Azula barrels over him, placing her hands flat on the table. Firelight gleams off the golden crown pinned to her topknot, as neat and polished as always. "So we must be strategic. We cannot pillage and raze and hope for the best when fighting a battle on three, four, possibly five sides if we include the Maos -"

"As long as the Maos remain within our borders," someone ventures, some new councillor stupid and bold enough to cut Azula off midsentence, "we can crush them for plotting insurrection."

Azula plies him with a glare that could peel skin from flesh and he wilts under it. "Crush them with what forces?" she asks witheringly. "The ones who surrendered to Uncle and are stuck up north where they're no use to us at all?"

"Moving troops up north to support the occupation was of the highest priority," Mai hears her own father protest defensively. "We were just following orders."

Azula pinches the bridge of her nose in exasperation. "Ukano, the capital is held by a skeleton force," she enunciates slowly and clearly. "The Maos have dragons. How do you think this will end?"

A choking sound fills the air with its nervous energy. All around the low table, Ozai's councillors flinch and duck reflexively, as though expecting the great fire-breathing creatures of legend to swoop down upon them in that very instant.

But Mai remains perfectly still, her breathing steady and even through years of long practice. It hardly even mattered if she had been invited to sit in on this meeting or not; besides, she wondered if any even noticed her presence. Even Azula, who had ordered her to attend in the first place, had yet to remark upon her newfound interest in politics.

And Ozai, the Phoenix King who claimed to see all behind that great barrier of fire, had yet to say anything beyond issuing short-sighted edicts that he expected his spineless council to follow. Even now, faced with the biggest threat to his assumed authority, he remains silent.

Maybe he's imploding, Mai thinks dispassionately. All those temper tantrums and everything's still unravelling.

But then Zhao clears his throat, stemming the flood of her growing contempt. "Then Princess," he speaks, his voice scratchy and shaking and completely devoid of its characteristic silken heft, "...what do you think the correct path forward is?"

Mai abruptly inhales her spit and fights to cough quietly. Jamming a fist against her mouth, shoulders hunching over, her face growing hot at the undue attention she draws toward herself.

But even through her rapidly watering eyes, she manages to see Azula's mouth part slightly with surprise. "Excuse me?" she asks, the lines scoring her forehead deepening with her frown.

Zhao's mouth curls into a grimace, but his fists rest resolutely atop the table. "What do you think we should do?" he repeats without a trace of guile or the myriad insinuations that usually coloured his simplest words.

Splotches of colour rise in Azula's pale cheeks as everyone suddenly stares at her with mixed curiosity and desperation rolled into one. Her nails bite into her palms, her mouth opening and closing wordlessly under the sudden scrutiny. And even though she tries her best to conceal the storm of her thoughts raging within her mind, Mai can guess at them by taking in the blaze of her cold amber eyes.

I can't believe this, she almost hears Azula complaining under her breath, a low frustrated whisper confessed in her ear. You're asking me this now? After ignoring me all this time, and then blundering into a situation that I expressly warned you about?

"How am I to know?" Azula finally says at last, finding her voice. An odd, closed expression settles over her face, the light in her eyes growing muted. "I was given charge of domestic matters at my lord father's will. I have no say in military matters."

"Well," General Bujing speaks up, "then we must recruit the princess at once. Her insight is clearly needed to chart the course forward."

Azula's eyebrows lower suspiciously, as though wondering whether the sudden deference was a poisoned gift. "I don't -"

"Clearly," Zhao takes over, with a determination that gives Mai pause. "Let the princess be responsible for the military strategy, if it pleases His Radiance -"

"It does not." Ozai's voice is a blade of displeasure, slicing through the uncomfortable conversation and silencing the Admiral with a vicious thrust. "Leave us. My daughter and I require a word in private."

Mai swallows, her nerves on edge at the menacing edge that enters Ozai's voice. The flames guarding his throne burn low, almost enough to reveal the hard mask of his face. It plunges the entire throne room into shadows, dappling the remaining councillors as they withdraw abruptly, their curious faces still turning to glimpse at the tension unfolding in their wake.

As always, Mai remains so perfectly still that her presence remains unnoticed, hidden in plain sight. With Azula's terror suddenly palpable as she kneels before the flames, and Ozai hunching dangerously in his throne, Mai might as well have been another curtain swaying along the wall for all the heed they paid her.

The fire shrinks, the individual flames lowering in height but blazing twice as bright. If it had been hard to look directly at them before, now their light glows blinding and merciless. Before, Ozai had simply lost his temper. Now, he wields it like a cudgel raised threateningly in the air, the air sweltering uncomfortably before its might.

Somehow, Azula still finds the courage to speak first. "Father," she begins raggedly, "I am yours to command."

Ozai takes the bait, steepling his fingers in his lap. "I do not believe you."

Azula's head snaps upward from its respectful kowtow, to stare with growing fear at the dangerous coil of flames, stretching through the air to graze at her face with scalding fingers.

"What do you mean?" she blurts out, recoiling and shrinking away from the heat. Bent over, she claps a clammy hand to her overheated skin. "I - I am your loyal daughter -"

"Loyal." The snarl tears through the flames, curling like blinding golden ribbons. "I thought you were, daughter. I thought all my council was. But they have all disappointed me...and you, most of all."

"Me?" Azula gasps, breathless and high-pitched in the voice of a child. "Father, everything I have done, everything I do is for you -"

"Don't lie to me." The flames writhe and expand with her father's every cutting, damning word. "Do you think I am a complete fool, Azula? Do you think I haven't noticed how you conduct your affairs?"

"Father," Azula pleads shakily, "I've only ever done as you asked."

"I did not ask. I commanded," Ozai answers without pity. "I commanded you to bring order back to the capital. I commanded you to put an end to these riots and secure the defenses of our homeland. And above all else, I commanded you to capture this so-called Blue Spirit."

Mai's stomach wrings into knots at the sound of Zuko's secret identity on his father's tongue, to be replaced with ice and then the molten lead of dread.

"Yet you allow him to roam free. You allow him to slip through your fingers, dispensing with my carefully constructed regime as he sees fit. And then...installing your own creatures in their place. Do you deny it?"

Azula shakes her head vehemently. "That's not true," she gasps. "I deny it, Father, I deny all of it!"

"I find that very hard to believe," he counters. "The Blue Spirit kneecaps my councilmen, so that you may replace them with your own. The Blue Spirit frees prisoners with suspicious ease, and you find yourself reaping the benefits of all the chaos he sows. Why else has he not been delivered to me in chains?"

Mai's blood runs cold at the sneer that enters Ozai's voice - cruel and contemptuous and amused, as though he finds his daughter's distress entertaining - a fine delicacy to be sampled and savoured. As though nothing would give him more pleasure than to test the limits of the pressure she could bear, and then watch her crack under it. His perfect golden child, his porcelain princess. Against all others she would stand fearsome and tall, but only he had the power to break her.

"And so I look at all this and think," he continues gloatingly, "either you are the princess I thought you were - cunning and talented and powerful enough to be worthy of being called my heir. Or, I have overestimated your worth and you are in fact as inept as your reckless wretch of a brother." He leans forward, resting his chin atop his steepled fingers. "Which is it?"

Azula tries to speak, but no words come out. Only the frantic rush of her panicked breathing interrupts his expectant silence.

"I see," her father says at last, his voice hardening.

"Father," Azula pleads, and Mai's shocked to hear the tears thick in her wavering voice, "I can fix this."

"You will," her father warns. The flames leap and writhe, threatening to burn his cowering daughter and mark her with the shame of his displeasure. "I was fond of you, Azula, and so I tolerated your missteps with patience. But this ends now."

He rises to his feet, his shadow spilling across the floor and darkening the profile of Azula's tear-stained face. "You are on your very last chance," he declares, his voice dangerous and soft. "Bring me the Blue Spirit by tomorrow morning...or join in your brother's fate."

The sea glitters under a cloudless blue sky, an expansive carpet of sapphires lit ablaze in the light of the sun. It parts before the sharpened hulls of the Admiral's flagship, slicing like a knife across the restless surface of the waters. A strong tailwind whips the waves into a foaming frenzy, easing the long journey south.

Its breath is cool and welcome against Katara's skin, dampened with sweat and the growing heat of the late summer day. Lowering her aching arms, she tilts her head back, savouring the breeze as it flits along her face, the curls plastered to her forehead and cheeks.

"Thought I'd find you here."

Sokka's voice accompanies his approaching footsteps, one by one up the ladder leading to her perch at the prow of the warship. She turns away from the open to face him, her arms aching from the constant work of bending the waters into a favourable current.

"You know, it's okay to take a break here and there," he remarks, clambering up the deck to sit atop the metal railing, his feet dangling over the edge with nonchalant ease. "You might be the new chief, but nobody expects you to single-handedly get us to the Fire Nation."

"I know," Katara grumbles, leaning against the rail next to him. "I'll come down soon. I promise."

He cocks his head at her, appearing amused. "Don't sell your integrity for so little. You said the same thing to Toph an hour ago."

She chews on the inside of her cheek with mounting frustration. "So my friends are telling on me now?"

"They're just worried about you, Katara. I'm worried about you." In the corner of her eye, the swinging motions of his feet stop. "You'll be no use to anyone if you wear yourself out before we even sight land again."

"I don't need you to patronize me," she snaps. "You don't know what I'm capable of."

"I guess not," Sokka answers quietly. "You've really been through a lot, huh?"

A scoff bursts out of her. "You have no idea," she laments, turning away from him to stare out at the open waters.

Sea and sky, blue on endless blue, and land nowhere in sight. How long had they been sailing for? How many days had they wasted at the North Pole, trying to get themselves mustered and organized for the trip south? And how much longer would it take before the Fire Nation's jewel-bright shores appeared on the horizon, and Zuko with it? Before the comet appeared like a second sun to rip their world apart?

"Then tell me." Sokka's voice softens into a plea, the laughter sliding away. "Katara, it's been almost a week and you still haven't said anything to me -"

"What's there to say?" Her nails bite into her palms. "You were gone. Off playing hero, getting yourself tangled up in fights that don't concern you -"

"That's interesting," Sokka cuts her off, tilting his head thoughtfully. "Are you, or are you not, currently dragging the entire tribe into a fight that doesn't concern it, just so that you can rescue your boyfriend?"

She lets out an aggravated growl. "Don't you dare show up and judge me!"

"I wasn't." He raises his hands carefully, as though trying to soothe an angry polar bear dog. "I'm just having trouble understanding it. I mean...a Fire Nation prince? Seriously?"

"Not just any Fire Nation prince," she supplies without missing a beat. "Ozai's son."

He kneads his temples wearily. "Spirits, Katara, what were you thinking?"

She lets out a hollow laugh. "I don't know. That things could be different? That it wouldn't matter?"

Sokka groans. "Couldn't you have found some nice Water Tribe boy instead? I mean, I know the Northern guys are a bit backwards, but you're their chief now. They'd probably line up for you if you asked.

"I'm not asking," she says icily, staring resolutely at the churning surface of the water. "Not one of those guys could ever match what Zuko did for me." Her throat clamps tight; it takes all her effort to keep talking. "That night we lost the moon...if he hadn't...I would be Ozai's prisoner now."

The wind blows a strand of her hair into her eyes; she brushes it impatiently with a hand, surreptitiously wiping away at the tears starting to form. "I'd be in the Fire Nation instead. Alone, without my bending, completely powerless and at Ozai's mercy." The world sways around her - whether the lurch of the ship beneath her feet or the roiling queasiness that threatens to overwhelm her at the thought.

But then Sokka's hand finds her shoulder, a warm, reassuring weight. "You would have found a way out of it. You're a survivor, Katara. You weather things, even when you think they're too big for you."

She shrugs noncommittally. "I...I don't know if I could have survived being Ozai's prisoner," she confesses. Her stomach plummets as his words sneer in her ears - gloating about how he had destroyed her home, longed after her mother. She remembers the cold, detached ruthlessness that had slid over his eyes when he spoke of Kya's betrayal.

But her mother's only crime was to sign a treaty with Iroh. Meanwhile, Katara had rebuffed Ozai's overtures in front of half his court, and then beaten him within an inch of his life. She had left him dying and gasping for breath in pools of his own blood like a beached fish.

And if Ozai thought her mother deserved death for her actions, then what in the darkest depths of hell would he have dreamed up for her?

She shudders violently, wrapping her cloak tighter around herself. "I never wanted to think about that," she whispers, her mouth going dry. "Zuko had seconds...and he didn't hesitate."

Sokka's brow crumples in thought. "You feel like you owe him your life," he guesses. "That by accepting his sacrifice, you feel like you let him down somehow."

She stares at the profile of his face, unusually somber. "That isn't even the half of it," she laments. "Sokka, I was so awful to him! I was in over my head and I didn't even realize it -"

"Hey." Now his arms wrap around her shaking shoulders, more muscular than she remembers. But the surprising strength in them remains the same. "It's okay…"

She dashes at her eyes again, at the hot tears spilling down her face. "He was the only one who could tell me what I needed to hear. Even if I didn't want to hear it." It haunts her then, every ugly word she had hurled at Zuko that night in the tundra beyond Aujuittuq's walls, filling the air around her like disquieted, angered spirits. "And even after all that, he - he still -"

Sokka remains silent, perhaps unable to speak through his lips pursed so tightly with disapproval. But his hand continues to stroke the back of her head, the intricate ornamented coils woven through the curtain of her hair.

The steady, even rhythm of it is soothing, grounding. It calms her enough to bring her squarely back to the present, with the wind in her hair and the smell of saltwater sharp in her nostrils. With the tides swelling beneath them, and her brother sitting beside her, holding her close and listening attentively as though they were children again.

"So that's why," she declares in a low voice. "I know you would have chosen differently for me. But I have to make this right." Her hand curls into a decisive fist as she tilts her chin upward. "For me, there's no choice at all. No matter how convoluted the path before me might seem...it'll always lead to him. I know that now."

Sokka's eyes soften. "You really mean that, don't you?"

She turns to face him directly. "I know it's not what you would have preferred. And I'm sorry if you still can't understand it -"

"I understand better than you think," he says bluntly. His jaw tightens. "I've lost someone I cared about. And I let someone else down, let her get hurt instead of me." Guilt wells in his eyes, the blue eyes they both share. "And you. I was supposed to be here for you, to protect you, and I wasn't. Even when you found me, I...I didn't even know you. I put you in more danger."

Now it's Katara's turn to clutch at his hands. "It wasn't your fault. I knew it wasn't your fault, Sokka."

He waves off her consolations with an impatient hand. "You can forgive me, Katara, but I won't forgive myself. Not yet." His hands find her shoulders, planting her squarely across from him so she can look him full on, the uncharacteristic seriousness radiating from him like purpose. "I might not get it. I might not like it. I might not even approve. But that angry jerkbender was there for you when I couldn't be."

She blinks at him in surprise as he continues raggedly. "So if you want to run yourself raw to rescue him from his loser lord dad, I'll be there with you every step of the way." His hand closes around hers, squeezing tight. "I promise."

Katara hugs him then, not sure if she was laughing or crying. "You mean it?"

"Of course," he remarks, hugging her back. "Someone's got to make sure you don't collapse before you get there. Now come on down and let someone else take over for a change…"

Through the iron bars lining the slitted window, the growing sliver of the moon shines.

It pierces the darkness of Zuko's cell, illuminating the cold stone floor with a wash of faint silver light.

Zuko stares at it mutely for the second night in a row, his mind buzzing with questions that lacked answers, and answers that lacked questions. It surprises him which manages to take him aback the most.

The moon is back, he observes, his tongue darting to moisten his cracked lips. I'm not going crazy. It's actually back.

If he still had his bending, perhaps its sudden reappearance wouldn't have caught him off guard. Perhaps he would have been able to sense it from the moment of its reappearance. The moment its shadow passed before the sun, snuffing all firebending out like a flame before the wind. Instead, he only noticed the abrupt onset of darkness, left to wonder why midday had turned into the grey darkness of late summer night.

Yet of all the impossibilities settling around him, the moon's reappearance is the one he questions the least. He had seen it go red and then dark, that fateful night of Zhao's invasion. He had thought it gone forever, the world permanently altered by its loss. But now it hangs like a silver blade slashing through the night sky. A sign of victory, or challenge, or warning? Of battles that had been fought and more that were to come?

A thrill runs through him as he tries to imagine it. The moon returning to its place in the sky, the elements sliding back into balance. Surely that meant Katara's bending had returned to her? Surely she and the rest of her people were fighting hard for their freedom?

For the first time since he'd been thrown in this prison, he itches for news from the world beyond. But apart from the guards who slide him his meals and change his bucket, nobody has come to visit. Not Mai with her cynical disparagement, not Azula with her list of targets and her unpredictable rages. Not even his mother. Instead, the corked vial of sunshade potion sits on his morning tray, tucked next to the bowl of watery jook.

He spares a moment to wonder about that too. Whether the sudden lack of visitors meant a tightening in prison security protocols. Was it because the moon was back and the occupation up north was going badly? Or was it something closer to home, did his father suspect his identity as the Blue Spirit and seek to close him in on all sides?

Like that'll work, Zuko thinks to himself resolutely, his fingers tightening on the bars. He had lost two nights waiting for Azula to show up. He wouldn't lose a third. Sozin's Comet was coming, after all, and if his sister no longer had the stomach to do what was necessary after her latest gambit…

He's bent to drag the block concealing his disguise out of the wall when the sound of approaching footsteps clamours outside the door. A key grates in the lock, the heavy bolt sliding open just as he forces himself to topple onto the scratchy pallet.

Moments later, the door slams open on its hinges.

Blinking his hair out of his eyes, Zuko relaxes as Azula's pale face floats through the darkness. "About time," he grates, shifting to sit more comfortably. "Where have you been? I've been waiting for two nights for another word from you -"

"Father knows," Azula interrupts him stiffly. She runs a hand through her hair, the face-framing strands more disheveled than usual. "We have to call this off."

Zuko frowns at her. "What do you mean, Father knows?" he repeats. "You're not making any sense -"

She whirls on him in a growing frenzy. "He knows about us, Zuko!" She gestures helplessly at the space in between them, divided by the metal grille running from floor to ceiling, wall to wall. "He knows that I'm working with you, that I was behind the princess's escape. He probably knows you're the Blue Spirit by now -"

His eyebrows lower. "How do you know?"

"Because he told me!" Azula nearly shrieks. Her fingers raking along her scalp, dislodging her topknot until her hair falls loosely around her shoulders, shiny and unkempt. "He accused me of conspiring against him. Me. After everything I've done for him, and he still...he still…"

An odd sensation thrums through him as he watches her tug at her own hair. "But you are conspiring against him," he points out flatly.

She makes a gasping, choking sound at that, shrinking away from him reflexively. Her shaking fingers tug her black cloak tightly around her shoulders.

Zuko pinches the bridge of his nose, exhaling in frustration. "What did he say to you?"

"Does it matter?"

"Well...yes?" He tilts his head at her quizzically, wondering what had gotten into her. Azula was cunning and ruthless to a fault. She should have known better than this. "Did he actually tell you that he knew? Or was he just guessing?"

"It doesn't make a difference!" she cries, her voice rising in pitch. "Father doubts me! Me, after everything I've done for him!"

"Well, it was only a matter of time," Zuko grunts, rubbing at his temples. "Welcome to the club."

"I don't want to be a part of your club!" Azula wails, burying her face into her cloak. "I want...I want -"

"You want Father to love you and honour you and give you your due," Zuko cuts her off, now growing irritated and bored. "You want something that doesn't exist, Azula."

She throws him a cold glance over her shoulder. "You don't know that."

"I do know." His fingers trace the edge of his scar, the flesh puckered and hard to the touch. "A man who could do this to his own son doesn't have a heart or honour to give."

"You brought that upon yourself," she mutters stubbornly, already twisting away. "When you shamed Father in front of the council. But I won't go down that road." Her mouth twists into a pained grimace. "I can't."

He stares at her, hunched and more fearful than he had ever remembered seeing her. The moonlight streams against her face, haggard and tear-stained - and somehow appearing far younger. For the first time, he sees her as she is - a sheltered girl approaching her eighteenth year, terrified and desperate.

It thrums through him again, that strange sensation that might have been pity, or something else altogether. Reckless and protective and mad, held in secret, guarded and dormant. It had been so very long since he had felt it, he had almost forgotten. Not since he had jumped into the waves to retrieve her favourite trinket, that day on Ember Island, so many years ago.

The ground seems to lurch beneath him, solid stone giving way to watery depths. His breath catches in his throat, danger colliding with the sensation of drowning.

But this time, it wouldn't matter if he presented her with the very prized jewel that she longs for most. Even if he found some way to perform a miracle and win her a place in their father's heart, she still wouldn't reach in to save him before the waters closed over his head. She wouldn't waste her time trying to nurse him back to health.

He lets out a sigh - a weary, resigned sound.

"Look," Zuko grumbles, rising to his feet. "If Father knew the truth, then why are you here?"

She gives him a withering stare. "I told you. I'm here to tell you we have to end this -"

"No." He shakes his head. "I mean - why would he let you roam free? Why would he play these games with your head?"

She sniffs haughtily. "It's what I would do."

"Right. But you're not him," Zuko points out, his voice surprisingly steady. "You can say a lot of things about Father, but he isn't subtle. If he suspected you of conspiring against him, really and truly, do you honestly think he'd let you walk out of his sight without…" He trails off, his fingers tensing against his scar. For a moment, it engulfs him, the searing agony of fire licking away at his face. The sneer of his father's voice, cold and pitiless in his ears.

Azula raises her head to meet Zuko's eyes. "That's right," she says, her voice oddly strained. "Father isn't renowned for his subtlety." She hangs her head dejectedly. "Or his patience."

"No," Zuko agrees, finding his voice again. "But that's why you have to keep on going, Azula. Don't let him bully you."

She scowls at him, stung. "He's not bullying me -"

"He doesn't have a plan. We do," Zuko barrels over her, stepping up to the metal grille. "And nobody said it would go perfectly, but...but you're the most precise and cunning and terrifying person I can think of." His fingers close around the cold metal bars tightly. "If anyone can pull the wool over Father's eyes, it's you."

Azula's mouth works wordlessly. Now she doesn't even bother to disguise her surprise. She surveys him warily, a strange look flitting through the golden eyes they had both inherited from their father.

At last, she finally speaks, her voice unusually hoarse. "Why are you saying this?" she whispers suspiciously.

Zuko averts his gaze defensively. "I don't know," he grits out. "But...but I know what it's like when things get tough."

"Of course you do. You're a miserable failure!" Azula snaps, drawing herself up to her full height.. "But I will never settle for accepting mediocrity the way you have!"

Zuko scoffs. "Get over yourself, Azula," he says bluntly, with a roll of his eyes. "In case you haven't realized yet, that's just life. And it gets in the way of even the best laid plans. So stop pouting and get on with it. It'll be okay."

She falls silent again, gaping at him as though he had suddenly sprouted another head, or sent blue flames charging toward her. Her fingers still fiddle with the hem of her cloak, tugging it more tightly around herself.

He sighs again, chafing under the intensity of her puzzled scrutiny, and bracing himself for the inevitable tirade that was sure to follow, when -

"Thank you," Azula says instead.

Zuko frowns, rubbing at his ears, certain that he had misheard. "What?"

But Azula stares at him, her lips pressed tightly together and deep furrows etched along her brow. "I thanked you," she explains, her voice clipped and tense, before she too lets out a sigh. The tendons straining along her neck finally relax, the blood returning to her clammy white face. "I - I think I needed to hear that."

Fighting the surprise that threatens to overwhelm him, Zuko trains his eyes squarely on his feet. "You're welcome," he grunts awkwardly, waiting for her to withdraw or snap back to her usual self. Anything.

But when she only continues to stare at him strangely, her eyes seeming to bore through his skin, he clears his throat uncomfortably. "Is there anything else you want?"

And just like that, the spell breaks.

His sister starts, as though waking from a sudden dream. "No," she answers, already sounding more like herself again. "No, not from you."

She steps away, brushing her unkempt tousle of hair over her shoulder. Trying in vain to tie it back in some semblance of its former neat topknot. Searching blindly for her little flame-shaped crown. In the moonlight, he can see it glinting dull and gold, caught in the folds of her lowered hood.

"We actually make a pretty good team."

Zuko is surprised by the sound of his own voice, blurting out before he can control himself. It slices through the uncomfortable silence, stopping his sister in her tracks. Blood rushes to his face as her shoulders stiffen alarmingly.

"What?" she croaks.

"Nothing," Zuko replies quickly, his heart pounding painfully fast. A band of tension clamps around his chest, his mouth going parched and dry as Azula glances over her shoulder to survey him.

Instead of her usual contemptuous glare, her eyes are warily curious. She chews on her lip, swallowing hard.

And then it hits him: incredibly, impossibly.

She's scared. She's almost as scared as I am.

The realization floors him even as his mouth tightens. That strange sensation blazes through his veins - instinctive, reckless, bold. Perhaps later he would blame the hunger, the thirst, the constant nights of sleep deprivation and loneliness. But instead of pulling back from the edge of the precipice, he takes a tentative step forward.

"Just," he recovers, his voice barely more than a whisper now, "we work surprisingly well together. When we have a common goal."

Her eyes grow wide, flashing indignantly. He recoils reflexively, waiting for the outpouring of blue flames that would surely follow.

But a harsh laugh of disbelief greets his ears instead. "Right," Azula snorts, shaking her head. "Let's not make this a recurring thing now, then."

"Why not?" Zuko challenges, and the wry smirk slips off her face. The cold iron bars press against his cheeks as he holds her gaze, wondering if it was possible to reach her - the part of Azula that was still her, and not warped and twisted by slavish devotion to their father. "You're more than he wants you to be, Azula. If you could only see -"

Her mouth hangs open in shock before she hitches it up, a muscle working angrily in her jaw. "I should have known you'd resort right back to treachery," she hisses, backing away from him slowly. Her eyes narrow accusingly. "And just when I was beginning to wonder if there was something worthwhile in you after all."

With a swish of her cloak, she turns on her heel. Her hand closes on the metal door-handle when Zuko musters the last of his courage.

"We have a lot in common, you and I," he ventures, wondering if he had already strayed too far and the waters were closing far above his head already. But his fingers tighten against the bars anyway. "I never wanted to admit it, but we do."

She doesn't say anything at first. But the way she stills at the sound of his toneless voice betrays her rapt attention.

The moments slide by without a sound after that. Zuko holds his breath, the drum of his pulse loud in his ears.

Until she speaks again, so quietly he almost misses it. "Zhao."

Zuko frowns, straining to see her in the darkness of the cell. "What?"

"He's our next target," Azula decides.

His eyebrows rise in disbelief. "Are you sure?" he asks skeptically. "That's...that's a pretty high profile target, even for me. And last time, you said -"

"Forget what I said last time," Azula interrupts him with a bite of impatience. Her knuckles flash white as her grip on the door-handle tightens. "It's time for a new strategy. A bold one. I've got it all planned out."

Despite the unfaltering conviction in her soft voice, Zuko still hesitates. "I don't know. There's a difference between bold and reckless, Azula."

She turns back to face him then, sweeping her hair out of her face in a confident motion.

"Just trust me," she assures him, flashing him a very small smile. It blooms clear in the moonlight, guileless and curving. "It'll all work out perfectly in the end. You'll see."

Chapter 59: the fall of night

Chapter Text

disclaimer. here in the year 2022, and it still doesn't belong to me. alas

author's notes. i'm not even going to bother apologizing for how long it's been. life is busy and it's been a hard winter, to say the least. so...have a chapter and enjoy!

thank you so much for your incredibly kind comments and messages, i see them all even if i don't have time to answer them all.

as usual, feel free to find me on tumblr at colourwhirled-writes for fic and other updates, or just to say hi :)

i give you...

southern lights

chapter lix. the fall of night

i'll be waiting on the sidelines
i'll be waiting in the dark
i will wait for you to show yourself

"kijo" / memorist

Golden sunlight streams through the round porthole windows, throwing General Iroh's large stateroom into bright relief, and warming the air until it swelters.

Katara fans herself, already missing the cool wind against her face. In the uncharacteristic summer heat, sweat slicks profusely along her skin, sticking to the furred collar of the chieftain's mantle.

She frowns, trying to smooth out the draping dyed cloth along her lap, where she kneels by one of the few low, round tables scattered along the floor. Toph, Aang, and Sokka cram around it also, torn between quietly sipping their tea or picking at the small bowl of nuts, the cracking of their shells the only occasional sound. Elsewhere, Gyatso, Iio and Jeong-Jeong huddle among themselves, engrossed by the game of pai sho unfolding in another corner of the room.

"So, is this how it usually goes?" Sokka ventures, swirling his cup of tea. "We're on a time crunch, the fate of the entire world hangs in the balance, but everyone's waiting on a bunch of old people to finish up their board games?"

Toph claps him on the shoulder so heartily that it makes him wince. "Now you're getting the idea, Snoozles."

Sokka makes a face at her, before remembering that she can't see. "Did you have to hit me so hard?" he grumbles, rubbing at his arm.

She grins wolfishly. "It's how I show affection."

"It's true," Aang remarks, deadpan. "You should be grateful that your sister's a pretty good healer, Sokka."

Sokka frowns, his eyes roving from the grinning earthbender to the somber Air Nomad seated across from him. Probably trying to size up whether they were making fun of him or telling the truth, Katara thinks with a roll of her eyes.

Outside, the wind gusts with growing force, whistling along the glass panes of the windows until the ship's metal bolts begin to groan. The tide pushes them forward with eye-watering speed, the rhythmic expanding and contracting tides so smooth that Katara can barely feel it, except for the way the pathways of her chi settle in tune with them.

The sky gleams bright blue and clear, the sun's light dimmed every now and then by another sky bison flying from one ship to another. Tiny figures wearing billowing saffron robes are still visible on their backs, bending the air into a screaming tailwind that propels their ragtag fleet as it cuts across the water.

Her eyes find the map pinned to one of the walls, the pin in the wide blue expanse tracking their bearing south. By now, if its position was correct, they were hugging Northern Air Temple territory, would probably make landfall by night. And then a day to replenish and refuel, before setting a course along the Earth continent's western shore, along Pohuai and Gaoling and New Ozai, before finally regrouping at Kyoshi Island for their final push.

Her hand finds her forehead, considering the expanse of sea that still lay before them.

But then Sokka meets her eyes, follows her gaze to the map with the pins. "We're making good time," he reassures her softly. "Another week and we'll be squarely in Earth territory."

"But then what?" Katara asks dully. "My waterbenders and I can only do so much. If we go full burn like this the whole way, we won't have enough strength to fight by the time we reach the Fire Nation."

"She's right," Aang agrees, resting his chin in his palm. "Even if the airbenders find some way to conserve their strength, the bison need rest too."

"And we're barely making it to the Fire Nation in time for that comet by the skin of our teeth," Toph points out, blowing her bangs out of her sightless eyes. "If we slow down, we might as well roll over and give up, because we'll miss the whole damn thing."

Katara lets out a growl of frustration. "The goalposts keep moving further away from us," she complains. "After restoring the moon and freeing the Northern Water Tribe, you'd think everything else would be easy after that!"

"Nah," Sokka says breezily, shaking his head knowingly. "That's not how plans work. As soon as you pull one off, the universe finds a way to throw you off your feet. You just have to find a way to keep on standing."

"Standing is one thing," Katara argues, wrapping her hands around her teacup. "But how are we supposed to get there in time without having half of us keel over?"

"Not by sitting around and complaining about it." To her annoyance, Sokka picks up a shrivelled nutshell and flicks it at her.

"Hey!" She rubs at the spot where it bounces off her forehead. "What was that for?"

"For being a sour old sea prune," her brother retorts without missing a beat.

"Wait," Toph says incredulously. "You mean you could just shut her up by throwing stuff at her this whole time?"

"Nah," Sokka replies airily. "I get special big brother privileges."

Toph glowers at him, before scraping another one of the nutshell fragments littering the table and throwing it at Katara.

She ducks even as it sails wide, landing harmlessly on the floor behind her. "What? What did I even do?"

But Toph only shrugs. "That's for all your angsty shit we put up with in the north. If Big Brother gets to flick stuff at you when he's only just showed up, I figure I can start recouping my dues too."

"Oh." Katara deflates, her spluttering indignation already vanishing. "Yeah...I guess I deserved that."

"And you will every time you start wallowing over the next tiniest thing," Sokka chides her, even as a big smile splits his face.

"I am not wallowing!" She makes a face at him, but his grin doesn't falter.

"Come on Katara, you guys were able to beat the Fire Nation without your bending. And now you're all gloomy because you can't get some boats to sail any faster?"

"That was different! The moon wasn't really gone as long as we had Yue with us!" Katara argues hotly, leaning over the edge of the table. "What do you expect me to do? Make the world smaller?"

Sokka rubs at his chin thoughtfully. "Well...maybe if we had enough earthbenders -"

"No." She slams her palms against the table, rattling her cup and the broken nutshell fragments. "It's not going to happen. The day one of your arctic hare-brained schemes works is the day Iroh loses a game of pai sho!" She points at the corner of the room, where General Iroh and Master Pakku hunch over the game board intently.

As though to emphasize her point, Pakku groans and leans back, clapping his hands against his face while Iroh beams genially. "That was most impressive," he declares, snatching a tile off the board and twirling it through his fingers. "I could have sworn you almost had me there, old friend."

"Don't patronize me," Pakku retorts stiffly, peering at the board through knobbly fingers. "I walked into your trap. You got me fair and square."

"But you have improved greatly since we last played," Iroh reassures him, throwing the tile and snatching it out of midair. His eyes twinkle mischievously as he raises his voice, surveying around the room. "Anyone else up for a match?"

Jeong-Jeong and the other Air Nomads all shake their heads mutely, their faces darkening.

But Sokka only leans over to pluck more nuts out of the bowl. "So he's the local pai sho grandmaster, is he?"

"The best," Toph agrees.

"Undefeated," Aang says at the same time.

"Cool." His fist closes around a handful of nuts as he raises his voice. "I'll play a round."

Iroh blinks, searching for the unfamiliar voice. In a smooth motion, Sokka lumbers to his feet, stashing the nuts in his belt.

Pakku snorts, shaking his head. "Oh ," he mutters, his smirk flashing wide for everyone to see. "Don't waste your time, Iroh. The boy's an oaf."

"Yeah, so I've been told," Sokka replies breezily, sauntering over to Pakku's spot at the pai sho table. "But we're all stuck on a boat at sea with nothing else to do. Surely you have time for a round with an oaf like me?" His blue eyes glitter. "Since all the smart people here seem to be too afraid to challenge you."

Iroh contains his initial surprise, recovering with his usual grace. "Why not?" he answers smoothly, gesturing to the seat across from him. "Pakku, if you could be so kind."

"I've never been kind in my life," Pakku grumbles, but gets up anyway. "But the boy can have my seat for now. I expect to get it back soon enough." He smiles wryly. "This is going to be over quickly."

Katara frowns as Sokka easily replaces Pakku at the pai sho table, lounging back in his seat with his characteristic ease. "What is he doing?" she hisses. "Iroh's going to wipe the floor with him!"

"Guess your brother's a real glutton for punishment, huh?" Toph replies grimly.

But Sokka says nothing, only peers at the game board as Iroh carefully and methodically replaces the tiles into their starting pattern. "Are you familiar with pai sho?" he asks, not looking up from his task.

Sokka shrugs, pulling a nut from his belt and cracking it between his fingers. Bits of shell go flying everywhere. "I've played it a few times."

Iroh leans back, pouring himself another cup of tea. "I have always said that pai sho is not just a game."

"Eh." Sokka pops the freed nut into his mouth, crunching it loudly between his teeth. "It's a little slow, if you ask me."

Katara doesn't miss the small shudder that Iroh tries to hide. But he sets down the teapot and brings his steaming cup to his lips. "The guest has the first move," he says simply.

"Well that's awfully kind of you," Sokka announces. He plucks at a tile and places it randomly on the board without even looking at it.

Iroh's forehead crumples into a puzzled frown. "That tile cannot be planted so far from a port. Perhaps you wish to move it elsewhere?"

"Whoops," Sokka comments carelessly, before quickly moving it to the edge of the board. "How about that, is that better?"

Iroh lets out a sigh as he carefully places his first tile. "It will do."

They continue in this vein for a few moves longer, with Sokka randomly placing his tiles and Iroh correcting him with hard-won patience. If her brother's lack of familiarity with the intricate game perplexes Iroh, he doesn't show it.

But when Sokka loses his first piece, blundering into an obvious trap, Iroh rests his chin against his palm. "You don't really understand the intricacies of this game, do you?" he asks delicately, as politely as he can.

"He doesn't understand much," Pakku retorts with a snort as Sokka loses another two pieces to Iroh's growing network of red tiles starting to overtake the board. "Just take your win quickly."

Iroh sighs heavily again, plucking another one of Sokka's tiles off the board with tightly pursed lips.

Katara's frown deepens as she follows the movements on the board, as one by one, Sokka's black pieces are snapped up by Iroh's red ones, or slowly pushed back into a corner of the board.

"What's going on?" Toph whispers.

"General Iroh's got him cornered," Aang answers, his eyes fixed on the game just like everyone else in the room. "Sokka might have another move or two left before he loses it all."

But in spite of his defeat grinning at him across the game board with maddening inevitability, Sokka remains calm. In fact, to Katara's annoyance, he has the gall to appear amused by the whole thing. As though sauntering into General Iroh's stateroom, among a room full of leaders and commanders, and losing a game they all revered for its strategic prowess was the best way to make a memorable first impression.

How does he expect anyone to take him seriously after this? He's making a fool of himself.

But as Iroh leans back in his seat and reaches into his sleeve, Sokka tilts his head, studying the board as though seeing it for the first time. "Let me guess," he says suddenly, his hand rising to cover his mouth - maybe in shock or dread, Katara wonders. "This is the part where you bring the white lotus into play."

Katara chokes on her spit, spluttering loudly. From the chorus of coughing that splits the silence, she gathers that she isn't alone in her surprise.

Iroh pauses, momentarily taken aback. "Correct," he answers, before placing the unassuming tile into the middle of the board, in the empty spot that had been carefully, painstakingly crafted for it amid the network of black and red pieces. "The white lotus gambit is not typically favoured anymore. Many underestimate its value, but it is part of a rather unusual strategy that I employ -"

"It's not that unusual," Sokka interrupts with a boldness that surprises her. He lowers his hand from his mouth, and Katara is astonished to see it curving thinly in a smirk. "In fact, pretty much everyone in your generation uses it, General Iroh."

Iroh lets out a laugh. "Of my generation?" he repeats, his grin spreading bright and toothy across his face. "Are you calling me old?"

"Not exactly. But you, and Grampakku, and Master Piandao, and everyone else in old-people camp… You all like to use the white lotus gambit for some reason." Sokka scratches his chin thoughtfully. "Maybe because you think it's elegant, or precise, or patient. Because under the guise of being non-threatening, you can set your trap and watch it spring before your opponent ever notices that it's there."

His smirk widens, his eyes rising from the board to meet Iroh's with a glittering shrewdness that hadn't been there before. "Because it earns you a victory without taking on any risk. In short...because it's safe."

The smile on Iroh's face hitches. He stares quizzically at the young man still lounging casually across the table, with such rapt and renewed attention that Katara imagines she can almost see the wheels turning behind his eyes. Perhaps he was already studying the movements of the game over in his head, trying to find the point at which he had miscalculated.

"But if you want to win, you can't keep playing it safe," Sokka declares, twirling a round black piece idly in his fingers. The last one available for him to place before he lost the game entirely. "You have to do what your opponent wouldn't dare. Upset the order. Risk losing everything. Even look a little foolish sometimes."

Without breaking eye contact, he places his last tile onto the board confidently.

Iroh's grin vanishes.

"The wheel tile?" Pakku asks disparagingly, scratching at his head. "That's your final move, boy? That doesn't even make sense -" But then his eyes widen at once, in horrified realization.

"You're right. It doesn't," Sokka agrees. "At least...not when you limit your pai sho techniques to those as elegant and precise and - forgive me - predictable as the white lotus gambit." His fingers work quickly, shifting every one of Iroh's pieces out of its meticulously cultivated network and grinning at the chaos upsetting his order. "You've got to keep an open mind. Look at things from another angle sometimes."

"Young man," Iroh strains out, sounding pained at the sight of all his tiles clashing with the wrong tiles on the board, "I understand the point you are trying to make. But...but your move is all about following the letter of the rules without respecting the spirit of the rules!"

"You're right," Sokka declares, finishing rearranging all the tiles into their new formation. "This way isn't as proactive or deliberate as yours, I agree. It's dirty, spontaneous, reactive. You call it oafish." A manic gleam flickers through his eyes as he shifts the final piece, unifying the senseless sprawl of red and black tiles encompassing the board from gate to gate. "But I call it winning."

Iroh's jaw drops. He stares in horror at the carnage of his favourite gambit, lying in scattered red pieces along the pai sho board, wrested unceremoniously into Sokka's grander, uglier design. "That's...that's not possible!"

"Of course it's possible," Sokka remarks, grabbing another nut from his pocket and cracking the shell effortlessly between his fingers. "You made it possible. You announced the rules of the game, made your strategy totally obvious to anyone who was halfway paying attention, and then you made the worst mistake of all." He tosses the freed nut into the air, catching it in his mouth. "You didn't see what was sitting in front of you. You only saw what you wanted to see. What I wanted you to see." He swallows with relish, before smiling disarmingly. "An oaf. A harmless, clumsy buffoon who could never out-think the great Dragon of the West. Isn't that right?"

Iroh shakes his head disbelievingly. Pride swells uncomfortably in Katara's chest as she watches him pick up the white lotus tile, staring at it mournfully. As though it was an old friend that had let him down and then died.

"You let yourself believe that this would be an easy game. A fair game," Sokka continues, his voice growing gentler still. "But like you said...pai sho isn't just a game. It's a war. You don't play the game, you play the person." In a smooth motion, he rises to his feet, towering over the hapless old man. "And that's why you lost. Because you couldn't understand who you were fighting against."

Iroh's hand closes tightly around his beloved tile, his face darkening as his eyes scrunch tightly shut. "You are right," he pronounces hoarsely, to the mounting shock of all within earshot. "It is as you say...and as your esteemed sister keeps reminding me, it is why we are in this mess in the first place. I misjudged Ozai. I refused to see what was plain before my eyes." He hangs his head. "How can I be trusted to lead us out of it? Sozin's comet approaches, and we are still half a world away."

"You seem like a guy who really isn't used to losing, General," Sokka counters, his voice taking on a gratingly didactic quality. He crosses his arms, staring down at Iroh expectantly. "So you might not have realized this yet. Every time you lose, you still learn something - about your opponent and about yourself." He cracks a wry smile. "Sometimes that lesson is even more important than winning. Think about it. What have you learned?"

Katara stares at her brother, her frown deepening. Her brother always had it in him to be surprisingly, earnestly wise, she remembers with a pang. But it never ceased to amaze her whenever he chose to show that side of himself.

Iroh blinks, clearly perplexed. "What have I learned?" he echoes, clapping a hand to his forehead. "I was asked the same question not so long ago, in another world, by the spirit of the ocean itself." He swallows hard. "It knows my answer."

Katara doesn't miss the shadow that passes over Sokka's face, even as he tries his best to hide it. "Right," he recovers after a moment, as though the mention of the ocean spirit and the memory of Yue's sacrifice doesn't haunt him still, doesn't haunt them all. "A-Anyway, what about your brother? What do you know about him now that you didn't before?"

"Ozai?" Iroh's voice breaks as he raises his head to meet Sokka's probing gaze. "He is my younger brother. He is my blood. He is a lost, angry, broken being and I would have done anything to bring him to the light again."

Katara frowns, but says nothing. A curious storm still rages within her at the sound of the man's name, but tempered by the intensity of Iroh's faltering voice.

"But he does not want redemption. He refuses it," Iroh continues sorrowfully, in barely more than a whisper. "He would rather allow himself to be twisted by his pride, his spite, his hatred. He rejects all reason and sense, he shows no remorse for all that he has done." His hand tightens around the small lotus tile in a white-knuckled grip. "And so I must accept what I have long tried to deny. That the boy who I once called brother no longer exists. That sensitive, vulnerable, passionate boy I loved and protected from our father's wrath...he is gone. He died with my father, with my son. Perhaps it is kinder to believe that he perished with the rest of them, and that I will never see any of them again."

Katara shifts impatiently, Iroh's lament sitting at odds with her own encounters with the man. In the brief time she had known him, Ozai had been arrogant and cruel and deranged. She had no reason to believe that her own mother, who the man had cherished in bizarrely inappropriate ways, had felt any differently. If any part of the tortured youth that Iroh described still remained, it was surely buried too far within to be of any note or relevance.

"I can spare no more pity for him," Iroh pronounces heavily. "Not when his victims lie innumerable and still growing with every day that passes. At least in thwarting him, my efforts will not go to waste." He sighs again, running a hand along his long white beard. "But no matter how this unfolds, for me there can be no happy ending."

An uncomfortable silence lingers in his wake.

Pakku lays an uncharacteristically gentle hand on Iroh's shoulder. "That doesn't mean you give up, old friend."

Iroh shakes his head wearily. "Of course not," he admonishes, still sounding very tired. He rubs at his temples slowly. "After everything, I will not balk now. I will do my duty and see this fulfilled."

Pakku nods curtly, his expression hardening again. "But you weren't wrong before. Summer's end is nigh, and time will not slow for us."

"No," Sokka agrees, rubbing at his jaw thoughtfully. "It's bumming my sister out too."

"Sokka." Katara glares at him sharply, but he just grins at her sheepishly.

"Look, we've got to play the hand we're dealt," he says briskly, clasping his hands behind his back as he pushes away from the small table to approach the map pinned to the corner wall. "We've got numbers on our side. And a nice diverse invasion force."

"Yes, but we're on the other side of the world," Katara counters irritably, pinching the bridge of her nose. "And I don't care if you did manage to beat General Iroh at pai sho, your crazy earthbender plan isn't going to work!"

"Hey, that was just a joke," Sokka retorts swiftly, even as he scours the map intently from pole to pole. "But maybe there's a kernel of truth in it somewhere." He taps his chin rhythmically, his eyes narrowing as they rove from one coloured pin to another. "After all, even if we had all the time in the world, mounting a naval assault against an archipelago would still be a challenge. Coming in from sea, our supply lines won't be as stable or secure as theirs. And don't even get me started on the terrain -"

"When did you become the resident strategy guy?" Katara interrupts irately.

"When the Dai Li brainwashed me into accidentally becoming a triple agent for the resistance. Now keep up." Ignoring how her mouth works wordlessly in sputtering outrage, Sokka turns back to the map, the manic gleam returning to his eyes. "We've got control over the sea and the skies, and thank the spirits for that at least. But let's not assume that Ozai doesn't have boats and airships at his disposal too."

"Couldn't we just, I don't know, get the waterbenders to pull up a really thick fog and sneak into Caldera City that way?" Aang suggests, scratching at his scalp in puzzlement.

Sokka raises his eyebrows. "Nice try. But that still wouldn't get all of us past those flaming gates of Azulon." He taps at the corresponding red line scoring the border of the Southern Sea.

Aang scowls, his shoulders slumping dejectedly. "A few of us could sneak past them, and then disable them from the inside. We still have our sky bison after all."

"Maybe," Sokka says noncommittally. "But we don't know if they have any physical safeguards in place. All we need is to set off one trip-wire or booby trap or something, and we'll be out to water without a paddle. What else do we have?"

He turns to point at Pakku, who only raises a thin eyebrow. "Are you asking me?"

"Yes!" Sokka exclaims, waving his arms in exasperation. "That's how brainstorming works! I point at someone, and they have to say something that nobody else has said before, until we run out of ideas!"

