I wanted to take a moment to thank all my wonderful reviewers, all but one of whom are on the Ao3 version of this fic. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you all for your kind and encouraging words, they have really been motivating me and I am so happy that you guys are enjoying my work.

Sorry this chapter came out so late. I was busy the last two weeks and then my laptop decided to crap out on me in the middle of writing this chapter; due to this, I've had to transfer to my desktop, which is not as comfortable to use. Then, we had a power surge on Friday night that wrecked the modem which only just got fixed today.

Anyway, on with the chapter.

Heat of the Moment

Sokka really, really did not like Zuko.

It was Zuko's own fault for being a bad influence. Ever since he'd unwittingly become part of their team, Zuko had had the sheer audacity of causing everyone, Sokka included, to doubt the inherent evilness of the Fire Nation. Sokka was convinced that Katara was also, somehow, at fault for this; what with her innate ability to attract the attention of troubled pretty boys with tragic pasts who ended up getting them all into trouble, it only made sense. Haru got a bit of a pass, as he was more an innocent bystander to Katara's well-intentioned rabble-rousing and do-gooder attitude. Jet would not receive a similar exemption, as that was a very clear-cut case of getting entangled with someone that should have been given a wide berth and reported to the authorities.

And now she'd drawn in a firebender, of all things. Granted, it was Aang who got Zuko shot and felt compelled to bring him back to camp, but Katara was the one who was currently treating Angry Jerk like he was an abused puppy-kitten. Really, it was nauseating how considerate and caring she was being.

She'd even pushed herself to try healing his scar when she was clearly exhausted from volunteering at that clinic.

Sokka had specifically decided to take over campsite duties to give her a break so she wouldn't be on the verge of collapsing, and she'd gone and done more strenuous work.

It had become clear to Sokka recently that he'd been unfairly burdening his sister with most of the tasks he'd always deemed 'unmanly' in the past. Part of this came from watching Katara tend to Zuko when he was injured and realizing that he had no idea how he would take care of anyone if they got sick or hurt. Sokka didn't know enough about first aid as he hadn't cared to learn. Seeing Katara discover her healing abilities and taking time to help wounded Earth Kingdom troops, driving herself nearly to a breaking point, only made Sokka feel worse about the fact that she was always helping others while no one ever did anything for her.

What had driven the 'realization' nail home, at last, was when he, Aang, and Zuko had gone out to get snacks while Katara was in the clinic. Zuko had made sure to buy a basket of dumplings for Katara, pointing out that Katara had asked them to save her something and she was likely tired and hungry after all the work she'd done.

That had not been a good feeling for Sokka. He'd been solely focused on himself and satisfying his own needs and, as a result, he'd forgotten to consider his sister. And, in the end, it had been Zuko, of all people, who reminded him.

Stupid Zuko, making Sokka realize what an irresponsible and negligent jerk he was being. Why did Zuko have to come along and make Sokka have internal conflicts and personal growth?

To top off the confusing mess, Zuko was proving unexpectedly helpful and considerate. He assisted with chores, even the ones Sokka had once deemed "girly," without complaint and even seemed to think Sokka and Aang were slacking off for not doing them. It wasn't that they were slacking off, Sokka had just never really learned how to do those kinds of chores and Aang explained that he thought everyone simply had assigned jobs (apparently, the Air Nomad Temples assigned specific duties to residents via something called a 'Chore Wheel').

It didn't change the fact that Zuko, an admittedly impressive and distinctly manly individual, clearly thought less of Sokka for not doing more to reduce the workload for Katara. That left Sokka questioning his own manliness if someone like Zuko saw no issue with guys doing things like cooking and sewing.

"Food and clothes are kind of essential," Zuko had said when Sokka asked him about it. "Why would it be 'unmanly' to eat and not be naked?"

That was an unpleasantly reasonable point.

What a pity it had to be said by Zuko.

Regardless of Zuko's annoying habits of making sense and being helpful and making them all less distrustful of firebenders and getting Sokka to appreciate Katara more, Sokka still wouldn't trust the Fire Nation prince as far as he could throw Appa. Even as they sat beside the little mountain stream where they'd had to make camp for another night, Sokka was ever vigilant and kept those old handcuffs he'd found safely tucked away on his person.

Just in case, he reminded himself.

Not for the first time, Zuko had come to the conclusion that the universe hated him.

With every step he took alongside the Avatar's little group, the more he felt that he was going to commit treason in some way. He'd already gotten far too close to Katara, even going so far as to tell her some of the most personal aspects of his life, and that could leave him susceptible to charges of fraternizing with the enemy. He still wasn't sure what he was going to say to Uncle Iroh when he finally got to send him a message.

After all, how does one even begin to explain being sort of taken prisoner by the very people he was trying to capture?

The entire situation was incredibly embarrassing and Zuko also couldn't help but feel a twinge of guilt at how he'd probably caused his uncle to worry about him by taking such a long, unintended leave of absence. What else could Zuko do, though? He might not be injured anymore, but he did not have ready access to his ship, his crew, or any other form of support to enable him to capture the Avatar. He wasn't totally desperate, yet, as he knew where they were and that he could reach them at some point, so he wasn't about to make some mad, poorly-conceived decision to just grab Aang and run for it.

On top of that, to his growing shame, he was beginning to not want to capture Aang.

In the few days he'd been around the little airhead, Zuko had come to some very uncomfortable realizations regarding what he'd been told about airbenders. His stomach still squirmed whenever he thought back on the childhood lessons of airbenders brainwashing people into an anarchist cult, using airbending to spread diseases, poisoning farms and livestock, killing any non-benders born at their temples, forcing women and girls to have children and then stealing those children, and a myriad of other alleged crimes. It had made him furious at the time and had driven his determination to find the last airbender before he could inflict such atrocities on the world, once more.

Now, after watching Aang show off marble tricks and hearing him ramble about how things were one hundred years ago, it painted a very different picture than what Zuko had expected. A very, very treasonous picture.

