Recommended listening: The Ballad of Serenity, from the Firefly OST.


"Seriously?"

"Yes, it's weird. Don't you think it's weird?"

"I think it's weird that you think it's weird. Why d'you have a problem with it?"

They'd hit the coast of Chameleon Bay a week prior, so they weren't trekking through desert any more, but it wasn't any livelier: the Fire Nation and pirates had sacked every village they could reach decades ago. It probably wasn't entirely safe walking along the coast, but there was thick vegetation inland, and the one time they'd tried hacking through, they got lost, made one mile in an hour, and decided to ride along the beach until they saw ships. They hadn't seen anyone in days.

"It's not that I have a problem with it," Zuko said. "But you're not supposed to do it."

"Says who?" Katara asked. "Why aren't you supposed to?"

"When a boy and a girl, you know, you get a kid. You're supposed to be the motherly one, I thought you of all people would get it."

"People sometimes do things for reasons other than having as many kids as possible, Zuko," she said, amused. "What about when old people marry? Is that 'weird'?"

"That's different."

"Riiight. Didn't you ever get lonely on that ship all those years? Your all-boy ship?"

"Not that lonely," he said, wrinkling his nose. "Wait. Are you saying you were? At your all-girl village?"

"No commen– Ugh," Katara said, clutching at her belly.

Zuko looked her over. She'd been on edge for a while, but she was trying to hide it, and he'd thought the polite thing was to pretend not to notice. "Are you hurt?"

"Stomach ache, a bad one. Don't say it, I haven't eaten blubber since we left the North Pole."

"Withdrawal symptoms?"

She flicked water at him. "I said don't say it. Just … distract me. Tell me a story."

"Uh," he said. "What sort of story?"

"I don't know. Anything."

"Tell me a joke. And make it a funny one, too."

"What about the kemurikage?" she suggested. "You mentioned them back in the Fire Nation. Some sort of spirits?"

A bunch of people died. The end.

"It's not a happy story," he said, "and I'm trying not to be as much of a raincloud as usual. Can I tell something else?"

"What did you have in mind?"

That one about the man with the magic millstone?

That's stupid. We're not a little kid.

The umbrella-maker? Who kept getting blown from town to town?

That's even stupider.

What about the legend of the red string?

Absolutely not. Can you imagine how she'd react to that?!

"Zuko?" Katara asked, leaning over to snap her fingers in front of his face.

He waved her off. "Just remembering how it starts," he said. "Once upon a time, there lived two brothers, one rich but stingy and one poor but kind. Um, a lot of Fire Nation stories start like this. There was a feast day coming up, and the poor man couldn't afford meat, so he went to his brother's house and asked for food. His brother gave him a turtle goat stag hoof, and told him to take it to Angry Man. Um, that was an expression, like 'Get lost', but Angry Man was an ogre who lived in the woods.

"The poor man took it literally, so he went into the forest and handed it over. Angry Man was overjoyed, he said he hadn't got meat in years, so he gave the poor man a magic millstone, the kind with a handle. He said, if you turn the handle to the right and say any kind of food, the millstone creates it. Then you turn it left and say 'That's enough'.

"So he took the millstone back and wished for sweet buns and everything he'd ever wanted. He shared it with everyone from his village, sold some extra and bought a nice house, married a beautiful girl, and so on. One day his brother heard he'd suddenly got rich, and came over. He waited until he saw the poor man wishing for rice so he knew how it worked, then hid, and that night, he came and stole the millstone.

"He escaped on a boat and wished for the sweetest buns in the world, so the millstone began making them. He tried one and said, 'Too sweet. Make me some salt!' So it began spitting out salt. He tried it, but then it started piling up. He said, 'No, that's too much, stop!', but he hadn't seen how to make it stop. Soon there was too much of it, and the boat sank. And that's why the sea is salty."

There was a lengthy pause.

"Was … that … okay?" Zuko asked, fidgeting with his short and bristly hair, because it looked like Katara was trying not to laugh.

"It was fine," she said.

You're a dork, Zuko.

But a sweet one.

"Why didn't Angry Man just use the millstone to wish for meat?" she asked.

"," he said. "Maybe the millstone could only do vegetable stuff?"

So then the poor brother didn't have meat for the feast?

I guess sweets were good enough?