Pakku sniffs disapprovingly before crossing his arms. "Air Nomads."

"That's right Grampakku, we've got Air Nomads too!" Sokka grins at him. "Thanks for playing along!"

Pakku rolls his eyes but says nothing more.

"What else?" Sokka points at Master Iio next, who flounders at the unexpected attention.

"A slightly seaworthy fleet of Fire Navy ships?" she asks.

"Right again! Okay, how about you, Gyatso?"

The Chief Elder shrugs haplessly. "Fire Navy soldiers?"

"Okay, getting warmer - haha, get it?"

"Sokka!"

"Spirits, Katara, lighten up!" Sokka points at Jeong-Jeong next, tilting his head expectantly. "Okay, angry guy, what do you have for us?"

Jeong-Jeong raises his hands in confusion. "Imprisoned Fire Navy soldiers?"

Sokka nods emphatically with approval. "I like the way you think! Always room for blackmail in a plan, am I right?"

Jeong-Jeong's flinty eyes travel from Sokka to Katara, and then back again. "I still don't understand how you two are related," he grunts.

"I know," Sokka answers cajolingly. "Unfortunately for my sister, all the family humour went to me."

Katara glares at him. "As you can see, clearly there wasn't much to go around."

"Man," Toph mutters audibly into Aang's ear, as Sokka finally has the sense to look away. "Snoozles over here likes to play with fire more than any firebender I've met!"

"That's enough out of you," Sokka admonishes, pointing at Toph darkly. "What do you have to contribute?"

Toph blinks, nonplussed. "Me?"

"Yeah, you. Who else?"

Toph tosses her head imperiously. "No, I meant me. As in, you guys have got me. The only metalbender in the world."

"That's right!" Aang chimes in, his eyes sparkling. "And the only bloodbenders in the world too!" He points at Katara, before a sheepish smile crosses his face. "Wait...am I allowed to speak yet? Sokka didn't point at me."

"No, go ahead, Aang," Sokka allows wearily, before his shoulders stiffen. "Wait...what?"

"Oh, you're right." Aang worries at his lip pensively. "Only Sokka's supposed to point at people -"

"No, not that!" Sokka whirls on him with renewed attention. "What did you say about bloodbenders?"

Aang flusters under his scrutiny. "Uh...just that we have them? Right, Katara?"

"Right," Katara affirms, as Aang stares at her entreatingly. She squares her shoulders, daring any of the old masters to judge her harshly. "Anyone still have a problem with it?."

Sokka stares at her strangely. "You're a bloodbender too?" he asks quietly.

Katara opens her mouth to argue, but startles at the disquiet simmering in her brother's eyes. Then the rest of it catches up with her. "Too?" she echoes suspiciously, latching on to the word in suspended disbelief. "You - Sokka - you've...you've met another one?"

Sokka claps a hand to his face, dawning bright with realization. "Of course!" he cries, shaking his head. "You're a Southern waterbender trying to escape the war, of course you'd know how…"

Her blood chills at the implication. "Hama," she breathes slowly, reaching for her brother's hands. "Sokka, was it Hama? Did she try to hurt you too?"

"Hama?" Sokka echoes, his face scrunching at the mention of the old woman's name. "No, never met her. I've heard of her, though. From all the other bloodbenders she taught."

A stunned silence blankets the stateroom in response to his words.

"There are others?" Katara whispers, staggered by the revelation.

"Yeah, a whole bunch of them," Sokka replies, somehow maddeningly unfazed by the impossibility of it all. "Southern waterbenders, just like you, Katara! Some of them were even from our own village and fought alongside Dad at the start of the wars! Can you believe it?"

"No!" Katara explodes, her fingers raking along her scalp, upsetting the intricate knot of braids and coils. "I - I thought I was the last one. I thought the Empire had gotten everyone else."

"That's what everyone said," Sokka answers patiently, perhaps now sensing that the subject was a touchier one for her than it had been for him. "But I found them, a whole bunch of them. Alive and thriving, biding their time until it was safe to come out in the open again."

"You're not joking," Pakku speaks up sharply. "You're actually serious. There are Southern waterbenders apart from Katara who survived the wars."

"Why would I joke about something like that?" Sokka demands. "Yes, they're real and they're alive and come to think of it, they have a pretty big axe to grind too as far as Ozai and his minions are concerned... "

Katara gasps, and suddenly, before she knows it, her hands are fisting into the front of Sokka's tunic in desperation. "Where are they, Sokka? We have to find them!"

"Now hang on!" Sokka chides, his hands delicately covering her own and extricating his shirt from their vice-tight grip. "We're on a time crunch, remember? We can't just go gallivanting around the world picking up stray waterbenders. Even if you are the Water Tribe Chief now."

Katara crosses her arms, huffing indignantly. "I know. But they deserve a place in this tribe after everything they've been through." She kicks at the floor aimlessly, scuffing the polished surface with the heel of her boot. "They deserve to know that they still have a home."

"I know." Sokka's hand rests on her shoulder reassuringly. "But now's not the time to be emotional about this, Katara. We have to consider the facts ahead of us."

She scowls at him defensively. "You can make fun of me all you want. But me being emotional is what got me this far in the first place."

"I wasn't making fun of you," Sokka says bluntly. "I was just saying that right now literally isn't the time to jump into things head-first. Let's take stock of all our resources, come up with a plan, and then you can barge in with that big bleeding heart of yours." His smile blazes like the sun on water.

She hugs him tightly. "Thanks, Sokka."

"Hey," he tells her softly, his grip tight on her shoulders. "If anyone here could get us to the Fire Nation in time, I'd put my money on you."

She glances up at him through misting eyes. "You mean it?"

"Of course," her brother retorts, winking mischievously. "Nobody else in this room is nearly pigheaded enough."

She punches him in the shoulder none too gently.

The ghostly half moon hangs overhead, its outline dim and glowing through the haze of thick dark clouds swirling across its silver face. Moonlight touches the sleeping gardens of Zhao's rolling estate, bathing it in faint, faltering light.

Zuko breathes slowly, the night air stifling hot and choking with unshed rain. The mingling scents of late summer fire lilies and blooming jasmine still waft through his mask, a heady perfume. Skulking within the hidden crevices of the massive walls bordering the Admiral's property, wishing for more cloud cover, lest the moonlight betray his presence to the sentries manning their posts. But all of them were focused on their patrol along the high walkways, their eyes fixed on every point of entry.

He sighs as one of them passes by, the ringing of footsteps loud in his ears. Beneath his mask and his hood and his nondescript blacks, he is entirely drenched with sweat. His hair plasters against his scalp, his face flushes hot to the touch. Even the wall in which he hides is warm, the stone blocks still radiating the intense heat of daylight.

This is madness, he thinks to himself faintly. Even if he managed to get to Zhao, intimidating the man would be another story altogether. The man was as insufferable as a noxious weed, and as hardy too. Azula's assurances be damned, this plan had catastrophe written all over it.

But she had him backed into a corner. And she was slipping in some way, as temperamental and unpredictable as a wounded animal. If he refused to abide by her plan, he couldn't risk her going to their father with the truth. All he could do was go along with it as vigilantly as possible, and try to stay one step ahead of whatever Zhao might have planned in his defence.

When the coast finally clears, Zuko finally dares to make his move. The low murmurs from the walkways filter into his ears, as the guards chat with each other to pass the time. Taking advantage of their momentary distraction, he flits out from his hiding-spot, cutting through the outer gardens with all the stealth that Mai had taught him. In the faint moonlight, the guards would only see a shadow and perhaps a rustle of what might be the wind brushing against the bushes.

In fact, the air lies stagnant and stifling over the caldera's summit, as hot and lifeless as the ocean lying beneath it. An easterly breeze would be welcome, Zuko thinks, if nothing more than to break the incessant heat. But even the depths of the night provides no relief from the raging summer, the hottest one in memory. Not since his own great-grandfather had launched his first strike against the world a full century ago, could anyone remember a summer so unforgiving.

Zuko tries not to think of what that might mean. Against his better judgment he glances up at the cloudy sky, wondering if even now, Sozin's Comet was visible somewhere in its inky depths. If he could still sense its imminent arrival, even though the paths of his chi lay long dormant.

He barely notices as he pushes deeper into the expansive property, cutting through one garden after another. The main house gradually filters into view through the veil of heavy foliage: a two-storeyed crimson villa with a sharply slanting roof and orange firelight flickering from every window. The sliding doors of the main floor are still wide open, leading directly to the sculpted paths winding through the manicured lawns and lined with more fragrant flower bushes.

Their scent is so overpowering in the thick, sticky air that it nearly makes his head spin. He pauses to catch his breath, his face beneath the laughing mask slick with sweat. It drips from his chin to spatter against the loamy ground underfoot, the only signs that he had ever been there at all.

A quick scan of the main house tells Zuko that unlike his other quarry, cornering Zhao wouldn't be as simple as sneaking into his bedroom and terrorizing him while he slept. For unlike his previous targets, Zhao's bedroom remains well lit despite the advanced hour. In fact, the entire villa is flooded with light. Through the narrow slits of windows, Zuko can perceive numerous shadows still flitting about - Zhao's attendants or men-at-arms, perhaps, consumed by a flurry of activity in deference to the Admiral who rarely slept or sat idle.

He shifts where he crouches hidden in the shadows. Not for the first time does he wonder why Azula had sent him on this fool's errand. If she had truly lost her wits and the insanity had caught him in its grips too.

But...if he managed to pull this off and eliminate Zhao from the picture, his father would find himself robbed of one of his surest and most cherished lieutenants. His lips quirk upward at the thought of his father's expression when he learned that not even Zhao was safe from the Blue Spirit's clutches. Maybe his father would sleep less soundly after that. Maybe he would descend further into the mad paranoia that was steadily consuming everyone else in the capital. A parting gift from the son he had always loathed.

His scar prickles in answer. But when he reaches up to touch it, as was his habit, his fingers only find the hardened ridges of the mask's cold smile.

Overhead, a swirl of cloud passes over the face of the moon, temporarily darkening the sweeping lawns of Zhao's opulent gardens.

Zuko snatches his chance, cutting a path straight through the well-manicured hedges like an arrow loosed and flying true to its target. By the time the moon's light pierces through a gap in the clouds and bathes the grounds below in its silver light, Zuko has already scaled amid one of the several trees lining the perimeter of the villa. He waits, holding his breath, but the yawning guards notice nothing.

From his vantage point, he can peer into the windows of the upper floor. He glimpses a corridor lined with flowing red drapes that resembled those hanging in the Imperial palace. Large framed portraits stud the walls at regular intervals, the last and not in the least dramatic is a black-and-white painting of the Admiral himself. The sliver of Zhao's face visible to Zuko through the window smirks at him knowingly, his painted eyes seeming to watch him with an uncanny life of their own.

Unsettled, Zuko clambers out of his tree, leaping the small distance to the next with little effort. Peeks into another window jutting out from the corner of the building to see a darkened library, lit only by a single lantern in its sconce. The small room is crammed full of overflowing bookshelves, with barely enough space for an empty writing desk that lies undisturbed. Perhaps this was where Zhao did his reading and his scheming, Zuko thinks darkly. But now that Father has moved openly, Zhao's need for scheming has lessened by far.

He moves on, searching the upper floor windows with hawkish efficiency. But despite the buzz of activity gripping the man's home, Zuko finds no sign of Zhao himself. Even when he stumbles upon what must be his bedroom in an isolated corner of the mansion, he finds it deserted.

Zuko grits his teeth in frustration. Zhao's bedroom was unexpectedly perfect for his purposes. In a quiet corner on the upper floor, accessible only by a lone stairwell that would ensure that the Admiral went undisturbed. And its wide, sliding windows offering an easy escape to one of the massive fruit trees overlooking the inner perimeter walls. It would take the work of seconds for Zuko to slip out the window, scale the tree, and cut along the maze of Zhao's estate walls before the alarm could even be rung.

A veritable stroke of luck... or it would have been if Zhao had actually been there.

But then a snatch of sound catches Zuko's attention. Amid the high-pitched whining of cricket-hoppers, threads of voices graze his ears.

Zuko follows the sounds, traversing from one sturdy branch to another, rustling the leaves as quietly as a small animal, and giving as little cause for notice. He quickly finds the source, from one of the rooms on the villa's main floor with its sliding door pushed wide open, perhaps in an effort to cool the sweltering interior.

He pauses before moving deeper into the thick green foliage to better conceal himself. But the open door below reveals Zhao himself, at long last. Bent over a gleaming mahogany desk strewn with a chaos of scrolls and drying letters. The door to his study constantly opening and closing to admit a steady stream of attendants, appearing at their master's beck and call.

Seemingly unaware of the hour, Zhao barks out a ceaseless tirade of instructions. Zuko's mouth presses into a fine line at the arrogant heft of his voice, as silken and loathsome to his ears as it had always been.

But Zhao ensconced in his large study, illuminated in the bright light of a dozen torches, and surrounded by several of his men nervously awaiting orders, was the last thing Zuko had wanted to find. He glances up longingly at the upper floor, where a sliver of Zhao's darkened bedroom is still visible, its narrow profile almost taunting him.

He chews on his lip, thinking hard. If it had been anyone else, he might have considered setting off a distraction elsewhere, to lure his quarry away to a more desirable location. But this was Zhao. Azula's assurances be damned, Zuko knew the man to be a grizzled veteran of more than his fair share of intrigues. For all his arrogance and short temper, Zhao was still as cunning as a weasel-fox...and just as hardy too.

So we wait. Zuko leans against a low branch, hovering vigilantly along the sliding door that leads from Zhao's study into the back garden. He'll retire for the night eventually. I just have to be patient. Wait for the right moment to strike.

"...send a line to the superiors at Jang Hui and the secondary plant to release their latest shipments, and do it now, do you hear me?"

"But Sir." A man gulps before speaking again in a reedy voice. "The factories are still catching up to meet the order. After all the strikes this summer, they're still far behind schedule."

Zhao lets out a growl of frustration. "Does that sound like my problem?" he snaps, hunching forward like an angry catgator. "We needed those airships yesterday! The invasion is all but upon us, and the Phoenix King is counting on them. I don't care if they have to work their lines around the clock, but see that they get it done!"

"Yes, Sir." The attendant gulps, bowing shortly and accepting the scroll that Zhao presses into his trembling hands. "As you command."

Zhao rubs at his temples, his teeth grinding furiously. "Sozin's Comet arrives in little more than a fortnight, and everyone is acting as though this is the first they've heard of it! Agni save us all."

With that, he tears another scrap of parchment off its roll and hunches over it, his brush moving in short, quick strokes. Zuko frowns, leaning closer to study the Admiral more carefully, in case he could even catch a glimpse of what the man was plotting…

"Sir." Another man barges into the study, barely after the previous attendant had left. He jams his fist into the heel of his hand, dipping into a curt Fire Nation bow. "I've heard back from the Eastern border. Captain Huang has expressed some, ah, disagreement about implementing a blockade -"

"Tell Captain Huang that if he continues to refuse orders from his commanding officer, he'll have plenty of opportunity to express his disagreement while court-martialled for insubordination!" Zhao snarls, nearly knocking over his inkwell.

"Yes, Admiral Zhao," his underling agrees, bobbing his head uncomfortably. "But - but the thing is, Captain Huang worries that a blockade won't be a good use of our, ah, limited resources. He thinks that it would be better to break up into smaller lines of defense and pull back further into Fire Nation waters -"

"Oh?" Zhao rises to his feet, towering to his full height. His chair slides back across the floor gratingly. "Perhaps Captain Huang is unaware of the massive enemy fleet sailing down toward us at breakneck speed?"

"Captain Huang thinks that unless they encounter some very favourable winds and tides, they won't get here in time. Not before the comet arrives, anyway -"

"Well, it's a good thing Captain Huang isn't in charge of our defenses," Zhao says dangerously, plucking at one of the countless papers littering his desk without looking at it. "Word from some of our sailors up north is that Admiral Chan has switched sides. He has lent his support to that traitor, Iroh. Our men, our ships, our entire fleet...all that strength has fallen to Iroh. And he intends to come here and take what's his."

Zuko's heart begins to race as Zhao continues in a seething, poisonous rage. "And in case we've forgotten, Iroh isn't alone. He's got four temples worth of vengeful Air Nomads on his side, and an entire tribe's worth of waterbenders as well. I very much doubt that the winds and the tides will be a problem." He lets out a scornful laugh. "And to top it all off, the new Water Tribe chief is that same waterbender who nearly murdered the Phoenix King the night of his ascent to power!"

Zuko's breath hitches in his throat in sudden disbelief, even as Zhao squints at the paper in his hand, scanning its contents imperiously. "What was her name again? Yes, this Chief Katara -"

Zuko nearly falls out of his tree, barely hearing the rest of Zhao's tirade. "- A teenager brainwashed by Iroh's propaganda and a feral bloodbender as well! And she had the nerve to demand the release of that traitor Prince Zuko and also declare His Radiance an illegitimate tyrant to be removed permanently!" Zhao bares his teeth in outrage.

"She's just a girl," someone points out unhelpfully. "She's young and naive and rather inexperienced, compared to her predecessors. How dangerous could she really be?"

"This is the second time we've underestimated this girl, Private!" Zhao barks. "Consider that before we destroyed the moon, the very source of all waterbending, she was just a single, orphaned girl. Now all the waterbenders call her Chief, and she sails at Iroh's side, commanding the tides." He exhales a cloud of smoke. "Anyone who can thrive under such adversity should be treated with the utmost caution. So I think we should be very, very careful."

Zuko's parted mouth works into a triumphant grin, Zhao's words washing over him like rain after a long drought. She did it, he thinks, his elation swelling within him with a golden warmth. She freed herself. And she's coming for me. They all are.

Somewhere in the study below, Zhao and his underlings continue their argument. And if Zuko could concentrate, he would have paid more attention to the seeds of their plans, their defensive tactics to check their enemy's progress and retain their territorial advantage. But in the light of the moon, within a stone's throw of his hated enemy, Zuko cannot bring himself to think of anything else at the moment, except that what he had long thought impossible had apparently become a reality overnight.

The occupation of the North was over, as abruptly as it had begun, and his uncle and friends were finally free. Katara had somehow become their chief, and how had that even happened? The very last time he had faced her, she had nearly been exiled for teaching the other women how to waterbend. Now she was their chief?

He can only blink, frozen in place by his confusion and his pride. And curiously enough, the strange sense of calming inevitability that threads through it all.

Hadn't he always believed in her strength? Wasn't the thought of her defiant, spitting face the only inspiration that kept him going through these hopeless times? Shouldn't he have known that she would somehow find a way, that she would claw her way back to the root of her power and throw down everything that stood in her way?

Once, he had told her that even the sea wasn't strong enough to withstand her. Now she was coming for him as surely as dawn followed the fall of night. Even in the midst of polar winter, that cold, bleak unending darkness, the sun's light had inevitably found him. How could he think that this would have been any different?

And so he scarcely notices when another attendant interrupts Zhao's deliberations with a quiet clearing of their throat. "Lord Zhao," he intones, as the conversations die down slowly, "you have a visitor."

Zhao scowls at the unexpected news. "Who dares disturb me unannounced? Tell them to see me in the morning."

"But sir…your guest begs the honour of your presence -"

Zhao shuffles the papers around the desk impatiently. "It's past midnight! Who presumes to bother me at this hour?"

"Sir…" the attendant tries again, his reedy voice wavering. "Perhaps you should reconsider."

Zhao swells with poorly controlled indignation, but pushes away from his desk nonetheless. "Fine," he spits, storming out of his study. His threatening voice quickly trails out of earshot. "But if this isn't worth my time, I'll have your hide beaten into a new leather belt…."

The minutes drag on in a dreamy silence, broken only by the uncomfortable sounds of Zhao's men shuffling and coughing as they wait for him to return. Still hidden from sight, Zuko only half-notices. Unlike Zhao's hapless attendants, he remains content to wait for the grizzled man's reappearance.

After all, it is the first glimmer of hope that he has tasted since the night of blood moon. For the first time since then, he is able to glimpse his life stretching past the shadow of his father sitting on his throne. Because Katara was free and she had her waterbending back, and it seemed that she and his uncle had miraculously put aside their feud as well. Somehow they stood together now as equals united in common cause.

All this time, Zuko had thought himself alone. A single masked figure chipping away at the invulnerable barrier of his father's tyranny. Plucking at loose ends and low-hanging fruit and allying with the dispossessed and discontent, yet dully resigned to never truly gain the upper hand.

But now, with his friends sailing across the world at breakneck speed, and his father's grip on power steadily fracturing into disarray, Zuko is finally able to glimpse a light on the horizon that isn't the punishing fury of his father's fire. His uncle, his friends, Katara - they were all coming for him. And where his father's men had planned an easy invasion of broken colonies, instead they now scramble before a united enemy unwilling to back down from a fight.

A faint breeze flits through the trees, rustling at the leaves around him. And even though the wind isn't enough to break the oppressive heat of the night, a shiver still runs down Zuko's spine with the thrill of anticipation. It hangs in the air, a promise of change dangling before him. Everything he had done up until this moment - throwing himself to Zhao's men the night of blood moon, terrorizing his father's enablers, allying with rebellious discontents and helping them secret his cousin's widow to safety - had led him here, to this momentous precipice. The moment that would change everything. For Agni's sake, even Azula was on his side, frustrated with their father's megalomania and plying her own secret battles. Once Zhao was out of the way, the last obstacle barring the path to his father would be clear.

The world beneath his feet shifts with every breath he takes, the key to victory suddenly within his grasp. He had but to reach out and take it, and it would be his.

No sooner does the thought cross his mind in a whisper of secret triumph, when the sound of footsteps returning to the study punctuates the building momentum.

"Where's the Admiral?" someone asks irritably, when only a pair of servants return, with Zhao remaining conspicuously absent.

"His Lordship has decided to retire for the night," one of the servants answers dutifully, already clearing the desk of all the littered scrolls and rearranging them into some semblance of order. "He has been summoned to an early meeting tomorrow, a highly important one. He expects all preparations to be ready by the time he rises in the morning."

A chorus of dark grumblings echo through the open door as Zhao's attendants slowly filter out of the study, the prospect of yet another long night stretching out in front of them. Their commanding officer had retired to his bedroom for a well-deserved rest, but they could expect no such luck.

Zuko waits, holding his breath as the grounds fall silent, and the light at Zhao's bedroom window winks on and then off. A little while longer, as the flurry of activity within its rooms and its hallways slows, and finally, finally settles in for the night.

His lips curve into a small, secret smile.

The wind picks up, rustling through the trees with greater force. It disguises the slight sounds of his movements as he flits from one branch to another, traversing the perimeter of Zhao's great house until he reaches the single, solitary room jutting out of the corner.

Perching on the window-sill, he peers into the darkened room, studying its depths. It lies cluttered with gaudy finery, so empty and silent and still that it practically begs him to enter.

He makes short work of the latch holding the panes in place. Greases the hinges and the sliding track before sliding it noiselessly open to just a sliver. Holding his breath, he slips inside, leaving the window open just a crack. The wind rushes through the tiny opening, causing the heavy red curtains to billow around him like a strange halo.

He waits, hiding in the unexpected cover. His ears strain in the darkness. The wind whistles, the curtains flap, the floorboards creak ever so slightly beneath his feet.

Somewhere at the head of the room, Zhao breathes shallowly. The slow, rhythmic swell of a man long used to sleeping lightly.

But asleep nonetheless.

Zuko chances a peek through the slight part of the drapes, the absolute darkness confirming to his eyes what his ears had long deduced. He can vaguely discern his quarry, the Admiral slumbering in his four-poster bed. The translucent canopy had been drawn, the torches in their sconces still glowing faintly as the embers die out one by one, choking the room with wisps of smoke. And apart from the man sleeping in his bed, the covers rising and falling with the even swell of his breath, the rest of his room lies empty.

Relief cascades through him, so potent that it makes him dizzy. He lets out the breath he didn't realize he'd been holding, surprised by the tension that had gripped him so suddenly. But the trap he had been waiting for had never arrived, and where a world of shadows and doubt had lay between him and Zhao, now there only remains a dozen footsteps and a single veil of finest red lawn.

The swords slide out of their sheath, as smooth and soundless a motion as always. As though in a dream, the canopy rends seamlessly, slicing under the sharpened blades like spools of ribbon.

He takes another step forward, scarcely daring to breathe, until the edge of the carved wooden bed frame presses against his legs. Illuminated in the faint light of the summer night sky, and the silver gleam of his broadswords, Zhao's face looks almost peaceful in slumber. The small sliver of the man's neck that lies exposed to the sharpened point of his blades suddenly appears almost as soft as the deep red pillows and coverlets surrounding it.

Zuko swallows, steeling himself and trying not to balk. This is a war, he reminds himself, even as his palms slick with sweat. This is a war they started. I have to do what I must to end it.

Next to that, it didn't matter if they would call him a cold-blooded murderer, or a coward for killing a man while he slept in his bed. His uncle might never look him in the eyes again for this, but his uncle's hands were no cleaner anyway. Katara on the other hand...she would understand. She would know his heart, she would find a way to forgive him even when he couldn't.

With that newfound resolution pounding like the adrenaline coursing through his veins, his grip tightens on the hilts of his dual swords. His hands shake as he brings them to the sleeping man's neck.

He inhales deeply, summoning the scraps of his willpower. The blades hover a hair's breadth above the taut skin, quivering with every beat of the man's empty heart.

The wind rattles against the windows, rustling the curtains and filling his ears with its plaintive shriek.

And then, an even worse sound, of Zhao clearing his throat impatiently, just before his eyes crack open.

"Well. If it isn't the notorious Blue Spirit, alive and in the flesh," he mutters in a voice of dangerous calm. "I've been expecting you."

As though in slow motion, he snaps his fingers, and the torches spring back to life.

Zuko barely has time to register the wolfish grin spreading across the man's face. He springs back just in time, narrowly dodging the burst of fire that his enemy pushes toward him.

Momentarily blinded by the sudden glow of bright firelight, he lands awkwardly. The swords slide out of his grasp, and he fumbles for them clumsily.

"I'm so honoured that you would even try to come for me," Zhao continues, leaping to his feet. His neck cracks audibly as he rotates it from side to side. "You're even more foolish than I thought."

Blinking, Zuko belatedly notices that the man still wears his armour. Dread gnaws at the pit of his stomach, even before Zhao punches another blast of fire at him.

He flattens against the wall, the flames licking at the gauzy curtains instead and quickly setting ablaze. If the room had been unpleasant before, now it scorches unbearably hot.

The door slams open, bouncing against the wall. A chorus of footsteps rush into the room, more of Zhao's men armed and at the ready. Perhaps the same ones that had been hovering in his study, not so long ago.

In a swift motion, they flank him on either side, their armoured bodies blocking off the sole door. Zuko sheathes his swords, his gaze quickly flitting from the smouldering curtains to the cracked window at the head of the room.

"Leaving so soon?" Zhao taunts, as Zuko races toward it. "But we didn't even get a chance to introduce ourselves."

Zuko scarcely hears him through the roar of his blood in his ears. Shoving the burning curtains aside, not even wincing as his gloves catch fire too. He flings the window open, heart hammering as he jumps to the ledge. The sturdy network of leafy branches reach for him like an outstretched hand.

Then, with a crack of splitting air, lightning charges past him. It arcs through the open window, hitting the tree with deadly precision.

Zuko teeters unsteadily as the rest of the tree collapses to the ground. Its blackened husk goes up in a conflagration of blue fire.

The wind picks up speed, threatening to unseat him, send him plummeting to the ground. Where his body would sprawl with the dying tree, to be consumed by the spreading flames.

Perhaps it would still be a kinder fate than whatever waits in the room behind him. But his blistering hands still clutch at the window-frame, unable, unwilling to understand.

Then a hand closes around the scruff of his neck, yanking him backwards.

He tumbles to the ground, barely feeling the bruises where he lands heavily. Zhao's gloating voice loud in his ears, its words indistinguishable next to the gloved fingers reaching inexorably for the mask strapped to his face.

Zuko reaches for his swords, but finds his hands pinioned behind his back. He struggles viciously, trying to shake them off with every bit of his flagging strength.

But then the mask slides away and hot air grazes his skin, flushed and saturated with sweat. He fights the urge to hide himself, to curl up in a ball like the frightened little boy they all thought he was.

Instead, he pushes himself to sit upright, just as he had on the other side of the world, amid snow and a blood-stained moon.

Zhao's face creases with surprise, before he throws his head back to howl with laughter. Zuko doesn't hear the man's gloats, doesn't need to. He can already imagine the sound of the man sneering, something like How many times do I have to capture you before you're satisfied, Prince Zuko?

His gaze passes by Zhao as though he isn't there, insignificant. Without the mask, without its constricting eye-sockets limiting his field of view, his vision is amplified, unrestricted. He sees everything clearly now: Zhao and his men surrounding him, the isolated bedroom going up in flames. The bait and spring of a trap.

And against the single door, illuminated in the growing light of blue fire, leans the one who had set it.

He narrows his eyes, wondering at what point he had thrown his own sanity to the winds and begun to trust her. Against his better judgment, against every shred of common sense that he possessed. When had he started to believe that she wasn't beyond help or redemption, that for whatever murky purpose she had started to change despite herself?

When had he forgotten that Azula always lies?

She surveys him under haughty, heavy-lidded eyes. "Oh, Zuzu," she croons, her mouth curving into a bloodless smirk, "you're even more of an embarrassment than I ever imagined."

A chill runs down his spine.

"So quick to trust, so blind to the obvious. So wrapped up in your sentimental stories that you forgot one very important thing."

She pushes off the door, making her way over deliberately.

Zuko holds her gaze unblinkingly, his jaw tightening stubbornly. Never had he longed for his firebending so much, never had he longed to incinerate someone with only a glance.

Until she kneels before him, her feral smile inches away from his face. "We are nothing alike," she whispers fiercely. "No matter how much of yourself you try to see in me."

A thousand retorts spring to the tip of his tongue. Zuko speaks none of them aloud.

"What, nothing to say, dear brother? No impassioned speech about how I betrayed your trust, how I'm wasting myself under Father's shadow, how disappointed you are in me?"

Gloved hands hook under his arms, hoisting him to his feet. He still stares at her coldly, until the smile on her face hitches.

"How could I be disappointed?" Zuko snarls as they drag him away. He cranes his neck to glare at her accusingly over his shoulder. "You did exactly what I expected."

Azula recoils unexpectedly, as though he had slapped her instead. She raises a hand absently, to fiddle with the wisps of her hair still falling out of its topknot, askew.

It is the last thing he sees before they slide a sack over his face and everything goes dark.

But her voice still rings out behind them, grating against the cold stone walls. "I had to. Don't you see? It's all in place now." A shudder of an unpleasant giggle, choking with a sob before she goes unsettlingly quiet.

"Now…now he'll never doubt me again."

Chapter 60: the old masters

Chapter Text

disclaimer. nothing new to see here ppl.

author's notes. life has been nonstop and the world is falling apart. thank you everyone for bearing with me and for your patience and concern. i'm doing okay, just stressed and burned out, but otherwise well.

this one took forever to come together, so i hope it delivers.

i give you...

southern lights.

chapter lx. the old masters

i wasn't scared when he caught me
look what it taught me

"how not to drown" / chvrches

Sweat drips along Mai's skin, even as she shivers relentlessly.

The heat within Ozai's throne room stifles unbearably. And yet, despite the efforts of the palace attendants waving broad palm leaves to cool the council members, she still burrows deeper into her cloak.

The wall of the Phoenix King's fire blazes golden bright with triumph, the air choked thick with humidity and excited babble. The other council members still kneel at their places around the small low table, even though the gaps between them widen with their dwindling numbers. All except one.

Azula doesn't kneel with the others. Instead, she stands proud and tall at the place of honour, directly beneath her father's pedestal. Her shoulders are erect, chin tilting smugly, hands clasped firmly behind her back. Her black plate armour gleams to a polished shine, her lips are painted blood red for the occasion. Someone had combed and waxed her long dark hair in place, the topknot holding her flame-shaped crown immaculate. Not a single strand could flutter out of place.

A self-satisfied smirk curves along her mouth as she glances at the laughing blue mask she had unceremoniously tossed into the middle of the council table. Mai's eyes flit between the exaggerated smile and the softer one on Azula's face, mirror images of each other.

Ozai's voice rings out across the room, falling upon Mai's deaf ears in a wash of cold sneering sound. She tries to pay attention, but she's unable to hear anything except the dull roar of blood, pounding with the rapid fire of her pulse.

Even if logically, she knows that it's a wasted effort. Hadn't she always said that Azula was the most powerful of the royal children? Why now would she be so shaken by Zuko's capture and public unmasking as the notorious Blue Spirit? Shouldn't she have accepted that as an inevitability, even before she first approached Zuko in his prison cell and given him the mask to begin with?

Azula says something loftily and laughter spills around the table, scornful in its amusement. Mai hitches a small smile as her father eyes her questioningly, wondering at her stone-faced silence.

"I know you must have mixed feelings about this," he whispers tightly in her ear, surprising her. "But your old boyfriend is a marked traitor now. You're better off without him. Try to remember that."

She jerks her head into a quick nod, not daring to say anything lest she give herself away. The atmosphere in the throne room is raggedly jubilant - a den of desperate predators drunk from their first kill. They would scent blood wherever it was, and root it out without mercy. If they caught a single whiff of her treachery…

"Good girl," her father says absently, already forgetting her as he turns back to the table.

Wiping her sweaty palms against her lap, Mai huddles further into her cloak, trying to stop her teeth from chattering. Azula speaks again and suddenly everyone around the table is nodding in unison. She still can't hear a word of it.

Then Ozai rises to his feet, his silhouette looming and menacing behind the curtain of flames. In a single ripple of motion, everyone in the room drops into a kowtow. Mai doesn't move until someone nudges her in the ribs.

She startles before belatedly following suit.

If there are curious eyes staring at her, she tries to ignore them. So what if a few nobles and their servants thought she was acting oddly? Zuko had been caught and outed as the Blue Spirit, and it was all her fault.

The roar of her blood rises to a high-pitched whine, screeching deafeningly in her ears and drowning out all else.

By the time she straightens upright, the wall of fire has burned down to a border of tiny blue flames, draping the cavernous hall with impenetrable shadows. The cool harsh glow only illuminates the widening smirk on Azula's face as she lounges back on the throne, appearing more content than Mai had ever seen her.

And why not? The constant pull and push between Zuko and Azula had now ended. Azula had won their final bout, condemned Zuko to the fate that all convicted traitors faced, and wrested her spot in the limelight of her father's self-proclaimed radiance. With the comet arriving in little more than a fortnight, her victory was now all but assured.

But why does that matter? A snide voice in her ear asks, as Azula's voice rings out commandingly throughout the hall amid a silent chorus of tight-lipped old men nodding their grudging agreement. Your father is a governor, and Azula trusts you more than anyone else. You'll be fine.

She swallows with difficulty through a parched mouth. The smart way to proceed would be to pretend she had never tried to help Zuko in the first place. To pretend that she had never strayed, that she had never tried to be anything more than her father's silent, obedient daughter, content to let the rest of the world burn as long as it meant the advance of his career.

Disgust roils like a hot coal in her stomach. She presses a hand to her mouth, suddenly feeling like she could vomit all over the low table scattered with all its haphazard plans.

But somehow she reins it in, wrestling with the sickening writhe of her guilt until Azula finally dismisses the council with a wave of her hand and a flaring of her bright blue fire. Everyone rises around her, shuffling out of the hall with their backs bent in supplication. But Mai finds herself unable to move, frozen in place in her usual spot, partially concealed by the swaying red drapes in a shadowed corner of the throne room.

Until at last, Azula's amused voice finds her, breaking the panicked void encasing her like a shell. "Why Mai, I didn't think you would cling so hard to traditions now of all times."

Mai swallows again, searching for something to say. Something quick, something clever and biting that would make Azula laugh and put her at ease… "Well, someone had to," she parries weakly, her voice unusually hoarse. "Considering that nothing about any of this is traditional."

She hears Azula smirk in response. The princess crosses her legs confidently, before beckoning to Mai with a single clawed finger. Come.

Gritting her teeth, Mai rises on unwilling legs, tottering toward the dais with none of her usual graceful stealth. Her slippers catch on the hem of her robe repeatedly; it takes all her effort not to trip and fall face first into Azula's feet.

Maybe I should. She'd probably enjoy that too.

"You're unusually quiet this morning," Azula observes as Mai draws nearer, climbing the steps up the dais to hover by the side of the Phoenix King's gaudy throne. "Cat-owl got your tongue?"

Mai shrugs noncommittally. "You seemed to have more than enough to say for the both of us."

Azula's smirk widens as she leans her head back against the cushioned headrest. Her eyes flutter closed. "Don't sound so disappointed, Mai. This is a happy day. This is the day I've worked my entire life to achieve, and I intend to relish it."

"I'm sure you will."

To her surprise, Azula shifts in her seat, her mouth twisting into a pout. "Can't you drop the dreary act for once and just be happy for me?"

"Sorry," Mai replies dully. "I didn't mean to ruin your perfect day." She stares at the tips of her shoes, gleaming cool blue in the light of Azula's fire. The words slip out of her before she can bite her tongue. "The day where you proved yourself to your dad by turning in your brother."

Azula only shrugs. If she hears the reproach in her voice, she chooses to ignore it.

"I hope it was worth it." To Mai's horror, the torrent of pent-up derision keeps spilling out. It chokes all the air between them, making it impossible to breathe. Or stop. "I hope it was worth condemning your only brother to die, just so you could boss your dad's advisors around and keep his throne warm for him during his stretch breaks."

"What's it to you?" Azula snaps, her gaze instantly hardening as it meets Mai's own. "Don't tell me you still have feelings for Zuko, after all this time."

"No." Mai shrugs. "But at least there's something in him to have feelings for."

Azula's mouth hangs open, slightly parted in her surprise. In the dim blue light, Mai thinks she almost looks hurt. "What...where's this coming from?" she splutters, taken aback. "I thought we were friends, Mai. I thought we had an understanding."

"So did I," Mai answers, drawing courage from the fact that streams of hot blue fire aren't tearing through her skin at this very moment. "I thought I understood you, Azula. I really did. But today I realize that I don't know you at all." She raises her chin, staring defiantly at the twin spots of colour rising in Azula's cheeks. "And you don't know me."

Azula's face twitches in a strange tapestry of emotions, the expressions fleeting too quickly for Mai to glean their meaning. Perhaps it was safer that way, perhaps that was the only way for the heavy leaden thing inside her chest to break free.

"I always told Zuko that he was the weaker of the two of you." She inhales shakily, her voice ragged and hollow like the feeling consuming her entire body. As though she had already consigned herself to the fire of Azula's wrath, and instead of agony there was only surprising numbness. "He believed it too. And he still had the guts to go after your father."

Azula's eyes narrow alarmingly. "He's a traitor, Mai. He had to be stopped."

"And you?" Mai challenges. "Interesting how you somehow knew exactly where the Blue Spirit was going to be that night. Just after your father threatened to put you through what Zuko's been enduring this whole time."

Azula's face mottles dangerously, her mouth working wordlessly in an apoplectic shock. Mai clutches at the silence, wielding it as though it was armour protecting her entire body. "You had the chance to become something bigger, but you didn't take it. Because you just couldn't upset Daddy, could you?"

Azula lets out a disbelieving scoff. "That's rich, coming from you!" she huffs, pointing an unsteady finger at Mai. "You know what it's like, Mai! You never set a toe out of line, you were never anything less than the perfect daughter -"

"You're wrong," Mai cuts her off coldly, drawing herself to her full height. "Who do you think gave Zuko his mask?"

Azula's jaw drops.

A strange fire courses through Mai's veins - stupid, you're as stupid as Zuko and all his stupid friends - "Who do you think showed him how to slip in and out of that prison cell without being seen? Who do you think suggested he become the Blue Spirit in the first place?"

A savage satisfaction claws up her throat as Azula lets out a strangled sound. "I...I thought Mother put him up to it -"

Mai laughs harshly. "Your mother is a broken being, Azula. And so is your dad, and so are you." She shakes her head, wondering which last reckless movement would be her last. "Zuko got thrown in the fire and he let it temper him. You couldn't even bear to stand in its light."

"Perhaps you would like a chance to try the same!" Azula snarls, her eyes flashing dangerously. "Or have you had enough of this treason for now?"

"Enough?" Mai echoes, the wild abandon so overwhelming she wonders if she's drunk. "I haven't even gotten started! You think I'm this perfect, quiet little governor's daughter, but I've been treasoning it up since the day I got here." She snorts at the way all the blood recedes from Azula's face, leaving it as ashen and lifeless as a mask. "I told Zuko where you were holding Chan and Princess Ayumi. I wrote to him when they were in the North, warned him that Zhao's armada was on its way so they could prepare their defenses. If I'd known about his moon plan, I would have told him about it too." She crosses her arms, tilting her chin defiantly. "I even smuggled Ty Lee out of the city when she asked."

Among the litany of her crimes, it's the mention of her old friend's name that snaps Azula out of her shocked torpour. "Ty Lee?" she breathes, stung. "You...you told me she escaped. That you had no idea what happened to her, or where she went -"

"I lied," Mai says flatly. "I lied to protect her. And you."

"Me?"

Mai nods. "I didn't think you could bear the truth."

"Then why tell me at all?"

"Because now I know. Now I know what Ty Lee already knew that night, the moment you waltzed into her home and tried to bring the old squad back together." Mai plants her hands on the armrests, leaning over the princess now shrinking into the oversized, gaudy throne. "You think we're best friends, but we're not. You're just Daddy's little girl - his porcelain doll, his golden mirror. That's all you'll ever be. That's all you ever wanted to be." She shakes her head pityingly. "You think your dad is some god-king, but he's a pathetic little loser who ruins everything he touches. And you could be so much more, but instead you chose to be just like him."

Azula's chest heaves up and down with the force of her breathing, her eyes wide and very round in a face as rigidly waxen as every last strand of her hair pinned immaculately, ruthlessly in its place.

"You know, I actually said no when Ty Lee asked me to come with her," Mai continues, staring down at Azula before pulling back with a shrug. "Because I thought there was something in you I could reach. Imagine that." She touches her forehead, turning away from the throne. "I don't know why I bothered. I should have just gone with her."

Silence fills the great hall, punctuated only by the hissing and choking of the blue flames, thrashing and hissing as they swell in size. Painting the empty lacquer floor with countless shadows that stretch and sway like living phantoms.

Behind her, Azula lets out a shuddering exhale. Mai closes her eyes, her pulse pounding in a constricted throat. Sweat dampens her skin, bracing for the agony of searing fire.

But it never comes.

"Get out of my sight," the princess growls instead.

Mai startles in surprise. Risks a single glance over her shoulder to see Azula, hunched over and clutching viciously at her heart.. Even in the blue light, her stricken face is tinged sickly green.

"Didn't you hear me?" she pants, her voice rising to a piercing, wounded shriek. "I said get out! Get out, get out, get out!"

Mai flees as though her life depends on it.

The midday sun blazes in a clear blue sky, piercing through the heavy foliage overhead to dapple the forest paths with bright golden light. In the sloping countryside surrounding the former city of Omashu, the air is rife with a multitude of new sounds. Voices shouting out commands, the earth itself grinding in answer. The rumbling gripping the mountains right down to the labyrinth of caves webbing through their roots. The alarmed calls of birds as they wheel through the air and break toward the sea.

Suki longs to follow them, wishes they could fly as swift and unencumbered. Instead, she shifts impatiently in the makeshift wooden tent constructed at the lip of the forest, where it suddenly yields to the sand lining the endless expanse of the water beyond.

"How much longer?" she complains, crossing her arms.

Iluak glances at her apologetically, crouched over her splinted leg. In the glow of the water gloving his hands, his eyes appear unusually blue. "I'm almost done. Just a few more passes and you'll be good to go."

"Thanks." Suki purses her lips. "But I was actually talking to the others." She twists awkwardly, trying to peer out the doorway to where Ty Lee and Haru lounge with enviable patience.

Haru grins at her sheepishly. "They should be arriving any day now. Lee said they had the winds and the waves on their side -"

"Not Lee," Ty Lee reminds him patiently. "It's Sokka, remember?"

Haru rolls his eyes, but lets out a good-humoured laugh. "That guy goes through names like the rest of us go through bargain-shop sandals. What's betting he'll have a different one by the time he gets back?"

Suki frowns, discomfited by the thought. In truth, it had been little over a month since Sokka had learned his true name and barged up north to find Katara. But somehow, it felt at once longer than that...and far shorter. Caught up in the thrill of liberating the final Dai Li stronghold, it had almost been understandable why they hadn't immediately noticed the return of the moon in the sky. Only the bloodbenders had known, marvelling in the miraculous return of their bending and employing it with gusto against their former master.

Justice, Atka had called it scathingly. For all the lost years that Long Feng had duped them and used their powers to his unscrupulous ends.

Suki shudders, trying not to think about it. She hadn't witnessed what the bloodbenders had done to the remaining Dai Li, and the few that had kept their tales to themselves. But the stories ran rampant around the rebels, hushed accounts dripping with fear and awe at the same time. Stories that petrified her, even after she thought she had known just exactly what horrors the bloodbenders were capable of unleashing.

But then Iluak pulls back, unwinding the wrappings encasing her leg. "There we go," he announces. "Good as new."

Suki blinks at her leg, still stretched out in front of her at an awkward angle. Gingerly tries to test it, rotating it gently from side to side, expecting to the pain to strike.

It doesn't.

"Hey," Suki hears herself say, bending her leg at the knee for the first time in forever. "Would you look at that? I have two legs again!"

Iluak smiles hesitantly. "I wish we could have worked on it when you were first injured. There would have been less damage to undo."

"Well." Suki shrugs, unable to stop the grin from splitting across her face. "As long as you undid it eventually."

But the waterbender hangs his head. Strands of beaded hair clack quietly as they shield his eyes from view. "And pain," he continues, so softly she can barely hear him. "There would have been less pain."

Suki shrugs, suddenly uncomfortable. Ever since the return of the moon, Iluak and his twin sister had been devoted in their ministries, determined to repair what they had mistakenly broken. "If it hadn't been for the pain, I wouldn't have caved," she points out wryly, "I don't think I would have ever let you near me again."

"Perhaps." He swallows hard. "But for that, we can never apologise enough."

She sighs, before shrugging again. "Well, you fixed me up well enough when you had the chance. And it was really Long Feng's fault, not yours, and you guys took care of him too. I'd say it's time we buried the hatchet and moved on, don't you think?"

"Move on?" Iluak blinks in confusion.

"Yeah," Suki says, trying to sit up on her knees even as her freshly healed leg trembles under the now-unfamiliar weight of her body. "You know, put all this behind us, focus on the future, that kind of thing?"

But Iluak only stares at her, puzzled. "But so much happened," he says slowly, his blue eyes flickering with unseen horrors. "I still live it, I can't stop. How am I ever supposed to put it behind me when they won't stop visiting me at night?"

Suki chews on her lip, at a loss for words. How many nights had she still woken up drenched in sweat, convinced she was still being tortured under the silent waters of Lake Laogai? And how much worse were the terrors that haunted the Water Tribe refugees? Iluak, Ruska, Arrluk - they wore it openly in their furtive motions and averted gazes. Even Katara's smile had always seemed world-weary.

Only Sokka had emerged relatively unscathed. And even so, his scars would be different. She places her clammy hands in her lap, wiping them against the rough green fabric of her tunic. Who knew what the return of his memories and the journey up north would do to him? Would he even be the same when he returned? He and the rest were due back any day - what would remain of that arrogant, irritating, yet strangely noble warrior whose grating presence she had come to grudgingly miss?