"Hey, Zuko," Aang spoke up as they sat by the stream. Zuko noticed he was idly weaving some twine into something. "I was wondering something."

"What?"

"Well, I've been thinking about that vision I got in Avatar Yeong-Hui's temple. I was just wondering if you knew anything about her, since she's a Fire Nation Avatar."

"Sorry, my history knowledge isn't all that great. My sister was always better at that than me."

Truth be told, Zuko found history a little too overwhelming most of the time. He remembered the really shocking and sensational things, like what was said about the other nations, but names and dates only served to trip him up. It wasn't that he didn't try, but he was more interested in the present and the future than the past.

However, Zuko had to admit that Avatar Yeong-Hui was an intriguing mystery. The only thing he'd been able to figure out was that she was from Thousand Flower Island. She was even wearing the traditional clothes; while hanbok was largely used for wedding attire in the Fire Nation, there were places like Thousand Flower Island where they were once the local dress. Zuko still remembered the scandal when Lady Kiyoko had appeared at the Fire Nation Unity Festival wearing the hanbok instead of the more standard attire of the capital. People had actually wanted her executed for it.

When Zuko finally got the chance to return home, he would ask Lady Kiyoko if she knew about Avatar Yeong-Hui. As the island master, she would probably be the most likely person to give him answers about her local Avatar.

"Do you think if you wrote to your sister, she might tell you?" Aang said.

Zuko nearly broke a rib trying to hold in his laughter.

"What's so funny?" said Katara.

"The idea that my sister would ever give me any help," he replied. "Even if she bothered to write back, she'd probably just make up a bunch of things so I end up looking like an idiot."

"Huh, I guess now I know why you thought Lala ordered me to steal your fireflakes," said Aang.

Zuko felt the blood leave his face.

"What was that?" he managed to say, his throat tightening.

Aang then described Zuko's ramblings from a few days prior when he'd been high as a kite on detoxing medicine. The pit in Zuko's stomach just kept dropping lower and lower.

"Aang, whatever you do, do not, I repeat, do not use that nickname around Azula."

"Why?"

"Let's just say that it won't end well and leave it at that."

"But-"

"Leave it at that."

Thankfully, the tension was broken by a loud splash from the stream. A massive fish had broken the surface of the water, proudly flicking its fins and almost appearing to smirk as it arced through the air. Sokka seemed to take the fish's antics personally.

"Oh, he is taunting us," he said. He rushed to grab the fishing pole from the supplies. "You are so gonna be dinner!" He tried to cast the line only to make a startling discovery. "Hey, where's the fishing line?"

"Oh, I didn't think you would need it, Sokka," Aang said, smiling as he held up the braided length of twine with a small flower affixed to it.

"Aw, it's all tangled."

"Not tangled, woven." He then turned to Katara and proudly held up his work. "I made you a necklace, Katara. I thought, since you lost your other one…"

Katara gave an indulgent smile and accepted the token. Zuko doubted she really saw it as a sufficient replacement for her mother's necklace, but it was a nice gesture on Aang's part.

"Thanks, Aang. I love it." She started trying to fasten it around her neck, but it was clearly difficult to fix in place so Zuko stepped forward to help her.

"Great, Aang," Sokka drawled, "maybe, instead of saving the world, you can go into the jewelry-making business."

"I don't see why I can't do both."

Another splash from the fish got Sokka riled, prompting him to chuck the fishing pole at it like a spear and then jump into the water with his hunting knife with a cry of, "Stop taunting me!"

"So, how do I look?" said Katara.

Aang blushed and stared.

"You mean all of you, or just your neck?" he stammered. "I mean, 'cause both look great."

"Smoochie, smoochie," Sokka said tauntingly as he wrestled with the fish in the stream. "Someone's in loooove." The fish did not take kindly to Sokka's manhandling and smacked him with its fin.

"I…well…" Aang blushed harder.

Wait, Zuko thought to himself. Does Aang have a crush on Katara?

Zuko had to admit that Katara was rather pretty. He'd never given a lot of thought to girls before, as most of the interaction he'd had with them had been with his sister and her two friends. Honestly, he hadn't thought of girls, or boys either, in a romantic sense. Romantic matters had never really been high on his list of priorities. There were more important things to do than kiss and hold hands and watch the sunset…or any other things couples did together.

Still, Katara did look nice from an objective, aesthetic view.

"Stop teasing him, Sokka," said Katara. "Aang's just a good friend. A sweet little guy. Just like Momo." She turned her attention to the lemur perched on Aang's shoulder.

Aang did not look pleased by what she'd said as he mumbled a hollow, "Thanks."

Well, Zuko supposed that having one's romantic feelings get shot down by their crush was not a nice thing to have happen. Zuko, personally, had no experience, as he'd never had a crush on another person and he doubted anyone had ever seen him in such a way. At any rate, Katara had stated her feelings pretty clearly and Zuko wasn't sure why he got a weird hint of elation when she did so.

Just then, the sound of growls echoed through the woods.

Aang was the first to rush over to where the noise was coming from. After yelling back that someone was being attacked by a platypus-bear, everyone else hurried over to see. What they saw was an unusually calm older man who was casually ducking the swipes of the platypus-bear's massive paws with practiced ease.

"Well, hello there," he said when he noticed the little group of onlookers, dodging another swipe. "Nice day, isn't it?"

"Make noise, he'll run off!" Aang said frantically.

"No, play dead!" said Sokka. "He'll lose interest!"

The man just side-stepped another attack with a bland, cheery expression.

"Whoa, close one," he said with a chuckle.

"Run down the hill, and then climb a tree!" Katara suggested.

"No, punch him in the bill!" Sokka added.

"And then run in zig-zags!" said Aang.

The man barely registered their advice and simply said that everything was going to be fine. Zuko had to admire the man's resolve. Even when the platypus-bear tore a chunk out of the tree behind where the man had been standing, he just kept smiling without a trace a worry or doubt.