"Is this a morality story?" she asked. "Be generous? Don't steal stuff?"

"I don't know. Sort of? Maybe? Maybe it's just a story you tell kids. Was I supposed to tell one with a moral?"

"Breathe."

"I'm breathing. What sort of a story would you tell?"

Katara considered this.

Nuts.

Yes, him asking the exact same question we just asked him? How unfair! Who could ever have seen this coming?

Shut up and help me think. I don't really remember any fairy tales.

We liked hearing stories about home before the war. I don't think he'd appreciate those.

Maybe that's all the more reason why he should hear them, then?

"It was a few hundred years ago," she said. "The Fifth Nation, a pirate tribe, lived in the east Earth Kingdom. They raided coastal villages all over, and they came all the way to the South Pole and abducted Tatik, the Princess of Clam Shrimp Village, who was beautiful and wise and beloved by all the people. It was just a tiny village, and there was no way they could fight back.

"So the Chief, Silatujuk, went to the Southern Air Temple to petition the Avatar, who was an airbender back then …"

"Yangchen," supplied Zuko, who'd once bought a history of the six most recent Avatars and studied it obsessively before admitting there were no clues about the current one's whereabouts.

"I never knew her name. You should tell Aang when we find him, I don't think he knows either. – Silatujuk went to Avatar Yangchen and asked for help. She said she would guide him to the Fifth Nation hideout, but he had to free her himself. Silatujuk was an old man, so he went back to the Water Tribes and asked for one man, the mightiest waterbender, to rescue his daughter. And when he did, every waterbender in the South Pole stood up and swore to rescue her. So an army of waterbenders went out and fought off the pirates in a great battle, and they rescued Tatik. And the pirates were so badly beaten, they never returned to the South Pole."

Zuko was silent.

"What did you think?" she asked.

"Um," he said. "Just that our version of the Fifth Nation is a bit different."

"I suppose yours had it that the Fire Nation single-handedly stopped them?"

"Well, yes. Avatar Kyoshi pointed them out in our version, but it was our fleet that hunted them down."

"Did you even have a fleet hundreds of years ago?"

"Yes," he said defensively. "Just because we use steamers now, doesn't mean we never used sail. The Fire Nation has always had great sailors."

"Isn't it funny that the Fire Nation likes being over water so much?"

Zuko considered this. He'd loathed every moment aboard his toy boat, but not because of the water. He'd liked the Ember Island beach, and he liked swimming. He'd been surprised to learn Katara didn't really know how; she pointed out that swimming in polar waters wasn't the brightest idea even for a waterbender. But then, it wasn't really remarkable that Air Nomads walked on earth, or that Eartheners breathed air.

"I'm surprised you had a story about fighting other Water Tribesfolk," he said, seeing her make to snap her fingers in front of his face again.

Katara blinked. "The Fifth Nation wasn't Water Tribe. We're the first nation."

"We're the first nation. The first Avatar was a firebender."

"Of course you'd say that. Anyway, the Fifth Nation was a mix of everyone. Water Tribe, Fire Nation, Earth Kingdom …"

"Air Nomad?" he asked.

"You want me to say yes, and say they weren't really pacifists, but no. I'd never heard anyone say they were there."

I actually heard they fought against the Fifth Nation.

Which still counts as being violent.

"Of course you'd say that," he echoed. "Anyway, I'd always heard the Fifth Nation was just another part of the Water Tribe diaspora. Who else would be a pirate?"

"Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation," Katara said promptly. "Since it was the two of you who teamed up that one time."

Destroyed with facts and logic.

"And we even kidnapped a Southern Water Tribe princess," he said. "Here I've been teasing you about getting captured all the time, you never told me it was a family tradition."

She rolled her eyes, trying not to smile. "I'll have you know I haven't been captured in months."

Note to self: never tell him about the time with Bumi and the jennamite. Or with Suki.

Maybe we should mention the time Hei Bai kidnapped Sokka? You know, remind him that it happens to everyone, it's nothing to be ashamed of.

"A month and a half," he said. "You must be so proud of yourself. That, or your ancestors are rolling in their graves. Katara," he said, suddenly sharp, "you're injured!"

"Huh?" she said in confusion, because she wasn't hurt. "What do you mean?"

