"Here, put this on."

"… Is this a scarf?"

"It's a shirt. There's a skirt too."

It was late afternoon, the sun low in the sky. Hakoda had given them a ride to the outskirts of Minamichi, the nearest major Fire Nation colony, before returning to his campaign. Since the locals knew there were hostile Water Tribesmenin the area, Katara had stayed behind, hiding in a copse of trees outside the city walls, while Zuko went in alone to scout it out and get her a disguise. They couldn't do much about her dark skin, but at least he could get her some proper Fire Nation clothing. She was currently staring at it with an expression of sheer horror.

"What?" he said. "The Fire Nation is tropical, you're not going to sneak in wearing your parka."

"I understand that," she said, "and I need you to understand that this is not a shirt. This is half a shirt, if that. I'm not wearing this."

"You said you'd follow my orders."

"I didn't say you had blanket permission to humiliate me."

"This isn't humiliating. It's perfectly normal clothing for a Fire Nation girl."

"It's barely a neckerchief for a Water Tribe one."

"You're happy to strip down to your sarashi whenever you do your bending kata. This covers more than that."

"It doesn't count if you undress while swimming. Wet clothing kills. I only wear that wrap because Sokka goes on about 'oogies' if I swim naked," she said, rolling her eyes.

Note to self: kill Sokka.

Zuko pinched his nose, feeling his blood pressure rise. "Just wear the stupid shirt, and I promise I'll wear whatever ridiculous outfit you make up the next time we're in the South Pole."

She considered this, then brightened. "It's a deal."

Note to self: never revisit South Pole.

He turned around while she changed, then checked on her.

He was quiet for a bit. She fidgeted. "Zuko, I swear, if this was some stupid prank –"

"It's not!"

Son of a – how does she look better in red?! It's our colour! Water Tribe girls are supposed to wear blue!

"It's just, um," he said.

Divert, you idiot!

"That necklace is a dead giveaway," he said. "And you have to put your hair into a topknot. I bought a hairpin for you, too, and some bracelets. Here."

"Oh," she said sadly, taking off the necklace and carefully stowing it in a pocket in her parka, which went into a backpack. "You know, I had to take this off at the North Pole because of you, too."

"Huh?"

"It's a cultural thing," she said. "You wouldn't understand."

That's because we only understand things that make sense.

"It's because of me that you have it," he said. "I found it when you dropped it at that labour platform."

"I'm surprised you recognised it," she said, now putting her hair up. "I wore my parka trim over my neck until we reached the tropics. When did you see me wearing it?"

Zuko blinked. "I don't remember. It just felt like it would be yours."

"Hmm. What do you think?" He remembered she'd put her hair into a topknot at Izumihanto, months ago; he'd forgotten how good it looked on her.

"She's really pretty," Ty Lee said.

"It'll pass," he said. "Remember, no bending. If someone mugs you and I'm not around, let them."

"So, do the opposite of what you did at General Fong's fortress. Got it."

"And so will I," he retorted.

Being a colony within striking distance of the Southern Water Tribe, Minamichi had thick walls studded with catapult emplacements. They approached the gate, and a pair of guards challenged them.

"Passports and reason for entry," the corporal said, bored.

Iroh had given Zuko a handful of fake passports at Izumihanto, together with some odds and ends and two months of his stipend, which Zuko had neglected to tell anyone else about. He'd assumed there would be his real passport and a fake, plus fakes for Katara, Sokka, and Aang, since there were five passports in the stack. Not so: there were passports for Prince Zuko, a Lieutenant Lee from Izumihanto, a Corporal Lee from Omashu, Katara of the Southern Water Tribe, and a Nikat of Izumihanto. All of them looked quite respectable; Katara's had even made him briefly forget that the Southern Water Tribe didn't actually use passports.

When he'd realised Iroh had designed them all for him and Katara, he'd been exasperated, since it meant he wouldn't be able to take Sokka or Aang anywhere. He'd be able to move around the Earth Kingdom, but no-one would stop one of the Avatar's companions anyway. And it wasn't like he needed his real one at all: if ever he had to prove his identity, there were only so many master firebenders with burn scars over their eyes.

"It all started a few weeks ago," Zuko began, reaching into his yoroi for Lieutenant Lee's and Nikat's passports.