Aang, however, did not seem to realize that the man clearly did not believe himself to be in danger and jumped between him and the platypus-bear. As the beast loud out a raspy growl, Appa suddenly appeared behind it, letting out a roar of his own. The platypus-bear laid an egg in surprise and then toddled off into the water. Sokka, of course, hurried over to grab the egg.

"Mmm, lunch," he said, giving the egg an eager sniff. "Lucky for you we came along," he said to the man.

"Thanks," the man said, rising to his feet. "But everything was already under control. Not to worry. Aunt Wu predicted I'd have a safe journey."

"Aunt who?" said Aang.

"No, Aunt Wu. She's the fortuneteller from my village. Awful nice knowing your future."

"Wow, it must be," said Katara. "That explains why you were so calm."

"Wait, are you from Makapu Village?" said Zuko. He'd pulled the sun veil down over his bamboo hat. He couldn't take any chances of being recognized, even by random, weird, old Earth Kingdom men.

"Indeed," said the man. "It's just a short hike up the hill over there. I'm sure Aunt Wu is already expecting your arrival."

"Sounds like she knows a lot." Zuko tried to keep his tone even. "Did she tell you you'd encounter a platypus-bear on your trip?"

"I don't tend to worry about the little details, so long as I am certain of the outcome. Aunt Wu assured me I would be safe so long as I stuck to my path, and I have yet to come to any harm."

"But seeing to your own safety is just as important as hearing a prediction. What if you'd taken another path and avoided the risk entirely?"

"In my experience, one often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it."

Ah, yes. Cryptic nonsense. Just how Zuko loved to start his day.

"But the fortuneteller was wrong!" said Sokka. "You didn't have a safe journey; you were almost killed!"

"But I wasn't," said the man. "All right, have a good one." He began to walk away, only to stop and turn to Aang. "Oh, and Aunt Wu said if I met any travelers to give them this." He handed Aang a long, thin package bound up in cords before continuing on his way.

"Since we're already headed to Makapu, maybe we should go see Aunt Wu and learn our fortunes," said Katara. "It could be fun."

"Oh, come on, fortunetelling is nonsense," said Sokka.

Aang, meanwhile, had been excitedly opening the mysterious package.

"Well, what do you know, an umbrella," he said, just as the clouds opened up another downpour.

Katara quickly waterbended the rain away from her and hurried under the umbrella with Aang. Zuko was largely unbothered, as the bamboo hat he was wearing kept him dry. Sokka, however, was not so fortunate and, instead, hefted the platypus-bear egg over his head in a vain attempt to stave off getting drenched.

"That proves it!" said Katara.

"No, it doesn't," said Sokka. "You can't really tell the future."

"I guess you're not really getting wet, then."

At that precise moment, Sokka lost his grip on the egg. It slipped out of his hands, into the air, and then crashed and splattered all over Sokka's head. Part of Zuko felt sympathy for Sokka's plight, but the other part of him was too busy finding the situation hilarious to do anything to help. In fact, Zuko decided to make things worse.

"I think going to a fortuneteller sounds like a wonderful idea," Zuko said, a wry grin on his face.

Katara beamed at him while Sokka gave him a look of slack-jawed disbelief. They then began their steady trek up the hill.

"Have you been to fortunetellers before, Zuko?" said Aang.

"Not really," he said. "I know my grandmother Ilah used to be really into getting their advice. She had them do whole charts and things on every member of the family, and made sure the royal astrologers were constantly updating their star readings."

"That sounds incredible," said Katara. "Did she do one for you?"

"Yep. The day I was born, Grandmother made sure a fortuneteller mapped out my entire life."

"What did the reading say?"

"Let's see…I would be a strong firebending master. I would bring glory and honor to the nation. My future wife would be a powerful bender and a war hero and come from a prestigious family. My deeds would be the stuff of legends for centuries to come. Oh, and that I would be an exceptional tsungi hornist."

"Oh, well…" Katara seemed a little unsure how to respond to that.

"Well, I am a pretty good tsungi hornist," Zuko said to lighten the mood.

"What about your sister?" said Aang.

"I'm not sure, but I did hear the servants gossiping once that the fortuneteller took one look at Azula and started screaming."

"This is so stupid," Sokka said, grumbling and soaked to the bone. "All this fortunetelling hooey is making you guys soft in the head."

"What about Aunt Wu telling that guy to give us the umbrella?" said Katara. "How do you explain that?"

"Of course she predicted it was gonna rain. The sky's been grey all day."

"Just admit you might be wrong, and you can come under the umbrella."

"Look, I'm going to predict the future, now." He affected a mock-eerie voice. "It's going to keep drizzling." He crossed his arms and gave a smug smile. "See?"

At that moment, the rain stopped and a few rays of sunlight spilled gold across the edges of the parting clouds.

"Not everyone had the gift, Sokka," said Aang.

Sokka was so done with all this fortunetelling nonsense.

After the doorman had shown them in with the very obvious line of "Aunt Wu is expecting you," they were shown into the waiting room while the fortuneteller's little assistant brought them snacks and stared at Aang. Sokka just wanted to get back on task and find the mail service to send that note to Zuko's ship so they could finally be rid of the grumpy, overly-helpful, emotional-conflict-inducing firebender.

What made the whole thing worse was how Zuko kept nodding along with Katara's fanciful ramblings about the importance of fortunetelling. Once Katara went off with the senile old woman and Aang dipped out to find a bathroom, Sokka resumed his tirade about the stupidity of the whole ordeal.

"I know, this really is ridiculous," said Zuko.

"Ah-ha!" Sokka crowed triumphantly. "I knew you thought this was pig-bull crap as much as I do."

"Well, yeah, but watching you freak out every time I side with Katara is worth saying good stuff about fortunetelling."

"Jerk." Sokka gave Zuko a light shove and huffed in irritation. "At least the world feels a little saner, now."