"You're bloody, there, on your – uh. I'm just now realising it isn't actually an injury, and also those stomach aches probably weren't stomach aches –"

"Zuko," Katara said, turning red and sliding off her ostrich horse, "now's the part where you stop staring. Ugh, I thought you supposed to get a warning before this …"

"Right," he said, looking away fast enough to crick his neck. "I'll just, um, scout around while you, yes."

"You do that," she said, and started rooting around in her saddlebags.

He kicked his ostrich horse forward, rather faster than necessary. He went a little way ahead, which wasn't very useful because they could see the beach curving around for miles.

So. You want to unpack that?

I was hoping not to, ever.

I bet Uncle would have something to say. 'The people in your life are people, and life happens wherever you are.'

Thanks so much for that pearl of wisdom.

What did you expect? She's not a kid. She's a young woman. And now it's official.

I know that. But …

But what, it's getting harder to pretend this will go on forever? She has a life outside the mission. She's going to go back to it in a few months, and that might be the last time you ever see her.

He pulled his reins to the left and angled into the almost-jungle. He dismounted and drew his swords, which would be too thin to be useful as hatchets, but he could put a little chi in and augment them so that they wouldn't dull too quickly as he hacked through the thick growth.

Do you think she'll marry the Avatar?

Maybe. He had it bad for her, and she at least likes him back. Being the Avatar has to count for a lot.

He's too young for her.

Wasn't Uncle's wife like ten years younger than him? Bigger age gaps have happened. I know it's different when the girl is older, but not that different.

Will he even live long enough? I know we said we'd try to help him, but even if we teach him mastery-level firebending in, what, four months, and even if he masters the Avatar State, Father can just zap him. Even Avatar Kyoshi couldn't stop lightning.

True, but they didn't think they'd be able to find a firebending teacher either, and here we are. Maybe something will come up.

Should we have a plan? For in case it does. Or in case it doesn't. I bet Sokka would –

Did you hear something?

He put his swords away and slowly crept forward, pushing vines and ferns out of his way. He'd reached a cluster of long egg-shaped boulders, leaning against each other in a way that didn't look at all stable, meaning they probably extended below ground. He approached and ran his hand over one.

Real rocks have irregular, rough surfaces. A stone-cutter tends to cut along straight edges, partly because most tools work that way, partly because human attention works that way. An earthbender tends to make more organic curves, similar to a non-bender building a sandcastle; but while any one curve might be smooth, two or more on the same surface tend to have sharper joins than would naturally occur, like cusps in a sandcastle where a surface made by one hand intersects one made by the other. The texture tends to be flatter than a natural rock, too.

The boulders were smooth, irregular, with little bumps here and there, and no obvious raised cusps. Zuko trailed his fingertips over one then another. The last one he came to was curved, like normal, slightly convex. The texture was rough, like it should have been. There were bumps, like the others. The bumps were regularly spaced, four inches apart.

Too regular to be natural. This was bent.

But by a bender who's really, really good at hiding his tracks. An amateur would make something rough like bad pottery, or smooth like obsidian.

He trailed his fingernails over it and moved back to the other rocks. The bumps were randomly spaced, like he'd thought.

A bender who ducked under this boulder while we approached. Did we hear him dropping out of sight just now? Is this another bandit?

No-one's going to waste time looking for travellers out where there are no travellers. And whoever this is, is a professional. How long has he been following us?

He made his way back through the jungle, returned to his ostrich horse, mounted it, and returned to Katara, who was sitting down, cleaned up but irritable. She had her shirt lifted up and was pressing healing water against her belly; judging by her frown, it wasn't doing anything.

I guess because she's technically not injured?

Girls are so weird.

"We should keep moving," he said.

Her nostrils flared.

"Great idea," she said, and she put her water away.

"… Do you need to rest?" he asked, sensing a note of sarcasm.

"I'm fine," she said.

"Okay, then let's go."

They mounted their ostrich horses and set off again.

It took Zuko fifteen minutes to figure out that Katara was not in fact fine.

"Are you … sure you don't need to rest?" he asked.

"I can't get any real rest out here in the middle of nowhere," she said, and the tension in her voice was unmistakable, even for him. "Let's just get to Ba Sing Se. We should've been there a month ago with the others anyway."