This city is a twisted labyrinth of vice and corruption. The kind of place where dreams go to die and secrets are buried deeper than the darkest alleys. Street lamps flicker under the relentless rain like dying stars, casting a crimson glow over the shadowy cobblestones, where every step you take feels like a gamble.

I'm Lieutenant Lee, a name no-one knows and even fewer care to remember. I run this dingy office on the wrong side of the tracks, where life is cheap and death is cheaper. The rent's always due, but the tea's free for those who need it.

She walks in, a dame like a cold sake on a summer afternoon. Legs for days, and a voice that could melt the South Pole. She's trouble, alright, wrapped in silk and perfumed like nightshade. She lights a cigarette, and the smoke hangs in the air like a promise no one intends to keep.

"Lieutenant," she purrs, "I've got a problem, and I've heard you're the kind of guy who can make problems disappear."

"I didn't! Say! Any of that!" Zuko yelled at the guards, who were doubled over laughing. "I just said she'd hired me to find someone!"

"The lady hired me to bring a murderer to justice," the private mimicked in a gruff, angsty voice.

Alleged murderer.

"The voice! The scowl!" cackled the corporal. "Oh my goodness. Tell me you're a teenager without saying you're a teenager!"

"I lean back in my chair," the private continued, "the world-weary detective ready to wade through the muck one more time. 'Tell me your tale, sweetheart. But remember, in this city, the truth is –'"

"It's not funny!"

"Kid, you'd better hope he's better at finding people than story-telling," the corporal said to Katara, who was watching the exchange with an expression of polite noncomprehension. "Who talks like that?"

Your future Fire Lord, moron.

"Look," Zuko snapped, "can we come in or can't we?"

Still laughing, the guards waved them through.

"I don't get it?" Katara undertoned as they entered the town.

"They're just being idiots," he replied.

Minamichi was pretty to the point of garishness. The houses were painted a rainbow of colours, some with elaborate murals, animals or plants or sunsets. There were friendly stray cats everywhere, lazing around on warm patches or trotting around on business of their own. Katara glanced at them nervously, having almost never seen one before, not knowing how to handle them. Townsfolk walked about, talking, joking. There were thicker crowds closer to the port, having what looked like some sort of festival, Zuko couldn't think which at this time of year. You could tell this place hadn't been seriously attacked in recent memory.

"Huh," she said, looking at the other girls. "I'm not the least-dressed person here."

He rolled his eyes, then grunted in pain and pressed his hand over one of them.

"What's wrong?"

"My scar," he ground out.

"Should we find somewhere, so I can try to –?"

"It started after you 'healed' it," he growled. "It's been getting worse."

"… That shouldn't happen," she said, concerned. "I'm a healer, it should be better."

"Oh, should it now?"

"I was trying to help," she said, defensive.

He took his hand away. The scar tissue had grown around his eye. There was tightness, and he couldn't open it fully. At least he could still see out of it: the eye itself was okay. "Forget it."

"I don't think I should."

"That's where you're wrong," he said.

"You don't have to be a jerk about it," she said.

They walked in silence for half a minute.

"Hey," she said, making sure to keep her voice down. "I just realised, I don't think I ever thanked you for getting me out. When we fought General Fong. Or at Agna Qel'a. And I should. If I give you a hard time when you're a jerk, I should thank you when you help me. So, um, thank you."

you dont have to fight her

Oh yes we do.

"I hope the others are doing okay," she mused, not waiting for him to give a 'You're welcome', knowing it wasn't coming.

"I bet the Avatar's already mastered half the earthbending forms," Zuko said, a little resentfully. "And invented a new one."

"Ching-wah tsao duh liou mahng!" Toph screamed, two hundred miles away. "Do another jung chi duh go-se dway haka dance, I dare you! I double dare you! Give me a reason!"

"He's a natural, but he's not that natural," Katara said, not rising to the bait. "And jealousy isn't a good look on you."

We worked all day every day our entire life to get where we are. He was just born as the Avatar. I think a little jealousy is in order.

"I was wondering," she went on, when he was silent a bit too long. "Why do you always call Aang the Avatar? He has a name."

"In the Fire Nation," he said, "names are private. It's too familiar to use them for someone you're not close to. We use titles."

"You use my name."

"Your title is 'peasant' and you get snippy when I use that."

"Point, but I don't think you're telling the whole truth. I think you don't use his name because you don't want to be close to him."