"Honestly, I've always thought fortunetelling was kind of sketchy. I told you guys how obsessed my grandmother was with it, but that wasn't even the half of it. She wouldn't make any major decisions without consulting fortunetellers."

"What? That's crazy!"

"She even got my grandfather to listen to them, too. They planned whole military campaigns according to the predictions."

"And how successful were those campaigns?"

"Well, my grandmother was the Fire Nation's top military strategist for decades, so her plans were already really sound, even without fortunetelling. Truth be told, I think she just wanted a spiritual seal of approval for them. After she died, my grandfather still made use of the imperial astrologers and Fire Sages, but he cut back on listening to fortunetellers. The last time he ever took one's advice made him decide to ban the practice outright."

"Why? What happened?"

"The fortuneteller said my uncle's plan to siege Ba Sing Se would be a great victory and ensure the Fire Nation's prosperity for generations."

Sokka didn't need a fortuneteller to explain to him how badly that went. Even in the South Pole, stories had come in of the disastrous Six-Hundred-Day Siege of Ba Sing Se and the devastation it wrought on Fire Nation morale.

Soon, Aang returned, strutting like a peacock-panther.

"Looks like someone had a pretty good bathroom break," said Sokka.

"Yeah, when I was in there-"

"I don't even wanna know!"

That was when Katara emerged with the fortuneteller. Of course, when Sokka stood up to get his turn over with, his mood darkened further as the fortuneteller rattled off some nonsense about him being destined for a life of struggle filled with problems of his own making.

"But you didn't even read my palms or anything," Sokka protested.

"I don't need to," the woman replied. "It's written all over your face."

She then told Aang to follow her to her prophecy room of ludicrousness to hear his own, specially-tailored spiel about how he needed to avoid people born in the year of the tiger-bear or something.

"Sokka, don't be mad just because you don't want to admit you're wrong," said Katara.

"I'm not, I'm mad because everyone's buying into this scam," Sokka snapped.

Katara ignored his sensible argument and decided to bother Zuko about what he was going to ask the fortuneteller. Sokka would've felt bad for him, but he'd kind of brought that down on himself for playing along with Katara's delusions. Part of him wanted to sympathize with Zuko's plight, but the other part of him was too busy finding the situation hilarious to do anything to help. In fact, Sokka decided to make things worse.

"Yeah, Zuko," Sokka said with a smug grin, "you seem to love fortunetelling, so what are you gonna ask her?"

Zuko shot a venomous glare at him through the thin opening of the sun veil, but Sokka only basked in the agitation his fellow skeptic was left simmering in.

"I'm not sure," Zuko said. "I guess I'll ask if I'll get the chance to restore my honor and go home."

Sokka and Katara shared a look with each other.

The unspoken fact of Zuko's intention to capture Aang still hung in the air like a bad smell. After their night at the temple, Katara had become curiously defensive of Zuko. She wouldn't outright tell Sokka or Aang why, only that Zuko had told her that the reason he was hunting Aang was to lift a banishment he'd been unjustly given by his psychotic father. Sokka was willing to believe that, as it sounded like the kind of thing a tyrannical megalomaniac ruling a nation of murder-happy fire monsters would do to his own son. He'd tried to press for more details, but Katara was being weirdly tight-lipped about the details.

All that aside, Sokka was still bound by the rules of honor, friendship, and basic decency to not allow Zuko the chance to capture Aang. Whatever his motivations, Zuko was still Fire Nation and not to be trusted. In all of Sokka's experience, the number of firebenders he could reliably say he trusted was exactly one; that being Shyu, the Fire Sage who had helped them at Roku's temple and who was likely either dead or rotting in prison for doing so. As far as Sokka could see, Zuko was not willing to take that level of risk to aid the Avatar's mission.

Zuko was only interested in looking out for Zuko. And that made him a liability.

Zuko wasn't holding out much hope for any sort of meaningful answers from Aunt Wu.

After Aang came back from his reading, almost bursting with glee, the fortuneteller turned to Zuko and summoned him into the back room. He sat by the hearth fire, his question hovering on the tip of his tongue and the voice of his anxiety screaming at him that this was a waste of time.

"Do you play Pai Sho, young man?" the fortuneteller asked as she sat across from him.

Frowning in confusion at the non-sequitur, Zuko replied, "A little. My uncle is more interested in it than I am."

"Hmm. What piece do you play first?"

"My uncle told me that the white lotus gambit opens the path to unexpected victories."

"I see." Her smile became wider. "Has your uncle taught you of the 'flower that blooms in adversity'?"

Zuko could feel the tic in his jaw going at the resurgence of more needless proverbs and cryptic ramblings. He got enough of that from his uncle, as it was.

"He says it's the 'most rare and beautiful of all,'" Zuko said, his teeth grinding.

"The daylily cannot bloom at night, nor can the moonflower thrive in the sun."

Zuko blinked and fumbled around his memory for one of his uncle's stupid flower proverbs, wondering how he'd gotten into this bizarre situation.

"Uh, sunflowers…follow the sun?"

It was Aunt Wu's turn to look confused.

"Don't you mean something like 'a watched flower never blooms' or 'a seed dropped unknowingly may grow into a forest'?"

"How should I know? You're the one who started this weird conversation. I thought I was here to get my fortune told not yammer on about flowers."

Aunt Wu continued to stare at him.

"Did your uncle really never tell you…?" She muttered more to herself than to Zuko. She then shook her head and straightened up. "Never mind. Let me see your palm."

He grudgingly held out a hand for her to scrutinize.

"It seems to me you've had a reading done before," she said. "When you were very young."

"Yes," Zuko said in a clipped tone. He'd heard all about the tricks of fortunetellers and mystics and their ilk. He wouldn't give her anything to work off of. He couldn't be sure if she was doing a cold reading and just making random guesses, or if she had somehow figured out who he was and was doing a hot reading.

"That prediction still stands from when it was given. But I can see that, currently, your life is in a very turbulent phase that could throw you off your destined path."