"I place us about eight more days from Ba Sing Se." He paused, but she said nothing. "So, you know, more than thr–"

"I know that eight is more than three, Princeling! I also know we don't have much food and have to keep moving to buy more. So can we just keep going!"

He counted backward from ten.

"Give me your waterskin," he said. "I want to try something."

She pursed her lips and handed it over. He opened it and slowly exhaled, pushing heat into it. Like before, it was slow, weak, taking several breaths when it really shouldn't have taken even one. He handed the skin back. "Hold it against your stomach. Hot water is a Fire Nation cure for cramps."

She did as he said, and her expression relaxed a little. They rode in dead silence for the next half hour, before she handed the waterskin back. Wordlessly, he reheated it and gave it back.

"Sorry for snapping earlier," she said the third time this happened.

"I forgive you."

Don't. Seriously, please. It's not worth it.

He just nodded.

Presently, the beach broke up into mud, and they came to a wide, fast-flowing river.

"Sentinel River," Zuko said. "Can you handle this?"

Katara got down off her ostrich horse and bent the first fifty feet of an ice bridge, carefully making it wide, with sensible handrails, and columns thick enough to support the weight but not so thick the river's flow would be obstructed.

Zuko kicked his ostrich horse forward; it stood there and turned around, giving him a look of You're joking, right? He dismounted and eventually had to take both sets of reins, wrestling them forward while Katara bent more bridge for them to cross. There were five nerve-wracking minutes before they made it to the other side, and the ostrich horses gave them both filthy looks thereafter.

"Do you want to rest, yet?" Zuko asked, actually meaning he wouldn't mind a rest.

She gave him her waterskin again, he reheated it, gave it back. She pressed it against her belly and smiled. "This is fine now," she said, and it was close enough to the truth to not really be a lie this time. "I can sleep when it's night."

"Okay." They mounted up. He glanced over his shoulder one last time and thought he saw a flicker of dirt flying up on the opposite bank, then nothing.

He took her at her word that night, and volunteered the first watch. He paced around their little coastal campsite, sometimes glancing at her curled up on their bedding around her hot waterskin, watching the moon as it travelled from one horizon to the other.

Back home, we always tried to please Mother and Father. But we didn't help them, exactly, or anyone else. It's not something we're accustomed to doing. Thinking about it, Katara's about the only person we've ever tried to help, isn't she?

We helped the Avatar at Pohuai. Or you could say we did it for ourself, but then, most of what we did for Katara we did for ourself, too. Giving her the hot water bottle kept her from yelling at us, taking her to Yon Rha was for our own ego, taking her to the spirits was for the sake of our own bending.

We were transactional with the Avatar, or with Sokka sewing that one time. With Katara, we were at first, but we've stopped counting favours. She's not going to repay us for giving her the hot water, she'll heal me or whatever it is without expecting anything in return.

And you're happy about this?

Shouldn't I be?

Should you?

Hmm. I think I am. I like that she cares about me, even just a little. Anyway, I was going to say, it's nice to be useful at something. There's the hot water, and we might not be the world's best bender, but we're still a pretty good ninja.

He dropped to the ground, and something whizzed overhead.

He leaped over something else that he couldn't see and sprinted to the treeline, drawing his swords. Something grabbed his ankle; he tumbled, broke the grip, kept running, and ran up the nearest tree.

From his vantage point, he could see two dark figures streaking through open space: loose robes, hats, impossible to make out. No weapons, but one crouched and bent earth at him; he drew his swords to block, and the rock broke apart into a shower of grit. Zuko leapt to catch another branch eight feet up, then jumped out into open space and toward the nearer of the two figures.

He landed in melee range and swung; the figure caught the sword by the blade with a rock glove, but Zuko expected it and followed through with a snap kick, sending him backward and down. The other threw another projectile at him, and this one connected, another rock glove that wrapped around his forearm and dragged it behind his back. Zuko pivoted with it, made it into a fire roundhouse kick from sheer muscle memory, remembered at the last moment he wasn't bending, and just kicked empty space.

The first figure got back up and threw another glove at him; he ducked under it and charged the second figure, ramming him and taking them both to the ground. He was obviously a fine martial artist, and they tussled, moving too erratically for the first one to get a bead.

There was a crash, and a wave swept over all three of them and froze solid. Katara stalked over; Zuko couldn't see her expression in the dim starlight, but he could tell by her body language she wasn't happy.

