A. N : My papers kicked my ass and I pulled my first all-nighter because of that. I am so glad for Jet to be back in here. (Is this sarcastic I honestly don't know. On one hand Jet is pain, but on the other he is also rather easy to write. Despite the pain.)

Jet is thinking.

He walked away from the others for that exact reason – to think, to plan something to get rid of as many ashmakers as possible.

He feels surprisingly calm.

Or maybe it's not that surprising. He is focused. He always manages to stay focused when it comes to planning these sorts of things.

The goal is to rid the world of firebending scum, but of course he is alone and can't do it all. So he'll just kill as many as he possibly can before dying.

He can't do that without a plan though – he'd just get killed in a minute, without getting to do much. No, he needs an idea, something big. Like, if he could get his hands on explosives – now that would be great.

He needs a target too. Killing old people would be useless, better just let them die on their own, children are out of the question – soldiers.

He needs to kill soldiers. The ideal would be to find a training camp for young recruits – the older ones are probably already marching on Earth Kingdom, burning and murdering and –

Breathe.

Young recruits. Anyone volunteering for the army doesn't deserve to live anyway – Li didn't volunteer, he wouldn't, he'd never, he's the prince he had to he was forced to kill, it can't be otherwise –

In – and out.

Do not think of Li. Li is just the exception. The rest of the Fire Nation is full of murderous assholes who won't hold a peace even if Aang kicks the Firelord's ass. Wiping out their recruits seems like a nice way to force them into submitting faster – and stay that way.

There aren't many people of recruiting age around here, now that Jet thinks about it. Just one more proof that Fire Nation scum have death and destruction in their blood.

Still, it's almost as if the only people living in this town are old people and women. A few babies too, but not many. No children older than five in the streets, and the only relatively young men are almost all injured.

Jet hopes they're hurting.

Jet hopes they're hurting at least as much as he is – but there's no way physical pain can ever equal the nightmares, the screams and the faces of dead people burning and bleeding and screaming they won't stop screaming –

There's no way these people can ever know that pain, they're not Li – strong and broken Li who is just the same as Jet, who is nothing like the other ashmakers. His horrible, terrible, beautiful scar is proof of that.

Speaking of which, these glass hair ornaments things over there are really pretty too. How can something so delicate be made in such a terrible place, now that's a mystery Jet would love to uncover.

He has always liked good-looking things, and he can respect the talent of the artisan, but it just irks him to know the Fire Nation has stuff like that.

Well, with how useless and fragile these things look, he can at least find some sort of comfort in knowing the person who made them can't ever have been part of the army. No way.

The again, tea is pretty useless too, and Mushi turned out to be the Dragon of the West so – and exception, just an exception. Don't think too much about that.

Don't think too much about that, not even when looking inside the workshop, not even when the glassmaker is an old man covered in scars – did he get caught in an explosion or a landslide, was that on purpose – not even when the old man is missing a leg and sitting while blowing in a tube so long it's obviously supposed to be used while standing. Don't think about Mushi and Li being anything else than the exception.

Jet looks at the glassmaker and he hates him.

He hates that the guy looks so obviously like a soldier, hates that he's making nice and delicate things with the same hands that killed and burned and did spirits-know-what-else. But most of all, Jet hates that he found the work of that man to be pretty.

He wants to kill him, wants to make this man disappear, him and his stupid hair ornaments. He wants to storm the shop and break each and every thing that falls into his hands, until there's nothing left but glass shards and desolation – just like his village and life, and he hates that a man who definitely did all of that can just live his life in peace while Jet drowns in his nightmares and hatred.

Jet wants to do all of that, but he can't it would ruin all his plans he can't – this man is nothing, Jet needs to find training grounds and explosives, not lose his mind and kill an old man with his own wooden leg.

And still he can't walk away, can't stop watching – the man puts the glass in the fire, takes it out, and he makes the tube turn and turn and turn and the glass is an eye-searing red, and then he blows and the glass grows like it's alive –

It's mesmerizing. Jet hates it.

The man opens the sphere he made and turns it into a flower, before putting it down.

He turns his head, looks at Jet. Smiles – his smile shouldn't be this soft, not with all the scars he has. He asks if Jet wants to come closer to watch him work, still smiling, still soft.

Spirits, Jet hates him so fucking much.