Zuko arched his one good eyebrow at her.

"There is a shadow hovering over you. A dark presence that has rooted itself in your very soul."

"What does that mean?"

"It means there is someone or something in your life that is poisoning the very essence of your being. You must find a way to separate yourself from it, or it will continue feeding off your negative emotions like a parasite."

That had Zuko concerned. He might be more inclined towards Sokka's rational view of the world, but that didn't mean he was going to ignore everything connected to spiritual matters. Spirits and mystical forms of energy were absolutely real, but Zuko was hesitant to get involved with them because of how terribly wrong things could go when they were messed with.

"How can I get rid of this thing?" said Zuko.

"There's not a clear solution," said Aunt Wu. "I'm only a messenger of destiny. I can't give you all the answers. This is an issue you need to figure out on your own by coming to terms with whatever it is that's weighing you down."

Yeah, real helpful, Zuko groaned in his head.

"Well, now you got to see for yourselves that fortune telling is just a big, stupid hoax."

"You're just saying that because you're going to make yourself unhappy your whole life," said Katara, not bothering to hold back her smirk at how annoyed Sokka was.

"That woman is crazy! My life will calm and happy and joyful!" With that last word, he kicked a stone which flew through the air, hit a shop sign (ironically marked "good blessing"), and ricocheted back across to strike Sokka on the head and knock him over. "That doesn't prove anything."

"Well, I liked my predictions. Certain things are going to turn out very well."

"They sure are," Aang added with a grin.

There was something funny about the way Aang said that. Katara couldn't quite put her finger on it.

"Why? What did she tell you?"

"Some stuff. You'll find out."

"What about you Zu…erm, Lee?" Katara said.

"It was really…odd," said Zuko. "She prattled on about flower proverbs and then said I have a dark shadow over me that's going to throw off my destiny. What does that even mean?"

Katara had a few good guesses about exactly what it was that Aunt Wu was trying to tell him. In her mind's eye she could picture a young, frightened, Fire Nation boy standing in front of his father, pleading for mercy. It made her clench her fists and wish she could unleash a torrent of ice-spikes at Fire Lord Ozai and teach him a lesson in respect.

Something to aspire to once she got more waterbending training, at any rate.

"Can we please just focus on why we're here?" said Sokka. "The whole reason we came to this village was to send a message. Therefore, a message we shall send and then get out of this crazy place as fast as Appa can carry us."

"What, no more walking?" Katara said in a teasing voice.

Sokka scowled at her but ignored the jibe. He led them to where a shop sign read: "Speedy Delivery Service – Twice as Far in Half the Time." His temper only flared when he saw who was running the delivery office.

"Well, hello again, young travelers," said the smiling man from earlier.

"Wait, you run the postal service?" Sokka said incredulously, looking around in obvious hope of finding someone else in charge.

"I'm also the town magistrate. Shortly after Aunt Wu arrived in the village, she foretold I would be appointed to a vital and exceptionally revered position in the community. The next day, I was chosen to be manager of the post office."

"We need to send a letter to someone," Katara said, interrupting Sokka's groans of frustration.

"This is certainly the place to do just that," said the man. He presented them with a sheet of paper, an inkstone, and a writing brush. "I will leave you to it. Just ring the bell when you're finished and I'll send it with the next available delivery agent."

Once the man walked off to the back room, Zuko reached for the writing brush, only for Sokka to rudely swat his hand.

"Uh-uh, no way," said Sokka. "I'm not letting you write some sneaky, secret code. You'll just find some way of getting your soldiers to capture Aang."

"I don't know any secret codes, Sokka," said Zuko.

"Exactly what someone who wants to send a secret code would say."

"I'm serious, I don't understand how to write in code. I'm in the regular forces, not intelligence."

"No kidding." Sokka's smirk only served to make Zuko mad.

"Military intelligence, you dickweed."

"Just let me write it," Katara spoke up, wanting to end the argument before it could gain more steam.

"I can do it, Katara," said Sokka.

"No offence, Sokka, but your handwriting isn't exactly the most…legible."

"What's wrong with it?"

Truth be told, Sokka's handwriting was dreadful. They didn't really have much by way of writing tools in the South Pole, as paper was expensive and there weren't many clean, dry spaces to write. Gran-Gran had taught them by writing characters in the snow or showing them works that had been transcribed onto tanned seal-hide or the few, precious scrolls that she kept locked up in waterproof boxes. Neither Katara nor Sokka could boast much training in calligraphy, but Katara had a steadier hand than her brother and could at least write passably well.

"Anyway," Katara said, choosing not to respond to Sokka's question, "what do you think I should write?"

"You need to address it to my uncle," said Zuko. "He'd be the best person to resolve the situation. Besides, I don't want my crew to know I've been abducted by a group of kids."

"Hey, you're a kid, too."

"I'm sixteen. That's old enough to enlist in the Fire Nation military."

That struck Katara as strange. The Earth Kingdom didn't let soldiers enlist until they were eighteen (barring incidents of recruits lying about their ages). Even in the Water Tribe, sixteen seemed a bit young to go to war; in fact, sixteen was supposed to be a spiritual age when people went on vision quests and started to think about what path they should take in life. Well, that was the case for her tribe, at least. Katara wasn't sure of how things were done in the Northern Water Tribe.

"Sokka's almost sixteen," Katara pointed out. "You think he's a kid, don't you?"

"Wait a second," Sokka protested. "I'm not a kid. I am a fierce and manly warrior!"

"…Sokka's not a kid," said Zuko.

"Thank you!"

"He's a toddler."

"Hey!"

They did eventually manage to compose a decent letter to Zuko's uncle. It was short, succinct, and made very clear that Sokka expected money for Zuko's safe return. Not that they would ever actually do anything to hurt Zuko, but Sokka insisted that it was how ransom notes were meant to be written. They also carefully selected a place to make the exchange and set the meeting date for no later than two weeks. With that done, they rang the little lotus-shaped bell on the desk, summoning the man from earlier to give him the letter.