A distant horn wails suddenly, stirring up a hubbub of new commotion. A rustling movement spreads along the edge of the forest, scattered groups of rebels rushing through the narrow winding paths.

"What's going on?" she asks, struggling to push herself upright without her crutch.

Ty Lee claps her hands together excitedly. "It's the fleet!" she exclaims, whirling around in a flutter of pink silk. Her braid whips over her shoulder. "They spotted the fleet!"

Suki's mouth goes dry with hope and dread. "Oh," she says in a stilted voice. "That's...that's great."

"Come on!" Before she can protest, Ty Lee already hooks an arm under her shoulder and hoists her to her feet in a surprisingly effortless motion. "Before the beach gets too crowded to see them!"

Suki glances plaintively over her shoulder at Iluak, still seated on the floor of the makeshift infirmary. He nods at her encouragingly. "Go," he reassures her, bending water back into a skein with a graceful twist of his wrists. "You needn't worry about your leg anymore."

"Aren't you coming?" Suki asks, frowning. "It's your tribe too."

The waterbender only shrugs. "In time it will be. But none of us are who we once were. Not anymore."

A chill runs down Suki's spine at Iluak's strange words. But then Ty Lee yanks at her impatiently, and she nearly falls flat on her face trying to keep pace.

The swell of excited chatter rises like the surf beating along the rocky shore with the pulse of the resurrected ocean. The water ripples in bands of blue as pure as the cloudless sky stretching overhead. The rush of the waves washing up along the shoreline in layers of thick white foam, turning the rough sand into a slope of gleaming wet mud. The calls of the seabirds growing louder in the rising wind, singing their songs of home.

Suki follows their small shapes winging through the sky, cutting a path straight to the horizon, and the dozen ghostly ships silhouetted against it in the distance.

The world stutters beneath her new, unsteady feet. She clutches at Ty Lee's arm for balance.

"Easy there!" her friend chimes, grabbing at her wrist to steady her. "Someone can't wait to see Sokka again, can they?"

Suki splutters, wondering if her face burns as bright as it feels. "What? No!" she protests, even as Ty Lee shoots her a knowing smirk. "I'm honestly more interested in seeing our friends after such a long time."

"Uh huh." Ty Lee nods encouragingly. "And I'm sure that's why you took the time to brush your hair out extra nicely this morning, right?"

Suki touches the back of her head defensively. "D - don't be ridiculous! We may have freed the entire continent from those creepy Dai Li, but that doesn't mean I have to keep looking like it!"

"If you say so." Ty Lee drops the subject, but her smirk widens nonetheless.

They trudge on, their playful bickering weaving in and out of the silent anticipation cloaking the crowding beach like the tendrils of mist creeping along the sloping shores with ghostly fingers. It diffuses the bright summer sunshine, touching the water's surface with dreamy clouds of beaten hazy gold. A brisk wind whips inland, surprisingly cool in spite of the day's immense heat. It rifles against Suki's skin, carding through her hair without a care for the long minutes that had gone into its attentive washing and brushing that morning.

A cloud passes overhead, darkening the day momentarily with an unearthly groan. It takes Suki a moment to recognize the distant animal sounds as they grow closer, shrouded in the swirls of fog thickening along the water's edge.

They land one by one, the world swaying beneath the weight of their heavy paws. Behind the shaggy bulk of the rumbling sky bison, the keel of a boat grinds ashore.

Squinting, Suki cranes her head, trying to peer over all the people gathered in front of her to greet the incoming fleet. "Can you see anything?" she hisses into Ty Lee's ear, frustration chafing along her skin like her roughspun tunic and trousers.

"Not really," Ty Lee whispers back, her face scrunching up attentively. "This fog really came out of nowhere - oh!"

As though an invisible hand had swept along the breadth of the beach, the thick fog splits down its middle. Like a curtain slowly parting to reveal the crowding bay, the sky bison cramming the shallows and shaking droplets of sparkling water out of their shaggy, sodden coats.

And all the mismatched ships lining up row by row as far as the eye could see. Imperial Fire Navy cruisers with their streamlined, menacing prows and grey clouds pouring out their towering smokestacks. And smaller blue boats with the curving prows and giant flapping sails of what must be the Northern Water Tribe, bobbing cheerfully alongside them in one of the most unlikely alliances Suki would ever witness.

"Wow," Haru remarks, somewhere behind them. "He wasn't kidding. That's...that's some fleet."

"I'll say," Suki agrees hoarsely.

A small commotion further back distracts them momentarily. Suki glances over her shoulder, where the remaining Southern Tribe survivors are gathered among themselves slightly apart from the crowd in a tense, tight-lipped silence. Unease flits in the pit of her stomach as she takes in their faces, darkened with some haunting memory she couldn't begin to fathom.

And pushing through their midst, an elegant man passing his middle years with a bearing as richly refined as his robes, swishing in his wake in drapes of shiny golden silk. A massive blue sapphire the size of a bird's egg winks blindingly off one of his fingers as he waves a dismissive hand behind him. In a single motion, pausing only to exchange glances of unspoken trepidation with each other, Iluak and Ruska hurry to fall in step behind him, trailing in his wake like twin blue shadows.

Haru purses his lips in distaste as the three of them march on past, the dense crowd somehow parting effortlessly before the imperious man in the rich dress and allowing him passage to the edge of the water, where little figures already begin to disembark from their vessels.

"What's going on there?" Suki asks, her mouth dry.

Haru shakes his head, a scowl twisting across his usually placid face. "Nothing," he grunts, crossing his arms. "Just Lord Beifong doing what he does best. Being a pompous prick."

Suki's eyes widen at the familiar name, and almost at the same time, Ty Lee lets out a gasp of recognition. "Beifong?" she echoes. "That's Lord Beifong?"

Ty Lee tilts her head, squinting in the distance as Haru nods mutely. "I don't really see the resemblance," she observes, scratching at the back of her neck. "Toph must take after her mom, and lucky for her too!"

The unease builds in the pit of Suki's stomach as she stares at the boats bobbing on the shallows. "I wonder if Toph knows that he's here," she says softly. "She ran away from home all those years ago, after all."

Ty Lee chews her lip with growing discomfort. "He's her dad. Maybe he'll just be really happy to see her?"

"Was yours?" Suki retorts dryly.

Ty Lee grimaces. "Point taken."

Suki doesn't get a chance to say anything more. The ground beneath their feet suddenly starts to rumble without warning, an almighty shaking that threatens to flatten everyone present. She lurches on her unsteady foot, colliding heavily with Ty Lee's shoulder as it presses into her sternum. "Oof."

"It's okay," Ty Lee retorts, finding her balance with enviable ease. She hooks her arm across Suki's shoulders, steadying her with a strength that belies the slim heft of her limbs. "I've got you."

In the corner of her eye, Haru's lips quirk upward in amusement. "Looks like Mad King Bumi's finally coming home to roost."

"Huh?" Suki follows the direction of his pointing finger, to where surely enough, the wiry old man clambers onto a jagged rock, towering above the slopes of soft white sand. "Oh, there he is. I wonder what he wants."

"Beats me," Haru grunts, shrugging dismissively. "C'mon, I can barely see a thing…"

Before she can protest, Haru's hand rests heavy on the small of her back, steering her through the dense crowd of curious onlookers. She limps and staggers on her unsteady feet, trying not to stumble or collapse or otherwise embarrass herself. Her fingers bite into Ty Lee's arm in a white-knuckled grip.

They approach the foaming shallows as more gangplanks hit the water in a chorus of metallic thuds. Voices call out to each other, ringing through the briny midday air. Suki squints at the array of ships, their varied shapes and sizes. She wonders which one bore her friends, which of the tiny figures in the distance was Sokka.

And Katara and Toph and the rest of them too, she reminds herself sternly.

But she doesn't have to wait long at all. Amid the ranks of saffron-clad Air Nomads swelling along the beach, the low wail of a tsungi horn pierces through the air.

The waves crash against the shore, lapping up the sandy slopes in foaming tongues before receding back to the heart of its depths. Leaving only mud and entrails that score a path straight to where the flagship at the head of the fleet lay anchored.

Suki waits for the water to rise again, to stretch out and meet the tips of her boots as it always did. Instead, it remains frozen, held tightly in the invisible grip of an unseen master. Like the breath hitching in her throat, longing to burst free but held hostage to a nobler cause.

The sun beats down overhead, its rays sweltering. It dissipates the last shreds of mist, to finally reveal the formation of people marching in unison straight toward them with grim purpose.

She studies the cut of their blue armour, their every step ringing with the weight of their beaded ornaments jiggling in their long, dark braided hair. Their faces gleam even in the distance, their features accentuated by thick layers of stark paint that reminds her with a pang of her own warrior's makeup.

They march in an organised column stretching in length all the way toward what looked like the bottom of the ocean itself. At the outer perimeter, waterbenders move in unison, the swaying motions of their arms and wrists keeping the waves held at bay.

At their head march two formidable Water Tribe warriors, their tall, lean frames piled high with thick animal furs and heavy ornaments. One is a woman, younger than the proud carriage of her shoulders would suggest. Despite the shaggy purple cloak that threatens to swallow her whole, she still holds her head high. Her long dark hair is woven into an intricate array of braids, set with brightly coloured beads that clack against the carved tassels hanging against her chest with every step she takes.

"Agni, look at her!" Ty Lee breathes, clapping her hands to her mouth in awe. "Her aura is so golden, it's honestly inspiring!"

Suki arches an eyebrow but says nothing. Next to the young chieftainess, a sturdily-built Water Tribe warrior matches her pace with an easy loping grace. Unlike everyone else surrounding him, he carries no waterskins. Instead, a large sword is strapped to his back, its worn pommel glinting in the daylight, winking at her conspiratorially.

Realisation steals the breath from her throat, makes her clutch at her chest in shock. "No way!" she gasps, flushed and suddenly aware of her pulse, drumming incessantly in her ears. "That's...that's…"

"Sokka looks great, doesn't he?" Ty Lee teases, her smirk flashing triumphantly in the corner of Suki's eye.

But she shakes her head, only able to point stupidly at the approaching pair of Water Tribe siblings. "Forget him," she manages weakly. "Look at Katara."

"What?" Ty Lee yelps. "You mean…" She leans forward, her face scrunching with the intensity of her focus. "I didn't even recognize her!"

"Who's Katara?" Haru inquires curiously.

"Our friend," Suki answers breathlessly, just as Ty Lee retorts, "Sokka's sister."

"Oh." Haru nods. "Makes sense. Looks like they found each other after all."

"Come on!" Without another word, Ty Lee grabs Suki's wrist and all but drags her down that small sloping distance between them and the water's edge. Suki tries not to shriek as she skids along the shiny wet sand and almost trips on a length of thick fronded seaweed. Her freshly healed leg flares up again in protest.

The waves crash along the shoals, pounding at the shoreline to whittle it smooth and soft. It splashes at the cuffs of Suki's trousers, drenching her feet in her boots up to the ankles by the time Ty Lee finally drags them to a halt.

Even under the austere war paint and the impressive regal garb, Suki doesn't miss the way Katara lights up at the sight of them. She stops in her tracks, her long blue dress somehow enviably dry despite the thrashing of the water all around them. Then she's racing toward them, feet slapping the shallow water and leaving giant prints in the sand. Her hair flies out behind her, trailing like the massive purple cloak draped over her shoulders.

"Suki!" she cries, her voice high-pitched and shrill with delight. "Ty Lee! What...I can't believe you're here!"

Ty Lee leaps on her, grabbing the Water Tribe girl in a fierce embrace. "No, you're here!" she exclaims, her hands resting on the fur-lined mantle of Katara's cloak. "We didn't think we'd ever see you again!"

"Yeah," Suki chokes out, hobbling over to join her friends on unsteady legs. But she manages to throw a wry smile at Katara before gripping her forearm tightly. "To be fair, we didn't think we'd make it out in one piece either."

"Sounds like quite the story," Katara remarks, clasping at Suki's hands with more of that surprising strength. "You'll have to tell me it sometime."

But Suki only snorts. "Are you kidding me? You show up in that getup and just expect us to, what, not talk about it at all? What happened?"

"Yeah, you look great!" Ty Lee agrees enthusiastically. "Regal. Strong. Dignified."

Katara lets out an uncomfortable laugh. "Yeah, about that." She rubs at the back of her head awkwardly. "They made me chief."

Suki blinks, wondering if the buzzing noise was only in her head or if everyone else could hear it too. "They did what now?"

Katara's uneasy smile widens fractionally. "It's a long story," she confesses, tucking a slim braid behind her ear. "How about let's trade on the way over to the Fire Nation?"

Suki raises her eyebrows, scanning the long line of waterbenders arrayed silently behind Katara, and resting upon Sokka who jogs somewhat ahead, keen to join his sister on the beach. "So you guys were serious," she says slowly. "You really mean to go back there?"

"I do," Katara declares, with a steady conviction that surprises her. "Sozin's comet is returning at the end of the summer, and you can bet Ozai will do something truly awful when it arrives. We have to stop him before that happens."

"Besides," Sokka interjects, appearing suddenly at Katara's shoulder to flash a dimpled grin, "he's also holding Katara's boyfriend hostage, so we have to go rescue him."

"Sokka!"

"What? It's accurate."

"Boyfriend?" Suki repeats, exchanging a quizzical glance with Ty Lee and ignoring the uncomfortable knock of her heart in her chest. "Katara has a boyfriend now?"

Ty Lee wiggles her eyebrows meaningfully. "Someone's been busy while they're away!" she chirps. "Saving the Water Tribe, becoming chief, finding love -"

"Zuko's not my boyfriend!" Katara snaps, glaring daggers at Sokka.

Suki chokes on her spit, coughing furiously. Ty Lee's hands clap over her mouth, parted in a gasp. "No way!" she squeals, jumping up and down in excitement. "You and Zuko? I can't believe it!"

"Me neither!" Suki sputters, studying the siblings intently for any sign of a joke. "How did that even happen? I thought you couldn't stand him."

Katara groans, the thick face paint still not enough to disguise the furious colouring of her skin. "You're lucky you're my brother," she tells Sokka briskly. "Otherwise I would have murdered you."

"She would," Suki supplies, prompted by the skeptical tilt of Sokka's growing smirk and the way her mouth goes dry at the sight of it. "She's got a talent for that, actually."

"Well, aren't I lucky?" Sokka quips back without missing a beat. His eyes finally find hers, their calm steady blue seeming to pin her in place. "With my magic-water, bloodbending, murdering sister and all."

Katara folds her arms across her chest irritably. "That's Chief sister to you." She draws herself to her full height formidably.

But Sokka, still towering a full head taller, only grins down at her. "Sure, Chief," he remarks, before lifting a hand and, with an impressive disregard for his general well-being, ruffles her hair affectionately.

Katara yelps, batting his offending hand away with predictable ferocity. "Sokka! Do you have any idea how long it took for the women to do my hair?"

He shrugs nonchalantly, impervious to his sister's mounting indignation. "So what? It's just hair. Besides, now you have something to keep you occupied on the way over to the Fire Nation. Girls love doing their hair, right?"

Suki can't help the scoff that escapes her as Katara jams her hands on her hips. "Careful," she warns, a wolfish smile flitting across her lips. "Those girls are some of the most powerful bloodbenders in the world." She gestures casually over her shoulder. "Don't let them hear you disrespecting them. You're not their brother."

The colour drains from Sokka's face. "Hey now," he recovers with a strained laugh, "I was only joking! I have great admiration for the art of hair-braiding! Don't you know how much fine skill must go into that -"

Suki shoves her elbow into his side, silencing him instantly. "That's enough out of you," she declares with a hard-won steadiness that sits at odds with the electric tremour rattling deep in her bones. "No point in digging when you've already hit rock bottom."

He winks lazily at her. "Well, I'm lucky I've got Suki looking out for me at least." His gaze rakes over her in a subtle flicker before settling on her face. "Glad you took care of that leg after all."

She isn't sure if she imagines the way his eyes soften at the corners, stifling the snappy retort brimming on the tip of her tongue. "Yeah," she grits out instead, praying that the drum of her pulse isn't deafening to anyone else's ears. Arranging her face into a scowl, she kicks at the wet sand nonchalantly, avoiding the infuriating intensity of his searching gaze. "It wasn't really a problem once the moon came back."

"Right." He lets out a sigh of relief, its earnestness surprising her. "Did - did the other waterbenders heal it for you then?"

"Obviously."

"Obviously," he echoes. In the corner of her eye, she catches him nodding awkwardly. "Well...looks like they knew what they were doing. You look great."

Her head snaps up to stare at him incredulously.

"I mean...your leg looks great," he corrects weakly. The tips of his ears flush purple.

To her dismay, blood rushes to her face and she can practically hear Ty Lee preening in knowing amusement. She shoves her sweaty hands into her pockets, twisting tightly at the roughspun fabric. "Thanks."

Katara raises her eyebrows but mercifully refrains from commenting. Instead, she turns back to survey the fleet bobbing along the water and her brow crumples into a frown. "Did Toph and Aang get lost again? Where are they?"

Sokka shrugs, rubbing the back of his neck. "They were saddling up on Appa as we were pulling in. Something about rounding up some stragglers. They'll be along soon enough."

"You mean Toph actually volunteered for a flight?" Katara mutters, kneading her temples in mounting disbelief. "Must've been a hell of a bunch of stragglers."

"Can you blame them? How is anyone supposed to see through all that mist you and your waterbenders keep pulling up?"

"If you can't see through our cover, that means Ozai's scouts also can't," Katara explains patiently. "That means we can keep the element of surprise on our side...for now."

"For now," Sokka echoes skeptically. "But how long do you think your little cloud-blankets are going to keep us hidden? Or did you forget how General Goody-Two-Shoes just welcomed Zhao's defecting fleet back over to his side with open arms?"

Katara sighs, her shoulders slumping as she glances over her shoulder again to survey the fleet bobbing on the waves, sprawling like a carpet toward the shrouded horizon. "I haven't forgotten," she mutters, crossing her arms defensively. "But what was the alternative? Leave half the tribe behind to keep Zhao's men imprisoned? At least this way we can keep an eye on them."

"Keep your enemies closer," Haru offers, not unhelpfully. "She's got a point."

"I know," Sokka grumbles, kicking a stone into the gurgling water. "All the same, I'd rather not know that half our ships are probably full of spies and double agents who are probably feeding our plans back to Ozai as we speak."

"You don't know that," Ty Lee points out gently. "Maybe some of those men just want to go home to their families, and this is their only way." She shrugs uncomfortably. "Maybe more of them than you think."

Katara pinches the bridge of her nose, exhaling heavily. "Either way, we've come too far to turn back now. Even if it isn't exactly ideal. We have to stay the course, and believe it'll see us through safely."

"And if not?" Sokka presses.

Katara shrugs. "Does that matter when the alternative is giving up and waiting for Ozai to win? Wouldn't you rather go down fighting?"

"I'd rather not go down at all," Sokka retorts, shaking his head.

"Me neither," Katara agrees briskly. "So all we have to do is sail over to the Fire Nation before the comet gets here, break into the capital, and defeat Ozai and his army. That's just three things."

Sokka rolls his eyes. "Right," he snorts. "Only three things. How did I ever forget how much of a terminal optimist you were?"

"A terminal optimist?" Suki echoes, arching her eyebrows. "Katara? Really?"

Katara shrugs. "I have my days."

They are interrupted by another blast of the tsungi horn, growing louder as the insistent breeze finally eases. Suki peers over Katara's shoulder, trying to ignore Sokka and his maddeningly impatient fidgeting. Her eyes widen as she takes in the waterbenders of the Northern Water Tribe, an assembly of grey and blue armour and impassive painted faces. Arrayed in a pathway cutting straight through the depth of the bay, they were a sight to strike fear into the hearts of their foes. And yet, something pangs through Suki's chest as she takes them in. A longing for her own Kyoshi warriors, for a place to call home. The same forlorn feeling she'd seen blazing like a beacon in Iluak's eyes, and the other Southern waterbenders every time they spoke of the future.

"Hang on," she says suddenly, turning on her heel to scan the crowding beach behind them for more huddled figures dressed in blue. "Katara...there are some people you have to meet."

She hears her friend draw in a shaking breath. "Yes," Katara says softly. The sand crunches wetly beneath her feet as she takes a deliberate step forward. "I've heard."

It doesn't take much effort for Suki to pick them out of the crowd. Iluak and Ruska, still occupied by their uncomfortable place flanking Lord Beifong on either side as he talks imperiously at the mad king. And further back, their darker blue garb greyed in the shadows of the forest canopy, the rest of the Southern Water Tribe survivors linger. Waiting in the liminal space between the excited rebels on the beach and the deserted shelter of the wild trees, for permission or something else, Suki can't tell.

Somehow, they notice her waving them down wildly. In a hesitant motion rippling through their ranks, they move like a slow puddle trickling down the slope of the shifting sands. Their wariness palpable with every movement, caution and terror evident with every sway of their weathered blue robes. But their pride, their instinct for survival and community drawing them forward, tugging them down to the level of the water with its inexorable gravity.

Sokka beams as they settle to a stop, a safe distance away. "You made it!" he greets cheerfully, crossing the small strip of wet sand separating them as though it didn't exist to clasp Arrluk by the forearm in a tight grip. "Glad to see you again, buddy!"

Arrluk offers a grateful smile. "It's good to see you too, Sokka," he replies in a faltering voice, his eyes settling upon Katara with undisguised trepidation. "And...and the rest of the tribe."

Sokka grins, his dimples peeking through the layers of white paint as he motions for Katara to join them. "You haven't met my sister, have you?"

Arrluk's eyes widen as Katara slowly makes her way over, clearly as self-conscious as the rest of the Southern survivors. "Not yet," he rasps, his head bowing in deference as the young chief settles directly across from him. "The honour has evaded many of us, Chief Katara."

"Please." Katara's voice is strangled as she lays a gentle hand on Arrluk's shoulder, and Suki's breath catches at the water glimmering in her friend's eyes. "It's not your fault. I...I thought I was alone. I thought I was the only one left." She hangs her head in sorrow. "The last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe."

"And what a credit to us all you have become."

Katara's head snaps up at Atka's wavering voice as it cuts through the small group of survivors. Something like panic winds visibly through her entire body like a coiled spring, before the crowd parts for its grizzled matriarch. But, to Suki's surprise, a warm smile radiates from the old woman's stern face.

"You may not remember me, child, but I remember you," Atka continues, her voice softening as her knotted hands grip Katara's with their surprising strength. "My mother was an elder of Sivusiktok alongside your grandmother, and I served your father as a captain in his guard." Her mouth purses into a thin line. "I fought alongside him in the first battles of the polar wars. I held him as his spirit left his body." She shakes her head fiercely. "A great loss for our people."

Katara clutches at the old woman like a lifeline. "I'm glad to know that he wasn't alone at the end," she whispers faintly. "It must have cost you a lot to do that for him."

"Cost?" Atka lets out a harsh laugh. "What is the cost of passing with dignity? A life of humiliation and fear? Now you fight alongside the very people who butchered our families and razed our homes. That is the senselessness of life." Her mouth bares into a mirthless smile. "Justice, victory, vengeance, forgiveness... They are all lies we tell to comfort ourselves, to avoid looking that ugly truth in the eyes. In the end, there is only survival - and the impossible things it asks of us."

"I know." Katara's eyes soften and she appears dangerously close to tears herself. "I know." With what must be an inhuman effort, she steels herself to rise to her full height, her piercing gaze sweeping over the remnants of her tribe, scattered pieces of a long-lost whole. "But this isn't how it ends. I promise you that."

Her voice gains strength, ringing out along the winding shores of the enclosed bay. "I know I'm young. I know you barely know me or what I'm capable of. But you know Sokka and you knew my father. Believe me when I say that as long as I'm chief, restoring the South will always be my priority. I want to go home too. But there is no going home until we've brought that monster responsible for our suffering to account." She presses a clenched fist to the carved tassels hanging against her heart. "So how about it? Will you join me?"

Atka glances over her shoulder, her thick grey braid swinging in her wake. Some unspoken command flickers between the other Southerners, too fast for Suki to perceive or understand.

Then, one by one, the others step forward too. Measured Arrluk, giant Maguyuk with shoulders as sturdy and broad as an oak. Men and women who had once been built tall and strong like Katara and Sokka, but now lean and hardened by long years of hardship. They crowd around their chief like moths to a flame, their hands gripping hers tightly, their last tether to a life swept out of reach by the invisible tides of their uneasy lives.

Katara only smiles gratefully, clutching at as many of them as she could possibly hold in her embrace. "Thank you," she whispers. A single tear runs down her cheek, streaking the immaculate white paint. "Thank you for giving me a chance. I know how hard this must be for you." She raises her head, as though the heavy purple mantle and the piles of ornamented braids weighed nothing at all. "I hope in time I will prove myself worthy of the trust you've shown me."

A general murmur breaks out in response. Then Katara raises a wrapped wrist, motioning for the rest of the Southerners to follow.

Suki shifts her weight awkwardly as they all shuffle past with thinly veiled anticipation, stepping into the water to join the array of the waiting Northern tribe. In a crush of blue against blue, both tribes meet where the waves break against the shallows, to shatter and become whole again.

The slosh of footsteps stirs her from her reverie, and with a prickle of her skin, she realises that she's no longer alone. "Aren't you going to join them?" she asks him directly, examining the pensive lines of his profile in the corner of her eye.

Sokka shrugs, jamming his hands in his pockets. His eyes, fixed upon the two reuniting tribes surrounding his sister, appear sad. "Nah," he replies at length. "That's Katara's place. I don't really think I belong there."

"Of course you do," Suki says sharply, a frown knitting her brow. "You're her brother. You're a part of the Water Tribe just as much as anyone else there."

He smirks mirthlessly. "Being Water Tribe isn't just something you're born into. Now...it's kind of a shared experience. And I spent most of that time believing I was someone else" His gaze falls to his boots, the ridges of wet sand scuffing between them. "I don't really know where I belong anymore."

Now it's Suki's turn to shrug, completely taken aback by his unusual moroseness. His infuriating, aggrandizing humour, she had learned to handle. But the last thing she expected was to fumble with an unexpected show of his vulnerability in her clumsy warrior's hands.

Yet something in her chafes at the strange emptiness in his voice, compelling her to try anyway. "I don't think you're the only one who feels that way," she points out, as evenly as her pounding heart will allow. "None of us think of home the same way anymore. The war took that away from us too."

He makes a non-committal sound. "You didn't wake up one day and completely forget your family and home existed though."

"No," Suki allows, drumming her fingers against the fabric lining of her pocket. "No, that's a very...a very uniquely you situation."

His crooked smile, the one he wears whenever she says something that amuses him, flashes in the corner of her eye. Her stomach flips inconveniently.

To her chagrin, but not her displeasure, he doesn't leave to join Katara and the others. Instead, he sidles next to her, following her absent gaze with a silence that she would have mistaken for shyness if it had been anyone else standing with her.

At length, he points into the distance, tilting his head quizzically. "What do you imagine is going on there?" he asks.

Suki peers in the direction of his finger silently. She frowns as she finds Iluak and Ruska, still standing wordlessly behind a silently fuming Lord Beifong, now thoroughly being ignored by Bumi altogether.

"Lord Beifong doesn't look too happy, does he?" she guesses.

"I don't think he's capable of it," Sokka agrees wisely. "But no, that's not what I meant. Look at Bumi."

Suki's frown deepens as she studies the wiry old man, his back to her making his demeanour hard to gauge. But his shoulders hunch and the sliver of his face that remains visible to her is flushed a deep red.

Standing across from him, appearing equally uncomfortable and upset, is General Iroh.

"Huh," she hears herself say.

"Right?" Sokka exclaims. "Now what do you suppose those two old geezers have to talk about?"

"I don't know. Old people stuff?"

"Suki," Sokka says patiently, barely able to contain his growing excitement, "that's the Dragon of the West standing face to face with Mad King Bumi!"

"I can see that," Suki remarks dryly. "No wonder they look tense. Didn't Iroh have to crush Bumi's rebellion way back when and force him to go underground with all his plans?"

Sokka nods eagerly. "And now he needs Bumi's help kicking Ozai in the pants. How awkward is that?"

Suki winces. "I couldn't bear it."

"Me neither." His hand clamps over her wrist. "Come on."

Suki yelps indignantly, but lets him pull her alongside him nonetheless. His hand is big enough to encase hers entirely, the calluses on his palm press intently against her skin. Wordlessly, he slows his brisk pace to match her halting one, her weak leg already complaining from its unexpected exertion.

With a hand resting gently on the small of her back, he steers her to where the old masters stand among themselves. Suki tries to ignore it, instead studying the tense conversation unfolding before her.

General Iroh, appearing more haggard and grey since she had last seen him an eternity ago, stands with his hands tucked into his wide trailing sleeves. His armour hangs loosely over his red cotton tunic, scuffed and weathered from countless days spent at sea. "If you are upset with me," he says with a flash of impatience, "then perhaps it would be most productive to come out and air your grievances directly, my old friend."

Bumi snorts, his oversized purple cloak fluttering with the motion rocking his entire wiry body. "They say actions speak louder than a thousand words, Iroh. If you still haven't heard me, then you're deaf beyond help."

Suki claps a hand over her mouth to silence the surprised sound building in her throat.

Sokka leans over, his lips nearly grazing her ear as he whispers conspiratorially, "Told you it'd be a show."

Iio slams the butt of her glider into the ground, where she stands in between the two opposing men with her calm, measured presence. "Gentlemen," she says wearily. "You once believed in the same thing, though you disagreed on how best to achieve it -"

"Disagree?" Bumi laughs nastily. "That's a rather gentle way of describing the cold-blooded murder of hundreds of people. Where were you then, Iroh? Was that what your idea of peace and equality between the four nations looked like?"

But Iroh holds Bumi's accusing gaze, his guilt plain in every line of his face. "That was a different time," he answers softly, with the voice of a much older man. "I was not the man I am now. I did not know the things that I have come to understand now."

"A steep price to pay for such a slow education," Bumi counters stubbornly. "We've made it this far without you. Why should we put our necks on the line to bail you out now?"

"Because time runs short and destiny is upon us," Iroh replies solemnly. A chill runs down Suki's spine as Iroh withdraws his hands from his sleeves to hold them out entreatingly. "Summer's end is little more than a fortnight away. The fate of the world hangs in the balance. If we do not put aside our differences now, we never will."

Bumi stares down his nose at Iroh's outstretched hands. His own are crossed across his chest, his feet planted like a rock amid the mounds of fine, shifting sand. "How do you expect me to trust you after all the times you failed us?" he demands stonily.

"I don't," Iroh retorts, his legendary patience finally snapping. "But is it too much to ask for another chance to earn that trust back?"

Bumi glowers at him balefully but remains obstinately silent.

Iroh heaves out a heavy sigh. "I did not do enough, and for that, I am sorry. I stood by and allowed the soldiers under my command to butcher countless of your countrymen. That blood will always remain on my hands." His jaw tightens abruptly. "But there is a difference between the one who ordered these heinous crimes, and the one who did not do enough to stop it. If you refuse to accept that, you will throw away our last chance to stop Ozai before Sozin's Comet arrives to make that impossible."

"Always so dramatic, Iroh!" Bumi snorts, wiping at the corner of his eye. "You outnumber Ozai's forces two to one now. Why do you need my rebels? They're all tired after removing that Dai Li nuisance from our lands - no thanks to you either."

"No." To Suki's surprise, Lord Beifong steps in from where he had been balefully watching the unfolding exchange. He raises his chin loftily, staring disdainfully at Iroh. "If there is anyone who should be taking credit for freeing these lands from the Dai Li, it should be me. Bumi's rebels would not have managed without my significant support." He glares at the mad king. "As I keep having to remind him."

"Yes, yes," Bumi says airily, without sparing the indignant lord a second glance. "We appreciate your generous contributions."

Lord Beifong's face mottles dangerously. "I didn't become the wealthiest man in the world by being generous," he spits. "There were conditions for my support...and I notice that I have still not been compensated for my considerable support."

"Well, what are you going to do?" Bumi snorts. "Put Long Feng back in power? Good luck!" Ignoring Lord Beifong's outraged sputtering, he turns back to Iroh, his levity vanishing. "Last I checked, you're standing at the head of a sizable force yourself. Even if the comet comes, won't it just even the playing field?"

Iroh purses his lips. Elsewhere, Suki hears Master Iio let out an audible groan.

Iroh lifts a hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose, suddenly appearing very tired. "My brother can be called many things. But the men who stand by him will stay with him until the bitter end." He shakes his head despairingly. "If they have not given up on him by now, they never will. And even if they see through his lies, they would rather die than admit they were wrong."

"Plus tactically, we're at a disadvantage," Sokka mutters in her ear, as a morose silence settles upon the two old men staring each other down along the water's edge. "Even though we have superior air and naval power, the Fire Nation is an archipelago. Unless Ozai and all his followers are complete dithering idiots, they'll have their defenses and strong supply lines in place. Logistically, we've got our work cut out for us."

"You sure are a little ray of sunshine, aren't you?" Suki hisses back.

"That's one way to put it." He shrugs. "Personally, I prefer to think of myself as a simple, down-to-earth realist."

Suki rolls her eyes but can't help the small smirk that makes its way across her face. In the corner of her eye, she catches him smiling as though to himself.

"Please." Iroh's hands remain outstretched, a plea in themselves. "If there is nothing I can say to convince you, then will you not give me a chance to prove that I have changed?" His gaze shifts past Bumi, to where Katara and the other waterbenders congregate in a tearfully charged reunion. "Perhaps you could speak to Chief Katara. She and her people had the greatest quarrel with me of anyone here. Now...now I believe that she would call me an ally."

"He makes a good point." Pakku steps in, placing a weathered hand on Iroh's shoulder. "Besides, what do you have to lose now?"

Bumi lets out a high-pitched cackle. "We just won our home back! What do we have to lose, indeed?"

"True," Pakku allows, unsmiling. "You ousted the Dai Li - an impressive feat. But defending your home against Ozai's screeching fanatics will be another matter entirely, if we are unable to stop him."

"Please, old friend," Master Iio urges in her soft, calming voice. "This door will not remain open forever. When all hope fails, you may well look back upon this moment and regret choosing pride over forgiveness."

"Besides," Iroh supplies gently, "would it not be something to resurrect the old order? Think about it, Bumi." His eyes grow misty. "The White Lotus, reunited again after so many years. Tell me you don't miss it too."

To Suki's surprise, the old king finally sighs, his shoulders slumping under the weight of his large crown. "Maybe I do," he mutters, his teeth grinding together audibly. "Maybe this wouldn't be so hard if I didn't miss it so much." He raises his head again, the lines in his face suddenly very pronounced. "How did we get here, Iroh? How did it come to this?"

"As everything begins," Iroh answers sadly. "With slavish devotion to blind ideals. I am to blame, of course."

"Not entirely. I could have been more reasonable too, I suppose," Bumi mutters grudgingly, taking a step forward despite himself. "But when you shot down my suggestions without even thinking about them, after all that Grand Lotus nonsense you spouted at us…"

"I would be furious too," Iroh allows with a nod of his head. "Perhaps if I were in your position, I would do the same." He laughs bitterly. "I have come to learn that I was not as humble as I thought I was."

Bumi smiles at that, his lips twisting and parting to reveal his crooked teeth. "Maybe there's hope for you after all, then."

"And for us?" Iroh's hands twitch pleadingly. "Maybe there is hope for us too?" He lowers his head penitently. "It may take a long time before you ever call me friend again, but...but maybe later is better than never?"

Bumi shifts his weight from one leg to another, rolling on the balls of his feet. "Maybe later is better than never," he finally admits reluctantly. With a motion like an avalanche rolling down the side of a mountain, he closes the distance between them to grip Iroh's hands tightly with his own. "If the world's going to end anyway, what difference does it make?"

Tears roll down Iroh's craggy face as he meets Bumi's eyes, clearly moved in his disbelief. His mouth works wordlessly before he is finally able to muster the ability to speak again. "Thank you, my old friend," he breathes shakily. "I have much work ahead of me, but...but for the first time in a very long while, I have hope again. I have hope for a brighter, better future."

"Oh thank the spirits," Pakku swears loudly, rolling his eyes. "I thought you two would never resolve this idiotic feud. About time, too."

"I couldn't have said it more clearly," Master Iio mutters darkly, shaking her head.

Suki isn't sure how long they all stand there, the group of old masters finally reuniting after long years apart. But to her, it feels right. In the same way her friends had finally returned, and the two separate Water Tribes had found each other again to discover they were part of one whole, why would the White Lotus be any different?

As if in answer to her thoughts, a loud roar echoes faintly through the air, cutting through the various conversations unfolding earnestly around her on the beach.

Suki cranes her head upward, her eyes lighting up at the sight of the unfamiliar sky bison, and the two very familiar figures perched atop its head. It lands with a thump of its flat tail along an empty patch of sand. One, a bald teenager wrapped in the airy saffron robes of an Air Nomad, bounces to the ground in two gravity-defying leaps. The other, a black-haired girl dressed head to toe in green, pulls up a pillar of packed sand and jumps atop it carelessly.

"Oh look," Sokka remarks, noticing the new arrivals too. "There's Aang and the angry girl."

"You mean Toph?" Suki asks, stifling a giggle.

"Same thing."

Heads turn at the rumbling of the sand pillar disintegrating under the earthbender, as she steps effortlessly onto solid ground. Suki grins, already waving madly before she remembers that Toph couldn't see her.

"Who's that?" she hears Bumi ask, eying the blind earthbender with undisguised interest.

Iroh lets out a chuckle. "That, old friend, is Sifu Toph Beifong. The greatest earthbender of her generation...and a girl after your own heart."

"You can say that again!" Bumi remarks, scratching his chin thoughtfully. "Seismic sense, is that what she's doing? I can't believe I never thought of that...though sandbending is a tricky beast in itself -"

Someone gasps shrilly, spluttering in disbelief. Suki frowns, confused by the commotion stirring among the old masters.

"Beifong?" Sokka blurts suddenly, his eyes flitting back and forth from the blind earthbender chatting with Aang along the beach. His voice rises in panic. "She's a Beifong? Nobody told me Toph was a Beifong!"

Suki arches an eyebrow. "Everybody knows that. Where have you been?"

He gulps audibly. But before he can say anything more, a voice cries out an imperious command.

"There she is!" Lord Beifong's voice screeches out along the beach, slicing through the babble like a hot dagger. He points at Toph, the giant sapphire on his finger glinting menacingly in the bright summer sunlight. "That's her. Bring my daughter to me."

It all happens in a moment just as quickly, yet Suki sees it unfold as though in slow motion. Iluak and Ruska, exchanging uneasy glances dark with guilt, hesitating a moment before lunging forward in unison. Their twin blue movements, a powerful expanding and contracting of their limbs, matched by the undulating water crawling up the slope of the shore.

Toph stiffens, sensing the twins' approach. The colour drains from her face instantly, perhaps at the sound of her father's shrill voice. She turns just as Iluak and Ruska hunch into their unsettling, twisted stances.

A chorus of horrified gasps ripple along the crammed beach as Toph's body goes ramrod straight. She gasps, struggling futilely against the invisible grip. Her sightless eyes widen with a primal, deep-seated fear.

Shock roots Suki to the spot uselessly. Coupled with the reflexive chill paralyzing her entire body, as though the memory of being bloodbent is enough to steal the fight from her limbs.

But then the wind picks up speed, screaming in Suki's ears. In the blink of an eye, Iluak and Ruska both tumble to the ground, blinking in surprise.

Suddenly, Suki can breathe again. She gasps, clutching at her chest in a relief that she doesn't understand.

Toph recoils, her powerful shoulders rising and falling with her terrified panting. Aang storms in front of her to loom over the two fallen waterbenders. His usually gentle face twists with terrible fury.

"This is bad," Suki hears herself mutter, as Aang shifts into an offensive stance.

But as the twin waterbenders clamber onto all fours, trying to find their feet again, another voice cuts through the din. "What's going on here?"

Suki blinks and suddenly Katara has jumped into the fray, adding her imposing strength to Aang's side as she stares sternly at the misguided bloodbenders. "Toph is my friend," she informs them with a tilt of her head. "If you want to attack her, you have to get through us first."

"We…" Ruska falters hoarsely, sounding close to tears, "we don't want to attack her. But -"

"This isn't about what you want."

Suki scowls as Lord Beifong elbows his way to Ruska's side, his thin mouth curved into a triumphant smirk. "This is about what I want. I want what I'm owed for services to the Earth continent. And what I'm owed is my only daughter, safe and sound."

"You're Toph's father?" Katara demands, thunderstruck. Her eyes rove from Lord Beifong to the two unlucky waterbenders cowering at his side. "You're the jerk who tried to kidnap her and keep her a prisoner in her own home?"

Lord Beifong's nostrils flare. "What I do with my daughter to preserve her wellbeing is none of your concern, little girl."

"Her wellbeing?" Katara echoes with a wild laugh. "Do you even know your daughter? What makes you think she needs a spineless coward like you when she's the greatest earthbender of her generation?"

Lord Beifong laughs, an ugly sound. "You must be mistaken. My daughter is blind and fragile and helpless. She can never amount to anything of the sort -"

A visceral rumbling cuts him short. The ground rattles beneath him and only him, seeming to shake the very foundations of the earth.

He lets out a high-pitched yelp, crumpling to the ground with a satisfying thump.

"That's enough." Toph's voice is iron as she stomps past Katara and Aang, and the protective wall they create between her and her father. "Dad, I'm here and I'm not going home with you. It's time you accepted that."

"Toph," her father splutters, his face twisting with a slavish adoration so fierce it makes him appear deranged. "Toph, oh darling, we've missed you so much. Won't you at least see your mother one more time? She's lost without you."

"No, you've both lost me," Toph spits, crossing her arms across her chest formidably. "I've tried explaining to you over and over again, and you won't listen. So here's how it's going to go." She raises her chin sternly, her sightless eyes seeming to see straight through Lord Beifong's ashen face. "You want to see me safe and sound? Here I am. Safe and sound. Now you're going to go home, tell Mom I'm okay, and leave me alone. You do that, and maybe, just maybe, one day I'll feel safe enough to visit home again."

Lord Beifong totters to his feet, wiping wet sand off his thick embroidered robes. His eyes flash mercilessly. "Or, I ask these two very talented bloodbenders to change your mind," he intones warningly. "Your choice, Toph. I suggest you come along quietly, and stop making any more of a scene."

Toph throws her head back, laughing harshly. "You think this is my first time tussling with bloodbenders?" She jabs her thumb in Katara's direction, baring her teeth in challenge. "My friend here practically invented it. Oh, and she's the chief of the Water Tribes too. So unless those two want to be exiled from their tribe, they're not going to do anything to piss her off." She flashes a feral smile at Iluak and Ruska. "Are you?"

Ruska swallows nervously, staring at Katara with the colour draining from her face. "No, Chief," she whispers, hanging her head. "Please...please forgive us."

Katara's eyes soften. "There's nothing to forgive. This wasn't your fault."

"What?" Lord Beifong roars, whirling on the twins in a writhing spittling rage. "You made me a promise! I helped you, and now you're betraying me? Is this how the Water Tribe honours its allies?"

"A promise made under duress is no promise at all," Katara answers in a steely voice. "On the other hand...if you threaten my friend one more time, I will show you exactly how far the Water Tribe will go to honour its allies." She takes a step forward, to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Toph. "Your choice."

Lord Beifong's eyes widen as he stares at his daughter, the two grim-faced youths flanking her at either side, and the twin waterbenders slinking wordlessly to join their chief without a backward glance.

"You're done here," Toph declares coldly. "Now leave before someone gets hurt, Dad."

"After everything I've done for you," Lord Beifong laments, his face twisting between grief and adoration. "All we ever did was love you, Toph. You're our only daughter, and we love you so much. Why are you punishing us this way?"

"If you don't understand by now, you never will." Toph's hands clench into fists, her feet planting into a wide stance. "Now go home, Dad. My friends and I have to go save the world."

"Toph," her father pleads. "Enough already. Come with me -"

Toph smiles sadly. "Bye Dad." She punches forward in a single explosive movement without hesitation. "I love you."

Surprise wracks like pain across Lord Beifong's face as the ground underneath him coils and springs. Like a loaded catapult, it propels him in the blink of an eye to the back of the beach and far out of sight of everyone gathered there.

An awkward silence lingers for a moment. A strange serenity settles over Toph's face, even as she staggers back, exhausted. "I'm fine," Suki hears her say, as Katara and Aang grab her by the shoulders. "I think I just need a moment."

And then the spell breaks, as the crowd of onlookers suddenly find their voices again. Conversations pick up where they left off, as though Lord Beifong had never been there to begin with.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," Sokka remarks, shaking his head. "Oh well. Glad to see Lord Buttface get what was coming to him after all."

Suki nods wordlessly, taking in the chaos of the crammed beach with unseeing eyes. A breeze whips along the water's surface, stirring the waves into an expanse of writhing white foam. The bones of the countless ships groan with its every movement, as the seabirds cut across the sky. Pointing the way west, where the sun already begins to sink toward the horizon.

The lit torches in their brackets glow in the stifling darkness of the windowless, airless cell.

Zuko's eyes water as he stares at the flames listlessly. Their lazy flickering taunts him, out of reach of both his dormant firebending and his shackled wrists.

The iron manacles hang heavy against his wrists, thin and bruised from his confinement. Every slight motion rustles the solid chain links running from his restraints to the braces embedded within the walls. Their clanking alerts the guards stationed just outside the door of his every move, like a captive animal prowling restlessly in its cage. Every now and then, one of them slides the grate in the door aside to push his meals to him, or his little potion. Or simply to check on him, to ensure he was still there.

He laughs humourlessly when that happens, the guards' eyes peering through the slit in the door, barely visible under the tines of their helmets. Tries to move his arms, his legs, the chains and heavy cuffs barely offering enough slack for him to do anything more than pace a handful of steps. The Blue Spirit escapade had been easy enough to pull off with little more than a lockpick. What did they expect him to do now that he was chained and held under constant guard in the confines of a cell so tiny it might as well have been a coffin?

And where would he go? All his allies had vanished back into the woodwork, whether out of fear or duplicity or for the sake of their own safety. And Azula...Azula…

He sucks in a shaking breath of stale, humid air. His hands begin to tremble despite himself, no matter his efforts to calm them.

She lies, he reminds himself with as much calmness as he can muster. Azula always lies. How, in the most critical and dangerous charade of his short life, had he managed to forget that single, unchanging axiom? Now he had truly gone too far, blundered straight into her patient, clawed fingers, and earned himself a one-way ticket back into Agni's fire.

He doesn't know how long he crouches there, berating himself silently for his naivety while his hands and feet go numb. For time passed differently in absolute captivity. Without windows, without fresh air or the changing light of the sun and the moon, there was nothing left to mark the moments that had elapsed since he had been unceremoniously tossed in here. Or the ones that remained until Sozin's comet arrived to spell the end of everything.

Only the darkness and the silence is left to him. Broken only by the torches in the corners, perpetually lit and crackling constantly. And the occasional slide of the bars bolting the cell door shut from the outside, the screech of the key turning in the lock to admit the only person in the entire nation permitted to visit him.

He hates those moments the most, when the door buckles inward to shrink his cell even further. The musty air breaks, momentarily replaced by fresher air trickling in from the world beyond. The cloying scent of sandalwood and soap wafting toward his nose, cleaner and sweeter than his own stink, but no less repulsive.

He doesn't even bother looking up when his visitor shuts the door behind him and pauses, surveying him in amusement. "I always knew you would earn yourself a place in some sordid conspiracy," his father remarks. "But even I could never have foreseen such an unhappy fate for you, my son."

Zuko grits his teeth as his father takes a step closer. The hem of his long red robes swish against the grimy floor.