"Would it surprise you if I said that Fire Nationals don't often want to get close to mass murderers of Fire Nationals?"

"So taking lives in battle is murder, after all?"

"You know what I mean," he said, annoyed.

"I think I do," she said, looking around at street stalls as they passed.

There was a pause. Katara fidgeted.

"Hey, Zuko," she said, pitching her voice low enough that he had to sidle closer to hear her properly. "Have you ever … done it?"

His head whipped around with a click. He swore and rubbed his neck.

"I mean!" she stammered, turning red. "In battle. Have you … taken a life?"

He looked up at the sky. It normally wasn't one of his best memories, but Why should we worry about that now? "Once. You're wondering whether you can do it?"

"I know I can. For him. But … what was it like?"

"At the time? Blind panic. After, I felt sick for a while, then got over it. It wasn't anything like what we're planning now, though, not pre-meditated."

"What happened?"

"At Agna Qel'a, you called me insane for walking into villages with my men when the locals always attacked me," he said. "Well, one day, six months into my mission, two years before I met you, I thought the same thing. Why not try going in as a civilian and just asking people what I wanted?

"I left my men on the ship and went alone and unarmed. So then, when they realised who I was, they attacked. How many people can say they bagged Fire Nation royalty? There's a good bounty, too. There were four men. I fought back, knocked one down. Another was a bender, he buried me alive. Eartheners are animals. Lucky for me, Uncle had followed me in. He drove them back and pulled me out.

"When I got out, I was panicked, terrified. Like you were. Unlike you, I was still in fighting shape. And unlike then, I didn't have any reason to hold back. A firebender who augments properly can shatter solid steel; you don't want to know what a strike like that does to a human. I hit two of them before Uncle stopped me and the others ran for it. If they got a surgeon, one of the two maybe survived. We didn't stick around to find out."

You're welcome.

"Oh my gosh," Katara said, her eyes round. "Are – are you okay?"

"It was a long time ago," he said.

And that was when we started to hold back and stopped trying to win. Life's sucked since then, hasn't it?

The city walls were built atop a natural rise, meaning there was a dip toward the harbour. They got a better look at the crowds below.

Katara looked between it and him. "What's going on?"

"It looks like a wedding."

"A what?"

He gave her a look, but she wasn't joking. "A wedding. A … marriage party? There's a honeymoon after? If it's this big, it must be for aristocrats."

"A marriage party?" Katara said.

"You don't have those?"

"We have birthdays," she said with dignity. "They're not this big, though. Maybe at the North Pole."

"I said a marriage party, not a birthday party."

She blinked. "In the Water Tribes, you count as married after the birth of your first child," she said. "There's a celebration then."

Huh.

"In the Fire Nation, marriage means you agree to live together and try to raise a family together. You're supposed to marry before the girl gets pregnant."

She considered this and looked back at the procession.

"A party first does actually sound pretty nice," she said grudgingly.

Zuko would have agreed more if he didn't feel quite so single.

"Oh, here." He stopped at a street vendor and bought a small fish.

"What?" she asked.

"Give it to a cat. You can always bribe cats."

With an air of someone not quite sure if she's doing it right and people might start laughing at her, she crouched down and offered it to a friendly cat with a black patch over its left eye. The cat eagerly trotted over, took it from her hand, and set about eating it.

"Like this," Zuko said, kneeling beside her, and he showed her how to pat the cat, stroking its back, scratching its ears and butt. She copied him, and the cat purred and butted its head against her knees.

"Prince Zuko!"

He and Katara both went rigid. The cat looked up, wanting them to continue.

A small girl ran up and hugged the cat, who switched to rubbing against her instead. A young woman followed after.

"He's sort of everyone's cat," she said, smiling indulgently at her kid. "The eye, you know? Prince Zuko? He's such a friendly guy. Actually, he looks a bit like you."

"I guess," Zuko said, for once grateful to be wearing an unremarkable mass-produced yoroi rather than finer princely robes that she couldn't possibly have failed to recognise.

She reached down and scratched the fluffier Zuko's chin: he closed his eyes happily. "You're not from the South Pole, are you?" she added to Katara, very casually.

"Ah – no, I'm from Izumihanto," Katara said. "My name's Nikat."

"Oh, that's good," the young mother said. "Come on, Junko, we still have to go shopping, and then we can go see the wedding."