"Lee," she said, her voice strained, "part of standing watch is that you're supposed to shout a warning if trouble appears."

"I didn't want to wake you," he said.

She gestured at the ice around him, and it contracted a tenth of an inch: not enough to cause damage, enough to express displeasure.

"If I'm under attack I want to know about it," she said. "Honestly, I can't believe I have to say that."

"Okay! Sorry!"

She melted his ice. "And as for you," she rounded on the assailants, "I was already in a bad mood, and you look like volunteers. What are you doing here?" There was no response. "Answer me!"

Zuko went back over to their bedding, pretended to fumble for spark rocks, and lit a torch. He came back over and patted them down.

"Cash, passports, letters of commission, orders," he said, tossing the purses to Katara. He raised the torch to read. "Dai Li agents Lee and Zhan Wei Fu of Ba Sing Se, with orders to apprehend Katara of the Southern Water Tribe. With your description, including the hair loopies. I told you they were conspicuous!"

"Not the time for jokes, Lee."

"I'm not joking. Here –"

Katara marched over and read the letter over his shoulder. "… They're called qilliqti," she said lamely, and set about pulling them loose.

"'Katara is a master waterbender and should be engaged with extreme caution'," he continued. "'She may or may not be accompanied by a male,' then my description, except with a half-shaved topknot, 'suspected firebender, suspected identity Fire Prince Zuko, alias the Blue Spirit, alias Lieutenant Lee of Omashu, alias Lieutenant Lee of the Fire Nation. He is a master martial artist and, if the identity is correct, master firebender.'"

Someone's clearly never fought a real master firebender before. Or a master waterbender, for that matter.

"'Your primary objective is to locate and capture Katara and discreetly deliver her to Ba Sing Se, alive and unharmed. Your secondary objective is the same for the male, who should be kept separated from her. We believe they will follow the following route,' then our exact path here and exactly where we were going to go next."

"Ba Sing Se wants to capture us?" Katara asked the agents. "I thought we were supposed to be on the same side. … Answer me! Who in Ba Sing Se is after us?"

Zuko grabbed Agent Lee by the lapels and shook him. Lee barely noticed, but he slowly opened his eyes and smiled.

"tHeRE iS NO wAr in BA SiNG sE," he said.

"… Joo Dee," Zuko said, releasing him.

"Suki's split personality," Katara said. "They're mass-produced? What's going on?"

"Between the generals and the Joo Dees, they will find a way to make him use the Avatar State again, and commit another massacre, and another," said Azula.

"There's a conspiracy in the Earth Kingdom. They're using – whatever the Joo Dees are, to try and control the Avatar." He relieved an agent of his overcoat, cut it into strips, and set about tying them up in a way that would hopefully last longer than ice.

"What? How do you know that?"

"I met some contacts a while back. I do things when I go off on my own, you know."

"And you didn't think to say anything before now?"

"I sort of forgot."

It was with a great effort of will that she refrained from either rolling her eyes or smacking him.

"They want us as hostages," she concluded, melting her ice and reforming it around him as he worked. "What else do you know?"

"That's about it." She gave him a look. "Give me a break. There was a lot else going on when I heard it."

"I understand completely. You can't be expected to pay attention to things unrelated to capturing the Avatar and restoring your honour."

"Oh, shut up."

"Is Aang at Ba Sing Se?" Katara asked Agent Lee, who nodded, then, to Zuko, "What do you want to do? If they've guessed who you are, and they want to arrest us …"

"If we could reach the Avatar, we'd be under his protection," he said. "I don't think anyone would violate that, not if they want him to do what they want. But, we'd have to break through I don't know how many layers of security. If it were easy, Uncle would have sent spies in when he was sieging it, but none ever returned."

"There are refugees, though," she said. "If we blended in with the crowd, we could get into the city, and from there, security can't be too tight. It might be impossible to leave, but you couldn't run a city without letting people move about. I bet you could find him."

We're not even going to bother suggesting doing the smart thing and backing off, are we?

Why bother asking questions when you already know the answer?

"Aang needs our help more than ever," she went on, "if there's a conspiracy against him that he doesn't even know about. We'll find him and help him deal with it."

"Right," he said. "We can do this."

11