"I did much to avoid such an end for you." His father's voice is silk, winding around his throat to choke the life out of him. "But you were soft. Weak, impressionable, foolish. And all of that could have been forgiven if you had only been loyal."

Like Azula. Her face flashes before him in his memory, wracked with triumphant ecstasy so acute that it appeared almost painful.

"But you were stubborn and difficult, a thorn in my side until the very end." A slippered foot wedges under Zuko's chin, forcing his head up to meet his father's burning stare. "It will give me no small joy to remove you from my path once and for all."

Zuko can't help the scornful laugh that escapes him.

His father's eyes narrow coldly. "You think this is a laughing matter?"

Even as his father's foot presses warningly into his neck, Zuko manages to smile insolently up at him. A savage satisfaction claws through him at the answering fury that radiates from his father's face. For Zuko was chained and powerless and utterly at Ozai's mercy. But he could shatter the so-called Phoenix King's carefully crafted veneer of insurmountable power with little more than a quirk of his mouth.

So who's the weak one now, Father?

"Miserable boy." Ozai hisses, the sole of his slipper digging ruthlessly into the hollow of Zuko's throat. "Agni gives with one hand and takes with the other, that perverse wretch. I should have been blessed with strong heirs. Instead I got you, a living mockery of my ambitions."

The world swims before Zuko's vision as he struggles to breathe. But his father's foot is merciless, slowly suffocating him with the weight of his contempt.

"At every turn, you have thwarted my glory. Questioning my orders, casting doubt upon the legitimacy of my claim to the throne. And your most recent antics...such an egregious insult to the man who made you who you are."

Abruptly, Ozai removes his foot. Zuko splutters, coughing and sucking back lungfuls of air. His relief is short-lived as his father's foot connects with his face.

Stars explode in his vision. His head cracks back, the chains clanking loudly with the snap of his body. His scar blooms bright with pain and he spits out a mouthful of blood. It stains the filthy hem of his father's robes, shiny and wet and red.

Ozai recoils in disgust. "No matter. Your days are measured, boy. If you still draw breath, it is because my council and I have not yet made up our minds on how to make you suffer most exquisitely for your crimes." His mouth twists into a thin-lipped smile. "But suffer you must. It will be the last thing you ever know in this world."

Zuko chokes out a wordless protest, his fear and his fury stifling through the blood pooling in his mouth. But his father's smile only widens, so he settles for spitting at his feet again.

This time the blood stains one of his gold silk slippers. He is rewarded by his father's low curses muttered under his breath.

"At least it will all be over soon," he hears his father growl. "You will perish, and the misguided fools who chose to put their hope in you will wither. They will tell tales among themselves in horror, of how you died screaming and begging for mercy." His father turns on his heel, his robes whispering along the floor with the sudden movement. "With luck, they will reach my brother's ears before Sozin's Comet arrives. I want the colour to drain from his face and the taste of ash to fill his mouth when he thinks of how he could not save you."

His breath hitches in his throat at the thought. A smile creeps into Ozai's voice. "Perfect, infallible Iroh. Your suffering will be surpassed only by his. If only he had not tried to take everything that was mine by rights, maybe his son would be alive today." He sighs with satisfaction, a bloodcurdling sound. "But instead he chose to meddle. Our father's love. My place on the throne. My only son. Even Kya and her kind." A mirthless chuckle escapes his father as he turns a gloating smirk upon his chained son. "Though rumour has it that you understand my pain most intimately with regard to the latter."

"You don't know the first thing about pain," Zuko growls, his father's taunt finally snapping something within him. "You never loved anyone other than yourself. Your father saw it. I see it. And Kya saw it too." He scoffs at the surprise spreading like a bruise across the profile of his father's face. "You think you could ever have been worthy of her?"

"What do you know?" his father snarls, perhaps aghast that his cowed and beaten son hadn't yet broken under the weight of his humiliation. "You're just like Iroh - content to wheedle and beg for what you should have just taken by force. Kya belonged to me, and her children should have been mine also. Not you, not that spineless drip of a woman they foisted upon me to call my wife."

Zuko buckles under the absurdity, unable to contain his laughter.

"What?" Ozai demands, his teeth baring into a feral grimace. "What's so funny?"

He gasps for breath, struggling to string his words together. "You," he wheezes, his stomach aching from the force of his laughter, a welcome change from the pangs of slow starvation. "You...you were so mad at Uncle and Kya, you started the polar wars to get back at them. Then you tried to coerce her daughter to replace her."

A fresh peal of laughter escapes him and he doubles over, the chains straining against the weight of his slumping body. "But...not...not only did Katara reject you in front of everyone...she went and became Chief of both Water Tribes...and allied with Uncle... to oust you from your stolen throne once and for all."

A tear trails down his scarred cheek. Heaving for breath, he raises his chin to meet his father's gaze defiantly. "Now that's a failure so poetic...the bards will sing of it for centuries to come."

His taunt earns him a vicious kick in the ribs. He collapses onto the hard ground, the chains ringing all around him. But even through the dull pain rattling in his bones, he continues to laugh. Caught in his fit of delirious desperation, he doesn't even bother getting up, instead remaining on the ground in a crumpled heap.

The slamming of the door is his father's only answer, plunging him back into the stifling, airless darkness of Zuko's prison cell.

His tongue runs along his teeth, swollen and covered with blood. But instead of its bitter metallic tang, all he can taste is the sweetness of his father's humiliation. He savours it like the finest wine, wondering if he'd already drunk enough of it to lose his mind. Anything better than sitting in the dark, starving and alone, waiting for the end of everything.

His scar twinges at the memory of fire gnawing away at his skin. Tearing through him with merciless abandon, leaving only char and agony behind.

With the last of his effort, he raises a hand. His fingers graze the hardened ridges of his cheek, now a familiar comfort. He tries not to shudder at the thought of the fire that inevitably waited for him on the other side of his cell, longing to turn the rest of him into remains just as scarred and deformed. The same fire that hurtles toward the entire world with the force of Sozin's Comet, threatening to ravage the entire world into a scorched wasteland.

The chains begin to rattle, his body overcome with an uncontrollable trembling. Stop, don't think about that.

Teeth chattering, he forces himself to sit up with a grunt. Clutching at his side, where a massive bruise shaped like his father's footprint surely already begins to form. Tender under his touch, but he wears it like a badge of pride regardless.

They'll call me a lot of things, he thinks grimly, but coward won't be one of them.

Instead, he forces himself to dwell on other thoughts. Happier ones, even if they were still painful in their own way.

He remembers a summer morning back in General Shinu's base camp, when Jeong-Jeong had informed them of the unlikely Avatar project. The swoop in the pit of his stomach the first time he had held his own against Toph, the staggering awe of accidentally combining his bending with Katara's. Long nights in his uncle's tent spent drinking tea and playing pai sho, trying one new strategy after another. Was it after one of those evenings that he and Katara had first begun to talk, begun that long, perilous process of laying theirselves bare before the other?

The memory of it engulfs him, the details hazy but the image still sharp and clear, seeming somehow more real than the gloom of his prison cell. He remembers standing with her, just outside her door, the torch in his hand the only source of light. He remembers how she'd looked in the darkness, her hair still scraped back tightly in that severe braid, resplendent in the blue robe they'd all gifted her. She hadn't known his part in it yet, she had known so little back then.

And so had he.

His chest aches at the thought, and his fingers tighten around the chain links, until the metal digs into his palms. Willing himself to forget everything except how she had looked at him with her wide blue eyes already beginning to soften. The space between him and her, shrinking as though of its own accord, lingering in an unspoken, tantalizing invitation that had nearly driven him out of his mind.

If only he had known then that the space between them would eventually shrink to nothing, even as the breadth of the entire world gaped between them. If only he had known then that the bond between them would make distance irrelevant, for he carried her everywhere now, no matter where she was. That it would inspire him to find his own courage, that it would eat his fear and give him a semblance of the certainty he spent his whole, brief, unhappy life chasing.

If only he had known then what he knows now. That they would inevitably meet and part like the sun and the moon circling in the skies. That she would become someone he believed in, that she would be as difficult and infuriating and perilous as the ocean itself. And yet, no matter how angry or lost or self-destructive she was, she would still part the ocean and walk down its centre to find him. Wasn't she on her way at this very moment, hadn't she found a way to restore a dying moon and clawed her way to become chief of the Northern Water Tribe as though it was nothing?

Chief Katara. A small smile tugs at his lips. If only he could see her now.

But if he closes his eyes, he imagines that he can.

He imagines her standing at the prow of a Fire Navy cruiser, or a Water Tribe skiff, framed by the ropes in the bow. Her hair would be flying wildly in the wind, adorned with so many coloured beads that would clack louder than the chains looping around his wrists. She would doubtless be wearing that stupid purple cloak that Arnook and Hahn had worn. Her teeth would be gritted in concentration, her hands constantly moving in a flowing swell mimicking the restless sway of the waters surrounding her.

Perhaps she would be thinking of him too. Perhaps she had never stopped thinking of him since his capture. Perhaps at this very moment, it's the thought of him that drives her along every wave separating her from the Fire Nation's sparkling shores.

The ache spreads throughout his entire body, filling him with a longing so intense it physically hurts. Every part of him longs to find her, to meet her halfway across that neverending ocean and tell her that everything would be okay.

It would be a lie, of course. But for a brief, shining moment, he imagines telling her that it was enough. That she was enough, and he was enough, and if only that had been enough for the two of them and the rest of the world hadn't gotten in the way as it always did.

He imagines her breathing very slowly, her eyes fixed upon his. He imagines the strength of her embrace as he says goodbye, the taste of her lips moving against his.

In fact, if he sits very still, he imagines he can hear her voice, low and fierce and taut with desperation. Wait, she pleads now, as though she was sitting right next to him in that cramped little cell. Wait, don't go. I'm coming for you. Don't you dare leave without me.

Chapter 61: the porcelain princess

Chapter Text

disclaimer. after all these years, nothing belongs to me except brownie points

author's notes. thank you so much for the incredibly kind feedback, everyone. it really means the world to me. have another chapter. (we are so close to the finale, i can't believe it)

warning for depictions of exceptionally poor mental health and ozai's abusive fuckery. please proceed with caution if you find this upsetting.

as usual, feel free to stop by and say hi at colourwhirled-writes, i always love hearing from you.

i give you…

southern lights.

chapter lxi. the porcelain princess

in my dreams i am weightless
i swim like a comet through the darkness
i drift over waterfalls
and nothing hurts

"wild heart" / spelles

In the morning, Azula awakens the way she always does: with the faintest rays of sunlight streaming through the gaps in the heavy red curtains, and the memory of a blade tickling the hollow of her throat.

Her hand closes around her neck, her pulse a rapid fire beating against her palm. Flashes of the same nightmare dancing before her eyes: twin swords, a ghastly rictus of a taunting smile, and golden eyes, cold and narrowing in disappointment before turning away from her.

Stop it, she tells herself firmly, willing her breathing to still. It was just another nightmare. It doesn't mean anything.

By the time the attendants mill into the bedroom to draw the curtains back and turn the bed, she has already seated herself at the small table in the corner, wrapped in a red silk robe. Scraping the last strands of her uncooperative hair back out of her face, feeling them slip out of her fingers even as she struggles to tie it all in place.

"Here, Your Highness." A voice speaks in her ear, low and deferential with the taut undercurrent of fear she had come to expect from them. In the corner of her eye, a maidservant bobs clumsily, holding out a fine-toothed comb inlaid with gold filigree. "Allow me."

Azula waves a hand imperiously, barely sparing the girl another glance. She leans back expectantly, the tendons in her neck cracking with the simple movement. On cue, delicate hands rake the comb through her long black hair in slow, smooth strokes. The wax that held it stubbornly in place the day before had hardened, flattening the hair into a rumpled helmet. But the maid works diligently without complaint, the teeth of the comb breaking up the sticky clumps with practised ease.

The bedroom grows brighter as the attendants bare the large bay windows, blinding with golden sunshine from the dawning sky. It illuminates the canopy bed, its scarlet coverlets already immaculately pressed, the dark lacquer of the mantel and dressers polished to a reflective gleam, and the softer wood of the small table at which she currently sits. Tucked against one of the windows overlooking the trees and sculpted hedges, where more gardeners tend the flowerbeds.

A bowl of fruit is set before her and she picks at it with sharpened fingernails. The fruits are rich and sweet with the ripeness of late summer. She hardly notices, until a plump berry squirts a dribble of dark red juice down her chin.

Before she can even react, an attendant descends upon her with a pristine white handkerchief and wipes it clean.

The sun climbs higher into the sky, until the maid finishes with her hair and scurries away furtively with head bowed. Azula rises to her feet, the bowl of fruit sitting empty upon the solitary table where she usually takes her meals.

The attendants fuss over her, exchanging her simple silk robe for the day's regalia: a full set of heavy red brocade, its borders trimmed with intricate black embroidery. A far cry from the black plate armour she usually wore, but fitting for a princess entrusted with care of her father's throne while he was elsewhere occupied.

Azula waits patiently while deft fingers work at the elaborate loops and ties, pleating the sharp folds and knotting the broad belt at her waist. The mantle on her shoulders seems to weigh as much as a solitary Navy cruiser; her knees threaten to buckle in complaint.

Her face is powdered and painted, her lips outlined and darkened to the colour of fresh blood. The small flame-shaped crown finally pinned atop her topknot, tied tightly in place by thin ribbon.

"That's enough," she says sharply as an attendant doubles over to shine her slippers. "I don't have all day to wait for you. Nobody will see them anyway."

Without another word, she steps over the hunched servant and out the door.

The chaos of her study greets her, the same as she had left it late the night before. Her lips purse into a thin line before she snaps to summon a maid.

One appears instantly, as though materialising from thin air.

"What is this?" Azula demands, her nostrils flaring. She waves at the cluttered bookshelves, the mess of half-finished scrolls and ink spills littering her desk.

The maid cowers before her, shivering with fright. "Um...it's your study, Your Highness?"

"Precisely," Azula breathes, her voice a shade away from a snarl. "This is my study, where I attend to more important tasks than your slow-witted mind could even begin to comprehend! It is imperative for me to have a calming and orderly environment so that I can focus. What part of that is too difficult for you to understand?"

The maid's face scrunches with dismay as she stares pointedly at the ground.

"Well?" Azula asks dangerously, when the maid's silence drags on without answer. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

The maid gulps pitifully. "Begging your pardon, Princess," she whispers, her voice high-pitched and trembling. "Yesterday, when you arrived and found your study had been cleaned, you raged at us and...and ordered us to stay away from your things, lest we mess it all up again." She bows more deeply, bracing for the wrath sure to follow. "Is...is that no longer your wish, Your Highness?"

Azula kneads at her temple in mounting frustration. "Agni, what did I do to be cursed with such obtuse maidservants?" she growls under her breath, before glaring at the hapless girl. "Never mind. Get out of my sight!"

The maid obeys, disappearing in the blink of an eye.

Azula shakes her head before settling in at her desk. With a scowl, she sorts through the pile of papers, trying to arrange them into a semblance of order.

A tentative knock on the door interrupts her efforts. "What?" she seethes, not even bothering to lift her eyes to the door.

Someone clears their throat uncomfortably. "A thousand apologies for disturbing you, Princess." The unfortunate envoy at the door drops into a low bow. "I bear a message from General Bujing -"

"Tell him to wait," Azula says flatly. She frowns at an unfamiliar letter, struggling to recognize its significance. "Can't you see that I'm busy?"

"But - but Your Highness," the envoy protests, "he said it was urgent -"

"Remind Bujing that the military council is convened every evening for this exact purpose."

The envoy withers under her glare. "Of course, Princess," he gulps, his head bobbing in agreement. "I would tell him as much...but he said it was concerning the security of the capital and it could not wait."

The paper crumples in her fist. "Fine. What is it?"

The man approaches, his obvious relief irritating her to no end. He drops a small roll of parchment at the corner of her desk, before bowing again and scurrying out of the room without so much as another squeak.

Azula raises her eyebrows as she unrolls the note, annoyed at the distraction but curious despite herself. She reads the small scrawl quickly before pinching the bridge of her nose.

Then she rings for another servant, who appears instantly. "Summon Kei Ling," she orders.

The unscrupulous governor arrives within a quarter of an hour, so prompt and unharried that Azula suspects that the woman had been patiently waiting for this very moment.

"I live to serve you, Princess," Kei Ling intones in her characteristic knowing drawl.

Azula motions at her guest to sit with an impatient wave of her hand. "Have you seen this?"

She slides Bujing's note into Kei Ling's waiting fingers. The grizzled woman's mouth quirks upward at the corners as she silently reads its contents. "I had heard just as much from my own contacts," she confirms, running a hand through her shock of greying mousy hair. "The Maos have set up camp within a day's march of here."

"They couldn't have picked a more inconvenient time," Azula grumbles, kneading her temples again.

Kei Ling arches an eyebrow. "If I didn't know any better, I would have thought that was the precise intention of the mysterious individual who orchestrated the Mao girl's escape."

Azula fights to maintain composure, even as sweat slicks the back of her neck. "Perhaps. But who could have guessed that the Maos would have been so slow to march? Ma'inka is not so far, only a day as the dragon flies."

"Anyone who knows the first thing about logistics could have surmised as much," Kei Ling answers breezily, brushing a falling lock out of her face. "An army marches on its stomach. And Ma'inka is an island. In fact, the entire Fire Nation is a collection of islands." She shrugs. "The Maos and the other old clans have their dragons, but I assure you they cannot outfit their entire fighting force with them. They are not like the Air Nomads with their sky bison, if that was what you had envisioned."

Azula's teeth grind together in frustration as Kei Ling leans back in her chair, appearing supremely undisturbed by the notion. "So what now? I cannot have an enemy army camped within sight of our borders with Sozin's Comet a week away!"

Kei Ling shrugs again. "That would not be ideal, no."

Azula's eyes flash warningly. "What of the defenses around the island? How did they crumble so quickly?"

Kei Ling lets out a grating laugh. "It would appear that while the Phoenix King is convinced of his unadulterated power over his land, he cannot stop men from crumbling easily when they are unfed and outnumbered."

"They'll crumble more easily when burnt to a crisp!" Azula retorts through clenched teeth. But her fingers methodically pick through the mess of stacked papers until they finally find a blank sheaf. "Lady Mao and the old clans have prolonged this madness for far too long. I suggest we rid them of their delusions once and for all."

The knowing half-smile vanishes from Kei Ling's face. "So you mean to go through with this?"

"What other choice do I have?" Azula snaps, nearly upending the inkwell with her elbow as she dips and writes. "Father has entrusted me with the seat of his own power. I cannot fail him now."

"Of course." Kei Ling rubs her forehead wearily, before her usual tight-lipped smile reappears on her face. "How could I forget? Any ploy of yours is ultimately for your father's gain, not your own."

"Stop talking nonsense, Kei Ling," Azula bites out witheringly, not bothering to spare the woman another glance. "My father's gain is my gain. And now that I have taught him my worth, he will cherish me until the end of his days."

"Hm." Kei Ling sniffs, belying her faint disapproval. Azula grimaces, as though the woman's contempt had chafed against her skin. But then Kei Ling steers the conversation to safer waters and the moment fades. They discuss the defenses instead, scrutinizing every last resource available within the drained city's borders. Evaluating one strategy after another, each trying to outdo the other with daring subtlety.

At last, Kei Ling bows her head and triumph glows its satisfaction in the pit of Azula's gut. "This is a good plan," she intones coolly. "It is everything that I have come to expect from you."

She lapses into a cautious silence. Azula stares at her, wondering what else the woman wanted to say. But Kei Ling holds her tongue, and her inscrutable face gives nothing else away.

"Very well," Azula says instead, sliding a freshly dried letter across the desk. "You may go now."

Kei Ling's eyes glitter as she bows and takes her leave.

Azula slumps back against her chair, already spent. She glances out the window, where the sun has barely climbed to its zenith in the sky.

Then she hunches forward, resting her face in the cradle of her cold, clammy palms.

Kei Ling's insolent smile dances before her eyes, a taunt in itself. Presumptuous woman, Azula thinks acidly with a twitch of her fingers. Who does she think she is? And what is her opinion worth, anyway?

If Mai had been here, she might have offered some dry remark. Some sarcastic observation, something, anything. Azula had always known she could rely on her as a sounding board, if nothing else.

But that was before she had gone and thrown her support behind a known traitor. Now Mai was compromised, the same way everyone else in her life was. Poisoned by their love for mediocrity - inspired by her uncle, no doubt.

With no small effort and a snarl of her teeth, Azula forces her thoughts away from Mai and back to the unforgiving task at hand. It is much more difficult to concentrate than she could have imagined.

"Perhaps Her Highness would like to take some rest?"

"A short break, a calming breath?"

"May prove wise."

"To ease a troubled mind."

Azula bares her teeth at the twin seneschals huddled under the small awning at the head of the sprawling training enclosure. The canopy of scarlet fabric still smokes where the blue flames had singed it, a mockery of her increasingly desperate efforts.

She jams the heels of her hands against her eye sockets, willing herself to find the ice in her veins. "I don't need rest," she seethes. "Sozin's Comet is a week away. I need to be ready."

A rustle in the distance greets her ears, as Lo and Li exchange a look.

"There are many ways to be ready," one of them ventures delicately. "But they all follow readiness in mind."

"Search your thoughts, calm your mind. Then let it all flow."

"Isn't that what you old hags are for?" Azula whirls on them, snarling. "What use are you if you can't help me focus?"

As though in unison, both women raise a single, sagging eyebrow. "Her Highness has never had difficulty concentrating before," they chorus.

Sparks flit from her fingertips, nearly setting the hem of her tunic ablaze. "Are either of you capable of uttering words that aren't completely useless?"

She turns away from them in a huff, her breath knotting in her throat. This can't be happening.

Chewing her lip obstinately, she slides back into the widened stance. Shifting her weight squarely onto her feet, sliding easily from one to the other. Her hands trace the circular motions as they had done a thousand times before, each time perfectly and without fail.

Her heart races as the crackle of electricity spits and hisses, like wisps of bright spidersilk trailing from her fingertips. The familiar rush of sheer raw power, surging in her gut. Heady, deadly, intoxicating.

Overwhelming.

Something scorches her hands. She flings them outward, control sliding to panic. A cry slips through her mouth, a single pitiful, whimpering cry.

Lightning charges across the tiled yard in a blundering crash. It gouges into the ground, splitting the polished stone as easily as if it was mud. Then it strikes the corner and finally fizzles out.

Azula can only rub her blistering fingers against each other. Staring numbly at the pile of fresh rubble where part of the walls enclosing the training space had collapsed in a thunderous crash.

A suspicious prickle in her eyes forces her to squeeze them shut. Forcing herself to steady her shaky breathing, she tries to find the voice of calm in her mind.

But the only voice she can find belongs to Mai. Low and withering, repeating over and over again in her ears.

At least there's something in him to love, it reminds her. I don't know why I bothered.

Azula isn't aware of storming off, or the alarmed cries of Lo and Li trailing after her to no avail. She barely notices the palace grounds and hallways folding before her implacable stride, the servants and attendants leaping out of her way.

She barges into her father's villa, making straight for the heavily guarded door leading to the underground crawlspace that had once served as a storage cellar. "Let me pass," she commands, her voice sharp-edged steel.

The captain gulps visibly. "But...but Your Highness, nobody is allowed except the Phoenix King himself."

"Oh?" Azula stares the young captain down until he shrivels before her. "And where is the Phoenix King now?"

A tense silence lingers as the guards exchange uncomfortable glances with each other.

"In my Father's absence, I am the Phoenix King!" she snaps, drawing herself to her full height. "Now let me pass."

The doors swing open before her without further complaint. She shoves past, barrelling down the narrow staircase tunneled into the foundations, and the small door at its end.

Thankfully, the guards stationed there give her no further trouble. They hand her the iron key in its rusted ring without question. As she jams it into the lock and throws the bolt with a grunt, they melt silently into the shadows.

A foul smell greets her nostrils the instant she enters the makeshift cell. She claps a sleeve to her nose, eyes watering as they adjust to the abrupt darkness. The only light comes from the torches burning weakly in the corners. The rest of the tiny crawlspace remains shrouded in darkness, the better to hide the extent of its squalour.

At first, she avoids looking at the pitiful figure huddled in the middle. Instead, she stares at the chains dangling from the manacles at wrist and ankles, feeding through to the iron stakes driven into the stone blocks of the walls. They clink with the prisoner's every slight motion; the only sound in the silence except for the harshening of her breathing. Yet they grate deafeningly in her ears. Threatening to drive her mad.

She takes a single step forward, the silken sole of her slippers whisper-soft against the grime coating the floor. "Nothing to say to your sister?" she taunts, if only to hear something other than that infernal clanking. "Do you treat all your visitors with the same hospitality?"

Even in the poor light of the cell, she perceives the slight motion of the prisoner raising his head. His eyes seem to glow when they finally meet hers - flat and expressionless, barely visible through the curtain of matted hair tumbling over his forehead.

She flinches at the tiny clink of the chains that accompanies his single movement. It is the only sound that he makes.

"Fine. Sit there and sulk in the dark, for all I care." She crosses her arms, somehow unable to avert her eyes from that empty stare. "You brought this upon yourself, you know. You had a choice, and you made the stupid one. As always." She sneers with emphasis. "You always were too soft and trusting. It was Uncle's downfall, and it'll be yours too."

She breaks off, waiting expectantly for her brother to react. Some hot-headed defense, some amusing show of defiance at the very least.

But Zuko says nothing. Only continues to stare at her with the loathsome golden eyes that they had both inherited from their father. Probably the only thing they would ever share.

"But I suppose it doesn't matter to you. Mediocrity and failure were what you excelled at, after all." Her nails dig into her palms with resentment. "And everyone loved you for it anyway. Mother. Uncle. Even Mai."

Her fist slams against the wall. A satisfying ringing sound resonates throughout the small cell.

"What did you have that I didn't?" she demands, her voice rising when Zuko still remains infuriatingly silent. "What is it about you that makes them choose you every single time?"

At least there's something in him to love.

"Is it because you're weak? Is that what it takes? Perhaps they feel sorry for you." Her nails rake along the embroidery tracing her sleeve, snagging on the fine silken threads. "Maybe that's what draws them to you." She spits each word like a knife thrust. "It's like a child finding an injured turtleduck. They can't help but care for you, when really they should just put the sorry creature out of its misery."

She expects him to bristle at that. A protest, a snarl, even a pursing of the mouth. But to her mounting irritation, Zuko remains impervious. He does nothing except watch her like a living statue with bright golden eyes. Blazing not with anger, not with hurt or even hatred...but with pity.

Azula recoils as though he had buried his fist in her gut. "Well, look at all the good it did you!" she rages, stomping forward to loom over him menacingly. "It didn't matter that you were everyone's favourite. Father saw me! He saw me and he loved me. Now I get to rule by his side, while you rot in chains down here, wallowing in your own filth!" She leans over, jamming her face as close to his as she can without choking from his overwhelming stench. "I won. You lost. I hope you enjoy what's left of your miserable life in this cage, because you'll burn soon."

She smiles viciously at the flicker of fear that appears suddenly in Zuko's eyes.

"Yes. You will. Any day now. And I'll be there watching every second of it." She straightens and backs away, ignoring how Zuko's eyes still bore into hers unflinchingly. "After all, it's not every day I get to celebrate becoming an only child."

Pausing at the door, she taps her chin thoughtfully. "I wonder if you'll scream like a little girl again."

Silence.

Gritting her teeth, she storms out the door. Slamming it shut so hard that the entire hallway reverberates in a low complaint.

Azula ignores the questions from the guards, the confused glances they exchange with each other. Let them talk. I am the Phoenix King's only daughter. His strong right hand. She doesn't stop until she bursts out of her father's villa and into the small garden outside. Gratefully sucking back mouthfuls of fresh air, even if it was hot and humid and heavy with smoke from the city below. Anything was better than the rancid stink of Zuko's horrible cell.

She glares at the beautiful garden that lay in between her father's villa and the old one they had all shared. At the door leading to Zuko's old bedroom, and the small pond where the turtleducks still glide serenely on the water's surface.

Her hand closes around a rock. She hurls it into the pond, straight at the birds. A chorus of alarmed squawking, a chaos of splashing water and flapping wings ensues.

The ducklings clamber out of the pond and waddle onto the grass, shuffling and preening their ridiculous little bodies. The mother turns its beady eyes upon her with a baleful glare.

Azula's fingers twitch reflexively. Her mouth bares into a feral smile.

When she seats herself at the small wooden table in the quiet corner of her bedroom, she is surprised by the attendant who appears empty-handed at her doorway.

"His Exalted Worship, the Phoenix King, summons you to dine with him tonight."

Azula springs to her feet in reply, stuttering as she trails after the attendant. She quickly glances at the standing mirror, pursing her lips critically at her reflection. Expecting the evening to herself as usual, she had already traded the heavy regalia for attire of a simpler, lighter weave. Her long hair, fine and slippery smooth as always, stubbornly tumbles out of its topknot, in defiance of her maidservants' best efforts. She sighs, pinning her crown to it regardless.

It will have to do. Father surprised me, after all.

She allows herself to be led back to her father's villa, as though she hadn't just barged out of there earlier that day. If the guards harbour any thoughts about her indiscretions, they keep it to themselves.

As they ought to.

A hot flare of anger curls tightly in the pit of her stomach as the attendant steers her past the heavily guarded door leading to Zuko's basement cell.

At least there's something in him to love.

Clenching her teeth, she forces a strained smile as the attendant beckons her through another door leading into an informal dining room. "Her Highness, Princess Azula!"

Through the wall of windows, the evening sun hangs low in the sky, flooding the room with sweltering, golden light. She raises a hand to shield her eyes, the gold accents and trimmings of the red-lacquered walls so blinding it is almost painful. The heavy rectangular table that occupies most of the room could have seated at least a dozen comfortably. Instead, her father sits at one end, reduced to a mere darkened silhouette against the sunlight.

And at his right hand, appearing nearly as stiff and out-of-place as Azula feels, sits her mother.

Azula stops in her tracks. She doesn't realise that she had been beaming until something in her suddenly deflates.

But her father looks up at her and smiles. "Azula, how kind of you to join us." He motions to the empty seat to his left, directly across from her mother. "Sit down."

"Yes Father." The words come automatically, as calm and poised as always. Her smile widens fractionally as she plods over to his side, basking in the remnants of the warm daylight as though it was her father's embrace. "Of course I would join you. When have I ever denied you when you needed me?"

Her father's eyes soften as they linger on her face. "My dutiful daughter. Clever and powerful. A worthy reflection of the strength in her lineage."

She beams in her father's praise, wishing she could douse herself in it like the warm fragranced oils the ladies in the royal spa used to work the knots out of her aching body. But then her mother sniffs haughtily, and in the corner of her eye, Azula catches the fractional lift of her eyebrows.

"Yes," Ursa mutters under her breath. "She's almost as much a credit to your skilful parenting as your imprisoned son next door."

Azula narrows her eyes, but her mother continues to pick at her plate, undisturbed.

If her father hears her, he gives no outward sign of it. Instead, he gestures vaguely and a servant hurries over to Azula's side to fill her goblet. "I thought with how hard everybody has been working, and with our total victory so near at hand, we could take some time as a family."

Azula chokes on her wine. Setting her goblet back down, she stares at her father with wild, watering eyes. "As a family?" she echoes, trying not to splutter as she dabs her mouth with a cloth napkin.

"Of course." Her father continues to smile beatifically at her. "How long has it been since we have enjoyed each other's company?"

"Perhaps when each other's company stopped being enjoyable," Ursa grumbles irritably, before taking an impressive gulp of her own wine.

Her father's mouth purses into the ghost of a frown. Azula scowls ferociously at her mother, who doesn't notice anything beyond the rim of her goblet.

"Tread cautiously, Ursa." Her father's reproach is cutting. "I will not warn you again."

"Oh, spare me your threats and your warnings, Ozai," Ursa scoffs, rolling her eyes. "What are you going to do? Lock me up in a tower again, drug me out of my wits? Go ahead. I know how to survive the indigities you heap upon me. In fact, I would prefer them to this farce of yours." She swirls the wine in her goblet scornfully. "You have our son locked up, awaiting his death. And now you choose to waste time playing happy families? Who exactly are you trying to fool?"

Azula opens her mouth, instinctively springing to her father's defense. But the sound of her father's delighted laughter quells the spiteful retort brimming in her throat. "Well done, Ursa," her father marvels, wiping a tear of mirth from the outer corner of his eye. "After all these years, you finally grew a spine. I didn't think you had it in you."

Ursa glares daggers at him, but says nothing in response. Azula glances at her smugly before turning her attention back to her father, as caring and happy as he was in her oldest, most cherished memories. His eyes soften at the corners as they land upon her and Azula preens in his silent appreciation. I would do anything to keep you like this, she thinks with a conviction so powerful, it might as well be prayer. I would do absolutely anything to make this moment last.

"Eat, Azula," her father urges her, his concern evident in the way his voice grows gentle. "You haven't touched your food."

"Yes, Father." She bobs her head, transferring a slice of fruit into her mouth and chewing obediently. Anything you ask of me, Father. You are the only one who ever loved me.

"Good girl." Her father nods approvingly, before turning back to consider his own plate. "As I was saying… Sozin's Comet arrives in a week, and when it does, it will change the world." He cuts a slice of meat, seared and glazed to perfection. "I thought before that happened, we could do one last thing as the family we once were."

Ursa furrows her brow with growing doubt.

"Are we going to Ember Island?" Azula blurts out, momentarily forgetting herself in her excitement. "We haven't vacationed there in so long!"

Her father chuckles with amusement. "Not quite, but close. Unfortunately, we do not have time for that. However…" He raises an eyebrow conspiratorially at her, as though he was sharing another secret with her, and only her. "The Ember Island Players are performing at the Caldera Capital Theatre tomorrow night."

Azula swallows her groan, even as Ursa tilts her head in confusion. "They are?"

"Tsk." Her father shakes his head slowly. "And here I thought you loved the theatre, Ursa."

"That was a long time ago," Ursa answers quietly, her voice tight with poorly controlled anger.

"Hm." Her father smirks and her mother averts her eyes. "Well then, I imagine you'll love this." He straightens in his seat, his chest swelling with self-importance. "The Ember Island Players are debuting a new production in my honour. I thought it would make for a most appropriate family outing."

Ursa lets out a huff of disbelief. "They're performing a play...about you?"

"Of course." Her father pats his lips delicately with his napkin. "House of the Rising Sun, I've heard it called. About the glory of the Empire, and how under my rule, it crested to a zenith that will last a thousand years."

"But…" Ursa's frown deepens. "But, Sozin's Comet hasn't even arrived yet. You...you haven't even -" She breaks off with a sigh, before reaching for her goblet again. "Whatever."

Azula scowls as her mother drains her goblet to its dregs. "I think it would be lovely, Father," she offers sweetly. "Do you think I'll be in it, too?"

"Why, of course," her father croons, smiling genially at her. "My reign would not be possible without my golden child."

She claps her hands together enthusiastically. "I suppose it would be fitting. After everything we've accomplished together - and everything we will accomplish -" she pauses to throw a sour glare at her thoroughly unimpressed mother, "we deserve to be canonized on stage!"

"Indeed" her father agrees, his smile still blazing bright and precious on his unlined face. "Besides, it would be ingracious if we were not to attend."

Ursa snorts. "Ingracious," she echoes acidly. "We can't have that, now can we?"

"Come now, Ursa," her father chides with a growing smirk. "I remember how much you used to love your mediocre, overacted melodramas."

Ursa frowns at her empty goblet, before waving for a refill. "Well, yes," she retorts patiently, as a maid scurries to her side with an enameled jug. "But that was long before I realized I was married to one." She raises a hand, arresting the flow of blood-red wine into her cup. "That's enough for me, dear. Thank you."

She sips serenely, appearing supremely oblivious to the crackling electric glare that Azula hurls in her direction.

"Ursa," her father growls, his face darkening ominously. "You overestimate your worth. Now that your usefulness has run its course -"

"You'll shut me back in my tower?" Ursa finishes, sounding bored. "Or maybe in one of the city prisons? I doubt there's room in the cellar for both Zuko and myself, after all."

Splotches of red appear in her father's cheeks. "Wretched woman," he hisses, baring his teeth. "Of all the eligible noblewomen, my father had to saddle me with you. If your absence at tomorrow's debut wouldn't be instantly noticed, I would end you where you sit!"

Ursa shrugs. "Don't let the wagging tongues of a few theatre patrons stop you, Ozai. You've never hidden your contempt of me before." She sighs, her voice heavy and hollow at the same time. "You have taken everything I love and turned them into weapons to control me. You poisoned Azula and warped her into a perverse reflection of yourself. You killed your father, your nephew. And how many times have you tried to kill Zuko now?" She laughs harshly, dashing at her cheek with the back of her hand. "Agni himself will never forgive you for what you have done to your children, so what more can you expect of their mother? Whatever horror you have planned for me, I assure you that I would far prefer it to the misery of having to endure your company for a single moment longer than I must."

The wooden legs of her father's chair scrape along the floor as he bolts to his feet. "Don't worry, wife," he snarls, planting both hands flat upon the table as he looms over her. "Your misery will be short-lived. I will personally see to that."

Azula's breath hitches with instinctive fear. The air swelters, unbearably so.

"You will watch your son die," her father continues, grabbing Ursa by the chin to force her gaze upward. "And then -" he forces his face close to hers, his teeth an inch away from tearing her throat out, "and then, you will join him." He smiles cruelly. "You and Zuko were always two of a kind. Soft, malleable, weak. A disgrace to my line. Failures, both of you."

"A father who burns his own child has no business calling anyone else a failure," Ursa grits out, her words muffled by the painfully tight grip pinching her mouth shut. Her eyes blaze defiantly as she stares up at her husband. "I will face the Eternal Flame without fear when it comes for me, Ozai. Can you say the same for yourself?"

Azula flinches, unable to look. Any moment now and Ursa would scream and burn, her unlined porcelain skin turning to char under her father's merciless wrath. Just like Zuko had.

Just like Zuko would.

But the blow never comes.

Instead, she hears the explosion of her father's savage, wordless roar. He flings Ursa back with such vicious force that her head collides with the back of her chair.

Then, without another word, he storms out of the small dining room and into the hallway. Azula stares ruefully at the untouched food on his plate, already longing for her father's return even while somewhat grateful for the absence of his unsteady intensity.

Ursa gasps for breath, clutching at her jaw in disbelief. "It's alright," she chokes out, dismissing the attendants as they mill around her. "He didn't hurt me. I'm fine."

"You're lucky Father was feeling gracious today," Azula scoffs, watching her mother without a trace of pity. "What were you thinking, goading him like that?"

Ursa smiles at her sadly. "You wouldn't understand."

"Oh, but I think I do." Azula pushes her plate away from her resentfully. "Even when he's locked up for treason, Zuko is all you and Father care about."

"Azula," her mother says sharply, "Azula, that's not true."

"Isn't it?" Azula laughs bitterly, her hand trembling as she reaches for her wine. A drop spills over the rim, trailing like blood down the crystalline curve. "If our places were switched, would you risk your neck for me the same way?"

Ursa's eyes soften. "Do you want me to say what you want to hear? Or would you prefer the truth instead?"

"As far as I'm concerned, there is no difference," Azula replies primly, getting to her feet. "You could never love me, Mother. You think I'm a monster. Only Father ever loved me, and you never forgave either of us for it."

Ursa weathers the blow more stoically than Azula expects. "Tell me," she answers simply, "are those your words? Or like everything else of yours, did they come from your father?"

Azula recoils at the barb. "What difference does it make? It's true, isn't it?"

Her mother shrugs helplessly. "If you have already decided that it is, then why bother asking me at all?" She plants her hands upon the table pleadingly, holding Azula's gaze with her own. "If I were to speak honestly...if I told you that you are my daughter, and that no matter what you do, I will never stop loving you, would it change anything?" She swallows hesitantly. "Would you believe me?"

Something wells up tight in the back of Azula's throat, threatening to claw the breath from her lungs. A strand of hair tickles her forehead as she clenches her trembling fists.

"No," Azula says calmly, staring at the cowering woman with every ounce of contempt she could muster. "No, I wouldn't."

She turns away, keen to put as much distance between herself and her mother's unnerving stare.

But the sound of Ursa's quiet sobs follows her out the door to stifle the evening air.

She sleeps uneasily, dogged by the same nightmare that haunted her every night.

In it, she stands in the courtyard at the head of the palace. Her nerves are taut, her body tense, preparing for a firebender's aggressive leap. The sky glows an angry, bright red, tainting the polished old stone to the colour of blood. But the flames that pour forth are blue and dangerous and deadly.

Eyes study her every movement with dispassionate curiosity. As though she was little more than an animal on display for the amusement of indifferent onlookers. Just because there were no bars didn't mean that her cage was any less real.

She ignores the crowd of spectators, their judgement a dark cloud hovering in the air above her, even if they had the sense to remain respectfully silent. Their opinions didn't matter. They never had.

But Father sits at the head of the steps, his ornate headpiece glinting with the same angry red light. His crimson regalia flaps proudly in the wind like one of the banners hanging off the ships assembled in the harbour below. He surveys her performance with his usual haughty, expectant air. If he was concerned for her, if he feared for her injury or loss, he conceals it well.

Azula knows not to read into it. She understands the depth of his love for her, even if he could never show it for propriety's sake. Father believes in me. Why would he fear for me? He knows I will win. I have to win, for him.

Her opponent stares her down, twin blank holes in a blue mask twisted into a ghastly rictus of a smile. His black-clad figure dodges the plumes of her fire as effortlessly as though he could fly. He grasps a sword in each of his gloved hands, wielding them with such finesse, as though they were part of his own body.

The Blue Spirit bounds toward her with inhuman speed, blades pointed straight at her. Anyone else would have flinched. But Azula holds her ground. Hate flows through her, coursing ice through her veins.

She leaps high into the air, executing a flawless spiral kick. Something soars within her. Perfect, she's perfect. The onlookers would whisper among themselves in fear and awe. No one can withstand the princess. No one.

But, to her horror, the only thing her bending produces is smoke. Trickles of wispy smoke, puffing harmlessly in little clouds toward her opponent.

She yells, leaps again, higher. And then again. Her forms grow harried, frenzied, sloppy. The smoke grows thicker, as though in mockery of her surging desperation.

Only the Blue Spirit's grin is clearly visible through the haze. It grows larger as he approaches, seeming to taunt her with every passing second.

Then, with the slow dread of inevitability, the flat of his blade catches the back of her ankles, throwing her off balance.

She lands heavily on the ground, sprawled and panting with indignation. The Blue Spirit steps forward, the point of his sword grazing her throat. She glares at the laughing mask, the black tunnels of its soulless eyes.

But the only eyes that matter belong to Father. Golden and bright, like her own. And now cold, narrowing in disappointment, before he turns away.

"Father," she cries, even as the blade presses harder into her throat, making her cough and splutter. "Father! Come back!"

But Father doesn't hear her. He had no use for failures like Zuko, like her.

So she would have to be better. She would have to be perfect.

And she could do it.

For him, she could do absolutely anything.

She sleeps poorly that night, more so than usual. After waking drenched in sweat and quivering with a terror she doesn't fully understand, she gives up on the idea entirely.

By the time dawn breaks in a radiant band along the horizon, she has already been awake for hours. Staring outside, watching the sun rise into a perfect cloudless sky through the bars of her window.

Six, she thinks, her heart pounding somewhere in her tightening throat. She clutches at the collar of her silken nightrobe. Six days til summer's end.

She has barely sat down to her breakfast when one of her father's envoys slips into her room.

"He wants me to cover the war council?" Azula repeats, choking on a plumegranate seed. "Again?"

The envoy bobs his head nervously. "His Magnificence expressed that was his wish, Your Highness."

She blinks in surprise. "But I handled the military council last night as well...and the interior council, and the governing councils as well. I have duties of my own to attend to -"

"Your esteemed father seemed to think you were capable of running his affairs in his stead," the envoy replies, with a disapproving twitch of his nose. He stares probingly at Azula, as though daring her to contradict him. "That you could be trusted."

Azula sighs, pushing her barely-touched bowl of fruit away from her. Then she rises to her feet, running a hand through her limp, bedraggled hair. "I serve at Father's pleasure," she intones dully. "I will be there."

"Excellent." The envoy inclines his head curtly. "The war meeting convenes in half an hour, Princess."

"I said I would be there." An edge of impatience threads into her voice.

Wisely, her father's envoy says no more, slipping out of her room as noiselessly as he'd arrived.

Azula glares at the spot where he had stood long after he vanishes. A small swarm of attendants descend upon her, preoccupied with the thankless task of dressing her for the day. They had chosen an even heavier and stuffier garment for her to wear that day - a gleaming monstrosity of stiff brocade and gleaming red jewels woven like dragon-scales into the fabric, every stitch coarse and itchy against her skin.

"What are you doing?" she bellows at the unfortunate maidservant tasked with fixing her hair. "I asked you to comb it, not yank it out by the roots!"

"A thousand apologies, Your Highness," the maid whimpers, dropping the brush in a terrified clatter. "It's - it's just that -"

"I didn't ask for excuses. I asked for my hair to be combed." Azula turns her furious glare onto the cowering maid. "And I don't have all day, so be quick about it!"

"Y - Yes, Princess."

But the bristles of the brush continue to snag at the hardened clumps of wax stuck in her baby-fine hair, no matter how much Azula rages at the hapless girl.

"Leave it!" she barks, after the third time her baby-fine hair slides stubbornly out of its topknot. She kicks vehemently at the silken ribbon that had fallen to the floor. "I'm late already. Have the heralds announce my arrival."

She glares at her reflection in the burnished golden mirror. Her face powdered too white, her lips smudged a shade too dark. Her hair a lifeless mass of black cascading limply over her shoulders and down her back.

She stares at it hatefully, before snatching her crown from the shaking hand of her tearful maidservant. "I'm...I'm so sorry, Your Highness -"

"Well, you needn't be," Azula answers crisply, absently pinning the flame-shaped crown to the lapel of her outer robe. "You are banished forthwith. Leave the palace and go take up butchery... or wherever else your talents clearly lie."

The girl lets out an anguished sob, falling to the floor in penitence. "But - but Princess -"

"If I see your miserable face anywhere near this palace ever again, I will burn it off myself," Azula growls dangerously. "Do I make myself clear?"

The girl's sobbing intensifies to a horrified wail. It echoes all around her, clawing tight around Azula's neck like a noose.

She ignores it with well-practiced ease. Instead, she marches toward the throne room, struggling under the weight of her regal finery.

"...and anticipating an encounter with Iroh's fleet here, we will prepare for a naval skirmish at the mouth of the Whale Tail channel, here and here."

"Once we have overwhelmed their vessels, we will spring a surprise air attack. Our airships will lie in wait here."

"The island has a natural high terrain. It is a perfect spot to muster our forces without being seen."

Azula's eyelids droop despite herself. From her seat atop her father's magnificent throne, behind the barrier of bright blue fire, it is strangely difficult to concentrate. The rest of the councillors are mere shadows in the distance, their faces indistinguishable in the darkness beyond her pedestal. Their voices echo off the walls in a dizzying ring, nervous and deferential as though they were addressing her father instead of her.

As they should, she thinks sourly. We are the same now.

And yet, where her father had appeared at home lounging in this very place, Azula struggles to find a comfortable spot. The straight back and hard, unyielding metal do little but aggravate the knotted ropes of tension gripping her entire body. Even when she finds a position that offers some relief, the rough weave of her clothing chafes along her skin, forcing her to readjust. And then there's the immense heat, shimmering through the air in pulsing waves, stifling and sweltering and making her sweat profusely underneath the weight of her regalia. Her hair grows damp, plastering to her forehead and neck unbecomingly. Against her better instincts, she rakes an absent hand through the saturated strands.