Little Junko gave little Prince Zuko a few more pats, then her mother took her hand and pulled her along.

"…" Zuko said.

"…" Katara said.

"Am I that unrecognisable?"

"As in, would I have known who you were if you didn't proclaim it everywhere you went? 'I am Prince Zuko. Bring me all your elderly!'"

"I have never, ever said that."

"Then how did I know your name at Kyoshi Island?"

He chose not to consider this, and instead just led the way to the harbour. The wedding procession was off to the side; Katara was inclined to go see, but Zuko didn't really want to push his luck with aristocrats, who'd be likelier to recognise him than common folk were, so he pulled her along away from it.

"Do you think that about Suki, too?" Katara asked. "Or Toph?"

"That they're elderly?"

"That they're animals."

How do girls' minds work? There's no connection between this and what we were just saying.

"I thought you had a nerve lecturing me about how we treat prisoners, when we both know what the Eartheners do to theirs. General Fong and you, the Kyoshi Village kaiju, the guards at that labour platform who were thrown overboard in full armour. And those are just the ones I know you know about."

Katara frowned and thought for a bit, not agreeing but unable to articulate why. "That reminds me of something," she said. "I meant to ask you, but I kept putting it off for some reason. The Water Tribe said that Izumihanto should be theirs because it was their territory, they already lived there. The Earth Kingdom said it should be theirs because they claim the entire continent. And Aang said the Air Nomads said it should be open to all, because it's a waystation. Does the Fire Nation have a reason why it should be theirs, other than might makes right?"

"We deserve it," he said.

"How do you deserve it?"

"Things should belong to whoever would use them best," he said. "Who should be the governor? Whoever's best at governing. Who should have a fishing ship? Whoever's good at fishing. Who should own the land? Whoever uses it best. The Earth Kingdom doesn't have a leg to stand on, they didn't even live there. The Water Tribe had a little hunting village there, so that's a start. But the Fire Nation built a city there, with a harbour and proper buildings and technology and everything. Of course it should be ours."

"Who decides what's best?" she asked.

"It's obvious," he declared.

"Not to me," she said. "It's a nice town, but by that logic, the entire world should be yours." She blinked. "Oh. That is your logic."

"Well, their logic is that they should be able to sit on the best land in the world forever, even though they do nothing with it, just because their great-great-great-grandparents stumbled across it first. It's not even good for the Earth Kingdom people. You don't see Fire Nationals starving in mud huts."

"Hmm," Katara said, looking pointedly at a beggar down the road whom they'd passed without comment. It's ten times worse there than here. This is one guy, half the Earth Kingdom are beggars or thieves. The other half are rice farmers. "Do you think they'd be better fed if the men were harvesting food instead of being busy fighting you, or sitting in prison?"

"I think they'd be fat as koala hippos if they let people use technology to get food, like we do with fishing trawlers. Remember the Mechanist? Our geniuses work in factories. They waste their people, he was practically banished to the middle of nowhere when his village flooded."

"Like you were banished?" she asked.

"," he said.

He would have argued further, but they'd come to the harbour. Workers were lighting paper lanterns or bustling about, loading cargo to and from ships.

He found the main office. "I need the departure schedule," he said. A freckly receptionist handed over a spreadsheet; he scanned it. "We'll take two tickets on the 149."

"Twelve gold, and I'll need to see your passports."

Katara's eyes widened when he handed over the money. The receptionist motioned them over to a wall with height markers, so she could go over their passport descriptions. She checked everything at length, made Zuko take off his hat, grilled him about the Agni Kai he'd lost (Iroh had thoughtfully written out falsified details of a duel between two officers under his command), made him bend to prove he could like the passport said, looked into their eyes, examined them both rather intrusively for any traces of airbender tattoo, and finally stamped their passports.

"Better hurry," she said, "it leaves soon."

They headed outside and to Ship 149, a big merchantman. Katara wrinkled her nose at the sight and the smell of coal, and Zuko honestly couldn't blame her. Coal was too useful not to use, but it stank and messed with his breathing.

"The difference is that I wasn't just from a village that flooded," he said as they walked up the boarding ramp, "I screwed up. If I hadn't, I'd still be the Crown Prince."

"You know, you'd actually be a pretty cool guy if you didn't really believe the middle part," Katara said.

", !" he said. She ignored him and walked into the ship.

Forget her. What does she know?

9