"Well, that's done," Sokka said as they left. "We should get on the road."

"What's the hurry?" said Katara. "I want to get another reading from Aunt Wu."

"Oh, come on. Haven't you had enough fortunetelling, already? It's all nonsense, anyway."

"You didn't hear what she told me." There was a joyous lift in her heart when she thought of what Aunt Wu had predicted. "My life sounds like it's going in a great direction. I can't wait to find out who my future husband is."

"I'm sure he's closer than you think," Aang said, his smile wide and bright.

Katara glanced over at Zuko, who was standing next to her. He shrugged and shook his head, clearly not getting what Aang seemed to be implying either.

Aang tried not to feel too disappointed that Katara hadn't gotten his hint.

Why was it so difficult to tell her how he felt? It wasn't like he wasn't being obvious about how in love with her he was. She was the prettiest, kindest, sweetest, most wonderful girl in the world. How could he not be head-over-heels for her?

It wasn't really in his culture to be overly-expressive about romantic feelings. In fact, Aang was being exceptionally bold for an Air Nomad. His people always taught the importance of restraint in pursuing desire, as desire could lead one into misfortune and bad karma. As important as their belief in freedom was, the Air Nomad way was heavily focused on living free of worldly passions and attachments so as to achieve spiritual enlightenment.

They didn't even have real concept of marriage. If two people…or three or four or however many…chose to pursue a lifelong bond outside of standard relationships between fellow airbenders, then that was perfectly fine. Some people only became 'partners' for the life festivals that took place every couple of years in order to create babies.

Aang preferred the idea of someone to have a lifelong bond with. As much as he loved his culture and his people, he couldn't really accept the idea of only being able to express his affection for someone during a specific period of time. It would be like turning off the love he felt for his friends just because the weather changed.

Being the last airbender…the last Air Nomad…it was up to him to preserve his culture, and maybe even make some changes.

And Aang's fondest dream practically since starting his journey to the north was that Katara would be part of that one day, after the war was finally over and they could start rebuilding all that was lost.

"Hey, what's that crowd staring at?" Sokka said, shaking Aang from his thoughts.

"Let's check it out," said Aang.

They drew closer and noticed that everyone was staring intently at the sky. The weirdly calm man who seemed to pop up everywhere was also standing amongst the crowd of villagers.

"What's with the sky?" Katara asked.

"We are waiting for Aunt Wu to come and read the clouds to predict the fate of the whole village."

"That cloud kind of looks like a fluffy bunny," Aang said, having spotted the cute-looking cloud formation.

"You better hope that's not a bunny! The fluffy bunny cloud forecasts doom and destruction."

"Do you even hear yourself?" Sokka said in disgust.

A local woman overheard their discussion and turned to add, "The cloud reading will tell us if Mount Makapu will remain dormant for another year or if it will erupt."

"We used to have a tradition, once a year, of going up the mountain to check the volcano ourselves," the calm man said with a smile. "But, ever since Aunt Wu moved to the village twenty years ago, we have a tradition of not doing that."

"I can't believe you would trust your lives to that crazy, old woman's superstition!" Sokka snapped.

Katara shushed him and they all watched in anticipation as Aunt Wu emerged and approached the small dais in the center of the market square. Idly, Aang sensed someone draw up close beside him.

"Hey, Aang, don't you think that cloud looks like a flower?" someone said. He blinked as he recognized the girl as Aunt Wu's assistant from before.

What was her name again? Ming? Mung? He hadn't really been paying attention before when she introduced herself.

"Huh? Sure, I guess," he said. That was when what she'd said clicked and he turned to Katara, pushing the other girl away as she'd gotten too close for him to move easily. "Hey, Katara, don't you think that cloud look like a flower?"

Katara only shushed him, too.

He tried to fight off yet another wave of disappointment. In the background, he heard people cheering with each new prediction from Aunt Wu regarding the clouds. He couldn't understand what he was doing wrong. Katara barely even acknowledged that he was there with her. He had to do something to get her attention back on him so he could finally confess what he'd wanted to say to her for some time. Once Aunt Wu finished her predictions, declaring that the village wouldn't be destroyed by the volcano, Aang figured that Katara was done focusing on that, seeing as there was nothing left to foretell.

"Since I got you here, uh, there's something I want to tell you. I like you, but more than normal."

But Katara didn't seem to hear him. Instead, she moved forward with the other spectators to get closer to Aunt Wu.

"Never mind."

Zuko couldn't help but wince at Aang's painful attempt to confess his feelings.

He'd been standing right beside Katara and hadn't cared enough about the fortuneteller's crazy weather forecast to pay attention, so he'd overheard Aang's clumsy admission. It was quite sad, but it confused Zuko, as well. Hadn't Katara already said she thought of Aang as a 'friend' and a 'sweet little guy' and straight-up compared Aang to Momo? Shouldn't that have been a good indication that a love confession was not a good idea?

It didn't really make sense to him. Why pursue someone romantically when they didn't seem interested?

Not that Zuko could admit to knowing how other people handled their feelings. Romantic love did seem like it was a strange, irrational creature that made people do stupid things. Zuko just never felt that urge for someone, before. Well, he did sometimes do stupid things, but that was more the product of his own hot-headedness than anything. Honestly, the closest he'd ever come to feeling that way was when he was a kid and had a crush on the character of Princess Tantan in the play "Twin Flower Princesses." That didn't really count, though, as Princess Tantan was pretty much totally fictitious.

Shaking his head at the tangled mess that was romance, Zuko turned his attention to Sokka's latest rant.

"I can't believe all these saps! Someone really needs to scream some sense into them."

"They seem happy, Sokka," said Aang.

"Not for long. I'm going to prove Aunt Wu's predictions are nonsense." Sokka spotted a local and hurried over to him. "Hey, you, I bet Aunt Wu told you to wear those red shoes, didn't she?"