"Does Her Highness have anything to add?"

She starts, realizing with a jolt of horror that she had been distracted. The silence builds expectantly, waiting for her to speak in wordless judgment. "I…" She rubs at her temples. "I need to think."

Where to begin with this plan? If she had her way, she would command them to scrap it and start all over again. She still could. Her father had charged her to lead the war effort in his absence. He trusted her judgment, completely and without question. Why else would he entrust her with the lion's share of his own power?

"Your defense of the southeastern channels assumes that Uncle's fleet travels at the same speed as ours," she points out slowly. "Is there a plan to engage them should they enter Fire Nation waters?"

More silence greets her question, this time nonplussed instead of expectant.

Finally, somebody swallows. "We have not been asked this before," General Bujing answers tentatively.

Azula sighs. Of course. "It is a contingency that the fleet commanders must be prepared to address. Uncle has enlisted a considerable number of waterbenders. If they travel faster than we expect, we cannot be caught off guard."

"Well…" Bujing says defensively. "Your father, the Phoenix King, did not have a problem with this plan when we presented it to him."

"Fine," Azula grits out, pinching the bridge of her nose, entirely reluctant to wield the power she had worked so hard to obtain for reasons she doesn't fully understand. "Whatever you want."

"But," Bujing adds, perhaps sensing her mounting frustration. "But if you are concerned, Your Highness, we can of course work to find a solution. Again."

Azula shakes her head, suddenly too exhausted to argue. "If Father has already approved, then who am I to contradict him?"

"Our thoughts exactly, Your Highness," Bujing replies eagerly. "Let us not waste time on solutions searching for a problem, now."

Azula smiles grimly, thinking of all the holes in the military council's so-called plan. She fidgets with the little crown pinned to her lapel. She pushes and pulls at the sharp needle, the gold flame turning warm against her fingertips.

It lies before her, devastatingly simple. The chance to prove her worth to Father, to cement herself irrevocably as the strategic genius of the pair of them. She could hold her ground, force Father's shortsighted advisors to modify their plan until they arrived at a truly watertight one. Even now, she can see the pieces that would bring them there.

But her father is nowhere to be found, preoccupied with some strangely absorbing pastime in the final days leading up to the invasion. And despite the trust he had extended to her, everyone else seemed to think of her as a mere figurehead. A placeholder for her father, expected to enforce his every thought and whim.

A pale substitute.

"Yes," she hears herself say in resignation. "Let us not waste time. What of the Maos, then?"

The discussion picks up, as others add their voices to Bujing's in a clamour of equally far-fetched, ineffective ideas. Azula sighs again, trying without success to pin her crown back into her hair.

"That's enough," she grumbles after a quarter of an hour, after the council starts patting itself on the shoulder instead of offering any meaningful solution. "I will take your suggestions to the interior council...which convenes shortly." She rolls her neck, the tendons cracking with the simple motion. "If you have nothing further to add, gentlemen, you may take your leave."

"Of course, Your Highness." Through the leaping blue flames, she can vaguely perceive the councillors dropping to a kowtow on the ground. "Your esteemed father is lucky to have such a reliable heir to take the helm, while he is elsewhere occupied."

"Mm." Azula makes a non-committal sound, not trusting herself to speak any more.

"Indeed," someone else remarks, getting to their feet. "Personally overseeing the imprisonment of his traitor son cannot be an easy task. That boy is slippier than a shadow, and more cunning than a den of viperfoxes!"

"It doesn't matter what the boy is, Hanying. He'll burn all the same, just like the rest of them."

Azula accidentally stabs herself with the needlepoint of the pin in her crown.

The councillors' voices meld into an indistinct haze of sound, echoing confusingly in Azula's ears. She blinks, trying to pay attention as they file out of the hall, but all she can hear is a growing roar, deafening her to all else in the room.

Her cheeks ache from the strain of holding her thin, artificial smile. Something tightens in the back of her throat, clawing the air from her lungs and making it suddenly impossible to breathe.

Of course it's Zuko. Resentment surges within her, filling her mouth with its acrid taste. It's always Zuko.

She leaps to her feet, the barrier of fire parting to let her descend.

"Your Highness?"

"Is everything alright?"

"The meeting is supposed to start, will you not be attending?"

She doesn't answer any of the questions, doesn't even acknowledge the interior council members as they mill into the throne room and take their seats around the low table. She simply sweeps out of the throne room without a word, every thought bent on a single, dark purpose.

This time, the guards in her father's villa don't put up a fight. They simply spring out of her way and allow her to pass.

She doesn't see Father hovering outside the cell door, at least. It reassures her, even as the sting of forgone closure chafes.

This time, Zuko glances up at her in surprise as she slams the door shut behind her. His mouth parts wordlessly, before he forces it back shut in a tight-lipped line.

Azula glares at him with all the hatred she can muster. "You just had to ruin everything, didn't you?"

Zuko blinks, taken aback.

"You could never be satisfied with your miserable lot in life, could you? You just had to go and ruin all of mine as well!" She slams her fist against the door with a loud thud. "Everything I've done, everything I've worked so hard to accomplish…" The strange tightening of her throat seems to constrict further, making her choke and splutter with watering eyes. "Mai. Mother. The respect that is my due from Father and all his advisors. It should have been mine. It should have all been mine!"

She steps forward, kicking at one of the chains holding his wrists in place. The resulting clanking sound makes her flinch violently.

"But you ruined it! You're such a miserable failure, you can't be satisfied until you've dragged everybody down with you!" She laughs wildly, a harsh, desperate sound. "Father sees my worth. He trusts me like he has never trusted anyone else. And still...the only thing he cares about is you."

To her horror, Zuko's eyes have the gall to soften. Not with regret or embarrassment or apology...but with sympathy. As though after everything he had done, he thought he understood.

How dare he.

"I hope you're happy. I hope you keep yourself up at night laughing at the irony of it all!" she rages, trying not to scream. "After all, I can't sleep at night anymore. Why should you get that luxury?"

Zuko swallows, but still remains stubbornly, infuriatingly silent. Like yelling at a brick wall, Azula thinks to herself viciously. Except a brick wall would possess far more intelligence, and make far better conversation.

"When did you become so articulate, Zuzu?" she taunts, needing him to snap. To say something, anything. "Don't you have any self-respect left? Don't you have anything to say for yourself? To me?"

Zuko watches her evenly, raising his chin with his usual accursed defiance. His voice, when he finally speaks, is a grudging thread of sound. "You're not worth it."

Fingers claw at her throat, squeezing tightly around her windpipe, threatening to suffocate her.

He lowers his gaze. His stupid scarred face darkens obstinately. "I have nothing left to say to you. Do what you will."

The world stutters in a flash of black.

Azula staggers back, her hands dropping from her bruised neck. Gasping and heaving for breath, she all but flees. The better to hide from her brother's unnerving, exacting stare and the cudgel of his disappointment. Pressing down on her so hard, she fears it would break her too.

In a daze, she marches straight into the royal spa. Surprising the half dozen or so girls who worked there, preoccupied with their daily tasks.

They bolt to their feet instantly, their faces blanching with fear at her arrival.

Azula sighs shakily, her fingers raking through the lifeless clumps of her sticky hair. Before she utters a single word, the girls leap into action.

"A royal hair-combing again, Your Highness?"

"Yes," Azula sniffs, stiffening involuntarily as their hands make quick work of her elaborate regalia and replace it with a lightweight cotton robe. "And do it right this time. The last girl who handled my hair was a butcher."

"Yes, Your Highness. Come this way, Your Highness."

She allows herself to be led to the small marble pool at the centre of the airy room, and seated comfortably at its edge. Another small sigh escapes her as she leans back, submerging her hair into the warm, scented water.

"A massage, Your Highness?"

"How about a hot compress, Your Highness?"

"Perhaps some calming jasmine tea to soothe your nerves, Princess?"

She nods absently. A single rose petal tickles the side of her face as it floats past upon the water.

Staring blankly at the intricate patterns decorating the tiled ceiling, Azula remains mute as the light pouring through the window slowly cools from golden to blue. Strong fingers scrub at her scalp, massaging warm oil into her skin, working the countless knots lining her neck and shoulders.

Someone jabs a thumb along the tip of her spine. She grunts at the unexpected pressure.

"A thousand apologies, Your Highness," one of the girls demurs, her fingers growing hesitant. "You're...you're just so tense."

Azula laughs scornfully before she can help herself.

She allows them to wash, rinse, and brush out her hair without complaint. But when someone lifts her head and sets a steaming bowl onto the ledge, her eyes narrow into a ferocious glare. "Do it right this time," she warns. "Or I'll have you banished from the palace too."

"Yes, Princess." A whimper of fear, before the girl steels herself.

The comb dips into the bowl, withdraws again, dripping with hot glistening wax.

Azula winces despite herself as the girl combs it through her hair methodically. Though the girl's hands are gentle, the sticky resin still tugs sharply at her scalp. Still, she forces herself to be silent. Biting her lip as the girl waxes her hair into place, scraping it all tightly back and gathering it into a single, perfect topknot.

"There," the girl says soothingly, as Azula sits up with a gasp of pain. "All done. What do you think, Your Highness?"

She holds a small hand mirror to her face and Azula chokes.

The girl hesitates. "Is...is it not to your satisfaction, Your Highness?" Her voice trembles, taut with fright. "Say the word, I can fix it -"

Azula lets out a single, treacherous sob.

Then, without another word, without a care for all the attendants staring at her open-mouthed in their shock, she dashes out of the royal spa and back into the merciless heat outdoors.

She chokes on the humid air, thick and scented with smoke and saltwater. For a moment, it's impossible to breathe, the air dragging too heavy in her lungs. Her hand clutches at her chest, at the terrifying band of tension winding tight across it. With every breath she tries to take, the pain only intensifies.

Her head spins. She staggers blindly, no longer sure where to go.

You are the princess I thought you were...cunning and talented and powerful enough to be worthy of being called my heir... Her father's voice whispers in her ears, a constant reminder of everything she had yet to accomplish. All the ways she had still to live up to him, or else...or else…

You're not worth it, Zuko had sighed. It was the only thing he had said to her since the night she betrayed him. He had trusted her despite his better instincts, and had paid an unimaginable price. He could have said any hurtful thing he wanted to her, and she would have relished it.

But he had broken his stubborn silence to say that, and that only. And in doing so, he surprised her. Where had Zuko learned the subtle, precise art of twisting the knife where it would hurt the most?

Her fingers twist into the front of her robe. The restored palace grounds grow blurry, her eyes filling suddenly with hot, traitorous tears. One rolls down her cheek, before spilling onto her shoulder to stain the shiny red fabric.

At least there's something in him to love, Mai whispers scathingly. It is the only thing she can hear.

By the time she blunders to the safety of her room, her entire body quivers, racked with the strain of holding back her tears. If she had to be weak enough to cry like a self-indulgent little girl, she would at least have the decency to do it in private, and not out in public where she would shame herself and her father.

She could do at least that much for him.

Azula collapses against the doorframe, hugging it for support. Her knees buckle, protesting against the thankless burdens they had been forced to carry. Accidentally, she catches a glimpse of herself in her full-length mirror. Her face splotchy and red, her hair an unnatural, hideous mass of shiny waxed black lying on top of her head.

The girl at the spa had skillfully fashioned it into the perfect, full topknot. It would dutifully bear the weight of her crown, her father's crown, anything.

And it looked terrible on her.

Her fingers tear at her scalp, yanking the accursed hair out of the stupid topknot. Pressing her forehead against the wooden post, she covers her face with her hands. No longer able to hold back the great, hiccupping, pitiful sobs welling up within her.

She cries and cries and cries. Until her head is fit to burst and her sleeves are saturated with her tears, until she can't even remember why she had started crying in the first place. Was there even a reason? Or was it everything in her unhappy life stacking one on top of the other, lying in wait to counterbalance the meaningless honours her accomplishments had bought her?

"Azula?"

She squeaks, covering her mouth with a wet hand. "Go away," she heaves weakly, hunching over as though she wanted to disappear, become part of the doorpost itself. "Go away -"

A firm hand closes on her shoulder. Azula shakes it off vehemently. "I said go away!" she screeches, whirling around and shoving viciously at the unwanted intruder who dared to lay a hand upon her.

Instead, she finds herself staring eye-to-eye with Ursa, of all people. She slumps and a single bitter laugh escapes her. "Not you too."

Her mother tilts her head, her mouth pressing together in a tight line as she quickly scans Azula. Her face is drawn and pale, almost as white as Azula's.

"Come to gloat? You wouldn't be the first," Azula taunts, staring at the floor between her shiny golden slippers. Anything instead of holding her mother's probing gaze. "No matter what I do, everyone wants to see me fail."

"Azula," her mother repeats, her voice forced to a chiseled calm. "What's wrong?"

She laughs again, wild and desperate. "Everything!" Her hand claps to her forehead, where the baby hairs spring free of the wax that had held it unforgivingly in place. "It's all gone wrong. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

She can feel her mother's gaze piercing through her intently, sizing her up like a bruised marketplace melon to be left abandoned on the cart. It reminds her awfully of Zuko's silent, unnerving stare back in his cell, and then she lets out another sob.

Ursa's hand finds her shoulder again, her touch somehow feather-light and firm at the same time. "Come," she instructs. "You'll hurt yourself if you stay out here."

"I'm not weak!" Azula protests, even as she allows herself to be steered into the room. "Besides, why do you care?"

Ursa regards her solemnly, settling her down on the edge of her bed. "I'm your mother, Azula. Of course I care -"

"Don't." Azula raises a hand, stemming Ursa's words before they too find another wound to tear open without mercy. "Just don't." She gasps like a dying animal, her words harsh and clipped. "My hair wasn't cooperating. I had a moment of weakness. It will pass." She glares at her mother with all the strength she can muster. "Now leave me alone."

She expects Ursa to buckle, to tuck her tail between her legs and run to safety, the way she always did. Instead, her mother reaches out to finger a strand of Azula's limp, lifeless hair. "Your hair always looks beautiful," she says simply. "No matter what you do to it."

"Spare me your empty platitudes!" Azula snarls, jerking away. "I don't want to hear it. You never cared for me, not like Zuko." The thought of her brother brings another sob welling to the back of her throat. She chokes it down with no small effort. "He was always your favourite. He was always everyone's favourite." Tears slide down her cheeks and she dashes viciously at them with the back of her hand. "You love him almost as much as you fear me."

The bed bounces as Ursa sits down next to her. "Azula, that's not true -"

"But it is!" Azula all but screams. "Lie all you want, Mother, but you're afraid of me." She lets out a shuddering exhale, shaking her head. "You all are. You, Uncle, Zuko. Even Mai and Ty Lee -"

Ursa's hand cups her cheek and Azula falls silent at the sudden, tender motion. "What happened?" her mother asks, somehow managing to sound concerned. "I thought you were friends. And Mai - I thought she and you…"

"So did I," Azula confesses, biting her lip as another tear slides down her face. "But...but…"

Perhaps it's the shock in her mother's voice that tugs on Azula's treacherous heartstrings. Or perhaps it's the slow, soothing motions of Ursa's hand stroking her hair that does it.

It all bursts out of her then. Every way in which her friends had betrayed her, abandoned her, hurt her. She doesn't even know why she tells this to her mother, of all people. But Ursa listens silently, only pausing to hail a maidservant for a comb and a bowl of hot jasmine oil.

"- and then - and then she said she didn't know why she even bothered staying," Azula chokes out piteously. "Just like that! All this time...all this time I trusted her…and she turned on me in the end too. Just like everyone else."

Ursa listens, but says nothing in response. Her long, tapered fingers work through Azula's ravaged hair, expertly separating the hardened wax from the strands.

"I always thought if I earned Father's love and trust, perhaps everyone else would follow suit," Azula finally admits, hanging her head. Her words surprise her, but it all bubbles out before she can control it. "But it's too late for that. I'm the monster everyone always believed I was." She sighs defeatedly. "Father was right. Being unlovable is the price you pay for being strong."

Her mother pauses. "All your life, you've used fear to control the people around you. Just like your father."

"What choice did I have?" Azula cries. "I'm not Zuko! I can't command loyalty from everyone around me just by being a miserable failure!"

"Is that why you betrayed him?"

Azula chokes, wishing her mother would yank her hair out by the roots. But instead, her fingers resume their slow, careful strokes, brushing hot oil tenderly through her long black tresses.

"I didn't betray him. He betrayed us," Azula insists doggedly. "He was the Blue Spirit! He publicly undermined Father's rule. He had to go."

Her mother considers her words with a mindfulness that surprises her. "It must have been very difficult to do that to someone you love."

Everything stops.

Azula struggles to breathe, but it suddenly feels as though a mooselion is sitting on her chest. Ursa continues without noticing anything miss, in quiet, measured tones. "Despite your differences, you are still his sister, and he is your brother. And he loves you."

"The way you love me?" Azula scoffs harshly.

But her mother turns her gently. Rests a hand under her chin to tip her face upward, to look her squarely in the eye. "I am your mother, Azula," Ursa reminds her quietly. "No matter what you do, I will never stop loving you."

"Then you are a fool," Azula spits contemptuously. "I see where Zuko gets it from."

Ursa doesn't flinch. Instead, she studies Azula's face intently. As though trying to glean some hidden meaning in its lines.

"You really love your father, don't you?" she says at length, sounding somewhat wistful. "You would do anything for him. Even when he asks you to cut the heart out of your chest and present it to him."

I would, Azula thinks without hesitation. And I have.

Her fingers tighten into her lap.

Ursa sighs, before tying Azula's hair in place. "You are a better daughter to him than he deserves." Her fingers work methodically, sliding the flame-shaped crown in place. "But be careful when offering yourself to someone who is not capable of appreciating it."

You would know. The barb springs to Azula's lips instinctively. But she says nothing, holding back instead.

She doesn't know why.

With a single decisive movement, her mother pins her crown in place. "There we go. All done." Without another word, as though nothing unusual had occurred between the two of them, Ursa gets to her feet. "I'll wait for you outside. We have that play to attend tonight, remember?"

Ruefully, Azula watches her leave. Until she catches sight of her reflection in the standing mirror and her jaw drops.

"How…" she stammers, her hand rising to reverently touch the small topknot gathered at the crown of her head, just above where the rest of her fine hair cascades soft and shining over her shoulders. Framing her face, emphasizing the softness of her delicate features. The ones she had inherited from her mother. "How did you know how to fix it?"

Her mother turns in the doorway. She smiles secretively, as though sharing some private joke between them. One that only the two of them understood.

"You have my hair."

Chapter 62: golden

Chapter Text

disclaimer. nothing new to see here.

author's notes. thank you, yet again, for your patience and kindness. the past few months have been hectic - i recently moved across the country so everything has been seriously upside-down for a while.

i hope this next part makes up for the wait, and i really hope that this will be the last big gap between chapters as we enter the final act.

as usual, feel free to find me on tumblr for updates (both fic-related and otherwise). i always love hearing from you.

i give you…

southern lights.

chapter lxii. golden

truth is like blood
underneath your fingernails
and you don't want to hurt yourself

"looking too closely" / fink

By the time the royal palanquin delivers them to the door of the stately Imperial Capital Theatre building, the sun has already set. The sky still glows bright blue, the clouds a dazzling pink swirl low along the horizon. The soft light illuminates the theatre's towering columns, and the trace irregularities where old cracks and other signs of disrepair had been discreetly covered with a gleaming red facade.

The smell of the freshly dried paint mingles with the loamy scent of turned earth and the spray of exotic blooms that had recently been planted along the entrance. Azula's nostrils flare, the firelilies and flame violets of late summer wafting their sickly sweet perfume into the air and threatening to make her sneeze.

She is ushered to the royal box with every ceremony befitting her rank and title. Her seat is plush and large, tucked against a balcony overlooking the semicircular auditorium and all its occupants. Firelight illuminates the dark wooden interior, the rows of velvet-lined seats, the heavy red curtains with gold trim and emblazoned with the crest of the Phoenix King. It sways gently, as though a slumbering beast lies snoring behind it.

Azula stares at it, feeling as though caught in a strange dream. She sits at her father's right hand; her mother sits at his left. Her foot taps an impatient rhythm as the theatre begins to fill and the buzz of excited chatter grows louder.

"I can't believe it," she remarks, leaning over within earshot of Father. "The three of us, together, at a play. It doesn't seem real."

"Don't say silly things, Azula," her father replies without sparing her a glance. The corners of his mouth tug downward. "And stop fidgeting. You're a princess, not a child."

She stills abruptly. "I'm sorry, Father. I didn't mean to upset you."

This time, her father looks at her. "I have no doubt this play will become a staple of Fire Nation culture. At least have the grace to appear dignified upon its premiere."

Her lips press together, the better to stop their dangerous quivering. "Y-Yes Father. I will do better."

But then her father smiles. To Azula, it's as though the sun had finally burst free of a storm. "Of course you will. You are my golden child."

She nods tightly, afraid to speak again and ruin the effusive warmth of his happiness. Everything he asked of her, she had tried to give him. But the moments where she saw him be happy were so few and far between...

A gong rings out somewhere. The theatre gradually grows hushed, as the torches in their brackets dim.

Azula leans forward in her seat.

"On this last week of summer, the renowned Ember Island Players are proud to debut their finest work to date," a loud voice announces, amplified by the sloping curves of the theatre's walls and domed ceiling. "An ode to the greatest dynasty under the sun, a celebration of the Fire Empire's magnificence as we approach its hundredth year. May the centuries thereafter prove just as glorious…"

The announcer drones on in this vein, the pompous heft of his voice turning to an indistinct buzz. Azula fights a yawn; the darkness in the theatre and the stuffy heat of the air producing a strangely soporific effect.

But at long last, the curtains finally swing open. A hush falls upon the theatre, the entire audience waiting with bated breath.

The announcer's voice picks up again, with a strangely ominous lilt. "Yet…little would the descendents of Sozin know…that the biggest threat to their empire comes not from outside her borders...but within."

"Threat?" Azula echoes under her breath, confused.

The stage lights flare abruptly, illuminating a sparse set with only some crumbling pillars lining the background.

Where is that supposed to be? Azula tilts her head, trying to place the unfamiliar setting. That's not the palace. That isn't even anywhere in the capital.

An actor appears, marching intently toward the centre of the stage. He wears a loose red uniform and a dishevelled black wig. When he finally raises his head into the glaring spotlight, it throws his mask into sharp relief.

"What -" Azula blurts, her fingers digging into her lap.

"I am Prince Zuko, son of Ozai and Ursa," the actor intones, touching the angry red scar covering his right eye. "I was unfairly banished from my home by my father nearly six years ago. But little does he know that soon...justice will be mine!"

He strikes a dramatic pose to emphasise his point. "But first I need the help of my conniving Uncle Iroh -"

Another actor in a messy white wig and amply padded robes waddles onstage, waving amiably. The audience boos and jeers loudly in response.

" - and my friends from the colonies who are all bending masters. Together, we will make my father pay for what he did to me!"

Azula groans as the actor playing Zuko clutches at his fake scar. "This is even worse than Love Among the Dragons."

"Now Azula, don't be rude," her father chides sternly. "The play has barely begun."

She sighs, resting her chin in her hand. She raises an eyebrow as three more actors make their entrance: a beefy man dressed in green (the Beifong girl?), a willowy woman with blue arrows daubed along her hands and poorly-applied bald-cap(the Air Nomad boy?), and -

With a burst of blue ribbons, a dark and extremely voluptuous woman barges onstage. Her long braid whips behind her as she waves a fist at Zuko's actor. "I am Katara, the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe!" she shouts monotonously. "Your father, Prince Ozai, destroyed my home! I am no friend of yours, Prince Zuko! In fact, I am honour-bound to hate you until the end of time -"

Azula massages her temples wearily as the actress drones on and on. "This has to be a joke," she complains. "What are they doing here? I thought this play was supposed to be about us."

Her father doesn't reply this time. He only looks at her warningly before turning his attention back to the play unfolding on stage.

She falls silent. Crossing her arms, she wishes for a second that she had chosen to sit next to her mother instead. At least I wouldn't care if I upset Mother.

The play unfolds at a glacial pace, plodding and meandering in a dozen different directions. Azula shields another yawn behind her fingers. From her vantage point, she can see several others in the audience doing the same.

They wouldn't be half so brazen if Father was sitting next to them, she thinks dryly. But a sidelong glance confirms that her father is entirely engrossed with the farce unfolding upon the stage. Only his mouth betrays his incredulity, curling upward faintly at the corners.

Drumming her fingers against the armrest, Azula turns her attention back to the play. Just in time for a handsome, buff actor to spring onto a table for reasons beyond her comprehension. "Wait!" he shouts, waving his hands in alarm. "I have to tell you something! Also, as the son of a Fire Navy Admiral, my opinion matters!"

The other actors turn to him, their curiosity piqued. "What did you want to say, Chan?" one of them grunts.

"I - I wanted to say that -" In an almost random motion, he points wildly at the actress playing Katara standing alone in the corner. Her oversized blue tunic still somehow strains under the exaggerated swell of her padded curves. "I made a mistake and Katara is actually a good person!" He crosses his arms and nods importantly.

All the other actors look at each other and shrug. "Okay."

Who wrote this? Azula thinks irritably.

Her eyelids droop as the play drags on, focusing on her brother's lack of exploits for no discernable reason whatsoever.

"My nephew!" Actor Iroh recites solemnly. "It is time for you to learn how to bend lightning!" He grabs the waterbender by the arm and inexplicably drags her to stand right in front of Zuko. "You. Waterbender. How about you stand right there? For, uh…reasons." He nods sagely, before waddling a safe distance away.

Actor Katara blinks in confusion. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" she asks, "If Zuko makes lightning, won't it hit me?"

"Don't worry," Actor Zuko assures her. "It can't hold a candle to the sparks that already fly between us!"

Actor Katara giggles coquettishly, hiding her face behind her hands. The crowd boos again.

Azula reclines in her seat, resting her chin in the palm of her hand. Her eyelids droop lower and lower. Somewhere down in the audience below, some brave soul starts to snore out loud. A quiet hum of muttering forms a constant sort of buzz, drowning out some of the minor actors' lines.

Her father scowls, folding his arms across his chest. "Ungrateful wretches," he hisses, only loud enough for Azula to hear.

Then, before she can interject, he raises a hand. A pair of guards materialise at his side, bobbing into a curt bow. "Yes, Your Magnificence?"

"Some impertinent, traitorous individual is disrupting the show!" her father seethes. "I want them removed as quickly as possible."

If the guards are confused by the instruction, they give no indication of it. "Yes, Your Radiance," they chorus tonelessly.

"I want their names, their families, and also the names of whoever invited them to attend," Ozai continues savagely. "I want to know who exactly dares make a mockery of their sovereign tonight, and with Sozin's Comet so close at hand."

"It will be done, Your Eminence." Another sharp, twin bow before the guards shrink away into the shadows,

Her father shakes his head forbiddingly, before returning his attention to the play, where a handful of the main actresses trash a Fire Empire clothing stall for reasons that escape Azula, distracted as she is.

He intercepts her curious stare, before huffing loudly in discontent. "What?"

She shakes her head quickly, her face flaming hot to the touch.

"You think I overreacted?" her father demands, his temper flaring white-hot and sudden, threatening to engulf their small wooden box and leave it all a charred pile of cinders. "You think I should show mercy to people who refuse to give us the respect we are owed?"

Azula swallows nervously, choosing her next words with care. "My thoughts are meaningless," she answers, trying to placate him. "You are the king. Only your will matters."

He watches her a moment longer, his gaze suddenly scorching like the raw summer sun. She holds her breath, feeling its heat bore into her, searing lines of her skin into curling strips of leather -

But then he huffs again and turns his attention back to the play. The sudden flash of his anger suddenly passes.

She lets out a slow exhale. Her entire body relaxes from the sudden tension that had wracked through it with iron teeth.

Onstage, the scene shifts abruptly. Instead of the witless escapades of her brother and his dullard companions, now a group of green-clad actors brawl impressively with some bounty hunter riding a strange-looking badgermole creature. In the chaos of the intricately choreographed battle sequence, and the large paper boulders that sail through the air on barely-visible strings, nobody notices the sounds of a scuffle breaking out in a corner of the amphitheatre below.

But Azula steeples her fingers, forcing herself to stare at the antics onstage, lest her father survey her for any sign of weakness. I can be strong, Father, she prays, so intently she wonders if he can hear her thoughts running through her mind. You don't have to be disappointed in me too.

Onstage, some actor brandishing a sword makes quick work of the menacing actors in green. "I am the spy!" he announces, amid the wails and terrified screams of the retreating green fighters. "The Dai Li fear my resistance to their nefarious brainwashing plots! Only I can bring them down!"

"No!" Another man runs onstage, waving a club and sporting a small ponytail. "I'm the spy! You're just an imposter, Lee!"

"Don't listen to him, Jun!" A third man leaps into the fray, flinging a boomerang across the stage. It loops through the air, knocking the hats off the remaining Dai Li actors. "Wang Fire is an incorrigible prankster!" He jabs a thumb into his puffed-out chest. "I am the real spy, the others are just imposters!"

The other self-proclaimed spies turn on each other, erupting into an animated argument. The last of the Dai Li actors slowly crawl offstage, hatless and unnoticed.

"Nonsense!"

"If you're the spy, then why do I know about the Di Li's secret plot -"

"Well, I don't just know about the secret plot, I helped come up with it!"

"Well, I have it all on paper, unlike you short-sighted, brainless cretins!"

The injured bounty hunter limps toward the trio of arguing spies, dragging on the reins of her bizarre steed. "Is this really the time?" she intones, snatching at a scroll that one of the men waves around indiscriminately. "You're all the same to me. Now come on, we have to warn the others…"

Amid the bickering of the actors as they all exit the stage, Azula can pick out the muffled sounds of a struggle, a blow, and then the slide of limp feet being dragged out of the hall. And suddenly, despite the play finally picking up its paces in the form of increased action and intrigue unfolding onstage, the auditorium seems to grow silent. The low hum of conversation fizzles out, a ripple of movement spreads across the seats as everyone jolts to sit upright and proper. As though they were finally realising, uncomfortably, that she and her father could see them.

"Bounty hunter!" Actor Zuko's voice echoes in the breathless tension gripping the entire theatre. "Your tidings are grave! And also useless!" He snatches the scroll from the bounty hunter's hands, only to throw it petulantly back at her. "You claim that the Dai Li will attack us, yet give us a map none of us can read! This is treason!"

"Blame Lee!" one of the spies pipes up, his hands tied behind his back. The boomerang hangs from the holster at his hip. "He's the one who drew it!"

"He didn't draw it! I drew it!" huffs the spy with the Water Tribe club, still clutched in his cuffed hands. "I, Private Wang Fire, true double agent of the White Lotus -"

The beefy blind earthbender and the willowy woman with the wrinkled bald-cap snicker loudly, interrupting him. "Wang Fire?" Actor Toph asks. "Seriously?"

"That sounds like a name so ridiculous, only my long-lost brother could have fabricated it!" Actor Katara declares. She marches up to the bound spy, the unfortunately-named Wang Fire, snatching the scroll from the ground without missing a beat. "And your map is so bad, only my brother could have drawn it!"

The spy with the boomerang bristles, before glancing at the dubiously-named Wang Fire tied up next to him. "Bad artist, huh?" he quips, his face brightening. "Are you me?"

Azula rubs at her temples, already aching from the struggle of following the myriad twisting plotlines. A migraine threatens to seize her head in its steel jaws.

Onstage, the woman playing the airbender scratches at a fold of her crooked bald-cap, surreptitiously straightening it in the process. "Wasn't there supposed to be a third spy?" she mutters, glancing around her in confusion. "Where did the guy with the sword go?"

The two spies glance at each other again and shrug.

"It doesn't matter! They're all the same anyway." Actor Zuko puffs out his chest proudly, before pointing dramatically offstage. "Let's go attack the Dai Li before they try to assassinate me again!"

Oh right. Azula rolls her eyes in mild amusement. How did I already forget about that first pale assassination attempt?

Stealing another glance at the profile of her father's face, she is satisfied to see the slightest of furrows crumpling his brow. As though even through the burnished veneer of the Ember Island Players' puffery and propaganda, he still finds the spectacle unfolding before his eyes not entirely living up to his expectations.

Staple of Fire Nation culture, she remembers him declaring at the outset of the first act, and can't help scoffing internally. As if. We should reward this playwright for his efforts by mounting his head on a stick.

The sudden shift in the colour of the lights interrupts her particularly vicious train of through. She blinks in confusion as everything turns a deep green, plunging the changing setpieces into murky shadows.

Then chaos erupts onstage, red and blue ribbons scatter in all directions. Foam boulders sail through the air as weightlessly as feathers.

Azula raises an eyebrow as one strikes the woman playing the Air Nomad squarely in the chest. She lets out a melodramatic wail, falling slowly to the ground. Her bald-cap slides off entirely with the motion, tumbling ludicrously across the stage and leaving her black hairnet fully visible in the green stage lights.

"What can we do?" the actress gasps, trying to recite her lines as convincingly as possible while sprawled under the fake rock. Her hands scrabble around her blindly, trying to seek out the crumpled bald-cap lying just out of reach of her awkward searching fingers. "We are outnumbered! There are too many of them!"

On cue, the stage crams full with actors dressed in the green uniforms and sloping hats of the Dai Li.

"If only I hadn't run off and abandoned you on the battlefield!" cries the waterbender, sporting an exaggerated limp. "Now there is no hope!" She presses a hand to her ample bosom, rising and falling dramatically with each breath. "Of winning this fight, or for Zuko to ask me out on a date!"

"You want me to ask you out on a date?" Actor Zuko splutters, springing to his feet. "Now I've got to win this fight!"

He leaps forward, his movements fueled by some purposeful arrogance that her brother rather lacked offstage. An undulating red fabric spreads slowly along the floor of the stage.

The actors playing the Dai Li scream shrilly and writhe, before fleeing offstage.

"That's right!" Actor Zuko bellows after them, puffing out his chest with pride. "Fear me and my very convenient lavabending!" He glances at his wrist with a shrug. "Also, the reinforcements should be arriving any moment now."

In response, more actors sporting Fire Empire military armour rush onstage. They chase the remaining Dai Li stragglers into the wings, before surrounding Zuko's actor in a clamour.

"All hail Prince Zuko, enemy of the Dai Li!"

"Zuko, defender of the realm!"

"Prince Zuko, the greatest son under the sun!"

And amid a cacophony of excitement, Zuko's actor is hoisted onto the shoulders of an adoring crowd and carried offstage.

Unbidden, Azula squirms uncomfortably in her seat.

I never got that.

It hits her with a flash of resentment so potent it leaves a bitter taste in her mouth. All Zuko ever had to do was fail or get lucky. He never had to work as hard as I had to. Her teeth clench together tightly. But he still got everything I never did.

But then next to her, Father shifts into a more comfortable position. The motion in the corner of her eye draws a smile from her.

Still, at least I have Father's love. At least Father loves me, even if nobody else does. She watches him with adoring eyes. I would throw out all the rest, if I could just give him what he wanted.

The drumming and cheers of a victory parade cut through her reverie. She can't help but scowl at Zuko's onstage counterpart, waving merrily at the throngs of adoring fans screaming his name.

Just wait, she reminds herself, summoning the last scraps of her patience. If this is the adulation they give a known traitor, imagine the honours due to you, Father's golden princess.

And so she lets her mouth curve into a grimacing sort of smirk. The painted backdrop scrolls rapidly, changing from the piers of the lower city to the manicured gardens and sloping roofs of the aristocratic quarter. And then at last, the towering walls of the Imperial Palace slide into view, and with them, the actors playing the royal family.

In the corner of her eye, Azula spots her father raise a hand to disguise a snort.

She fights to maintain some of the same composure. But while the actor playing Ozai sports a garish face full of heavy makeup, he is still tall, broad-shouldered, powerful. Next to Actor Iroh, who resembled little more than a squat over-padded clown, her father's onstage counterpart exudes a sombre gravitas, fitting entirely of his status as the Phoenix King.

Her eyes pass over the child standing inexplicably at his elbow, pausing momentarily in puzzlement.

"My son!" Actor Ozai intones in a rich, ringing voice. It echoes sonorously off the curving theatre walls. "After so many long years, you have proven yourself worthy of my name!" He smiles, his arms outstretched. "In this dark hour, I name you Defender of the Realm!"

Actor Zuko bares a predatory grin. "Thanks Dad," he quips insolently. "It's been a while."

"Indeed," Actor Ozai agrees. "What a shame your mother could not join us. But won't you say hello to your sister?" His hand moves to rest on the shoulder of the little girl standing next to him.

Azula's jaw drops, horror-struck.

Onstage, Actor Zuko barely spares a glance. "Hey, sis." Without waiting for an answer, he turns his attention back to his father. "So, Defender of the Realm, huh? Does that come with any perks, by any chance?"

Fury simmers under her skin as everyone chuckles, seemingly oblivious to the obscene dishonour the playwright had just done her. Her father's soft laughter, still muffled through the cage of his fingers, manages to wound her the most.

"I give you my trust, my power itself," Actor Ozai replies, setting his other arm on his son's shoulder. "I leave you command of all my councils. Who better to lead the empire than my only son?"

"I'll try my best," Actor Zuko says airily. His grin turns wolfish. "But, I've only been home for an hour, maybe two. Isn't there someone more qualified to run things around here?"

Actor Ozai glances at the little girl waiting obediently at his elbow, and shrugs. "Like who?"

"Are you seeing this?" Azula hisses, unable to contain herself. "They cast you as some sort of clown, Father, and me -"

"Azula," Father mutters gently, leaning close so that his warm breath tickles her ear. "It is just a play. A farce. It is meant to be amusing, nothing more."

"Amusing? It's insulting!" she huffs, barely paying attention as all the actors exit the stage and the setpieces shift again. "I don't know what this playwright is trying to insinuate, but -"

Her father chuckles, shaking his head. "Since when have the Ember Island Players shown themselves to be capable of insinuation? Subtlety is beyond these actors and artists, my dear."

Against her wishes, she perks up at the smile he directs at her - just at her, and no one else. "You really believe that, Father?"

"You know I do. Now, let us enjoy the rest of the absurd theatre this troupe has cobbled together in our honour." He is already looking away, his attention fixed back to the events unfolding onstage. "That is, if you are done pouting like a petulant child."

Her teeth sink into her lip, but she forces herself to say no more. The image of the little girl-child, waiting silently and dutifully at her father's elbow, flashes uncomfortably in her mind's eye.

The events onstage pick up pace, skipping through weeks of artful politicking in a matter of moments. Azula reduces her censure to a mere rolling of her eyes every time the play glosses over her brother's short-sighted blunders, or worse, misattributes one of her own schemes to someone else. Zuko's foolishness, Zhao's cunning, her father's greatness…

Well, what did you expect? A snide voice reminds her none too gently. You are your father's strong right hand. Your glory is his, and his glory is yours. This is what you wanted, remember?

And with that, she forces the tight, artificial smile back on her face. Her fingers quiver, digging into the sharp pleats of her robe as she struggles to calm her breathing.

This is what I wanted, she tells herself until it is all she can hear. The play fades into obscurity. This is what I chose.

Below, the audience gasps and cries out in distress. Azula startles, blinking as a handful of actors in green robes storm the set, surrounding the handsome young man tasked with the unfortunate role of her cousin, Lu Ten.

"My son!" Actor Iroh howls, dropping to his heavily-padded knees. "Nooo!"

"You could save him," suggests the wizened actor standing next to him, sporting the blue tattoos and bald-cap of another Air Nomad. They watch the catastrophe unfold at the forefront of the stage, waiting a safe distance away. "What do you think? Two old masters like us? Those pesky Dai Li wouldn't stand a chance!"

Actor Iroh stills, lifting his head. Foam rocks tumble from above, scattering over Lu Ten's actor until he is barely visible under the pile.

"But violence is bad," Actor Iroh declares. He waddles to his feet, still wiping his face with his sleeve. "Let's retreat instead."

"As an Air Nomad, I agree with this plan wholeheartedly." The old Air Nomad actor nods briskly. "There is no possible way this will ever backfire. Let's go!"

As the two actors exit the stage, Iroh scratches his head quizzically. "I'm right behind you, Gyatso. I hope we're not forgetting anyone important."

On cue, more red ribbons explode onto the now deserted stage. Actor Zuko rolls in from the wings, clutching at his ribs and groaning theatrically in pain.

Actor Ozai strides in, his robes billowing magnificently in his wake. Somewhere offstage, some unfortunate stage hand waves a fan to amplify the effect.

"You think you could defeat me?" Actor Ozai demands imperiously. "You think you could challenge me for the throne and live to tell the tale?"

Azula shakes her head. That isn't even what happened… but okay.

"Who would ever believe you?" Actor Zuko cries, pushing to his hands and knees. "I'll tell everyone that you did it! That you killed Lu Ten and conspired with the Dai Li to do it!"

"Lies!" Actor Ozai pronounces. "All lies! And the penalty for such treason…is death!"

The audience breaks out into excited applause.

"That may be so, Father," Actor Zuko grits, staggering back into a fighting stance. "But you might remember how hard I am to kill." He raises his hands in front of him defensively.

Actor Ozai lunges forward. A bolt of white ribbon snaps across the stage. Actor Zuko moves to deflect it, and it bounces harmlessly off his upper arm.

"Is that all you've got, old man?" he crows defiantly.

Azula sighs, rubbing at her temples wearily.

The two actors trade quickly-choreographed blows, punctuated with curls of red ribbon and bright firelight flashing somewhere behind the backdrop. The crowd devours it all with gusto, dazzled by the special effects.

Rows of painted golden flames slide across the stage, while the backdrop glows a bright menacing red. Actor Ozai lets out a peal of bloodcurdling, triumphant laughter.

A white ribbon catches Actor Zuko in the chest, knocking him flat on his back. He twitches and spasms uncontrollably, sprawled like a dying fish on the ground.

Azula's teeth clench together intently. If only Father had finished the job back then, she thinks vehemently. Everything would have been so much simpler.

And it would have been for the best. Instead of wasting away in that tiny cellar until he resembled little more than a withered husk of himself, Zuko would have gotten a quick, merciful end. Like Lu Ten. Like everyone else.

He brought it on himself. He deserves everything that's happening to him now. And worse.

"Any last words?" Actor Ozai taunts, looming over his son's body to deliver the final, killing blow.

But Actor Zuko cranes his head upward, and his face brightens inexplicably. "Oh look!" he shouts, pointing into the wings. "Deus ex machina!"

Actor Ozai frowns in confusion, pausing. "A lion-turtle?"

"No." Zuko props himself onto his elbows, smirking victoriously. "Even better."

Actor Katara barges onstage like a cannonball. The backdrop suddenly dims, the lights cool through a cerulean paper filter. Billowing tapestries of blue silk overwhelm the set in a trice; a network of woven ribbons pelt Ozai's actor before bouncing off him harmlessly.

"That's right!" Actor Katara yells. "Your days of tyranny are over, Prince Ozai!"

Actor Ozai's face twists into an indignant mask. "It's Emperor Ozai!" he corrects petulantly.

"Whatever."

A foam sphere whizzes in from the wings, missing Ozai by a generous handspan. But the actor still screams piteously as he drops to the ground.

Actor Katara hunches over him, her hands raised and twisting eerily. At her feet, actor Ozai writhes and convulses in a convincing show of an agonising, slow death.

"What are you doing?" Actor Zuko asks, his voice hushed in terror and admiration.

"I'm bending his blood," Actor Katara announces, amid a chorus of horrified gasps rising from the audience. "It's the least he deserves after everything he did."

"You can bloodbend?" Actor Zuko gapes at the waterbender, before mustering back to his feet. The lecherous smirk slides back onto his face. "I'm so attracted to you right now."

Actor Katara whips her hair over her shoulder seductively. "Guess what else I can bloodbend?"

"I don't have to guess. I'm sure we'll find out later."

Ew. Azula pinches the bridge of her nose, cursing the playwright's idiotic dialogue and pacing. And still, she thinks, all that could be forgiven if only the play stopped focusing on her idiot brother's pillow-companions and more on -

"Leave my dad alone!"

The back of Azula's head collides against the wooden frame of her chair. She stiffens, fixated - despite all her silent protestations to the contrary - upon the tiny girl-child who had just burst onto the scene. "Or else!"

"Oh?" Actor Katara tilts her chin, staring down her nose at the princess. "Or else what, little girl?"

Azula's hands ball into fists. Her onstage counterpart does the same, drawing herself up to her full height. "Or else…I'll make you regret it!"

The voluptuous waterbender laughs harshly. "What could you possibly do to me?"

"Be careful, Katara," Actor Zuko stage whispers into her ear. "Azula is a generational prodigy. Don't make the mistake of underestimating her."

Unconsciously, Azula finds herself nodding. The audience falls silent with gleeful anticipation, eager to witness the showdown that would surely follow.

Instead, Actor Katara shrugs and punches forward. A sheet of blue fabric whizzes toward the princess, wrapping around her entire body until she trips and falls over onto the ground.

Azula's mouth hangs open in stunned disbelief. The crowd below boos and jeers loudly in disbelief.

"Come on," Actor Katara says blithely, ignoring the crowd's rising censure. She grabs at Actor Zuko's hand. "Let's get out of here. We have to find your uncle."

"Okay," Actor Zuko agrees. "How rude of him to forget about us like that."

"I know! After everything we've done for him…"

And with that, the pair of actors skip off into the wings, heedless of the havoc they leave in their wake.

Meanwhile, the little girl playing the princess crawls over to Actor Ozai's unmoving body. She starts to sob piteously, a child's heartbreaking cries.

I never did that, Azula thinks with a flash of intense fury. I was never useless like that!

The smell of singed fabric wafts to her nose, alerting her to the way her robe smoulders under her hissing fingertips. Chewing the inside of her cheek, she steeples her fingers instead, taking a deep breath to force herself calm.

It's just a play, she reminds herself. It's a stupid play. Surely everyone will recognize that.

The background of the ruined palace glides out of view. The little girl wails louder as she and her father slide smoothly offstage on one of the multiple conveyor belts.

Azula wills herself to think of happier things. Like finding the playwright who had penned this monstrosity and roasting him nicely in front of the entire audience.

A ship emerges from the wings. The backdrop changes from black to a cheerful pale blue, a bright sun hanging from the ceiling wire. The actors playing Zuko and Katara march confidently across the deck, as rows of fake waves roll across the stage.

"You saved my life!" Actor Zuko declares, grabbing actor Katara by the hand. He drops to a knee, pressing his face to her knuckles. "How can I ever thank you?"

Actor Katara flutters her thickened eyelashes at him. "I can think of at least one way," she purrs.

Actor Zuko flashes her a wicked grin. "Just one?" he inquires, grabbing her by the waist and tugs her closer. "Were you displeased by my royal endowment, waterbender?"

Actor Katara yanks him back to his feet by the shoulders. "I don't know. Why don't you remind me, Your Highness?" She grabs him by the collar and drags him purposefully offstage. "Oh, by the way, once we're done here, I'm going north."

Actor Zuko stumbles over his feet in surprise. "North? Why?"

"Because," Actor Katara sighs dramatically, pausing by the wings to press a hand into her heaving chest. "After everything we've been through together, now is the time for me to liberate the women of my tribe. For news of their plight has reached my ears and moved me tremendously." She stares off into the distance dreamily. "It might take a very long time."

Actor Zuko shrugs. "Sounds boring," he quips, steering her offstage. "Can we just skip to the siege already?"

And with that, the curtains swing shut. The torches lining the theatre walls spring back to life, flooding the hall with warm golden light.

Azula barely hears the announcement for intermission over the buzz of excited chatter of the patrons rising from their seats.

"Well," her father comments as he also gets to his feet. "That was certainly interesting."

"Interesting?" Azula splutters, barely able to contain herself. "That was the worst play the Ember Island Players have ever produced, and that was an abysmal standard to begin with!"

"Now Azula," her father admonishes, his amusement plain in his voice. "Regardless of your feelings, this is still a great honour accorded to us. A princess remains gracious in the face of all things."

Even the child they cast me as? Azula longs to retort, but bites it back behind her teeth. Instead, she grudgingly follows her father and mother out of their private box and into the upper hallway overlooking the newly restored theatre lobby.

A chandelier cut from volcanic crystal threatens to blind her with its incessant sparkle, harsh after the dimness of the auditorium. She averts her eyes, resists the urge to lean against the balcony railing. Her fingers trail along her formal robes, conscious of the spots where she had inadvertently singed them during the play. She clasps her hands in front of her, trying to conceal them from view as a few of her father's councillors join them.

They acknowledge her with a nod before turning their attention on her father. Her disdainful smile strains her cheeks, as she stands stiffly at her father's right shoulder.

"A fine play!" one of them remarks, straightening from his bow. "Such a tribute to your legacy, Your Worship."

"The playwright made some most…curious decisions in the first half," another muses, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "Hopefully they will go somewhere with it. I do despise being left in suspense."

Her father smiles thinly. "Oh, don't worry," he assures them. "I still have faith that everyone will get the ending they so richly deserve."

The councillors at least have the grace to appear discomfited by Ozai's endorsement of the highly unusual play. Azula waits patiently for them to discuss further, perhaps address the bloated and confusing storylines or the woeful mischaracterizations. But instead, they strike up a conversation about the glory that awaited them on the day of Sozin's Comet.

The false smile fades from her face.

In the corner of her eye, she catches her mother shaking her head. "It beggars belief," she hears Ursa mutter to herself. "I don't remember the Ember Island Players being this bad before."

Azula smirks before she can help it. Then Bujing and Zhao meander over, their eyes flitting past her unseeingly, as though she was another bauble on her father's glittering regalia.

She swells with indignation as they laugh about the play with her father good-naturedly. How can they not see what an insult this is? The rage threatens to burst out of her, and her chest aches with the effort of holding it all in, like the perfect princess her father needed her to be. I am so much more than a screechy little girl of no consequence. Look at what I've accomplished.

But losing her temper over a slight so small as having her most notable accomplishments omitted or reassigned to her father in a silly play would not raise herself in anyone's esteem. And she had already broken once today in front of her mother. She would not shame herself any further, no matter how grave the insult.

Just wait, she thinks vehemently, twiddling with the loose ends of her long, fine hair spilling down her torso. I'll show them. I'll show them all. I am my father's golden child. I can be patient too.

For him, I can be absolutely anything.

Somehow, she musters enough poise to return to her seat at her father's right hand without complaint. As the theatre darkens, stilling to a hush in anticipation for the second half of the play, Azula satisfies herself by scanning all the rows of people seated below. The nobility and theatre patrons of the Empire capital, she thinks dispassionately. Old men and women holed up in their estates, preening on mounds of gold and riches brought in off the labour of the colonies. What did they know of what went on outside their doors, except for what they were shown in some stupid play? No wonder they lapped up whatever was onstage. They hardly knew better.

And her father's advisors, Zhao and Bujing and the lot of them, didn't she know by now that they were greasy sycophants through and through? They wouldn't dare disagree with her father even with the safety of the homeland at stake. Surely they must find the play as ludicrous as she did, they simply lacked the courage to voice their misgivings.

And why would they? The Phoenix King himself had been given the royal treatment onstage, it was everyone else who had suffered in the translation. Herself chief among them.

But perhaps that was her due. After all, what use was she as her father's strong right hand if she could be separated from him so easily?

And with that thought and a sidelong glance at the profile of her father's serene, smiling face, she settles back into her chair more comfortably. She even leans forward in a show of undisguised interest as the curtains glide open to reveal a glittering white set. Let's see what this demented playwright has on offer this time.

With that thought lulling her to a sort of placid amusement, she watches patiently as the rest of the play unfolds. Thankfully, the play spends little time on the buildup to the siege of the North. Instead, it crumbles laughably quickly under actor Zhao's decisive blows.

"You'll never take me alive!" actor Zuko declares, as the rest of his castmates truss him up and drag him offstage. "Make no mistake, I will have my vengeance! You and my father will regret the day you - mmf!"

The rest of his words muffle indistinguishably as someone slides a gag over his mouth.

"Finally," actor Zhao sighs, wiping his forehead. "I didn't think anyone was capable of shutting him up."

Her fingers drum patiently as the action returns to the Empire capital, forgetting her brother's bland companions with careless aplomb. She lifts an eyebrow as the focus shifts to the antics of the dread Blue Spirit, wreaking havoc among the Phoenix King's inner circle with ruthless efficiency. One by one, the masked vigilante cuts down Ozai's advisors, dispatching them with fanciful sword-dances and artfully choreographed ribbonwork.

The Blue Spirit couldn't bend, Azula thinks with a sigh, but whatever.

Finally, the scene shifts back to the throne room, empty save for the Phoenix King, the young princess, and the barrier of flickering paper flames separating the two of them.

"My daughter!" the actor playing her father pronounces, pressing a hand to the fake muscles threatening to burst out from under his elaborate crimson robe. "My porcelain princess, my golden child. You, who are most precious to me, who I dare not let stray from my side until now, when I have no choice!"

Azula straightens in her seat, brightening despite herself. Her onstage counterpart remains bent in a kowtow, her forehead pressed firmly to the ground. Next to the imposing grandeur of her father's actor and fire-encrusted throne, she appears absurdly small.

"The Blue Spirit has cruelly disposed of all my most loyal men!" the actor playing her father continues, his voice rising to an outraged wail. "He will come for me next, I have no doubt!"

"He will not."

The little girl onstage finally raises her head, sitting back on her haunches. "I am your most humble, loyal servant. As long as I draw breath, the Blue Spirit will not touch you," she swears.

Azula perks up to hear her onstage counterpart speaking again. And yet, even though the young actor's posture is ramrod-straight and powerful, the intensity of her vow rings feeble and hollow, undercut by the high-pitched softness of the little girl's voice.

Actor Ozai points a shaking finger at her. "Root out this masked traitor," he commands. "Bring him to justice!"

"Yes, Daddy," Actor Azula replies solemnly. She bows again, obediently. "I am yours to command. I will bring you the head of the Blue Spirit, or I will fall trying."

Azula winces at the lines, impossible to take seriously when delivered by that innocent little girl. There's no way around it, she thinks, trying not to grimace. A child so young should never have been forced to play such a role. What was that casting director thinking?

But even in spite of that, her anticipation mounts. Because regardless of how underwhelming the rest of the play had turned out to be, it now turns to the part that had made her. Her crowning achievement, the capture and exposure of the infamous Blue Spirit.

It must have been very difficult to do that to someone you love, her mother's voice reminds her. In a flash, her brother's disappointed eyes are all she can see in the darkness.

Her breath catches, her throat tightening as though someone had slipped a noose around it. Her fingers find her neck, her chest, as she fights the crushing weight of her accursed weakness to gasp for air.

If her father hears her struggling, he gives no indication of it. His attention remains wholly focused onstage, an amused smirk tugging at his mouth.

It doesn't matter, she tells herself forcefully. It doesn't matter how you feel. That was your moment. That was what you had to do to earn Father's love.

Next to that, what was disappointing her mother and her brother? And after a lifetime of disappointments, wasn't that all they deserved?

Shaking her head, now aching fit to burst, she tears her gaze to the stage again, where the Blue Spirit actor weaves and leaps through a series of elaborate traps littering the palace setpieces.

"Is that all?" he calls brashly, after slipping through a network of entwined ribbons to stand proudly at centre stage, his chest puffing outward in a display of pride. "Is that the best you can do to stop me?"

Then, the actor playing Azula barrels onstage in a conflagration of blue ribbons. "You've made it further than any of us expected, Blue Spirit," the little girl cries, in a rather pitiful attempt at sounding threatening. "But your reign of terror ends here!"

The Blue Spirit actor laughs scornfully. "And I suppose you think you're going to defeat me?"

Azula's heart rises as her onstage counterpart squares her shoulders defiantly. Even though the Blue Spirit actor towers over her, she still meets his gaze without fear. "I know so," she answers.

"Oho!" the Blue Spirit answers, withdrawing his dual swords in a single fluid motion. "A brave child indeed." He slashes forward, and Azula's actor repels him swiftly with a flick of blue ribbon. "Or a most foolhardy one!"

They tussle onstage, evenly matched at first. Azula's smile widens, because in spite of the poor casting, perhaps some part of the truth of it had made it onstage after all. Wasn't she her father's most precious child, wasn't she renowned and feared for her impressiveness and her youth? And yet, hadn't she been underestimated at every turn, hadn't she found herself pitted against every person in the world, even those who were supposed to love her most, solely for the crime of being her father's favourite?

It stands to reason that some simple-minded playwright had looked at all of that and seen her as a victim. A little girl crushed under the weight of circumstance, who had no business wading in royal affairs and yet, made herself equal to them anyway. It had never crossed her mind to think of it that way, and yet, it resonates strangely somewhere within her.

She shakes her head, convinced that she must be nearly as mad as Mother if she was starting to see any value in the Ember Island Players' work. Her smile widens with a faint glow of pride.

Onstage, the Blue Spirit actor finally overpowers the child princess. He looms over her fallen, trembling form, gloating with triumph.

Azula's jaw drops in wordless outrage as the Blue Spirit actor rips off his mask, revealing the scarred prince beneath. "You really thought you could defeat me, little sister?" Actor Zuko boasts. "I am the most powerful son under the sun. You're just our father's porcelain doll. Every time I'm knocked down, I get up stronger than before, but whenever you fall -"

He nudges her contemptuously with his foot, "- you shatter."

A choking sound escapes her, strangling her where she sits. Onstage, the little princess wails piteously, sobbing a child's heart-breaking cries.

It's a trick, she tries to tell herself, frozen in her shock. It's a dramatic technique, the playwright is using it to elicit sympathy for my character, any moment she'll get up and win…they didn't really rewrite my finest moment into a loss for no good reason…

But then the actor playing her father marches onstage, accompanied by a retinue of uniformed guards. "It was a trap!" the Phoenix King actor declares, as the unmasked Blue Spirit leaps backward in apparent shock. "Guards, seize my traitor son and throw him where even sunlight will not find him!"

Something hot and wet slides down Azula's face as the actor playing Zuko is dragged offstage, hissing and spitting and cursing by a dozen men. "And in case my traitor of a son gets it in his head to defy me yet again," Actor Ozai continues pointedly, "I will personally oversee his imprisonment, to ensure he doesn't slip off."

Then, as the rest of the stage clears, he picks his way over to where the little princess still huddles over in a sobbing heap, and kneels beside her. "Don't listen to him," he tells her gently, resting a giant hand on her tiny, frail shoulder. "You did wonderfully, Azula."

The little girl hiccups, wiping her face into an oversized sleeve. "You really think so?"

"Of course." Actor Ozai smiles genially at her, cupping her face in his hands. "Now what would cheer you up? I know! How about I let you wear my crown and sit on my throne while I'm gone? Wouldn't that be such a fun game to play?"

The room seems to spin around Azula. She is scarcely able to breathe except in short, shallow gasps. Onstage, her child counterpart giggles and leaps into her father's arms, hugging him delightedly. "Thank you, Daddy!" she simpers, burying her face into his chest. "You're always so good to me!" A pause as she kisses his cheek. "I would be nothing without you."

"Don't worry," Actor Ozai reassures her, stroking her hair fondly. "You'll always be my good little girl."

A rumbling sound trails his words, the sound of laughter and applause as the actors exit the stage.

And Father, sitting next to her, chuckling lightheartedly into his hand. She stares at him wildly, open-mouthed and reeling. As though he had slapped her with that hand, as though he had wrapped it tight around her throat to choke the living daylights out of her.

The rest of the play continues on stage as though nothing was amiss at all. She can't pay any attention to it at all. There's a roaring sound in her ears, the crushing tide of her blood drowning out everything else in the world, so overwhelming she nearly keels over.

But then the curtains swing shut and there are more cheers and thunderous applause. The entire troupe of actors stand in a line before the swaying red drapes, bowing again and again as the audience leaps to its feet. Bouquets of striped fire lilies cascade onto the stage, showering the cast with bright orange petals.

"What a strange play," Ursa mutters, her words somehow audible through Azula's frozen, apoplectic shock. "At least there were no lion-turtles in that ending."

"It's all about the small comforts," her father agrees, shaking his head wryly. "What an interesting interpretation of events. Azula, what did you think?"

It takes all of her strength to remain seated upright in her chair, to retain the grace and poise expected of her as a dignified Crown Princess. In her mind, all she can see is the child actress, sobbing and screaming and throwing a tantrum onstage. "It was fine," she grits out stiffly.

But then her father smiles at her, and instead of placating her, it makes her seethe with indignation instead. "Gracious as always. That's my good, little girl."

The short journey back home to the palace passes in a daze. Azula barely notices any of it, still frozen in a shell-shocked, numb silence.

Her father's advisors notice nothing amiss as they heap their adulation for the play. For his part, Ozai only smiles beatifically, adorning himself with their praise until he glows with unparalleled radiance.

Azula finds herself unable to look at him the entire palanquin ride back. As though to cast her eyes upon his serene smile was to stare into the blinding heart of the midday sun itself.

Instead, she settles for watching her mother, curled up in a corner and peering out the translucent lawn curtains. A strange understanding thrums through her at the sight - the longing of a broken creature to escape its gilded cage. That unquenchable thirst for freedom, even when dimmed to the faintest fleeting spark.

When had hers gone out, Azula wonders. When had she learned to be content within that cage?

But at last, when they dismount in front of the royal pavilion and the palanquin weaves back along the winding paths of the restored estate, Azula hesitates.

Ursa retires for the night, slipping indoors as silently as a shadow.

Azula forces herself to face her father's profile. Somehow, shrouded under the darkness of the night sky and a thousand stars, it becomes easier to bear the sight of him.

"Father," she chances, her voice strangely hoarse.

He stirs, but does not acknowledge her with an answer of his own.

Chewing her lip, she presses on anyway. After everything she had done for him, hadn't she earned that right? "About that play…" She wavers as he turns his head to ply her with the full force of his gaze, cool and exacting, but at least without judgement. "That - that's not -"

Her father tilts his head, as though sharing some secret knowledge with her. "Am I to understand that you were displeased with your portrayal?"

Relief crashes over her, making her so dizzy she nearly sways. "Shouldn't I be?"

"Azula…" Her father strokes his jaw thoughtfully. Even in the darkness of the night, she can see his mouth curving into a wry smirk. "It was an exaggeration of what is. No more, no less."

Her hand finds her chest. Somewhere beneath it blooms a fierce, dull pain. It surprises her, to learn that after everything she had done, it could still hurt so much. "Is that really what you think of me?" she splutters. "Even Zuko was portrayed more favourably -"

"Your miserable brother benefited greatly from the translation to the stage, it is true," her father allows, an edge creeping into his voice and turning it hard as flint. "But only a fool would confuse it for reality." His smile turns warm, a lone sunbeam piercing through the dark of the night. "Are you a fool, Azula?"

She shakes her head quickly. "No, Father."

"I thought not." Then, he steps toward her, bending over so his face levels with her own. His eyes, warm and golden, are suddenly all she can see. "I am no fool either. Do not confuse me for one." His voice hardens dangerously, even as his fingers gently tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "Zuko wavered. He is a stain on our family's honour. But you...you have proven your worth to me."

"And what is that?" Azula blurts out, suddenly unable to bear it anymore. "What am I to you, Father?" She stares pleadingly into his eyes, willing him to say something, anything to break the thick cloud of despair hanging over her like a funeral shroud. "What am I?"

Her father answers without hesitation. "Golden." He kisses her forehead tenderly, his hands warm where they cup her face. "You are my golden mirror, Azula. Worthy and capable of reflecting pure sunlight without breaking."

Chapter 63: summer's end

Chapter Text

disclaimer. i own nothing you recognise.

author's notes. hang on to your seats everyone, it's a bumpy ride ahead.

i give you…

southern lights.

chapter lxiii. summer's end

in conviction we stand as one
yet a fragmented existence
became our norm

"atoms aligned, coming undone" / sylvaine

Late morning sunlight floods through the slits in the curtains, drawn tight across the windows of Ukano's study.

Mai cups her head in her hands, shrinking away from it reflexively. Seeking out the shelter of the shadows in the corner, still cool even in the merciless heat of the day, building with every passing minute.

A breeze whistles through the cracks in the window-panes, stirring the heavy drapes into a billowing motion. Her blank gaze follows its rhythmic swell, the sunlight blinding and harsh to her eyes and turning the dimness of the room to a shimmering dreamlike haze.

Beyond the confines of her family home in the aristocratic quarter, where the edge of the caldera gave way to the plummeting slope of the mountainside, the sounds of the lower city rise to an indistinct roar. The blaring of ship-horns, the barked commands of the guards running their drills. The constant hum of the harbour folk, now strained and tense in the disquiet that had plunged through the entire capital, clashing with the screeching of the seabirds winging across the bay.

She barely hears any of it over the pounding in her ears, matching the inconsolable drumming beneath her skull. With a groan, she clutches more tightly at her head, only half-hearing Kei Lo's ceaseless stream of prattle into the silence of her father's study.

Instead, the distant buzz of the late summer cicadahoppers fills her ears. Gritting her teeth, she glares at the ornate crystal decanter, sitting proudly on its perch in the coolest, darkest corner of her father's study. Once, it had boasted no small quantity of her father's prized plum wine, bottled from the vintage reserves of Yu Dao's finest orchards. Sweet and rich and heavy on the tongue, but burning like honeyed fire with every sip she and her stupid boyfriend had consumed the night before.

At the time, it had seemed preferable to joining her parents in attending some stupid play running at the royal theatre. But now the decanter lies almost empty and Mai's head is near fit to burst from the overindulgence. Kei Lo, on the other hand, remains as unrelentingly exuberant as always, either enviably unaffected by the massive hangover gripping her hostage in its iron jaws or refusing to let it silence him anyway.

Either way, she thinks to herself dully, it was truly unfair.

"Mai?"

She blinks, finally reacting to the sound of her name. Her gaze moves sluggishly from the nearly-empty decanter, to the curtain still swaying in the mild breeze, and finally to Kei Lo's quizzical brown eyes. "Mm?"

"I've been calling your name for the last minute," her boyfriend chides. And even though his voice turns petulant, he gives her a teasing smile. "Rough morning, huh?"

She merely groans again, cradling her head in her arms.

"I have to say, I'm surprised," he continues, either oblivious to her discomfort or deriving far too much entertainment from it. "The great and powerful Mai, the governor's strong and silent daughter...taken out by a flagon of plum wine! Who knew?" He rests his chin on his hand, his eyes glinting with amusement. "I thought you army types could hold your liquor, but you sure proved me wrong!"

She raises her head fractionally to ply him with a ferocious glare. Kei Lo's smile hitches, before he raises his hands defensively. "Not that it's anything to be ashamed of! Definitely...definitely not...and I wouldn't imply that at all in the slightest -"

"Kei Lo," Mai grumbles. "Do me a favour and shut up."

He lets out a nervous laugh that grates on her every last nerve. "Um! Of course! Right away! Anything the lady wants, the lady gets!" He presses a finger to his lips, as though that was enough to stem the endless tirade of his chatter. "You won't hear another word out of me, oh no, not at all -"

She is already running a finger along one of the blades concealed in her sleeve when a voice at the door interrupts them, stemming Kei Lo's stammering tirade mid-sentence.

"Oh there you are. I've been looking everywhere for you."

Mai stiffens immediately, and then instantly regrets it. Clapping her hands to her temples, which ring out in agony at the sudden movement.

Her boyfriend's smile turns warm as the study door swings open with a loud creak of rusted hinges. "Mother? What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you two the same question," Kei Ling replies crisply, stepping into Ukano's study as though it belonged to her too. Her nostrils flare as she surveys the pair of them critically. "You were always hopeless, Kei Lo, but I expected more of a governor's daughter. The pair of you can hardly show your faces at the palace looking like that."

"Huh?" Mai blurts out, her parched mouth running dry for other reasons. "The palace?"

"Well, today is a big day," Kei Ling reminds her, the corners of her mouth quirking with thinly veiled amusement. "The Phoenix King's council still has much to settle and they can hardly put it off any longer."

"So?" Mai croaks, still struggling to understand.

"Really, Mai, you'd better smarten yourself up, and quick." Kei Ling shakes her head, and a few grizzled flyaways flutter about the broad planes of her face. "The council meets within the hour, and you're both expected to be there."

Her stomach, already churning from half a decant of fortified plum wine, threatens to upend its contents all over the papers littering her father's desk. "Expected?" she stammers, her palms already starting to turn clammy. "I...I think you're mistaken -"

"I most certainly am not," Kei Ling scolds, even though her mouth curves into a knowing smirk at the distress spreading plain over Mai's face. "Why, Princess Azula asked for you personally."

Mai gulps, suddenly unable to breathe in memory of the fear that had kept her ensconced in the solitude of her father's study with only her gormless boyfriend for company. "She…she did?"

Kei Ling shakes her head again. "Mai, you can be such a silly girl sometimes. Aren't you forgetting that you're Azula's best friend?" Her smile widens, showing off small sharp teeth. "It will not do for you to remain huddled in this dark room like a penniless alley drunkard. Not when Azula has expressed that she so wanted you to attend today's council."

Somehow, I doubt that. A chill runs down Mai's spine at the thought of what the princess could be plotting now. What punishment had she devised in that twisted mind of hers as a fitting retribution for Mai's treachery? And did Azula honestly believe that she would meekly walk into her trap without putting up a fight?

"I didn't think she wanted me there," Mai answers carefully. Her fingers surreptitiously graze the numerous blades concealed along the length of her bodice. "I thought she had it under control, all by herself. I thought she didn't need anyone else's help."

"Help?" Kei Ling lets out a ringing laugh that only makes Mai's headache worse. "Don't sell the princess short. No...no, she wanted me to make sure you were at today's meeting so you could see it for yourself."

Mai's eyebrows knit together, even as her blood runs cold with impending dread. "See what?"

Kei Ling's grin turns feral. "The sentencing of the traitor prince."

Within the confines of the Phoenix King's audience chamber, time seems to stand still.

Mai tries not to scoff under her breath, fidgeting in the furthest darkened corner she could find without attracting any undue attention to herself. It hadn't been longer than a fortnight since she had most unwisely cracked and given away her entire act. But to her, it feels like a much longer time had passed since she had last set foot in the loathsome, stifling hall with its towering columns, billowing curtains, and gaudy glittering throne.

It assaults her eyes, a burnished gleam barely visible behind the customary barrier of flame flickering at the edge of the pedestal. To Mai's relief, the fire burns nearly as gold as the throne instead of Azula's seething blue. Even the temperature of the air feels less uncomfortably warm by comparison.

Still, she couldn't be too careful. At that moment, Azula may not have enjoyed the vantage point of her father's throne, but she still kneels patiently at the foot of the steps. Whatever goodwill she had harboured for Mai on account of their childhood friendship was probably long spent by now. And if Azula could sacrifice her own brother without scruples to further her own ends, what horrible fate would she plot out for Mai?

The hall rings with voices, arguing back and forth about the city's defenses. Mai barely hears any of it, her stomach twisting into knots. Sweat drips down the back of her neck and dampens the back of her dishevelled collar. She narrows her eyes suspiciously at Azula, still sitting calm and statue-still at the head of the hall, and strangely silent for the urgency gripping the councillors.

Why am I even here? A strange buzzing sound fills her ears, clashing with the hiss of sibilant whispering men. Where's Zuko? I thought they were going to sentence him.

Guilt washes over her, making her feel sick to her stomach. Zuko was going to die, and it was all her fault. If only she had taken her lessons closer to heart, if only she had lowered her head and not meddled in matters that didn't concern her. But Zuko had always thrown good common sense and self-preservation out the window, and she just had to do the same wherever he was concerned.

Now he was going to be paraded before his father's men while they read him his death sentence. That was the price of his betrayal. And Mai's would be to watch it all, silent and unable to intervene.

She grits her teeth so hard it nearly makes her see stars.

"Enough." The Phoenix King's dry command slices across the argument unfolding across the seated councillors. "I did not convene this meeting to waste more time I do not have. My daughter, what do you think we should do?"

His question hangs decisively in the sudden, absolute silence. Mai's mouth goes dry.

But Azula remains motionless, her hands planted firmly in her lap. "Your Radiance," she answers primly, "your council has reviewed the defensive plan ten times over. Let it be enough. You have surrounded yourself with strong, capable advisors. It is time to trust their wisdom to lead us to victory."

Huh? Mai's brow crumples in confusion. What is going on?

"Azula," her father admonishes, a bite of impatience entering his voice. "I know you have the utmost respect for the council. But so far, this plan has allowed my brother's forces to waltz straight into the heart of our territory unhindered -"

"Let them," Azula answers evenly, almost carelessly. "The reports from the front suggest that the enemy fleet cannot pass the Great Gates. It does not matter if they have one ship or one thousand. So long as we hold the gates, they will not take the bay. And when Sozin's Comet arrives to lend its strength to our invasion force, all of our enemies will be neatly situated in one place, a mere stone's throw away. How gracious of Uncle to make it so easy for us."

She raises a hand to touch the back of her neck, hidden under the weight of her loose black hair cascading to the small of her back. "I have been advised that it is nearly impossible to take a land base by sea. Even so, I have given command to Admiral Zhao." The corners of her mouth quirk upward. "We may have had our disagreements in the past, but even I cannot dispute his seasoned military prowess."

Mai narrows her eyes suspiciously. But Azula remains still and impassive, immaculate from the sharp pleats of her heavy regalia to the tip of her flame-shaped headpiece. The gold is polished to a bright gleam, dwarfing the small topknot gathered proud and upright at the crown of her head.

What is she playing at? Her eyes flick over to where Zhao kowtows gratefully to the princess in acknowledgment of the great honour she had bestowed upon him. Maybe she's setting him up too. She always wanted to fry that fish. He's a fool to trust her now. Anyone would be.

"Very well," Ozai breathes, his voice warming appreciatively. "And the city limits?"

Azula inclines her head. "I have it under control."

"Under control?" her father echoes incredulously. The barrier of flames grows dangerously brighter. "Lady Mao and her men have been camped within throwing distance of our border for nearly a week, while Iroh's army draws ever closer! Is that your idea of control?"

But Azula holds her head high, unflinching in the face of the flames as they threaten to careen out of control, raging and unstable and nearly caressing her cheek with hot flying cinders. "Knowledge is power. And once you know what your enemy wants, you have leverage. Or have you not wondered why even with all the strength of Ma'inka Island at her command, Lady Mao hesitates to strike?" She flips her hair over her shoulder with a single sweep of her hand before placing it carefully back in her lap. "She's waiting for Iroh. To join her strength to his before marching on us for good."

A stunned silence fills the hall in response.

"It won't come to that, of course," Azula continues smoothly, with an unassuming nonchalance that belies just about everything Mai had come to expect from her. "Lady Mao can wait for as long as she likes. Iroh will never take the Great Gates, and her patience will have been wasted." She leans forward earnestly, the slim profile of her pale face reflecting the golden fire lining the base of her father's throne. "Even as we speak, my creatures slip through her ranks to take them down from the inside. I expect nothing short of her complete and total surrender. By this time tomorrow, they will all be locked up in the finest prison facilities the upper quarter has to offer."

"Excellent," the Phoenix King praises. "Just as I have come to expect of you, Princess Azula."

Azula kowtows to the ground, pressing her forehead into the polished gilt floor. "Your will is my command, Father. I am your most loyal, devoted servant." The slavering adoration dripping from the princess's voice makes Mai's skin crawl.

"And let nobody forget it," Ozai supplies, his smile evident in the warmth of his voice. Through the curtain of fire, Mai vaguely perceives the outline of his silhouette as it straightens upon his throne. "Now…onto matters of a far more personal nature." Abruptly, the flames sputter to mere embers, plunging the entire hall into darkness.

"Bring the traitor in."

Mai's blood runs cold like the drafts of wind spilling through the spidery cracks in the stone walls, stirring the heavy red drapes that graze the outer edge of her sleeves. If she had been seated at her usual spot, perhaps Azula would have noticed the visible quivering of her limbs. And yet, for all her efforts to conceal herself in the furthest, darkest corner of the hall, Azula had probably sensed her weakness already anyway. Scented it like blood in the water.

The doors swing open with a low thud that reverberates around the towering hall. Then, the march of heavy boots, and the harsh clink of chains cutting through the centre aisle of the small assembly.

Her fingers find her mouth before she can help it. From where she sits, Zuko is little more than a sliver of wasted grey rags and bone-pale skin, clammy and waxen even in the dim light. But she doesn't miss how loosely the shackles hang off his wrists, how he staggers under the weight of the chains, barely able to stand upright.

One of the guards prods at his back with the butt of a spear and the council erupts into titters.

Guilt stabs through her like a burning coal. She had the luxury of hiding away in her father's mansion. Zuko had borne the brunt of his father's wrath in the form of yet another devastating lesson written into his very body.

They march him to the foot of Ozai's throne before tossing him contemptuously to the ground. Mai winces as he hits the ground heavily, taking longer than he should have to clamber to all fours. The rags dangle off his skeletal frame, his once-powerful body shrivelled away to little more than skin and bones. His hair hangs in limp strands, clumping together in a stringy tangle about his ears and shadowing his eyes from view.

"So." Ozai's voice, when he finally speaks again, quivers with poorly-suppressed triumph. "We come to it at last. My firstborn son, guilty of the highest treason in the land." He rises to his feet, the sputtering flames warping his shadow as it stretches along the shining lacquered floor. "Impersonating a spirit, trespassing, inciting violence among the masses. Blackmail, abduction, murder of those who were loyal to me. And above all else…" Ozai's voice hardens as the flames before him rise to a menacing red glare. "Treason. Conspiracy to unseat his own father from his rightful place on the throne."

Whispers sweep all along the hall. But Zuko doesn't move, except for the faint rise and fall of his shoulders.

"What punishment could possibly be fitting for such heinous crimes?" Ozai asks loudly, sitting back on his throne. His hands grip the armrests, fingers splayed tightly against the ornate gold carvings. "What vengeance could possibly meet such a brazen display of disloyalty?"

Mai expects the councillors to erupt into a frenzy at the invitation. But to her surprise, apart from a surprised cough or two, the hall remains fixed in a dubious silence. As though the horde of salivating, power-hungry men used to plotting from the shadows had, upon finding the target of their ambitions and ruminations lying powerless within reach, had suddenly lost their nerve.

Or learned that it had never existed in the first place.

"Prince Zuko saw fit to dispense with the law of the land to administer justice of his own design." Zhao finally speaks up, breaking the hesitant silence with his smooth, steady voice. "How fitting it would be for justice to meet him in kind. What fate did he secure for Captain Asaka again?" He strokes his bushy whiskers in thought. "Strip him, tie him up in a fuel barrel, and toss him to the ravening mob, perhaps?"

"The mob would sooner embrace him as one of their own," Azula replies coldly, even as a few warm laughs greet Zhao's placid suggestion. "No, as much as my wretched brother deserves a fate worse than death, the climate within the city remains…delicate and must be handled such." Her lips curl into a strange grimace. "We simply cannot afford to make a martyr of him."

"Then what do you propose, Princess?" Zhao grates, visibly irritated. "You heard His Radiance. Your brother must answer for his crimes."

"And he will," Azula answers without sparing the burly Admiral a glance. Instead, her eyes remain fixed upon her father and the curtain of leaping flames that separates him from the rest of the world. "But he will have the chance to defend his own honour and legacy, as set down by the law of the Eternal Flame itself." She smirks. "By Agni Kai."

A hush settles among the council.

"And who will debase themselves by challenging this traitor?" Zhao asks baldly, the first to find his voice again. "We are all loyal men here. None of us will invite such dishonour upon ourselves."

"Clearly, as you all lack vision," Azula replies patiently, shaking her head. "How could it be dishonourable to uphold the justice of the Phoenix King himself? To stake your life and reputation to show the world just how fair the authority of his rule truly is. By allowing someone as unworthy of it as my brother a chance to fight for his life and freedom? Even the staunchest of Uncle's bleeding-heart loyalists couldn't find fault with that if they tried." Her smirk widens as she casts a sidelong glance at her brother. "But since Admiral Zhao seems to think his honour is too fragile to risk duelling a starved, weakened prisoner…I will be glad to defend my father's good name personally."

Mai's breath catches in her throat. She shivers as though a cold wind had rushed past her, even though the air in the throne room remains uncomfortably warm. But aside from a sudden clink of his chains, Zuko takes the news stoically.

Or maybe he's too far gone to even realise what's happening around him. Mai's lips press together tightly.

A slow clapping reverberates across the hall as Ozai leans forward in his seat. "How very poetic," he croons. "Years ago, my son left these halls in shameful exile after an Agni Kai. It is only fitting that he departs these halls again in the same fashion…though I suspect the punishment my daughter shall inflict upon him shall be far steeper." The flames stretch higher, reaching for the ceiling with restless golden fingers. "She is a prodigy, after all. The greatest firebender of her generation."

Azula bows low to the ground again, her father's fire reflected perfectly in the polished mirror of her golden crown. "You are too kind to me, Father," she all but purrs. "It will be my greatest pleasure, my proudest moment, to put this thorn in your side back where he belongs, once and for all." She straightens, bares her teeth in a savage grin at her brother. "Tomorrow, at sunrise, in the sacred duel grounds. Before you give the order for the fleet to set sail, before the comet's arrival."

In a single smooth motion, she rises to her feet. "You can all watch. In fact, I insist that you all should." Her clawed hand finds Zuko's hollowed cheek, caresses it with contemptuous tenderness. "You should all be present to witness the dawn of a new era…while I wipe out the old."

The rest of her words blur into an indistinct murmur, barely audible over the pounding drumbeat of Mai's pulse and the rising roar of blood rushing through her ears. She remains frozen in place, the sickening wave of dread shackling her almost as effectively as the chains around Zuko's painfully thin wrists and ankles. Even when Azula finally turns away to dismiss him and he's dragged to his feet by the guards, tripping and staggering out of the hall, Mai doesn't hear the commotion that ensues. Instead, she feels the tension in the room snap and settle into an animal vindictiveness; sees the councillors laughing silently at the humiliated prince led away in manacles.

She stares wildly at the profile of his face as he pauses by the door, doubled over and panting. The gasp brims in her throat at the sight of his scarred cheek, the skin stretched tightly over the bones of his alarmingly gaunt face. His eyes are slitted half-open, slack and unfocused in feverish delirium. His gaze darts every which way, as though perpetually in search of some imaginary escape.

When it flicks over to meet her own wide-eyed stare, something jolts in the pit of her stomach. He's going to die, something whispers in the back of her mind. He knows it.

She doesn't know how long he holds her gaze, whether he even recognizes her or not. If he sees her racing thoughts, reflected like a mirror behind her eyes.

Then his lips press into a tight line. His shoulders square, his back straightens, his chin tilts upward in a final show of defiance. I won't break. I won't give them that. It's the only thing I have left.

She stares blankly at the doors long after the guards drag him out of sight. Whether the council meeting continues or adjourns shortly thereafter, she hears none of it.

If this was the last time she would see Zuko alive, she would remember him. She would remember that he remained strong until the bitter end.

I owe him that much at least. After all, it's all my fault that he's in this mess.

Then, a sharp pain explodes in her side.

She yelps indignantly, clutching at her ribs where Kei Lo had elbowed her none too gently. "What the hell is your problem?" she hisses through clenched teeth, plying him with a deadly glare.

Her boyfriend wilts predictably. "Sorry," he mutters, already shifting his weight apologetically. "You were being summoned."

"What?" Mai glances around her in rising confusion. "By who?"

But through the crush of exiting councillors milling through the doors, she perceives Kei Ling and Azula, engrossed in some serious discussion as they walk in step toward them.

"Oh Agni," she hears herself curse.

She isn't aware of trying to shrink further into the shadows as they draw nearer. Only that by the time Kei Ling waves at her to join them, she is already halfway nestled into the heavy drapes lining the wall, trying her best to escape notice.

Azula's cool gaze lands on her. Abruptly, the princess stops mid-sentence. Twin spots of red flush her pale cheeks.

Mai freezes, her fingers entwined into the thick red fabric. Her back presses against the stone wall with all its draughty cracks, and she wishes with all her might that she could simply become a part of it, disappear into the curtains and the walls in that very moment.

"Well?" Azula demands, her nostrils flaring imperiously. "What are you waiting for? Come along then."

It takes all of Mai's effort not to splutter all over the hem of Azula's fine brocade robes. "Me?"

Azula sighs, blowing a strand of hair out of her face. "No, your witless boyfriend." She rolls her eyes. "Of course, you."

Mai studies the princess with a quick glance, the most she dared. But instead of the fanatical, almost manic devotion that had possessed Azula for so long, now she appears…rather calm. Still pale and withdrawn and poorly rested…but composed.

"It's okay," Kei Lo whispers loudly into her ear. "You don't have to be offended about what she called me. I don't mind, really -"

"Ugh." Mai isn't sure if it's disgust or curiosity that ultimately propels her back into Azula's shadow. "Fine. You want me here? I'm here. Just get it over with already."

Azula tilts her head, surveying her friend quizzically. Mai stiffens as she feels the princess sizing her up, scanning her from head to toe with a swift onceover of her golden eyes. Then, the corners of her mouth quirk strangely, as though fighting to suppress a smile. "I have no idea what you're talking about," Azula says dismissively, already turning away. "Now, where was I? Oh yes, penitentiary capacity within the city limits…"

Azula's words wash over her as she trails behind the pair of them in a breathless daze. Unable to tear her eyes away from the princess, who is so engrossed in her discussion with Kei Ling that she doesn't even notice the scrutiny. Or maybe she had finally become so assured in her power and position that she no longer cared what Mai had to say or think.

She's probably trying to lull me into a false sense of security, Mai thinks grimly. It won't work. I know a trap when I see one.

Her fingers reflexively trace the numerous blades concealed on her person. Of the numerous long days that had passed since her ill-advised confrontation, whenever she hadn't been drinking too much with Kei Lo, she had whiled away her hours sharpening every last blade to a dangerously keen edge. So that whenever Azula found it in her to retaliate, she would be ready for it.

She has already closed a preemptive hand around a throwing-star tucked up her sleeve by the time Azula stops in her tracks. Mai stumbles, every nerve tightening on high alert. She spins around, her eyes roving along the hallway, searching for a hint of danger, anything -

"Mai?" Kei Ling's low voice interrupts her. "What are you doing?"

Mai freezes, the throwing-star already in the palm of her hand and poised to hurl directly at one of the loosened tapestries, floating in the sudden breeze pouring in through a cracked window.

Then, she turns back to face Kei Ling, who folds her arms and taps a foot expectantly. "N-nothing," she stammers, her face flaming hot. "I - I thought I heard something -"

"It's just the tapestry," Kei Ling admonishes with a wry smile. "No need to be so jumpy, Mai."

"I know that now," Mai grumbles, reluctantly pocketing her throwing-star.

"Don't mind Mai," Azula speaks up with a breeziness that floors her. "She's always looking out for everyone's best interests. With so many loyalties, I can only imagine how many threats lie in wait for her…imaginary or otherwise."

Mai scowls, trying to interpret the hidden barb in Azula's thoroughly unconcerned voice. But Kei Ling only shakes her head and pushes into Azula's study without another word.

Azula's clawed fingers graze the snarling dragons-head knob. "Are you just going to hover in the hallway all day?"

Mai flounders, unsure what the princess could possibly be plotting now. "Can I?" she answers evasively. "I'm not particularly keen on joining you in that tiny study of yours."

"Oh?" Azula arches an eyebrow. "And why is that?"

Mai shrugs. "Not enough escape options?"

Azula's mouth quirks strangely again. "Why in Agni's name would you be worrying about such a thing at a time like this?"

"Don't play coy with me." Mai narrows her eyes. "I know you too well, Azula. You're just biding your time, waiting to turn on me the moment you think my back is turned." She takes a step forward, squaring her shoulders the way Zuko would whenever he refused to back down from a fight he couldn't win. "You may scare me, but you don't fool me. Remember that."

Azula opens her mouth to reply, pauses for a stinging moment before answering in a voice of scathing calm. "I won't apologise for what I've done." She pinches the bridge of her nose with a weary sigh. "I don't expect you'd understand, anyway."

She pushes the door open wider and motions for Mai to enter with a contemptuous jerk of her chin.

Run, something inside Mai urges vehemently. While you still can.

She takes a tentative step forward instead. Her gaze bores into the princess, standing still as a statue as she continues to hold the door open.

What are you up to now? Once, Mai had prided herself on being able to read Azula like an open book. But everything about the princess had shifted in their brief time apart. Where before Azula had always been coldly precise, now something else seems to drive her. A detached calm, a conviction of purpose to which she remains almost indifferent.

For the first time, Mai looks at Azula and no longer understands whether she is sane or completely unhinged. It frightens her.

But as Azula had said, knowledge was power. Turning tail and running away wouldn't solve anything. And whatever the princess was plotting, if it meant welcoming a known spy into her most private meetings with her political confidante, then Mai could relay whatever information she could to Zuko's embattled allies, for however long she could.

With that thought in mind, she ignores every instinct screaming at her to flee, and marches straight into the dragon's den.

Bright blue light assaults her eyes. She shields her gaze with a raised hand, squinting at the surprising darkness in the study, lit only by the fire in the grate. The curtains had been drawn tightly shut, the air stifling hot and thick. When Azula closes the door, something inside Mai recoils with reflexive dread: the sense of being hunted and snared and caged.

"We come to it at last. All our careful plotting and designs, all our plans laid in place." Azula's footfalls are slow and even, the hard soles of her slippers clacking decisively against the polished wooden floor. "Sozin's Comet arrives within the week. I will not tolerate a single error. Do you understand?"

Mai swallows fearfully. Her fingers shake where they close around a stiletto concealed in her pocket.

"You have but to will it, and it shall happen," Kei Ling promises in her deep voice. She is little more than a shadow, backlit by the cool blue flames, lounging like a queen in one of the winged armchairs. "You will always have my undivided loyalty. And my honesty."

"Not this again." Azula presses a hand to her forehead.

"But Your Highness, I cannot make myself plainer. I think it is a mistake to release the Admiral's son from house arrest -"

"And I think it is a mistake to continue badgering me when I have already made up my mind," Azula answers testily, pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace. "Chan is no longer an asset to us. Cut him loose."

"Chan?" Mai blurts out, scowling suspiciously. "I thought he was your hostage. Why would you bother letting him go on the eve of your glorious invasion?"

Azula pauses by a small round table set with a decorative pai sho board. She picks up a carved ivory tile, turns it slowly to inspect it in the firelight. "We only kept him to ensure his father's cooperation. Admiral Chan has already defected. Why squander further resources upon him when we have the entire garrison of Ma'inka to detain?"

"It just seems like a waste," Kei Ling argues, leaning back in her chair. "Are you sure there's no other use for him? Execute him, transfer him to another prison? Maybe even use him as bait to prompt an insurrection among your uncle's troops -"

Azula slams the pai sho tile back onto the board irritably. "Don't we have more important things to discuss?"

Kei Ling falls silent. Mai frowns, trying to understand where the princess's sudden reticence had sprouted from. Unless the war was breaking her down, and maybe she too had learned that it was simply easier not to care...

Azula sighs as she sidles over to her desk. "Lady Mao's surrender is of the utmost priority. I promised to have it by nightfall."

"All our assets are in place." Kei Ling raises a hand to smooth one of the countless flyaway hairs framing her broad face. "They wait only for your command. By your leave, they will round up all those traitors and have them locked away in city prisons before the sun is high in the sky."

"They have it." Azula steeples her fingers on the desk. "Mai, I want you leading the group that intercepts Lady Mao."

Mai chokes on her spit. "What?"

"You heard me." Azula's lips curve into a bloodless smile. The cold blue firelight glints off her teeth as she speaks. "You will lead Kei Ling's mercenaries behind enemy lines, cut through Lady Mao's encampment under cover of night. You will be the one to accept her surrender, and no other."

Mai stares her down wildly, scarcely believing her ears. "Are you insane? Why - why me?"

Even in the darkness, Azula's eyes glitter fever-bright. "Because I know what you are now…and exactly how to use you."

The night sky yawns overhead, an inky blue expanse of glittering stars that swallows the last sliver of the moon hanging low on the horizon.

Mai clutches at her cloak, even as the persistent night wind tugs at it with its chill salty breath. Even the thick black cloth isn't enough to ward off the cold dampness permeating the air, seeping through every layer to settle uncomfortably in her bones.

The small contingent of black-garbed mercenaries falls in wait behind her, silent as shadows. Even still, she raises a hand to motion for quiet.

It's a trap, the voice of her mind repeats its steady chorus tirelessly. You're walking straight into Azula's trap.

She shifts her weight at the edge of the caldera, scanning the mountainside with narrowed eyes. Swirls of mist rise off the surface of the waves foaming against the shoreline, shrouding the encampment even further from view. Even still, she is able to pick out the outlines of darkened tents, patrolling sentries, slumbering beasts of war. And through the absolute silence, broken only by the steady rhythm of the waves and the odd bird-call, she can still hear their banners, their tent-flaps, stirring in the wake of the incessant night wind.

Her shaking fingers find one of her knives, closing tightly around its hilt in a white-knuckled grip.

If it's a trap, I won't make it easy for her to take me.

Besides, for all of Azula's impressive vindictiveness, she still needed Lady Mao to surrender and the threat of her forces effectively neutralized. How else is she supposed to roast her brother alive the morning of the invasion? She needs a clear conscience, that one.

Chewing her lip grimly, Mai raises her hand and, with dread coursing through every fibre of her being, finally gives the signal to strike.

They slip down the rolling slope of the mountain, flitting like shadows from rock to brush to precariously twisted tree. Mai clutches at her knife so tightly she fears it would snap in half.

But apart from the odd misstep or crumbling of rock into the distant waves below, the ambush that Mai expects never occurs.

Instead, she is stunned at how easy it is to sneak past the sentries and into Lady Mao's encampment. She takes care to avoid the makeshift pens where the eelhounds and ostrich-horses were stabled for the night. Their guards might be useless, but the last thing we need is for some sleeping animal to hear us and wake the entire place.

Azula's knowing smirk replays in her mind's eye as she weaves through the rows of darkened tents. You are the only one I can trust, her voice whispers mockingly.

Mai grits her teeth. The night wind picks up, rustling along the tents with renewed vigour.

It takes nothing to find Lady Mao's pavilion, the largest and grandest one there. Even in the darkness, she can make out the faint outline of her battle standard affixed to its mast, flapping proudly in the breeze.

She stares at it with a raised eyebrow, wondering at the minds of lineage-obsessed aristocrats, the heights of their hubris. So much so that she doesn't spot the giant beast slumbering at the door of Lady Mao's tent until she almost walks into it.

The warm rush of its slow exhale sweeps her hood off her head, sending the entire length of her cloak flaring out behind her as though it were just another battle flag raised to full mast.

She stops in her tracks, the dread in her gut ballooning as a giant mouth opens before her in a silent yawn. Teeth the size of her entire body glint like sharpened knives in the faint starlight.

Her white-knuckled grip on her blades slackens.

After all, what kind of knife stands a chance in the face of a sleeping dragon?