"Yeah," the man replied. "She said I'd be wearing red shoes when I met my true love."

"Uh-huh...And how many times have you worn those shoes since you got that fortune?"

"Everyday."

"Then of course it's gonna come true!"

"Really? You think so? I'm so excited!"

Zuko watched as Sokka kicked a stone which hit and promptly agitated a nearby turkey-duck. The enraged bird then angrily began attacking the Water Tribe boy, but Zuko couldn't bring himself to laugh.

He frowned in thought as he realized something about the shoes that the idiotic Makapu man was wearing. That shade of red, so strikingly different from the man's pale blue-green clothes, were very distinctly of Fire Nation make. Perhaps Makapu really did have trade relations with the Fire Nation and coexisted at least somewhat peacefully with the colonials.

He remembered that Doctor Nuan had said something about Makapu being more open about trade and communication despite being Earth Kingdom territory, but it still felt strange to Zuko. Most Earth Kingdom villages he'd seen would kill or cripple any Fire Nation citizens they came across. Why was Makapu so open-minded? Was it because it was packed full of morons who listened to a fortuneteller?

Something was not quite right.

As part of his training, he was expected to know Earth Kingdom laws and customs, in case he was ever forced to disguise himself for a military operation. One of the laws they reportedly had on the books was that wearing red clothing was seen as an act of treason against the Earth King of Ba Sing Se unless it was being used in an act of mockery against the Fire Nation. Both the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation also employed anti-fraternization laws to prevent mixing between the two groups. So how could Earth Kingdom people ever interact peacefully with the Fire Nation colonies, let alone blatantly wear Fire Nation clothes in plain sight?

It was giving him a headache.

Zuko and Aang continued to follow Sokka as he raged at the locals for trusting in Aunt Wu's predictions, only to be ignored or laughed at in every instance.

"I don't care what Aunt Wu told you! You have to take a bath sometime!"

The dirt-caked old man whom Sokka had screamed at just smiled and shuffled off.

"So, Sokka, you know some stuff about ladies, right?" Aang said.

"'Some stuff'? You've come to the right place. What can I do you for?"

Zuko stared incredulously at what he was seeing. Sokka was actually giving Aang relationship advice? Zuko didn't know Sokka even knew any girls other than his own sister.

"Well, there's this girl…"

Sokka peered off at something. Zuko followed his gaze and noticed the little pink-robed assistant of the fortuneteller. Meng, Zuko believed her name was. The girl was staring at Aang and giggling. It took him a minute to wonder what the deal was with that before he realized…oh, I guess she has a crush on Aang, he thought.

"I think I know who you mean.," said Sokka.

"You do? And you're okay with it?"

"Of course I am. And to tell you the truth, I've been picking up a subtle vibe that she likes you, too."

Zuko gaped at the obvious miscommunication going on right in front of him. While Meng was flailing her arms in the air, trying to get Aang's attention, Sokka completely misread that she was who Aang was interested in when it was obvious that Aang was hung-up on Katara.

If that was how romantic situations went, then Zuko was happy to stay out of that mess. He would just wait patiently for the silly fortune from his childhood to come to fruition. That seemed a much safer and less frustrating endeavor, even if it did turn out to be a load of hippo-cow crap. If he was going to be wholly honest, Zuko much preferred the thought of just having a friend rather than getting with someone because of whatever 'spark' it was that caused most people to be attracted to each other.

"She does?" Aang said, eyes wide and hopeful.

"Oh yeah, she's crazy about you. All you have to do now is not mess it up."

"Well, how do I do that?"

"The number once mistake nice guys like you make: being too nice."

"You can be too nice?"

"Yep. If you want to keep her interested, you have to act aloof, like you don't really care one way or the other."

"Well, okay..."

"Hey, Aang," Meng said, having shyly snuck up to him. "I was wondering..."

"See you later." Aang strolled away, not having even seen the girl who stared dejectedly after him.

"Wow, that kid is good," said Sokka.

"Good?" Zuko said in absolute disbelief. "What on earth was that garbage you just peddled to him as advice?"

"What? That was great advice." Sokka leaned in to whisper conspiratorially as Meng slumped away sadly from Aang ignoring her. "Ladies love the aloof type."

"So, acting like a rude, stuck-up jerk is supposed to make girls like you? Do you realize how stupid that sounds?"

"Hey, it's a tried-and-true method."

"Yeah, tried-and-true at getting a drink splashed on your face."

"Whatever. We'll see who has the better dating knowledge when Aang snags a girlfriend using my 'aloof' technique. Pinky over there is going to be chasing after him, no problem."

"Sokka, Aang isn't interested in her. He has a crush on Katara."

"What? That's ridiculous."

"You were teasing him about it earlier."

"Yeah, because that's what I do! It's in the man-code to make fun of your friend when he's being awkward around a girl."

"And why do you think he was being awkward around Katara?"

"But that's…he really does have a crush on my sister? I was only kidding around because I knew it wasn't going to happen. Katara only thinks of Aang as a friend. We all know that."

"All of us except Aang, apparently. He's been acting weird around Katara all day and he even tried to give her a love confession during the cloud-reading ceremony."

"I think I need to sit down for a minute. Or a month."

"You seriously didn't notice? Sokka, I don't know the first thing about romance and even I could see the big, glaring signs."

"If you don't know about romance, how are you so sure my advice to him was bad?"

"Answer me this, Sokka: aside from Katara, how many girls do you even know?"

"Hey, I know lots of girls!"

"Have you dated any of them?"

"…" The pause went on for far too long. "Suki gave me a kiss right before we left Kyoshi Island. That counts, right?"

"Do you think one kiss from a girl you only knew a few days really counts?"

"…No." Sokka hung his head. "Honestly, I don't really know that many girls." He was looking more and more uncomfortable. "Katara and I were the oldest kids back home. And we were almost always working on chores, so it was kind of tough to meet people from the other villages."