The colossal creature of flying fiery destruction shifts its weight sleepily, rubbing the side of its head into the brush lining the ground. Its teeth flash beneath scaly jowls - an empty lipless grin betraying some dark secret under the cover of night.

It takes all of Mai's effort to contain her scream, to hold herself poised and stealthy before its heavy, slack-jawed slumber. An entire lifetime spent in the courts of the Fire Empire palace, and this was only the first time she had ever found herself face-to-face with one. She wonders if Azula had ever endured the same.

A mad laugh nearly escapes her at the thought. As if Azula or any of her crazy family could face a dragon and live to tell the tale. Ozai had proclaimed himself a Phoenix, whatever that meant, and Azula shared his unencumbered madness. They would sooner try to hunt and kill any dragon unfortunate enough to cross their path before submitting to the ancient gravitas of its presence.

No sooner does the thought cross her mind, than does a single reptilian eye slit open, its gaze liquid hellfire through the oily sheen of its gigantic double lids.

She tries to swallow, and fails.

The dragon pins her with the weight of its gaze, surveying her like she might have examined an insect crawling along her flesh. In the molten fire of its eye, she sees herself reflected in human-sized pupils: small and frightened and utterly insignificant.

She wonders if the dragon could hear her thoughts, understand the fear paralysing her from head to toe. She wonders if it could read her entire history, every intention that drives her still, with that powerful, omniscient gaze.

Then, she places a finger to her lips, a conspiratorial gesture pleading for silence.

The dragon, seeming satisfied, closes its eye and lowers its head back to the ground. The even swell of its undisturbed breathing soon follows, rustling at Mai's cloak as though it had never woken in the first place.

Mai chokes, tiptoeing past the sleeping dragon's massive head as though it had never noticed her. Perhaps it truly hadn't. Perhaps her presence, and the royal politics that had driven her here, were truly beneath notice of a living, breathing embodiment of the Eternal Flame.

So what does that say of someone who can command the loyalty of such a creature?

The answer finds Mai not too long thereafter. As she crosses the sleeping dragon into the threshold of Lady Mao's darkened pavilion, and easily finds the commanding matriarch of Ma'inka island where she slumbers in a pile of worn animal hides.

Mai pauses, her blades hovering an inch from the woman's exposed, unguarded throat. She swallows again, steeling her nerves for what she had to do next.

Because after that point, what she wanted didn't matter. Only Azula's orders did, and she had to see them through if she wanted to live to see the dawn, and every dawn that would follow thereafter.

She places the quivering blade to the hollow of the woman's throat. Underneath it, her pulse throbs gently.

Mai closes her eyes, breathes in deeply. Outside, the sleeping dragon begins to snore.

"Well. I can't say I expected this, exactly." A soft voice, raspy with sleep, breaks through the silence of the tent. "But then again, Princess Azula was never known for being predictable."

Mai's eyes spring open, lower to find Lady Mao's staring right back at her in an alert, bright-eyed gaze that rather uncomfortably reminds her of the dragon slumbering outside.

She takes another breath, presses the blade harder into the pulse of the woman's throat. "Does it matter?" she grits out, her clenched teeth wrenching into a bitter smile. "Predictable or not…in the end, Azula always gets what she wants."

"Helm to lee! Helm to lee!"

"What does that even mean?"

"Incoming! Fire!"

"Brace for impact!"

Screams rend the air, almost as deafening as the fiery salvo hurtling toward them.

The rope sears his palm raw as he tugs with all his might. Teeth gritted tight, his eyes squeezed shut as the skiff finally straightens.

Heat singes the hairs on the back of his neck as the fireballs fly overhead, narrowly missing their boat to slam angrily into the water instead. The world rocks violently, the skiff bucking like an angry ostrich-horse threatening to catapult the entire crew overboard.

Sokka spits out a mouthful of the saltwater that had drenched everyone from head to toe. "Does anyone else know how to sail a Water Tribe ship?" he roars, mopping his wet face with a paint-stained sleeve.

But only more cries and shouts rise up in answer, as fireballs and flying bison and war balloons emblazoned with the gaudy black Phoenix King's crest trade blows in the sky. Gusts of wind fend off incoming fire, only to churn the waters below into a near-impassable frenzy, and levelling almost as many of their own ships as their enemy's missiles had.

And even if they could get past all that, they still had to clear the gates.

Even through the mayhem, he picks them out easily in the distance. A proud wall of flame blazing in a band of bright gold that stretches nearly across the entire span of the ocean itself. At its heart looms a gargantuan statue of Emperor Azulon, its face twisted into a snarl. A stone colossus built to strike fear into the hearts of the Empire's enemies and protect the waters surrounding the Empire's capital.

And at that moment, Sokka thinks privately, tugging on the rope as if it were a lifeline, the Great Gates of Azulon were doing their job a lot more effectively than anyone else was.

Because, for all that the allied forces had amassed in the sheer scale of their fleet, they were still stuck on the wrong side of those spirits-damned flaming gates. Leaving them with little to show for their impressive journey west other than to become cannon-fodder for all the Fire Nation cruisers and airships stationed there.

A horrible scream rings out overhead as a sky bison takes a direct hit. Sokka tries not to flinch at the animal's screeches of pain as it plummets out of the air, only to break the water's surface with ferocious impact.

He steers the boat out of the way of the worst of the waves as they churn and ripple in the beast's wake. Something twinges in his chest - an ache if he had the luxury to feel pain or grief. But then more fire hurtles in their direction and he's forced to drive their little boat behind the cover of a wrecked Fire Navy cruiser.

He presses a hand to his sternum, where it feels like the iron plate of his armour is squeezing him tighter and tighter until he can't breathe. "Is…is everyone okay?" he wheezes, trying to find his voice and hoping he doesn't sound as terrified as he feels.

A murmur of assent greets his words.

His fists ball together in desperation as he glances back to the destruction unfolding all around them. The waters teem as though alive, hissing and boiling with the wrath of the ocean spirit itself. The force of its waves threatening to capsize Imperial destroyers and humble Water Tribe sailboats all the same. Only one moment's distraction, one single captain or crewman who forgot to remain vigilant for a second…and they would lose themselves to that cold, dark, rushing void.

And yet, Katara was out there. Her and her bloodbending apprentices and the other waterbenders of the two Tribes. Surfing through the living maelstrom on little more than flattened ice floes, trying to get as close as possible to the enemy ships and inflict as much damage as they could.

He squints, but through the fire and rushing wind and biting cold sea spray, he's unable to distinguish his sister from the other blurs of blue in the distance.

If she's even there still. If she wasn't one of the first to go down in the volleys. She always was reckless and didn't know how to stay out of trouble -

"Lee!" someone shrieks in his ear. "Lee, over there!"

It takes him a moment to react to the wrong name. By the time he catches sight of Haru's wild waving, the approaching war balloon has cut dangerously low within striking distance. Its keel nearly grazes the water's surface as a pair of firebenders on board prepare their onslaught.

He springs to action, already too late. "Retreat! Everybody, retreat -!"

The fire gushes forth from above, growing and expanding in size as it rages toward him. The urge to run, to flee, to hide buzzes through every nerve. But his limbs are suddenly stone-still. The roar of the inferno drowns out every other sound.

Well, this is it, is all he has time to think. At least I found Katara again, but it would have been nice to -

Then a ringing silence fills his ears, punctuating a woman's harsh guttural cry.

He stares blankly at the ice floe that whizzes along the water's surface, tucking itself directly beneath the prow of his humble skiff and intercepting the war balloon in its steady approach.

The pair of firebenders freeze in their stances, their flames dying in an abrupt, unceremonious puff of smoke. Even at a distance, he imagines he can see them struggling against invisible restraints.

Katara's voice is unmistakable this time as she barks another command. The formation of women arrayed behind her sweep into a unified lunge.

By now, Sokka has seen them employ the twisted, ugly art of bloodbending enough times to not instinctively recoil at the sight. But queasiness still churns his gut as the firebenders bolt upright, plant a hand on the gondola's edge, and throw themselves overboard into the waiting jaws of the sea.

He doesn't even register the impact of the war balloon as it tumbles out of the air, or the resulting frenzy when it finally collides with the water's surface. A dull ringing sound is deafening in his ears, it is all he can hear, and everything before his eyes swims together in a kaleidoscope of sea spray and explosions -

"Sokka!"

Hands on his shoulders. Firm, strong hands with a firm strong grip cutting into his shoulders, shaking him bodily. Blue eyes fill his vision, blue and watery and staring right at him in abject concern.

"Sokka! Sokka, snap out of it!"

He blinks, struggling to form words. Everything turns sluggish, the sounds slurring as though he had been catapulted into the water after all and was slowly drowning. Just like everyone else in this hopeless mess. What was one more?

Then, something ice cold slaps him across the face.

A high-pitched, undignified, unmanly screech escapes him. His hands find his face, struggling to wipe away the rivulets of water streaming from his thoroughly saturated hair.

"What was that for?" he grumbles.

"Sorry," Katara answers, and to her credit she at least has the decency to sound apologetic. "But you were about to collapse or something. It was the only thing I could think of!"

Another cry litters the air. In the corner of his eye, Sokka sees the ice floe bolt off, cutting an effortless path through the storming waves.

"You left your squad of dangerous ladies?" he asks, unable to keep the resentment from his voice. "Just to stop your big brother from fainting like an old lady at the first real sign of battle?"

"Sokka," she admonishes, her lips pursing together tightly. "We're trying to save the world here. A little fainting spell here or there isn't going to make any difference."

"Save the world?" Sokka can't help the scoff that escapes him. "At this rate? We can barely save ourselves from getting hammered out here! We've got greater numbers and it isn't even making a difference! The Phoenix army's still picking us out of the sky and water like it's child's play."

"I don't understand!" his sister fumes, kicking the deck vehemently. "We made such good time reaching Fire Nation waters. Now we're within throwing distance of the capital and we can't gain an inch? Even with all that intel Mai's managing to sneak us?" Under the thick layers of white paint daubed upon her face, red patches mottle furiously on her cheeks. "Who would have thought after everything that's happened, so many people would still choose to fight and die for a psychopath!"

Something whistles overhead, branding the air with a fiery trail. A mounted Air Nomad intercepts it, batting it away with a single swing of his glider. The resulting gust of wind nearly knocks Sokka off his feet.

He staggers, finding his balance with difficulty. "Well, that's not going to change," he answers grimly. "We can't just sit and hope that those Phoenix freaks will wake up and smell the swamp-gas. We're losing steam fast, we can't keep this up much longer -"

Something crashes into a nearby vessel, which promptly begins to sink. In a trice, three ice floes and two sky bison converge upon it, already beginning the thankless and harrowing task of ferrying survivors onto new boats.

Katara clenches her fists. "We just have to keep at it, no matter how hard it gets. Something has to give, if we just give it enough time -"

"But there is no more time!" Sokka bursts out, the iron band around his chest suddenly snapping. "This is it, Katara! It's summer's end, and we've got nothing left." He gestures helplessly at the sky, its clear bright blue almost entirely obscured by fire and smoke and whizzing bodies. "Sozin's Comet arrives tomorrow, and we're still breaking on these stupid gates with nothing to show for a whole week of trying!"

"What else can we do?" Katara all but shouts in frustration.

"I don't know! But this isn't working!" he retorts. His hands wind through his hair, nails scraping his scalp again and again. "We have to change course. Switch it up. Hit them where they won't expect."

Katara scoffs. "And just how do you propose we do that, oh great master strategist Sokka?"

Despite it all, the corners of his mouth tug upward. "I'm not sure. Maybe…maybe…"

He falls silent for a moment, considering. Katara says something else, but he doesn't hear it.

His eyes flit across the battlefield, darting from one body to the next, taking stock of everything in mounting desperation. Sky bison. Enemy cruiser. Friendly cruisers. Enemy firebenders. Friendly firebenders. Water Tribe skiffs with not enough captains. Waterbenders on ice floes. Earthbenders…but they can only attack when we reach land, until then they're just useless bodies here at sea -

A loud grinding sound assaults his ears as somewhere in the distance, Toph rips a sheet of metal off an airborne zeppelin.

Except that one, he allows. One earthbender who can bend metal, but she's blind. Air Nomads with bison. Air Nomads without bison.

And somewhere beyond the fiery barrier of the great gates, rests the capital of the Fire Nation within the confines of a towering caldera. A safe port of call, ringed by a walled harbour and the waters of the Budo Bay.

Thinking hard, his fingers rake through his wet wolf-tail, the prickly stubble lining the underside of his scalp. They fiddle absently with his belt, with his boomerang, rummaging through his pockets as though searching for an answer there.

His fingers close around something small, round and solid. Everything goes quiet.

"What?" Katara asks, watching him suspiciously. "What is it?"

His heart hammering somewhere in his throat, Sokka holds the pai sho tile up to the light. The carved white lotus glimmers knowingly.

He stares back at the open sea and all the disparate pieces as if it was a game board and nothing more. He swallows hard.

"I have an idea."

Chapter 64: children of fire

Chapter Text

disclaimer. there is nothing new to see here ppl.

author's notes. 64 chapters in, and this was the first to make me cry. proceed as you see fit.

i made an announcement of sorts regarding the forthcoming chapters, but tl;dr - it is going to be a busy december! :)

i give you…

southern lights.

chapter lxiv. children of fire

how they lived they will be remembered
we now stand in the footsteps of the anthems

"forget not" / ne obliviscaris

"Here."

Zuko glances up belatedly at the sound of his mother's clipped voice, and the clink of the glass vial as she places it on the wooden tabletop before him.

"It's starshine," she supplies, averting her gaze to preoccupy herself with salting the thin porridge in his bowl. "To reverse the effects of the sunshade."

He grunts in response, but doesn't reach for it. His hand wraps ginger around his wrist, bare of its shackles. The skin chafes red raw and tender to the touch.

She sighs, and then uncorks the vial. "It'll work better if you take it with food -"

"What's the point?" he snaps, shrinking away from her. His grip on his wrist tightens and a hiss of pain escapes through his clenched teeth. "Even with my bending, I don't stand a chance against Azula tomorrow morning!"

"Not with that attitude," his mother admonishes gently. "Now open up."

"No." Zuko crosses his arms stubbornly. "I was a dead man the moment I trusted Azula." He laughs darkly. "Just let her fry me already. I've had enough."

His mother sighs but thankfully says nothing else. He breathes heavily, like a wounded animal, hunching over where he sits.

After so many days spent in the airless underground cell, the simple luxury of his childhood bedroom is an eyesore. He glares at his surroundings through strands of stringy hair hanging limp over his eyes. The last time he had been in this room, it was the night of Lu Ten's wedding. Was that only three seasons ago? To Zuko, it feels like an eternity.

A memory of rage courses through his veins with its dull fire. If he hadn't been so ground down by the past long months, he might have had the energy to protest the injustice of his fate. That he had lost and Azula had won by playing a dirty trick. That his father was going to douse the world in flames the morning after, and he would never see his friends, his uncle, Katara, ever again.

There was no fighting it anymore. There was nothing more he could do. He had fought with all his strength to write his own destiny, but in the end he couldn't escape his father's shadow. No one could.

His fist slams against the tabletop, rattling the bowl and the shallow porcelain spoon resting next to it. Porridge slops over its edges.

"I never stood a chance, did I?" he whispers bleakly. In his mind, it unfolds all around him, a kaleidoscope of memories so clear and bright, it almost makes a mockery of his predicament.

Learning to wield lightning. Late night games of pai sho in his uncle's tent, the smell of jasmine tea brewing on the fire. The chaos and bloodshed of the Sun Warrior's battle, the thrill of lavabending. The warmth of a handmade parka settling about his shoulders. A mild autumn's day, the sun starting to set in the sky as he emerged from a bath, the coolness of the water streaming down his arms and the sand shifting under his feet as Katara looked at him for the first time without hatred in her eyes.

All of it glittering like gold in a greedy dragon's hoard, just within reach if he could only stretch his hand out a little further.

And then the detached triumph of Azula's thin smile the night she double-crossed him. Tearing everything else away from him, dangling it contemptuously, cruelly out of reach.

"Perhaps not," his mother agrees. The silk of her robe rustles against the side of his leg as she settles in next to him. "But you never let that stop you before."

He scoffs helplessly. "Because I was a fool."

"No. You were brave," his mother insists, her hand wrapping tightly around his. "That's who you are, Zuko. You never give up, not even when things are hard. Especially when things are hard."

"They're not just hard," he mumbles, his throat closing up oddly. "They're impossible." He hangs his head, staring at the bowl of thin porridge until the water welling in his eyes turns it all to a blur. "And I'm scared. Mom…I'm so scared..."

His voice breaks off, a child's piteous whimper. But her arms wind around his shoulders with surprising strength.

He crumples beneath it, leaning into his mother's embrace without a care for how even in his wasted condition, he still dwarfs her.

Her fingers rake through the shaggy growth of his hair. "I know," she breathes, stroking him in slow, even movements. "I know, sweetheart. I'm here."

A sob chokes out of him, and then another.

He doesn't know how long he remains there, crying on the floor huddled against his mother. But her hands are cool and gentle as they trace lines along his scalp, his cheek, the knotted ropes of tension lining his back.

A spoonful of porridge grazes his lips. Too tired to protest, too hungry to resist any longer, he simply opens his mouth instead.

"Eat," his mother urges softly, scooping one spoonful and then another into his obedient mouth. "You'll feel better, I promise."

He swallows it all without another thought, too caught up in his misery to care. Until the spoon scrapes against the bottom of the bowl and his mother sets it back down gently.

"Good," she remarks, not quite able to disguise the relief in her voice. "Now the potion, Zuko."

He sighs but reluctantly opens his mouth to allow his mother to pour the draft down his throat. Unlike the sunshade, its antidote tastes peppery and burns all the way down. He coughs and splutters, trying not to spit it all back out. Long after he swallows, he imagines he can feel it trickling paths through his entire body, flooding it with some of the liquid fire that had lain long dormant since.

"You might feel a bit strange," his mother warns. "Reawakening your chi is not always a comfortable process."

He groans, clutching at his stomach. The biggest pool of chi for a firebender, he remembers with a grimace. He isn't sure if he imagines the strange sensation lancing in the pit of his gut, like a thousand sparks were all dancing upon its surface. Not quite comfortable, not quite painful, but somewhere in between.

Perhaps noticing his growing discomfort, his mother summons some servants to clear the table and draw a bath. Zuko barely notices the movement unfolding before him, the world shimmering in and out of focus.

Breathe, his uncle had told him an eternity ago, when the biggest complaint of his life had been meditation boot camp. How trivial it all seemed now. Breathe and remember who you are.

Hands at his side hoist him gently to his feet, guiding him tottering and staggering to the large wash-basin filled to the brim with water. Curls of scented steam rise from its surface.

"Leave us," his mother commands after the attendants have stripped him of his filthy prison rags and lowered him into the water's warm depths. "But wait just outside. I'll call when I need you."

Zuko rests his head back against the lip of the basin, allowing the heat to envelop him outside and in.

Remember who you are, his uncle's voice reminds him. Who are you? What do you want?

He is scarcely aware of a washcloth gently running along the surface of his skin, scrubbing all the grime and dirt away until the water grows cold and discoloured. Of his mother's pursed lips hovering in the periphery of his vision, her voice rising every now and then to call for more hot water.

More immediate is the sound of harried footsteps rushing in and out of his childhood bedroom, water slopping over the edges and into the tub where he languishes, feeble and barely conscious. As it cascades freely over his neck and shoulders, he remembers with a painful jolt the icy rush of a waterfall, drenching him in the woods somewhere near the summit of the Northern Air Temple. Steam caresses the skin of his face in fine tendrils, and he can no longer tell if it truly exists, if it's a memory made real.

Fingers rake along his scalp, separating the strands of his unkempt hair lying lank in snarls about his ears. The sweet smell of hot lotus oil teases his nostrils, reminding him of the heady incense burning in Uncle's tent, the floral aroma of his myriad teas steeping in its pot over the fire.

"Breathe," his mother tells him, her voice inches from his ear. Or was it Uncle's voice from another memory so vivid he mistakes it for reality? He can no longer tell.

But his breathing grows deeper and less laboured, even as the water turns cold around him and shrivels the surface of his newly-cleaned skin. He shivers, submerging himself into the cooling water in a vain search for warmth.

And yet, the only heat he can find is the searing, bolting sensation trickling somewhere in the depths of his body. Beating like a pulse of light flooding through his veins, a million sparks forging anew all the pathways that had withered away. Unused and forgotten.

But not lost.

Zuko exhales slowly, feeling the heat take him in its encompassing grasp. When he opens his eyes, the smoke curling through the air comes not from the water's surface, but from his mouth.

His mother is gently brushing his hair out by the time the attendants drag the used washbasin out of his room. He hears the sounds of their struggling effort, though his eyes remain fixed on the darkened sliver of sky visible through the window. He tries not to think of the last time he had been here, or out in the garden by the turtleduck pond, or any of the momentous things that had happened thereafter. He tries not to think of Katara, as she had been then, or how she might be now. Either way, the thought of her clawing her way back to his side hurts too much.

He's grateful he can't see the ocean or the horizon from his vantage point. He's grateful not to have another reason to think of her, stuck in a hopeless battle somewhere out on the open water. Would they have the sense to retreat before the comet's arrival, or would she fight till the bitter end? Every part of him wishes that, just that once, she would abandon her accursed stubbornness and flee somewhere safe to wait out the carnage that the coming day would surely bring.

"It's gotten so long," his mother marvels, running a fine-tooth comb through his rumpled hair. Her fingers separate the strands, damp from his bath but already soft and silky where it tickles his temples and the bridge of his nose. "Like your father's. I always forget how quickly it grows."

His lips press together but he says nothing.

At some point, he thinks he must have fallen asleep. Was it his mother singing that soft lullaby under her breath, or someone else?

Her hands refuse to leave him, stroking the bony planes of his face over and over again. As though committing him to memory.

"I'm sorry." In his dreams, her voice is a halting whisper, choked through shuddering, gasping tears. "I am so sorry I couldn't be stronger for you."

Her fingers grip his jaw so tightly it's painful. "You are so brave, so strong. You are my beautiful son, the brightest flame our family has seen in generations." Hot drops spill onto his scarred cheek like summer rain. "Remember that, Zuko. Remember that no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't break you. That's who you are."

He curls up into his mother's lap, the way he must have done when he was an infant seeking comfort.

"Do you hear me?" she pleads, hissing fiercely into his ear. She squeezes his hand with a strength that surprises him. "No matter what happens, never forget who you are."

Dawn unfolds slowly across the sky, a gradual burgeoning of light portending the moment when the sun would break the line of the horizon - and the comet that would inevitably follow.

Tension grips the palace with invisible jaws, muffling all sounds to an indistinct hum of anxious energy. It lends speed to the attendants struggling to ready him for his duel, gravity to the way his mother slides one potion after another down his throat.

"This is for strength, and this one is for energy, and this one here is a chi stimulant, it should help after so much time on the sunshade…"

His lips curl, somewhere between a smirk and a grimace. "Isn't that cheating?"

His mother scoffs, an unusually disparaging sound. "Are you going to choose now of all times to start playing fair with your sister?" She uncorks another vial and hands it to him. "I can't do much for you, Zuko. I'm not brave or strong or wise like Iroh. But what I am is a damn good herbalist, and if that's all I can do to keep you alive for one more moment…"

The vial shakes in her grasp. He wraps his fingers around it, feeling the ice of his mother's touch. "It won't be enough," he tells her quietly. "Azula and Father both want me dead before the comet arrives." His throat clams up tight at the thought; he knocks back the colourless potion to distract himself from it.

"I know," his mother laments, wrapping her arms around herself in a bid to allay her agitation. "I suspect I won't last much longer after that either." Her crooked smile is wry, defeated. "If I had known…if I had known this was how it would end, maybe I would have done things differently." She runs a distracted hand through her long chestnut hair. "Maybe I would have found the courage to stand up to your father, push back on his schemes instead of going along with them for fear that he would take his anger out on you and Azula instead."

Zuko shakes his head, trying to ignore the attendant fumbling over the gaping waistband of his trousers, too large to sit on his painfully-thin waist without sliding down halfway to his hips. "That would have only gotten you exiled from the palace too. Or worse."

"Maybe that would have been better," his mother ponders, her fingers now twisting into the ends of her hair. "I was never any use to you here, either. I only ever seemed to make it worse."

"Maybe," Zuko says doubtfully. "But I can't imagine not having you around would have made things better, either." He winces as the attendant yanks on the drawstring of his trousers, knotting it so tight that it bites into the alarming protrusion of his hip bones. "It's not like Father would have left Azula and I alone if you had vanished. And besides, what would you have done after that? Changed your name and face and forgotten about us entirely?"

His mother chokes out a half-hearted laugh. "In what world would I ever have been weak enough to do that to my children?"

"I can't think of one," Zuko agrees, feeling the corners of his mouth tug upward despite himself. "At least you're here now."

"I am." His mother takes a step closer, and he can see the grooves in her lined face where all her tears had fallen. Where they would continue to fall as the day drew to its zenith with the last of his lifeblood. "And I'm not going anywhere, Zuko. I promise."

"Will you?" It bubbles up from somewhere deep within him, the small stunted part that had never had a chance to be a child. "Will you stay? Until the end?"

"Until the very end," his mother promises, clasping his hand within both of hers and pressing it tightly to her chest. Her eyes burn where they meet his, bright and glimmering with incipient grief.

Relief breaks over him like the waves pounding the wreckage of the harbour below. He nods, his throat welling too tight to permit further speech. His mother says nothing either, only holding his hand to her heart and his gaze in a silent vigil.

The attendants fussing over him remain tight-lipped as well. Zuko knows that they would never be so improper as to do anything other than their sworn duty to the royal family. But he recognizes the disapproval that purses their mouths into thin lines. Whether it was dissatisfaction at dressing a known traitor, or dismay at the fate that awaited the rogue prince who had once masqueraded as the Blue Spirit, a champion for the common folk, he remains unsure.

All too soon, a pair of guards materialises at his door to summon him to the arena in the courtyard, where the duel would take place. A memory of fear lances through the pit of Zuko's stomach, momentarily curdling the blood in his veins.

But he allows himself to be led through the winding palace corridors and out into the grounds. The sky has taken on a cool blue glow, the last faint stars still dotting the crown of the heavens. A breeze stirs at his skin, its mildness surprising after such an oppressively hot summer. It tastes of sulfur and saltwater; if he closes his eyes, he can almost see the entrails of a distant battle unfolding across the bay, carried to him in the wind's capricious grasp. Perhaps he imagines the other trace scents lingering in his nostrils: the heady perfume of jasmine tea, the maddening familiarity of waterlilies…

But he doesn't imagine the acrid harshness of smoke cloying in his lungs and choking the breath out of him. He raises a hand to cover his mouth, coughing and sputtering. The duel grounds, a flat rectangular arena paved with smooth marble tile, are barely visible in the pre-dawn gloom. Several torches burn with golden fire, set along the numerous stone columns ringing the space and illuminating the thickening assembly gathered by the steps of the temple pavilion. At its head burns an elaborate brazier, around which huddle the Fire Sages in their ceremonial garb. The herbs and incense they feed to the fire fills the air with a sickly sweet aroma; their low ritual chanting is the only sound Zuko can hear.

And yet, the whispers that trailed his footsteps through the strange silence hadn't escaped him either. Though the guards tasked with summoning him to his duel had remained stubbornly silent, Zuko hadn't missed the furtive exchanges the other palace attendants hid under their breaths, behind their fingers. And even if it had all escaped his notice, he would have sensed it in the unbearable stillness gripping the entire caldera, the way even the waves of the Budo Bay seem to have fallen silent beneath the shroud of a heavy mist descending from the skies to obscure the view ahead.

Or the way the atmosphere shifts as he approaches the arena and the assembly of his father's advisors gathered along its length. How the taut dread gives way to relief, boisterousness, even amusement. He sees his father seated behind the sages' ceremonial altar, the ornate gold of his huge phoenix-shaped headpiece reflecting the firelight. It illuminates the cold, satisfied curve of his mouth, curling into a hard smile.

The laughter of his father's advisors fills the space between him and his father's gaudy perch, tickling at his ears like the smoke-scented breeze flitting this way and that. If he had enough in him to feel, despair would have clawed at his chest like Azula's sharpened fingernails, opening and closing as she flexes her hands repeatedly at the far side of the arena.

He frowns, tilting his head to squint through the thick haze of mist building along the caldera's summit. Against the suffused light of the torches, the Fire Sage's glowing altar in the distance, he can still faintly make out the rigid carriage of her silhouette, armour-clad and standing utterly alone in her corner.

A thousand emotions vie for his attention, all of which he refuses to acknowledge.

Zuko scans the crowd again, frowning. He recognizes few of his father's lieutenants by name now, having dispensed with most familiar faces during his brief tenure as the Blue Spirit. But he can pick out Zhao's burly frame and sharp whiskers, Bujing's tall spindly silhouette. Governor Ukano waiting idly, his posture suggesting he was bored by the entire affair altogether.

He doesn't see Mai anywhere though, and that manages to surprise him. But perhaps it shouldn't, he thinks resentfully even as his stomach sinks. He remembers the look in her eyes the day of his sentencing, as they had dragged him out of his father's throne room. Mai had been a good friend to him through all this, but she had her limits. Perhaps she couldn't bear the thought of watching his final moments. Perhaps she preferred that her last memory of him be defiant and brave, not screaming while consumed by blue fire…

The ring of a low gong reverberates around the entire courtyard. The low buzz of a dozen different conversations falls to a hush.

The Fire Sages rise to their feet, little more than tapered red silhouettes from where Zuko stands. The altar before them glows a dull orange. "We are the children of fire," intones the High Sage's reedy voice. "Born of the sacred union of Agni and the Eternal Flame. Through generations and lifetimes, the flame passes through us all, a bright beacon of order and civilization for us to gift to the entire world."

Ozai rises to his feet. Obscured in the heavy pre-dawn mists, Zuko can only see the glint of his father's elaborate golden headpiece where it reflects the light of the Eternal Flame, the synchronised motion of the remaining councillors and sages and advisors all dropping to their feet in a bow.

"Today marks the hundredth year since my grandfather, the revered Sozin, took the first step in sharing our gift with the world," Ozai pronounces, his voice quivering with fervour. "One hundred years of glory, one hundred years of light undimmed. One hundred years since we have basked in the power of the comet which now bears his name." He lets out a low chuckle; the sound of it sends chills rattling down Zuko's spine. "What better day to finish the grand design that he started?"

The gong rings again. Servants flit about the arena, marking the boundaries where the combatants would duel for their lives. Zuko watches their movements with glazing eyes; in the thick haze they are little more than scurrying shadows.

"Today we honour his legacy," Ozai continues vehemently. "Today, we root out all weakness and treachery that remains in this world…that was allowed to persist unchecked, despite his best intentions." A chorus of resounding, almost savage applause greets his words, until he waves a ballooning sleeve to silence it. "Today, we will finally create a world worthy of Sozin and his true descendants. Those who have proven themselves worthy of carrying on his name."

Zuko tries to swallow, but his mouth is uncomfortably dry. He doesn't even notice the servants flanking him, hastily trying to tie the ceremonial gold bands to his wasted arms.

"Even now, our enemies show us their true worth." A feral smile enters Ozai's voice. "Lady Mao and her dragonriders, with all their promises of vengeance and hellfire. Yet she surrendered so peacefully to my daughter's forces when the time came."

A chorus of laughter rises around the arena.

"And then…if the capture of Ma'inka island's garrison wasn't easy enough," his father continues gloatingly, his voice shaking with poorly-contained glee, "the reports from the front tell us that Iroh and his fleet are finally retreating from the Great Gates." He shakes his head and his golden headpiece wobbles precariously. "This is how the so-called Dragon of the West chooses to challenge me. By taking his ramshackle alliance and slinking off across the sea with his tail tucked between his legs!"

Zuko staggers abruptly, as though the earth beneath his feet had shattered. Plunging him into oblivion - and with him, the last remnants of hope.

They're retreating. They're giving up. It slides like poison bitter in his throat, roiling in his gut. Like a block of iron looped around his ankle, dragging him down beneath waves closing inexorably above his head.

They're not coming.

Somewhere far above the water's surface, a storm of emotions churns. Terror, dread, relief, despair - it all crests to a frenzy, churning the waves to a writhing, frothing foam that blots out all light. But he feels none of it as he sinks into the silent fathoms.

Nothing except darkness, and the slow suffocation of drowning. As though the last air had already left his lungs, leaving him to choke and claw at his throat in desperation.

"They must have realized the folly of their position," someone mutters with a snort. "With the comet's arrival imminent, they must now be searching for a land base to recoup some strength."

"It matters not," Ozai declares haughtily, straightening proudly to his full height as though he had personally repelled Iroh's entire fleet from their shores. "Our forces are already in pursuit, picking off the stragglers. We will give them no quarter, no shelter. And once the comet arrives…we will crush them."

More cheers erupt, a damning approval of their king's bold words. "What better way to welcome such a glorious day than with a ritual as old as our land itself?" Ozai demands, spreading out his hands wide. "Agni Kai. With the rising of the sun, we will bear witness to the destruction of the weakness, the rot, the unworthy that exists among us."

Zuko still manages to wince as someone ties off the armbands none too gently. They had been knotted tightly to prevent from sliding along his painfully-thin arms. He glances at them dispassionately, studying how the muscles had shrivelled and wasted away to little more than bone. Well, Azula's going to make quick work of me, he thinks with a resigned sigh. At least it'll be over soon.

For her part, Azula remains surprisingly silent. Unlike her father and the entire echelon of his military commanders, she takes part in none of the posturing or gloating or celebrations unfolding on the sidelines. Instead, she remains utterly still, a statue to Zuko's eyes, seemingly oblivious to all else that unfolds around her.

He rolls his head, the tendons in his neck cracking loudly with each movement. He could hardly blame her. If he had the capacity to find that kind of focus, he would shroud himself in it. But he only has the cold stone under his feet, and his mother pressing another glass vial into his hand.

"Here," she whispers, unable to conceal her trembling, or her fear. "To still your mind."

Zuko doesn't taste it, doesn't notice the empty vial slip through his fingers to smash into a thousand sharp fragments upon the ground. When he steps forward, he isn't sure if he steps on them, if he leaves bloody footprints trailing toward the heart of the arena where he would meet his end.

If he does, they would be the only part of him that would survive past the end of the duel. Until the summer rains washed that last trace of him away too, until every last bit of him would be truly gone, lost to all memory. Forever.

Don't think about that. A curious calm settles over him as delicately as the endless curls of mist. Maybe it was his mother's final potion already starting to take effect, or maybe months of bracing for the end had prepared him to meet it without fear. Maybe his entire life had been leading to this moment, maybe his feet had always been carrying him here to this very spot without faltering…

A circle had been drawn into the centre of the arena, a thick black line of paste made from soot and tallow. His toes wiggle along its edge, feeling the slippery softness coat his skin and stain it dark.

Then his gaze draws upward, into Azula's expressionless eyes.

This is how it ends. This is how you die, the voice of his mind whispers without hesitation. And staring into her resolute face, as hard and impassive as though carved from the stone of the arena itself, he can't do anything to deny the immutable truth.

Because Azula was a generational prodigy, and he had never amounted to a firebending master in his own right. She had trained every day of her life for this moment, been hammered and tempered in the fire of their father's madness until she embraced it for her own.

At his full strength, he might have had a chance. But now, after months of starvation and imprisonment, he could do little to withstand her. His friends had been the powerful ones. Without them - without the promise of their arrival at any moment to turn the tide - he didn't have a hope of beating her.

Perhaps not. But you never let that stop you before.

His mother's voice, quiet and fierce with a strength Azula or his father could never understand, is suddenly all he can hear.

You never give up, not even when things are hard. He tears his gaze away from the hypnotic calm of Azula's face to glance uncertainly over his shoulder. Through the mist, his mother is only a slight blur in a distant, solitary corner of the courtyard. But her voice is as loud as though she was standing right next to him, whispering encouragement into his ear.

Remember that no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't break you. That's who you are. He blinks, surprised to feel tears sliding in trails down his face. No matter what happens, never forget who you are.

Azula's sigh of disdain reaches him from a million fathoms away. "Crying already, Zuzu?" she sniffs. "We haven't even gotten started yet."

"It's Mother," he mumbles despite himself, wiping at his face with the back of his hand. "No matter which of us wins today…she's the one who loses. Because either way, she has to watch one of us die."

His sister falls silent for a moment, considering the tragic plight that had ensnared their mother. "How unfortunate," she agrees at last. "But Father plans to do away with her shortly after you perish. So at least her suffering will be short-lived."

Zuko turns to stare at her with widened eyes. Her smirk is frozen, unsettling. Like the ghastly rictus of his grinning Blue Spirit mask, her expression is so hollow that it almost seems artificial.

"You're the worst daughter that ever existed, Azula," he says flatly. "And the worst sister, but I think you already know that."

Azula bows her head mockingly, pressing a hand to her black-plated chest. "Well. In that case, I'm sorry it has to end this way, brother."

He snorts, his disgust getting the better of him. "No. You're not."

Her teeth flash at him, bared into a predator's knowing smile. As though she could already taste her victory in the humidity of the air.

His hands ball into fists before his fingers uncurl slowly, allowing the swirls of thick mist to interlace the spaces between his knuckles. If this is how I'm going to go, he thinks grimly, I won't give them what they want to see. After a lifetime of letting his father down, what was one final disappointment if it was the last thing he would do on this earth?

The corners of his mouth tug upward into a wry smirk at the thought. Azula's face creases with puzzlement, a flicker so brief he wonders if he imagines it. But when he meets her eyes again, they are cool, detached, devoid of anything human.

He stares, wondering at the strange sense of acceptance that engulfs him. Azula had lied to him, betrayed him, sentenced him to die. She had manipulated him into believing she had changed, and after all she had done, she could still hold his gaze without shame or remorse. Whatever weakness that had possessed her to visit him those few times had been snuffed out. Whatever breaks in her armour he had witnessed in the secret confines of his prison cell had been mended and made whole by gaining their father's favour.

How could he accept all that with such serenity? How could he bear to stand in her presence without choking under the weight of fury, of hatred?

But the only thing that Zuko can feel as he watches the empty thing that had once been his sister, is pity.

And all he can wonder is how Azula's life might look after today, when he and his mother were both gone. How long after his death would it take before Ozai turned on his golden child and scarred her too? And how long would it take Azula to realise her error of judgement, how far she had fallen? Would she ever have the clarity to recognize their father for what he was, or would she willingly immolate herself instead, to prove her devotion to him once and for all?

Through the thick cover of cloud and mist enshrouding the air, the first of the sun's golden rays pierce the distant line of the horizon. Someone strikes at the gong again. Its reverberations echo all around the courtyard, vibrating the stone beneath Zuko's bare feet, resonating upward through his entire body and into the depth of his bones.

He breathes with it, sensing the shift in the air a split second before Azula moves. He drops to the ground, narrowly dodging a rush of blue fire. His feet kick out, jettisoning a blast of golden flames that she quickly sidesteps.

And so the Agni Kai begins.

The heavy mist shrouding the arena slowly dissipates, banished by the immense heat of their combined fire. Smoke takes its place, curling and trickling wherever walls of blue flame check tongues of red in fits of blinding bursts.

Zuko squints, barely able to see in the scattered light. Hears Azula charging toward him, feels the ground shake slightly as she leaps high into the air.

He squares his feet, bracing for impact. His fingertips graze the stone almost delicately. Exhales as warm flames pour forth. They coat the ground with their liquid gold, just as his sister lands. Forces her to leap back, hissing curses through teeth gritted in surprise.

Blue fire punches toward him. He reacts with the weightless grace of a feather in the wind. The soles of his feet easily clear Azula's strikes, one blast after another tracing the arcing trajectory of his leap.

Gravity catches up with him, and he embraces it. Lands with a spiral kick that propels his fire in a tidal wave. It spins quicker than Azula expects, catching her low in the shins and knocking her off-balance. Another kick sends her reeling back.

He has nearly closed the distance between them when she recovers. Her eyes find his, wild and furious, an instant before she lashes out.

It catches him unprepared. He smashes into the ground on his side, rolling across the length of the arena with the force of its impact. Comes to a stop on his stomach, pushing to all fours just as another blast pulverises the stone tile immediately next to his fingers.

He leaps out of the way just in time. Azula's next strike narrowly misses, grazing the side of his leg. Staggering slightly, he spares a glance downward. A patch of his silken trousers smoulders harmlessly.

He scarcely has time to question her poor aim before everything turns bright. Raises his head to see a wall of blue fire charging straight toward him. It grows in height as it closes the distance toward him.

Air rattles in his lungs, forces into his gut. His hands rise, almost of their own accord, to split the oncoming blaze.

It passes him by and fizzles out somewhere behind him. More smoke chokes the air, obscuring his vision.

But his toes trace a wide circle into the ground, seeking out a root. His arms follow suit, expanding and contracting with the swell of his tightly controlled breath.

Fire springs up in all directions, a glowing golden ring that checks Azula's onward charge. Forces her to give more ground, pivot quickly into a defensive maneuver.

Then she is circling around him, hovering like a scavenging buzzard-wasp. Blue flames ricochet in every direction, trying with increasing force to smash the defensive ring of his golden fire.

His wasted arms already ache with the effort of holding back her onslaught, meeting her blow for blow. The muscles in his legs scream; his knees already threatening to buckle.

It's only a matter of time before Azula finally finds an opening. A blue coil whips past the ring quicker than he anticipates, and he is slow to react. Searing hot pain wraps around his shin. He screams as he topples over, his left leg raw and blistered from knee to ankle. The blackened edges of his charred trouser are agony against his burned skin.

"Giving up already?" His sister's voice taunts him from across the arena. He vaguely perceives her silhouette squaring off into an offensive stance. "I'm only getting warmed up!"

A groan escapes him as he staggers onto his good knee. "Still?" he parries, forcing venom into his weak, shaking voice. "What's taking you so long? I thought you were supposed to be a prodigy."

To his surprise, she takes the bait. With an aggravated growl, she comes flying toward him.

This time, he's ready for her. With the defensive adaptability of a waterbender, he meets the brunt of her charge, turns it against her. She is close enough that he sees her eyes widen in surprise before he pushes her back with a golden wave of his own.

Something's off about her, he manages to note, watching her recover her balance in a series of jerky, ungainly movements. His brow crumples beneath the wild tangle of sweat-drenched hair. I don't know what, but it is.

Still, as she dashes toward him again, and then again, he doesn't allow himself the luxury of hope. There were a thousand reasons that could explain why Azula wasn't at the height of her power yet either, and none of them meant that he had a chance of beating her. For all her weaknesses, she still lands her hits more often than not. He spends most of his effort weaving, evading her blows, checking her strength with his on occasion. If her precision was off this morning, it could only buy him so much time. Even in spite of all the potions his mother had given him, there was a limit to the amount of strength he could muster in his weakened, wasted body.

Sooner or later, there would come a time in their duel where the sheer force of his will wouldn't be enough. Perhaps Azula was waiting for that moment too, perhaps she meant to drag out his death and make a spectacle for Father and all his upper echelon gathered to witness.

But that doesn't make any sense.

He frowns, glancing up at the smoke-obscured sky. Even through the indistinct haze, the day grows brighter as the sun advances higher into the sky. Its every movement a countdown, heralding the approaching moment when Sozin's Comet would return to the world and bless them with its power. The power his father's men were relying on, in order to launch their final strike upon the rest of the world…

Fire smashes into his chest and he lands painfully on his back. Clutching at the charred front of his tunic, the new burn bordering the star-shaped scar above his heart. The sound of his sister's crunching footsteps growing louder in his ear.

His thoughts race wildly, his eyes darting everywhere, unsure of where to focus. Somewhere in the back of his mind dawns a slow realisation.

As long as Azula is fighting me, the military commanders can't leave. No one - not even seasoned veterans like Zhao or Bujing - could cross the threshold of the sacred duel grounds while the Agni Kai was in progress. All were honour-bound to remain, to uphold the legitimacy of their beloved Phoenix King's reign by the laws of their own land.

A grin slowly spreads across his face, as surely as the rays of sunshine filtering through endless clouds of smoke. He forces himself up into a sitting position, meets Azula's resolute gaze as she closes in on him.

A flame rises in his fist, a renewed hope, the wildness of disbelief. Azula is arrogant, he remembers. They all are… and now that's going to cost them.

Why else would she have contrived such a sentence for him, if she had not believed with all her heart that their Agni Kai would be concluded quickly, neatly - a mere footnote to herald the momentous events that would follow? It must not have crossed anyone's mind, not a single one, that such a display of hubris might backfire. That if Ozai's weak-willed failure of a firstborn held out and gave the prodigy princess a real fight, then it would spell doom for their painstakingly-laid plans. After all…

His eyes flick toward his father's shining headpiece, and all the military commanders arrayed at his side, their thin veneer of patience already wearing thin.

They can't leave. Not without insinuating that they think Azula can't win. It would be a grave insult to their king and an affront to the sacred rite of the Agni Kai itself.

And if they can't leave, they can't give the command to start the invasion. His grin spreads madly, a wild laugh beginning to escape him. And if I hold out, find some way to keep the duel going until the comet arrives…

He staggers to his feet, casting a glance at the expanse of water shimmering somewhere beyond the slopes of the caldera. Somewhere out there, beyond the line of a horizon he can no longer see, his uncle and his friends flee for their lives. They had fought tooth and nail to get to him, he understands, they had brought a dead spirit back to life, transcended ancestral divides, even crossed the entire world to be by his side. That should have been enough.

Liquid fire races through his veins, the certainty of purpose in the face of abject hopelessness. Maybe it was madness. Maybe it was the glimmer of the very last chance he had.

It wouldn't be enough to spare him; no matter what happened, his fate ended with Azula. But maybe he could give his friends one last chance to recoup their losses. Perhaps even turn around and make their final stand. With his father's invasion plan delayed, disorganised, the chain of command plunging to confusion until the comet's arrival, perhaps that could even be enough to tip the scales in their favour.

And to accomplish all that, he just had to do what they had been doing all this time.

Keep on fighting.

This time, when Azula barrels into him, he manages to stay rooted. Imagines the earth itself wrapping around his ankles, even as the soles of his feet slide back inch by inch along the slippery ground.

I don't have to win. The thought is a mantra, galvanising his useless limbs into a last, desperate push. I just have to last until the comet arrives.

Azula bares her teeth in an aggravated growl. Then a violent flash of clashing blue and red sending the both of them tumbling backward.

Zuko, long used to weathering unexpected blows and falls, is the first to find his balance. A breeze whips in from the bay, tinged with brine and sulfur fumes of a distant battle. It tickles the sodden snarls of his hair, sweeps the tendrils of mist into a fine veil. They skim his aching shoulders with their gentle touch, resting reassuring hands upon the small of his back.

Azula has barely found her feet by the time he strikes. She leaps gracelessly out of the way in the nick of time. Her furious surprise etches across her face like the shattering of a mask, and he savours it.

Her landing is ungainly, heavy, and she charges him low to the ground. In response, he is light on his feet, imagining Aang and the other airbenders. How they could make themselves as weightless as leaves drifting in the breeze, all while their enemies wore themselves down trying to pin them down.

"Coward!" he hears Azula shriek through the explosions of blue fire that all fall short. "Stop running and fight me already!"

"What's the matter?" he goads, even though his mouth and throat are painfully parched, and summoning breath is a battle in its own right. "Can't keep up with your failure brother?"

She lets out a roar, a ring of fire bursting all around her. "You'll die as you lived! A coward with no honour!"

"Maybe," he retorts, dispelling the few flames that manage to reach him. "But first, you'll have to catch me."

Her response is another blast of fire, punching at him with vehement force. But her aim is off, he notices, and it sails harmlessly past his face.

A scream of aggravation meets his ears. He glances up, to find her charging toward him. Blue fire blazes in her wake, lending speed to her movements.

He braces himself, preparing to meet her head-on. Draws on his breath, his stance, the solid earth spreading like roots deep into the ground.

Then she's upon him, their strikes collide. Her fire meets his; hunger and desperation clashing against dogged resolve.

But somehow, to his amazement, she is the first to waver.

Perhaps it was because she had expected him to break by now. Because the princess who never miscalculated was surprised to find that now, when it mattered most, she had underestimated him.

After all, Azula was perfect. She had always prided herself upon it. Her entire life, her entire identity, had depended upon remaining flawless, invulnerable.

But she had never learned how to adapt when things went slightly off-script. How could she? Ozai's golden child had never been allowed to make mistakes, never learned to rebound from them. She had only ever seen them as catastrophes, the slightest flaw in her carefully laid plans enough to fuel an utter meltdown.

That was the crack in her immaculate facade, he finally understands as she tries to regroup furiously, moving with a clumsy desperation that he had never seen in her before. He counters her easily this time, sending her sprawling across the length of the arena with almost humiliating ease.

He doesn't know how long he stands there, panting through air-starved lungs. His hands brace against his cramping legs, the buzz of adrenaline dulling the myriad burns gnawing at his flesh. Sweat trails down his face, puddling into the ground by his feet.

How could I have been so blind? He had worked with her in secret, seen the faults scoring deep through her broken spirit. Pushed against them to his detriment. How could it have taken him this long to finally understand that the key to defeating Azula had never been physical?

She lies crumpled in a heap, face-down and heaving for longer than he expects. The neat circle that had been drawn into the arena's heart has been smeared into a long curving trail of black paste, tracing the trajectory of the blow he had dealt her.

Her fingers flex, the clawed nails scratching viciously at the stone tiles. The tines of her shoulder-plates moving up and down with the force of her ragged breathing. When she finally raises her head to glare at him through the mess of her hair, he is shocked to see the despair in her eyes, and the tears that flow freely down her cheeks.

On the sidelines, Ozai's men shuffle impatiently. One actually has the audacity to jeer out loud.

"This Agni Kai was your idea, Princess! What are you waiting for?" Zuko hears it clearly through the roar of blood in his ears, and the rush of that persistent ocean breeze, building strength as the sun climbs higher still. He wonders if he imagines the accompanying shift in the colour of the sky, from the rose gold of dawn to the cooler red of a dying fire.

"Enough with the theatrics! Just end it already!" Zuko doesn't recognize the voice of the man foolish enough to voice his frustration. "We're running out of time!"

A sudden flash of cold blue light sears his vision. He raises an arm to shield his gaze.

By the time he lowers it, blinking water out of his stinging eyes, Azula has tottered back to her feet. Smoke trickles up from the tips of her fingers, pointed straight at the heart of the throng of onlookers. The sound of a body hitting the ground punctuates the abrupt silence that follows.

Azula stares at the crowd with furious, unhinged eyes. A single wayward strand of hair flutters into her face, but she ignores it. "The duel will end when I decide it, and no other!" she hisses menacingly. Her voice is quiet but it carries to every corner of the sacred duel grounds.

Apart from a nervous clearing throat and a few muffled coughs, nobody else dares to voice their protest. High on his pedestal, Ozai's shining headpiece remains impassive, motionless.

As if following some unheard command, Azula whirls on him. Zuko watches her carefully, anticipating the bolt of lightning that would surely follow.

But instead, only more blue fire lances toward him. He shifts his weight rapidly, redirects it anyway. It crashes into one of the stone walls guarding the perimeter of the palace grounds. Somewhere in the distance, one of the sentry turrets collapses with the force of the impact.

Azula leaps into the air again, as graceful and poised as always. She executes every movement flawlessly, advanced firebending forms coming as effortlessly to her as breathing.

Zuko springs forward, fueling his breath into an outpouring of flames that tracks her airborne flight. Forces her to break her focus to adjust her attack strategy, to pivot back into a defensive maneuver. It upsets her landing, her feet stumbling in search of a patch of ground clear of Zuko's fire.

Her ankle gives way and she falls heavily. Zuko isn't sure if he imagines the ensuing crack, or the wince of pain that flits across his sister's face. But she clutches at it, doubled over and hunched. When she finally straightens upright, she sports an obvious limp.

Finish it, something inside him urges. You've got the upper hand now, take it and finish her off while you have the chance.

Azula stares him down, her glare piercing through the strands of her loose hair blowing in the wind. Sometime during their duel, her little flame crown had fallen off and no one had even noticed. It glints somewhere in the corner, unseen and unremarked, coated in grime and soot.

But the fire that rears in his chest at the sight of his limping little sister isn't hatred or pity or even the blind hunger for survival that had fuelled him to that very moment.

If their places had been switched, Azula wouldn't have hesitated. She had none of his weakness, no illusions of mercy and compassion and kindness. She would have smirked at him triumphantly before dealing the final blow that would end the duel, and the world with it.

But so long as Princess Azula, hailed as a prodigy and the greatest firebender of her generation, broke over every simple stumble, she couldn't reach the pinnacle of that legendary power. Once he had understood that, understood that a lifetime of failure had in fact laid the foundation for the way to defeat her, there was little else he had to do. He only had to upset her plans, disrupt her attacks in small, subtle ways, humiliate her in front of their father and all his men. And then she would implode, and everyone would watch with disappointment.

Weakness, their father would have called it. But Zuko is starved and exhausted, his muscles atrophied, fuelled only by herbal draughts and hope, and he is still standing despite it all. And if after all of that, he still can't bring himself to deal a fatal blow to his sister while she's injured, then maybe that was part of that same defiance that had brought him to this point. And maybe, as Katara had once told him under a sky full of stars… maybe that was one of the best things about him.

So who's the weak one now, Father?

The duel drags on, prolonged by the fatigue that grips both its combatants, and the waning promise of a quick, easy victory.

Instead, Zuko's attacks grow weaker, while Azula's lose some of their fabled accuracy. Her aim is more likely to hit stone, his blows draining power as the herbal drafts wear off and even all the adrenaline charging through his blood isn't enough to supplement the flagging strength in his body.

And as the darkening clouds roil and part to reveal a patch of blood-red sky, glowing with the smallest seed of undimmed fire, the pair of them find themselves circling each other more often than actively fighting. Their strength depleted, their bodies exhausted, but seeking somehow to trudge on.

"This is pointless," he gasps, even as her feverish eyes study his every movement. "At this point, we're both just going to collapse from exhaustion. You're too quick for me to defeat."

"And you're too stubborn," she growls, wiping sweat off her brow with a torn sleeve. "No matter. The comet arrives at any moment. I'll have you then."

"And then what?" he counters, something like adrenaline but far more powerful already starting to simmer with liquid fire beneath his skin. "This isn't the way you wanted this day to go, is it? Now, all they'll speak of is how much you had to struggle to defeat your miserable runt of a brother."

Her eyes flash warningly. "It won't matter. As long as I win, I will redeem myself, and Father -"

Zuko laughs scornfully. "Father doesn't care!" he exclaims, pointing at the steadfast glint of the Phoenix King's ornate headpiece. "He just cares about his lineage and his legacy. You're doing all this for him, to show him how much you love him. But the truth is, he wants you to fail."

A strange smile flickers across Azula's deranged face, instantly suppressed.

"He wants to see you fall, Azula. Nothing would give him more pleasure," Zuko continues savagely. His scar twinges as though in agreement. "You think he wants you to win, but he just wants you to humiliate yourself in front of everyone while he watches."

Another tear trickles down her cheek, cutting through the mask of soot and grime caked onto her face, and washing it clean to reveal stripes of pale skin beneath.

And then she meets his gaze with the golden eyes that they had both inherited from their father. In them, he sees the truth of his words reflected like a mirror behind her eyes. A sad broken truth like the shattered remains of a sister who had once loved him.

Pity stabs at his heart, dealing a far deadlier blow than anything Azula could muster. "It's okay," he hears himself say, stepping forward with his hands raised. "It'll be okay."

He isn't sure what compels her to tilt her head in confusion at that. "Zuzu," she says uncertainly, "what are you doing?"

"You're my sister," he tells her urgently. His hands find her shaking shoulders, taut like ropes beneath the scuffed plates of her armour. "And you can't help what Father did to you any more than I can."

Her eyes widen; her breath hitches in her throat and stills. He had struck her right in the heart after all.

Then he wraps his arms around her in a crushing hug. She nearly collapses under the weight of it.

"I love you," he whispers into her ear, easily overpowering her as she feebly tries to fight him off. "Do you hear me? I love you, Azula. And…and deep down somewhere, I know you still love me too. Why else would you fight so hard?"

She lets out a strange choked sound, an animal cry accompanying the tears that now flow freely down her face.

His hands cup her cheeks, he presses his forehead into hers. "I forgive you." After a lifetime of fearing her, how could she suddenly seem so small and frail? "For everything you did to me, and everything you're going to do…if I don't stop you first."

She glances at him in alarm. Understanding flashes across her face, just before the blow smashes into the thick steel of her chestplate.

Zuko watches her roll across the ground with the force of the impact, smoke still trickling from his fist. A weight settles into his chest, growing heavier still as she finally slows to a stop and lies prone, unmoving.

Get up, a part of him urges irrationally, even as the rest of him longs for this Agni-forsaken duel to conclude, no matter what that meant for the ugly sharp thing twisting in his heart. Get up Azula, you're stronger than this.

We're stronger than this.

As if responding to the voices in his head, Azula twitches before rolling onto her side, clutching at her torso in visible pain. Through the hole punched through her armour, he can see something dark and red blossoming under her tunic.

Somewhere behind him, his mother lets out a blood-curdling shriek, only somewhat muffled through her fingers pressed tight against her mouth.

And more sounds emanate from the onlookers assembled at the foot of the Phoenix King's pedestal. Not more screams of agony, not gasps of horror or dismay or concern for the fallen princess…but tuts and snorts of disapproval.

The pity swells in Zuko's chest, clawing up his throat and threatening to suffocate him. But he is not prepared for the cold numbing wave of anger that sweeps over him at the sight of Ozai's golden headpiece turning away from the duel grounds.

"Generals," his father commands, his expressionless voice amplified by the rising winds, "I give you leave to exit the duel grounds."

A chorus of gasps greets his cool proclamation, and the grave insult it bore. "But, but Your Magnificence," protests the High Sage, motioning to the altar lit with the Eternal Flame. "These grounds have been consecrated to Agni! To leave before the end of the duel -"

"What more is left to see?" Ozai counters bluntly, turning his back upon his staggering, exhausted children. "Both combatants are all but spent, what little strength remains in them is not fit for the honour accorded them. The invasion has been delayed long enough by this farce, but no longer…"

Ozai continues to speak, but his lofty voice turns to an indistinct hum in Zuko's ears. Instead, all his focus is fixed upon Azula as she fights to clamber to all fours.

She struggles to sit back on her haunches. Raises a hand to wipe at the wet red trails trickling out the corner of her mouth. Her eyes flick toward their father's silhouette, still turned away from the grounds and issuing orders to a slowly dispersing crowd.

They narrow coldly.

Then, the next thing Zuko knows is pain.

Everything whirls around him, weightless like the air sailing past. Blue fire wraps all around him, searing his palm where it clutches at the agony of his torso. Feels it lick the remnants of his tunic away to nothing.

In the corner of his eye, Ozai's golden headpiece stills, before turning back to face the arena. "Finally," he hisses, his displeasure plain in his voice. "Enough stalling, Azula. Finish him now." The swish of silk against stone grows louder, as the Phoenix King descends the steps. " If I had known that you would give such a shameful performance, I would never have permitted this…"

Azula staggers across the arena, still clutching at her wounded chest. Every breath she takes is wet and wracked with pain, every step is laboured. She drags her feet against the ground, limping slowly to the edge of the arena where her father looms over her brother's collapsed body.

Zuko struggles for breath but it's as though a mooselion is sitting on his chest. His fingers scrabble uselessly, but the rest of his body is utterly spent.

He turns his head to see Azula bearing down upon him, step by tortured step. A ball of blue fire hovers above her open palm, growing with every ragged breath that rakes through her clenched teeth. Her broken armour slides off her form, crashing to the ground one by one and leaving her only in her lightweight training silks.

The front of her tunic is dark with a blossoming wet stain, the same bloody hue as the colour of the sky overhead. The swirling clouds are almost black by comparison, except for a single patch of searing brightness. A growing bead of light that dwarfs Azula's fire in brightness and forces Zuko to look away before it blinds him.

Dread encases him like the rising power that thrums under his skin. At long last, the comet had finally arrived. A harbinger of destruction, a promise for the end of the world.

He had lasted this long and delayed the invasion. He had done his part. Now, the fate of everything hangs in balance. He would just have to trust that he had done enough.

Please, he prays, adrenaline and the comet's rush locking his entire form in a paralysing grip of their own. Please, let it have been enough.

It's not like I'll be around to see it.

Azula's footsteps stop next to his ear. He can still see her blue fire, a menacing glow in the corner of his eye.

"What are you waiting for?" Ozai all but shouts at her. "He's right within your reach, now end it!"

Zuko tenses, bracing for the end. But he wouldn't flinch, he decides. He turns his head, to stare down that blazing blue inferno with watering eyes. He would look her in the eyes as she struck the final blow. He would show her that in the end, he hadn't had nearly as much to fear as she had…

But, to his surprise, Azula isn't looking at him at all.

Instead, she stares at the flames dancing in her open palm. Her face is closed and expressionless, illuminated in their cold blue glow. Her golden eyes reflect the unrestrained fire of the comet streaking across the blood-coloured sky.

"Yes Father," she says in an almost dreamlike voice. "As you command."

Her eyes flick to meet Zuko's for a brief, sudden instant, her gaze so charged he thinks she has already struck him with her lightning.

He blinks, nearly missing the speed at which his sister moves. The force that propels her to pivot, lunge forward without hesitation, fingers outstretched with deadly, precise calm.

And the lightning that whips forth in crackling cold blue, smashing mercilessly into the Phoenix King's ornate, decorative headpiece.

Zuko stares, unblinking and unable to comprehend.

Ozai staggers backward, reeling from the blow. Clinging to the shoulders of some unfortunate cronies unfortunate enough to be waiting in the vicinity, knocking them over in an effort to regain his balance.

He splutters, his face darkening in the blood-red light. "What," he growls viciously, every word punctuated by the pieces of his broken crown tumbling to the ground one by one, "what is the meaning of this?"

Azula moves as though caught in a trance, or a dream that refused to let her awaken. Shifting her stance ever so slightly, positioning herself to shield her fallen brother. Directly countering their cowering, furious father.

"Why," she answers in that same breathless, dreamy voice, "I'm doing as you commanded, Father." Her mouth tightens with steely resolve. "I'm ending it."

Zuko gawks wildly at the sliver of her face still visible to him. But the hard, unyielding mask had slipped away, leaving only a strange serenity in its absence.

She stretches out a hand behind her. To where Zuko still lies flat on the ground, more out of stunned disbelief than anything else.

He grabs at it instinctively, and this time, she pulls him upright. Her eyes never leave Ozai's face.

"You insolent -" Ozai's face twists into a snarl. His fingers slowly undo the ornate fastenings of his mantle. "You swore to obey me! I am your king!"

"That may be so," Azula says with an upward tilt of her chin. But Zuko can feel how clammy her hand is, trembling and gripping painfully-tight at his own. "But you're as unfit a king as you are a father, Father."

"Then," Ozai seethes, raising his hands, "then you will perish with the rest of them!"

He moves so quickly that the lightning seems to appear out of nowhere. It flashes cold and white, charging directly at his daughter for her defiant last stand.

Zuko shoves her aside without thinking. The lightning passes through his fingertips, into the pools of his belly. He holds it with gritted teeth, their father's unbridled wrath contained within the quivering paths of his body.

And then he redirects it, passing it harmlessly into a nearby pillar. The stone structure collapses into a pile of rubble, still buzzing with electricity.

"What chance do you think you have now?" Ozai taunts. "You thought your pathetic ruses could kneecap our invasion plan? Iroh's forces are already on the run, retreating across the sea to lick their wounds."

He flexes his shoulders. At once, fire curls around his wrists, crawling up his arms to form two massive sleeves of fire. They stretch across the edge of the battered duel arena, cutting off everyone else standing beyond.

"With the force of the comet, my troops will easily regain the time lost to your theatrics," he hisses. "Even Lady Mao and her garrison are all behind bars. Now the world is mine for the taking, and there is nobody, absolutely nobody left to stand in my way!" His thin lips curve into a contemptuous smirk. "Except for my two miserable children, and the bleeding hearts they inherited from their worthless mother."

He moves to strike. Zuko braces himself, feels Azula do the same where she stands at his side.

But then, something rattles the world beneath their feet. Sends the ground shaking, and all three of them plummeting off-balance.

An earth-shattering roar fills the air; a shadow passes across the sky. The wind picks up speed, sweeping more mist and brine and sulfur fumes into Zuko's face.

He glances up at the strange shapes cutting through the clouds, and his jaw drops.

If he had expected to see the bulky lumbering silhouettes of a herd of sky bison, he remains disappointed. The figure rippling overhead is sleek, serpentine. Glittering with jewel-bright scales that easily reflect the light of the sun and the comet in the sky.

"Dragons," Zuko breathes hoarsely, unable to believe his eyes. Rubs at them in disbelief for good measure. "They're dragons! What -"

It opens its mouth and the words die in his throat.

Fire pours from its jaws, supercharged by the comet streaking across the sky. It catches at the flowerbushes lining the palace gardens, on the outskirts of the duel grounds. Like a match to a tinderbox, the entire place goes up in flames.

Zuko shields his face with his arms, the immense heat licking uncomfortably at his skin. Squinting as the dragonfire consumes a row of pavilions in the distance, leaving only cinders behind.

He struggles to his feet, which is no easy feat given the ferocity with which the ground trembles. Reverberating with the toppling of the high perimeter walls one by one as they all buckle, levelling the palace's last defences.

And pouring through them to storm the burning palace grounds, a crowd of people barely more than silhouettes through the fire and thick smoke. Silhouettes dressed in strange ancestral golden armour, moving to easily cut off the last of Ozai's commanders where they try to escape. Someone in their midst throws silver blades whirring through the air, pinning his father's men in place.

Zuko shakes his head, no longer able to follow. His ears are full of the sounds of battle erupting all across the palace grounds, the aristocratic quarter beyond the toppled palace walls, the entire breadth of the caldera and the lower city…

His eyes trace the harbour, now clearly visible as the curiously stubborn mists peel back like a parting curtain. The entire expanse of the Budo Bay, shimmering under the comet's light like dark syrupy blood.

And the small shapes dotting the horizon, small but unmistakable.

The sharp prows of towering Fire Navy cruisers. The curving bows and sails of Water Tribe skiffs. Ice floes the colour of gold, whizzing across the water's surface with unnatural speed. Waves churn in their wake, building menacingly in height to meet the towering harbour walls.

Zuko staggers backward, losing his footing. He falls to his knees, frozen and numb.

It repeats in his head over and over, even as something warm swells in his chest with the power of the comet streaking overhead.

They're here. They made it.

He wipes at his tear-stained cheek with a bloodied, sooty hand.

They did it.

"What's wrong, Father?" Next to him, Azula crosses her arms, unaffected and unsurprised by the utter chaos embroiling the entire caldera. Her fingers tap a mocking rhythm against her chin. "Did your two miserable children perhaps find some way to ruin your brilliant plans?"

Chapter 65: balance

Chapter Text

disclaimer. not in this timeline, sadly :(

author's notes. this single chapter alone took over ten months to write and i honestly am so pumped to finally be able to share it.

i'd warn you to prepare yourselves but that would be a waste.

i give you….

southern lights.

chapter lxv. balance

a foot in my own grave
my head held high
i'll try to break these chains
this is my goodbye

"inhale" / heretoir

It begins in silence.

Sokka makes his way to the bow of the small dinghy. Yawning silently, rubbing at his tired eyes. The layers of war paint that by now seem fused to his skin, a stark mask that would glow if not for the absolute darkness swallowing his surroundings.

Nervous energy radiates around him, picking up with the faintest of breezes that stirs the water's surface. It skims along the bone-white plates of his battle-scarred armour, flaps against the blue cotton of the Water Tribe garments he sports beneath.

His feet find their way across the small boat with practised ease. In spite of the complete lack of sight or sound, he is still strangely aware of everything that unfurls around him. In the unnaturally thick mist damp against his skin, the chill of the breeze sweeping in from the east. The sway of the boat with every step he takes.

He reaches the prow to stare out into the open waters. A wall of unending blackness stares back at him.

A voice speaks in his ear, barely more than a whisper. "Enjoy the darkness while it lasts, young warrior." A faint rustle as the General adjusts his cloak. "Sozin's Comet will end it all."

Sokka rolls his eyes. "We still have time."

Iroh chuckles darkly. "Are you sure we shouldn't have used it to ensure our fleet's safety?"

"If we don't win today, nowhere will be safe," Sokka repeats impatiently, for what must have been the thousandth time.

"No matter." Iroh's morose sigh tickles his ear. "It won't make a difference in the end, one way or another."

"That's the spirit," Sokka retorts, clapping the old man's shoulder with a little more force than he intends. He pictures Iroh's answering wince, even if he can't see it. "With a go-getter attitude like that, we'll have your loser brother on the ropes in no time."

The harsh rattle of chains moving through their pulleys stifles whatever plaintive reply Iroh must have cooked up next. Through the erratic thwacking of the waves slapping the rounded hull, a voice rises up, barely audible.

"Knotgrass and Wheel are in place, General."

"Excellent," Sokka retorts, rubbing a hand along the back of his neck. "Any word from Orchid?"

"Assembled and ready to breach, Sir. They're just waiting for the signal."

"Good." Sokka's fingers trace the back of his scalp, the sharp stubble pricking his skin where the hair starts to grow in. How long had it been since he had time to shave it?

"Sir?" A moment's hesitation, strung taut and quivering with nerves. "Do we have the order?"

Next to him, Iroh draws a slow, purposeful breath but remains silent.

The wind picks up from the east, supercooled and chilling the blood in his veins. The darkness sits stubbornly in a thick black shroud, but Sokka imagines what he might see if he could sense the world around him without needing his vision, the way Toph did.

For a moment, he thinks he can. Thinks he can see all the pieces of their mismatched fleet, chased relentlessly over open waters by Ozai's eastern naval fleet against the backdrop of the imposing Great Gates. Air Nomads and earthbenders and Water Tribe warriors, two opposing factions of Fire Navy. Everyone's interests and loyalties as disparate as all the different colours they wore under their bone-white armour.

They had come together nonetheless. Some invisible hand had guided them all to the same place and tied their fates to hinge on this one, impossible day. Wherever they came from, whatever purpose they occupied before now, it no longer mattered. For they all had a part to play today, no matter how humble - or horrifying - their origins.

The breeze settles. An uncanny stillness fills the air to replace it.

Sokka reaches into his pocket. His hand closes around the small wooden tile. Its carved edges bite into his palm reassuringly.

"You have it," he declares grimly. "Relay the order to the rest of the fleet."

He withdraws his hand, flings the tile upward. Catches it mid-spin out of the air without even needing to see it.

"Operation White Lotus is a go."

Mist rises in thick tendrils from the surface of sleeping waters.

It diffuses the cool blue glow of early morning, obscuring the first hint of the sun's rays where they pierce the line of the horizon. As though the clouds had descended from the heavens overnight, to linger with the rest of the dew that had condensed onto the guardrails lining the narrow deck.

Commander Jiang sighs under his breath, running an aimless finger along the wet metal surface. A small squeak greets his ears, the water droplets shockingly cold against his fingertips. A reminder that the world beyond still existed, even if the infernal mists shrouded it all from view.

He glances up into the endless mass, trying to discern the hazy shapes in its depths. But the body of their fleet had already set sail, hard on the heels of their retreating prey limping eastward across the sea.

His humble cruiser brings up the rear, picking off the few enemy ships that were too weak or waterlogged to keep up. Commander Jiang sighs distastefully. He and his crew were little more than waterborne scavengers, per their captain's orders.

"Commander?"

Jiang blinks in confusion at one of the sailors, now standing to attention by his shoulder. How long had he been standing there? Or had he simply missed the man's approach, cloaked in silence and the strange mists growing more opaque with every passing breath. "Anything to report?"

"Negative." Jiang shakes his head. "Still no word from the capital."

"That's odd," his shipmate remarks, sidling up against the saturated guardrail. "Zhao's forces were supposed to muster with us here by daybreak."

"Maybe they were delayed."

"Or maybe there was a change of plans. Who knows?"

"Who knows," Jiang echoes glumly. "Not our place to question orders now."

"No, Commander." His shipmate's voice turns wry. "We've come too far to turn back."

"And at any rate, what difference would it make if we did?" Jiang's lip twists with contempt. "Fleet Captain Huang would just order some other butcher to take our place, and we would get ourselves court-martialled for no reason at all."

He glances at the few remaining enemy boats, so overcrowded and damaged they were barely seaworthy. Easy prey. "At least we can make it quick. Clean. Dignified."

"Hm." His shipmate makes a non-committal sound. "I'll give the order then?"

"Might as well." Commander Jiang still hesitates, studying what he can glean from their quarry. Those little ships couldn't be for combat, not when they sat so low in the water. No, most likely they were infirmaries, full of the wounded and dying. And this was war, and they were the enemy.

And his indecision wouldn't spare them a fate already set in motion.

"Approach enemy ship. Prepare to board." The words turn sour in his mouth nonetheless. "No survivors."

"Yes Commander."

"But no butchery either." Jiang's voice hardens with distaste. "I don't want any more blood spilled than needed, is that understood?"

"Yes, Commander."

The muffled thump of a gloved fist against an iron chestplate, and then the clomp of receding bootsteps. Until the mists swallow his shipmate again, leaving the unhappy commander alone at his post.

No matter what happens today, he thinks darkly, they won't remember us as barbarians.

After days of nonstop fighting, of being pushed back from Whale Tail Island to within throwing distance of the capital, it is a relief to finally sail eastward again. Though he can't see them, he still feels the reassuring presence of the Great Gates of Azulon towering behind him, wide open with the promise of fresh troops, an entire invasion force that was surely sailing across the Budo Bay at this very moment…

But only the slow clinking of submerged metal chains punctuates the eerie stillness of early morning.

It's the mists, he tries to tell himself, shaking off the unsettling feeling that swallows him up with a bite of the clammy air. They're probably already at the gates and we just can't see them, that's all.

And in fact, if he listens intently enough, he imagines that he can hear their arrival. Soft sounds whispering all around him in that strange, all-encompassing gloom. Water slapping against hulls, wind inflating sails. Engines whispering slowly back to life, belching smoke into the air…

A low groan, a shudder that runs through the entire ship.

"We've made contact," one of his shipmates calls up from the deck below.

Commander Jaing raises his voice. "Prepare to board."

The rattle of chains whirring through the teeth of metal gears. The clang of the gangplank as it hits the deck.

"Boarding party ready."

Commander Jiang nods tersely. The ensuing stillness drowns out everything except his racing heart, his breaths echoing behind his face plate.

Even the water seems to pause, holding its breath too, waiting.

And then it hits him, a dozen realisations at once.

First comes the understanding, its tension winding tight through his entire body.

It's so quiet. He draws another trembling breath, wondering if it would be his last. Too quiet.

Then the dread pooling in his gut, as he remembers. The sea is never truly still. It waits for no one. Not unless there's someone else out there. Someone with the power to bend it to their will.

And then, as the sun's rays finally pierce the line of the horizon, there's sound.

He doesn't know how he hears it over the drumming of his pulse, screaming loud in his ears. He barely registers it - is it a guttural cry, a wail of the horn, the answering blast of a cannon? A chorus of screams, an unearthly roar of thousands of voices surrounding them on all sides?

Commander Jiang blinks, and everything changes.

The mists break, the veil lifts. Revealing more ghostly shapes that had been concealed within its obscuring depths.

More ships? Jiang stumbles backward, his mouth already opening to issue the command. Retreat, he might have said, it's a trap, retreat -

But it never comes.

For as the ghostly shapes speed across the water's surface to cut him off from behind, he understands again that he had been mistaken.

Not ships. Icebergs.

He glances at the body of the Fire Navy fleet sailing ahead of his ship, wondering if he could call for help.

But with the shroud of the mists gone, he sees it clearly now. The eastern fleet, amassed into a single streamlined body to aggressively pursue the lure of a defeated, retreating enemy. The jagged icebergs waiting patiently in their opaque depths to spring their trap.

They whiz across the waves in every direction now, with a speed that no ship could hope to match. He can only watch, paralysed with cold dread, as the ice floes move to surround their fleet entirely. As the limping enemy ships roar back to life, reversing course in a motion more ungainly than their wave-skimming icy counterparts, but no less menacing.

For as the hammer of the enemy ships turns back to advance upon the vanguard of the eastern fleet, the ring of icebergs outflanking them begins to constrict inward. Tightening the noose while Commander Jiang and his fellow sailors remain stuck in place with nowhere left to go.

The sky fills with gliding Air Nomads and shaggy sky bison. Some slip past Azulon's outstretched hands. As though accepting his invitation to the waters of the Budo Bay, and the capital that lay beyond.

The remainder descend upon the trapped fleet like a swarm of angry buzzard-wasps upon a field of carcasses.

For that's what we are, Commander Jiang realises. He tries to swallow again but his mouth is bone dry.

A field of carcasses. We just didn't know it yet.

The wind shrieks in Katara's ears, whipping through her braided hair, threatening to strip the war paint off her skin.

She grits her teeth, fighting the aggressive slipstream as she clambers up to the edge of Appa's saddle. Her hands move of their own accord, stirring and raising the dense mists that roll in an opaque shroud across the breadth of the Budo Bay, concealing their approach.

"How's it looking down there?" she calls out.

Aang clutches tightly at the reins from his perch atop the ski bison's head. "No sign of anyone yet."

"Huh." Katara tries to quell the momentary leap of triumph that spits in her chest. "Looks like Mai was right after all."

"Didn't the crazy princess find out she was spying for us?" Toph asks loudly, clutching tightly at the saddle with white-knuckled fingers. "How did Mai manage to worm her way out of that?"

"She must be a woman of many talents," Katara remarks. Her eyes scan their surroundings, a constant roving motion. But all she can see is the faint blue sky, the swirl of clouds. A sliver of black water somewhere far, far below.

"Hey, as long as she delivers, I'm okay with that." Toph crawls on all fours, following the raised lip of the saddle to crouch by Katara's side. "She said that the invasion launch would be delayed, and that seems to be the case. We're just cruising on by here."

Katara spares a glance over her shoulder, at the empty trails stretching in the wake of Appa's flat tail. Where more sky bison cut through the air, following them like thread on a needle slicing across the water.

She longs for Sokka's reassuring presence, but he'd stayed behind with their ships. I need to be there in case things go sideways again, he had explained. Besides, I'd be useless up front with you guys. When that comet fires up all of the Loserlord's men, I'd just be the first to get roasted. No thanks.

Katara shakes her head, lips quirking upward faintly. Only Sokka could dream up such a crazy plan and get everyone to go along with it. And some spirit had smiled upon them this morning, for it had worked more or less without a hitch.

Now they sneak across the Budo Bay unhindered, closing in on the capital faster than any of the warnings carried by the Fire Navy's messenger hawks. They still had the element of surprise on their side, as long as they met a confused, disorganised enemy at the harbour.

She chances a glance up at the sky, the brightening blue beyond the clouds. And the seed of light rising into the crown of the heavens, too big and too bright to be yet another star.

Her blood stills in her veins at the sight of it. "Can't Appa go any faster?"

Aang snaps the reins in answer. Appa bellows loudly, before whipping his flat tail. The ensuing acceleration nearly sends Katara sprawling.

In the distance behind them, a chorus of roaring bison follow suit.

Hang in there, Zuko, Katara thinks, eyes watering against the stinging salt air. We're on our way. We'll be there before you know it.

In what feels like an eternity and no time at all, the spires of the mountainous archipelago fade into view. Dark blunt cones, barely visible through the thick clouds settling along the steep rock slopes.

She wonders if she imagines the flickering of distant fires crowning the summit of the highest peak. If the fighting had already begun, if somewhere on that caldera, Zuko battles for his very life all alone.

No. Not alone. Somehow she gets to her feet, standing tall against the force of the winds buffeting her heavy cloak in every direction. "It's time."

Her voice is low and quiet, but it carries on the fierce gusts stirring the mists into spiralling arms. Reaching for the crescent-shaped shores far below, just out of sight but growing ever nearer. "I'm going to drop cover."

Toph's hand finds hers in a quick, bone-cracking squeeze. Katara meets her sightless eyes, seeing the same grim purpose reflected in their clouded green depths. Though the earthbender wears no war paint, her face seems just as white.

"I see ships still docked at the harbour," Aang observes grimly. "Looks like they still haven't launched yet."

"What are they waiting for?" Toph asks. "What if they already know about our plan?"

"Well, the longer we wait, the less it'll matter," Katara answers, chewing her lip. "They'll hear us coming long before they see us."

"True," Toph allows. "Sheddy here isn't exactly quiet."

Appa grumbles loudly in answer.

Aang drops the reins. In a trice, he's leapt overhead, landing lightly to join them in the saddle. His fingers are shockingly cold where it wraps around theirs, his touch feather-light in contrast to Toph's crushing grip.

"We've risked more for less," he points out, sounding like he's trying to convince himself as much as everyone else. "And we've made it this far. And Sokka's plan seems to be working."

"For now. But that was the easy part." Toph's grip tightens, but Katara doesn't wince. "Coming up against a bunch of supercharged firebending fanatics on their home turf is a different story."

"It doesn't matter," Katara says bluntly. "Zuko's down there somewhere. We're so close."

"Yeah," Aang agrees. "And so is the comet."

They break off, craning their head up toward the sky again. The strange bright star is a smear now, its light piercing through the hazy corona of the sun's rays. Around it, the sky begins to redden.

"It's out there, isn't it?" Toph asks suddenly, her sightless gaze furrowing instinctively.

"Yes," Aang answers, barely able to speak. "It's starting."

Toph whistles softly. "And you wasted these front-row seats on me?" She laughs abrasively. "I should count myself lucky."

"At least if everything else goes south, you have that to hold on to," Katara reassures her, smiling despite herself.

"True. However brief that might be."

"Still." Katara gives her friends' hands another hearty squeeze. "It's been a privilege fighting with you. And being your friend. Even when I wasn't a very good one."

"Aw shucks, Sweetness. Now you're making me blush."

"Those are some big words, coming from the Water Tribe Chief," Aang jokes. "I'm surprised Appa can bear the weight of them."

"Maybe he can't," Katara retorts seriously. "Maybe he's going to plummet down and leave us to drown at sea."

"Sounds awful." Aang's mouth curves into a nervous smile. "If only we had a waterbender with us."

"If only." Katara lets out a laugh in spite of herself.

It's absurd. A stone's throw from the Fire Empire capital, Ozai's entire invasion force assembled below them, Sozin's Comet already beginning to slice a bloody path across the sky. And here they are, cracking bad jokes and laughing at nonsense.

Maybe it's too much. Maybe we've all finally snapped.

But she doesn't let go and neither do the others. They hold on for a moment, maybe two. Determination blazes their eyes, a wordless exchange flitting between the three of them. A recognition of the missing piece, that they had been incomplete for far too long.

"Alright," Aang declares. "Time to go save Zuko, yeah?"

Katara and Toph nod as one.

Aang digs his heels into the shaggy fur atop Appa's head. The bison lets out a mighty roar.

The wind rustles at Katara's back in answer.

She glances over her shoulder, at the spiral clouds twisting in the sky beyond Appa's flat tail. At the indistinct pinpricks weaving through breaks in the thick white cover, growing larger with each passing second.

A collective lowing of dozens of sky bison greets her ears, carried by the eddying winds they create in their wake. They assemble in a tightly knit formation, hovering somewhere behind them. In the brightening haze, she perceives their outlines, some more clearly than others. The bison and their shaggy bulk, the Air Nomads in their saffron robes perched atop their heads. And the others grouped together in the saddles, too faint to distinguish as anything more than mere blurs of blue and red. Their bone-white armour gleaming in the starlight, the common thread uniting them all.

Aang meets her gaze. He nods jerkily, his grip on the reins tightening.

Katara closes her eyes, raises her hands, inhales shakily. Everything that followed would depend on this moment.

She tries not to think of that. Tries not to think of Zuko, or Sokka, or any of the others fighting for their lives down below. Tries not to think of them already lying dead. Tries not to think of the myriad ways it could all go wrong.

Instead, she focuses on her breath rushing in and out of her nostrils. The taste of the salt in the air. The heat of the sun upon her skin. The way her heart races, every sense heightened with adrenaline, and how time suddenly seems to stop, so that every detail of every moment crystallises into sharp, almost painful awareness.

Then her fists crash downward.

Somewhere in the distance behind her, dozens of Air Nomads and waterbenders follow as one.

But Katara pays little attention to any of it. Of the wind roaring to a deafening pitch, of the dark funnel that strikes the sea and churns its surface to a violent, destructive maelstrom. Of the world plummeting around her as Appa barrel-rolls out of the sky, of the cold water that drenches them as they break through the curtain of clouds and into plain sight of the armada still mustering below.

Screams and explosions ring out around them, punctuated by groaning ships splitting apart at the bolts. But as though coming from a great distance away, drowning in the raging typhoon that threatens to consume them all.

A blinding light flashes before Katara's eyes. She blinks, her skin prickling with its closeness.

Everything careens sideways, nearly flings her off the saddle. She grabs on tightly as Appa rights himself.

Blinking again, she watches mouth agape as the blazing cannonball sails past. Barely grazing Appa's paw to crash heavily into the waters below.

She turns her gaze ahead, to find more missiles hurtling toward them in a salvo of fiery destruction. A storm of red fire launched from below, to check their advance before they made it any closer to land.

"Toph," she grunts, already springing back upright.

The blind earthbender raises her arms in front of her. Her face furrows tightly in concentration.

With an explosive motion, her fingers yank at the empty air.

The cannonballs scatter, as though bouncing off an invisible wall. They paint blazing arcs of light, trailing in every direction. Between the breaks in the cloud cover, tumbling into the mouth of the spinning funnel that threads the needle of their desperate push inland.

Or slapping the waves, slamming into some of the Navy ships sailing bravely into the bay to meet them. The grind of keels, hulls, decks buckling under the impact.

In retaliation, another volley rises to meet them. And another, and then another.

Toph growls furiously, doubling over with effort to redirect them all. A stray missile gets past her, flinging high overhead.

An agonised animal scream erupts from behind them. Katara watches, horror-struck, as one of the sky bison drops out of the sky.

By now, the Phoenix King's forces have scrambled together, regrouping in spite of their missing commanders. The cannons fire in quick succession, lobbing a random barrage of fiery ammunition into the sky.

"There's too many of them!" Toph grits through clenched teeth. Her knees buckle under her as several get through, striking down more of the bison fanning out behind them.

"Aang, I'm going to help her!" Katara barks, shifting her weight to meet Toph's. Waves rise from the water's surface in outstretched tentacles, swatting more of the missiles and absorbing their deadly impact.

"I've got it!" Aang jumps to his feet, dropping the reins. "Sorry Appa, looks like you're on auto-pilot for now."

Appa roars in response, bounding forward resolutely.

The dark funnel expands in size, its winds picking up speed and shedding water in stinging droplets. It bears down on the few ships unlucky enough to stand in its path, scooping them up into its accelerating column.

The screams of sailors litter the air as they flail through the air, their bodies already limp as rag dolls. The high-pitched screech of ships being shorn apart.

And then, most ominous of all, the scattered plops of bodies and scrap metal hitting the water. One by one, until the only thing that remains is the gurgle of the hungry sea that swallows them all, the demonic shrieking winds that turn upon the remaining ships caught in the tumult.

"Aang, that was amazing!" Katara exclaims, awestruck.

His grin flashes through the storm. "Never underestimate a bunch of Air Nomads and waterbenders working together is the moral of today's story."

A huff of surprised laughter escapes her. Just before more fire rushes toward them with a vengeance.

She springs into motion, sweeping it away with a thickening wall of water. Steam roils around them in an angry hissing haze.

"Ow!" Toph yelps. She hunches over, clutching at the exposed skin of her forearms. "You're going to boil us alive if you keep that up, Sweetness!"

"Sorry!" Katara grimaces in pain, struggling to redirect the pinpricks of airborne overheated water into a pressurized jet. "It's a lot harder to do this without Zuko, okay?"

"Oh, so clouds and mist aren't a problem, but steam is where you draw the line?" Toph gripes, staggering back upright. Angry blisters dot her arms and neck in a furious red patchwork.

"I'm working on it!" Katara snaps, squinting through the chaos as more fire charges toward them. "I don't see you helping that much either!"

She lunges forward, raising a wave that checks the incoming blow. Steam rises upward in answer, wafting all around them in a searing cloud.

"Yeah, well, ever since they switched out their cannonballs for plain old fire, it's been a little hard for me to contribute!"

"Wait." Katara freezes. "They're firebending?"

Plumes of flame rise from the decks of the distant ships, so far away they resemble little more than children's toys. Rivers of angry red fire grow exponentially in size as they propel through the air. Heedless of all the clouds and condensing moisture that should have encumbered its path.

Another wave rises defensively, bigger and more substantial than the first. The supercharged fire collides into it head-on. An explosion of white steam, ribbons of scalding water ricocheting from the force of the impact.

It sends shockwaves ringing through the air. Appa bellows, swerving wildly to avoid the brunt of it. Katara bares her teeth, trying not to lose her footing as the world reels around them.

Everything beneath them boils. The flames finally extinguish, the remaining water evaporates.

"You've got to be kidding me," Katara croaks, her shoulders already protesting from exertion. "How can those common sailors manage that kind of power over that kind of range?"

"It must be the comet." Toph's sightless gaze travels upward. Katara follows it briefly, to glance at the small scraps of sky visible through all the steam and sea spray and storm clouds.

It glows a vivid crimson, a darker fire than whatever Ozai's soldiers hurled at them. The hue of blood, a colour she had only ever seen once before. The night the moon had blotted out, the night waterbending had been ripped from the world.

The memory of abject helplessness makes her heart drum with remembered panic. For though they had restored the moon and waterbending with it, the red of the sky suddenly makes the nightmare real again. The comet's light is infernal, refusing to yield even to the menacing whirlwind churning ahead of them. It rends the sky, a blinding bloody slice that appears to carve through the fabric of the world itself.

The old terror revives. She falters, forgetting how to breathe. Paralyzed by its punishing blaze searing thick stripes across her vision.

"Katara! Incoming!"

Aang's shouts reach her ears a moment too late.

The world lurches around her. A vicious swerve, gravity yanking her and Toph straight out of the saddle.

Her mouth opens, the scream raw in her throat. Blistering heat gnaws at every inch of exposed skin. Fire charges at them, tracing their descent through empty air.

Somewhere above, Appa roars with pain. He thrashes wildly, his frenzied white bulk a blur before it falls out of sight too.

Then only the wind remains, snatching at her cloak, Toph's bloodcurdling shrieks as she plummets blindly toward the waiting jaws of the darkened sea.

Hold on, Katara tries to say. Her arms stretch, reaching for the water's frothing surface. It vibrates fitfully before yielding. A single great wave stretches upward with cold briny fingers.

It catches both of them into its palm, absorbing the brunt of the impact. Another heave and it flattens, freezing to a sizable patch of ice.

"Are you okay?" Katara gasps, dragging Toph onto its bobbing, slippery surface.

The blind earthbender slams at her chest with a gloved fist. Her face already tinges green. "I'll live. Where's Twinkletoes?"

Katara leans back on her haunches, searching the skies. She picks out Appa flying in low circles overhead, and the pinprick of white and yellow gleaming between his horns. "He's…he's okay," she pants. "It'd…it'd take more than some stupid comet to knock him out of the air."

Around the radius of their small iceberg, the rolling slopes of the waves suddenly flatten and calm. She glances at her unmoving hands in confusion. "How's that happening?"

"How's what happening?"

"The water," Katara observes, as the crashes of fire and windstorms and shearing metal bolts still unfold in the periphery. "It's so still."

Toph doubles over, trying not to retch. "This is still?"

"Well. Relatively," Katara admits. She stares back at the sky, at the herd of sky bison diving and dodging impossibly-sized explosions of fire. Until a gleam on the horizon captures her attention instead.

She tilts her head questioningly, wondering if she hallucinates the sight. But it bears down upon them, skipping along the turbulent waters as effortlessly as a smooth white stone.

"It's ice!" she shouts, leaping to her feet in excitement. Their small iceberg bucks wildly in response, nearly throwing her and Toph overboard. "It's the bloodbenders, Toph! They're headed right this way!"

"Finally," Toph grumbles, clutching at the jagged edges of the iceberg with white-knuckled fingers. "Took them long enough."

"Hopefully this means Sokka's plan worked and the rest of them aren't far behind." Katara peers into the distance intently, but only sees towering storm clouds and churning black water in the wake of the approaching icefloe.

It glides to a halt before them. A sharp, narrow craft resembling a longboat, but made entirely of ice, and far larger than any vessel that a self-respecting tribesman could build from wood or hide. Blood-coloured light shimmers off the frozen shards serving as its prow, perfect for slicing speedily through choppy waters.

Katara grins at Woka and Ulva, standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the bow. They are barely distinguishable from the other women aboard, all dressed uniformly with their painted faces and white armour gleaming over Water Tribe blue garments. But their posture gives them away: Ulva's movements rigid and precise, Woka's loping with an easy, almost sloppy confidence.

"Thanks!" she calls out to them, helping Toph clamber aboard the larger, steadier icecraft. "I thought my arms were going to give out."

"We saw you fall out of the sky there," Woka retorts, wiping at the shaven side of her head with a burnt glove. "Thought you could use a hand."

"And not a moment too soon," Toph gasps, gratefully hugging one of the spearlike hafts lining the longboat's curving sides.

"What about the others?" Katara asks. "Shouldn't they have gotten through by now?"

An uncomfortable silence descends. Ulva shrugs helplessly. "It was chaos back there," she answers in a low voice. "We saw an opening and we took it."

Sokka. Katara's fist rests against her forehead in a sudden despair.

"Let's hope the others got just as lucky," she makes herself say as steadily as she can. He'll be okay. He has to be. "But there're ships full of people up ahead who still have to learn that water beats fire."

Woka clicks her tongue dismissively. "So ignorant of them," she remarks. Her face splits into a devious grin, light flashing off the piercing in her mouth. "How about we go teach them a lesson?"

A resounding cheer erupts across the boat. As one, the armoured women take up an offensive stance.

"Hang on," Katara mutters into Toph's ear. The earthbender's grip tightens around the haft in response.

"Forward!" Ulva commands.

The icecraft propels forward, driving along the frenzied waves with the speed of a determined sea serpent. Six moons ago, I was still teaching them the basics, Katara can't help but think. Now look at them.

They cut across the bay, approaching the explosions crashing around the mouth of the towering harbour walls. Their improvised longboat skims the fraught waters, bouncing from crest to crest without capsizing. Even as the waves grow more tumultuous, rising to the pitch of steep hills as they draw nearer to the heart of the battlefront.

But in the hands of a dozen waterbenders working together, their icecraft navigates the mayhem far more easily compared to their other counterparts. They weave around floundering Fire Navy ships, beset from above by the herd of sky bison and the mouth of the growing typhoon, now widening with every Air Nomad that joins the fray.

"Look!" someone shouts, her voice taut with terror and excitement. "That must be the