"Wait, you didn't have any other friends your own age, either?"

"Hey, Katara and I had friends…sometimes. It's complicated."

"We've got time."

They grabbed some snacks from a local food stall and sat down to talk.

"In the Southern Water Tribe, we don't really live in one, big city. People are divided into clans that function like large, extended families. Most of the people in your clan tend to be related to you, too. Since the war destroyed the old capital, the clans tend to live on the move most of the time to lower the risk of getting raided."

Zuko nodded, feeling painfully aware of his people's role in causing that situation.

"The clans still gather together once a month for tribal business or for festivals," Sokka continued. "Things can get a little heated at times, though, because some of the clans have blood feuds. I'm from the Wolf Clan, which is one of the few that doesn't have an outstanding rivalry with one of the other clans, but that's not always a good thing.

"See, because we're sort of neutral, we're expected not to side with one clan or another. Interacting too much with a neighboring clan might make the others suspicious that we're taking sides. The Southern Water Tribe has always had a strong emphasis on community and respect, treating each other as equals, but that sometimes means friendships can be seen as favoritism. So, Katara and I have always had to be careful about which kids we played with so we don't get the Wolf Clan into trouble."

Zuko never thought things could be so complex in the Southern Water Tribe. From what he'd heard while growing up, he'd never gotten much of an impression that the Water Tribes even had a real culture outside of cannibalism and human sacrifice. It felt weird thinking about those assumptions now, as if the fact that he'd ever believed them in the first place was incomprehensible.

"Why are the Water Tribe clans so focused on feuds when there's a war?" he said. "Isn't that the more important thing to focus on?"

"Old grudges die hard," Sokka said with a shrug. "It's one of the main reasons why my dad was chosen to be the war chief."

"War chief? Is that like being the Fire Lord or something?"

"Sort of…not exactly. It's more like being a general, but the tribe elects you to the position. We don't have a ruler in the Southern Water Tribe. Each clan has a clan chief, a clan mother, and the clan elders. During tribal meetings, they make the decisions as a group. When our tribe decided to send the warriors off to fight, my dad was seen as the most capable and impartial clan chief, so he got the job."

That certainly sounded like a much fairer system than someone inheriting a throne just because their parents wore shiny pieces of metal on their heads.

Zuko quickly stifled that treasonous thought.

"So, I guess all that inter-clan rivalry makes finding a date difficult," Zuko said, hoping to diffuse the tension.

Sokka rolled his eyes and gave Zuko a shove.

"You're one to talk, Prince Jerkbender," he said. "Can't imagine you've had much chance for a love life, either."

"I've never cared about stuff like that, Sokka. When I was still in the Fire Nation, I was constantly getting lessons in firebending, etiquette, court politics, warfare, finance, culture, and a million other things. After my father banished me, I had more pressing concerns to worry about."

"Speaking of which, why did your father banish you, anyway?"

Zuko blinked in surprise. Didn't Sokka already know about that?

Then he remembered that that had been a conversation between him and Katara, alone. She clearly hadn't told the others about it. At least, she hadn't told them everything. Zuko felt strangely touched that she respected his privacy enough not to blab the whole story to her brother and Aang. It was incredibly embarrassing for him to think about considering how epically he'd disrespected his father and disgraced himself, and it stung every time he had to relive the biggest mistake of his life.

"I don't really want to talk about it," he said.

He wasn't sure why, but he suddenly really wished Katara would hurry up and get back from her second session with Aunt Wu.

What could be taking her so long, anyway?

"And then you will have your third great-grandchild before quietly passing away in your sleep. Is that enough information for you?"

"Wow, thanks, Aunt Wu. Oh wait, one more thing. How warmly should I dress tomorrow?"

"You want me to do a reading for that?"

The Water Tribe girl was going to cause her an aneurism if she kept this up. In the decades she spent honing her precognitive abilities, Aunt Wu had frequently encountered people who fixated so much on knowing all the answers that they began to forget that some things needed to be decided for themselves. If Katara didn't stop pressing her for as many little details of her future as she could get, Aunt Wu was concerned the girl might lose focus on accomplishing her goals.

And then all that good fortune that Aunt Wu had seen in her could very well be compromised.

It was much the same with the young firebender who was tagging along in their little team. Only, in his case, there was a considerable lack of insight. If he didn't learn to start having some faith in himself and kept doing only what he felt was expected of him, he was going to miss out on his own destiny.

From what Aunt Wu had seen in him, that would be a catastrophe the world couldn't afford.

One thing Aunt Wu couldn't perceive, which drove her up the wall, was how the nephew of a Grand Lotus ended up in such a tangled situation. Despite her inborn ability to see the future, a power that had always been a heavy weight to carry, Aunt Wu was not truly omniscient. She couldn't always find answers even when she looked for them, which was why she often had to give hollow, self-fulfilling prophecies to keep people from worrying.

She was never wrong, exactly. Not really. Sometimes her interpretations could be faulty or the prediction could come true in an unexpected way.

She preferred to think of it as clerical error on her part.

That was why she had to make sure her young apprentice was well-prepared when she took over as fortuneteller, one day. Meng was a bright girl with the same natural affinity for telling the future as Aunt Wu, herself. Her people-reading skills, however, still needed some work and she had to learn to manage her excitable nature, as it could make things more difficult as time went on if she leapt at the first explanation she saw for a prediction.

Aunt Wu had learned from bitter experience not to let her eagerness for answers cloud her judgement.

All that aside, there was still the matter of the young firebender. Her fellow White Lotus agent, Tao, had reported that the Avatar's little group was planning to ransom the boy back to his uncle from what he'd overheard at his post office. Aunt Wu intended to send along her own report to the general about what she'd observed and to assure him that everything was, indeed, all right.

In the meantime, she had to find a way to extricate herself from Katara's relentless barrage of questions. Even a fortuneteller gets to a point where that much inquiry about the future started to strain her abilities and actually cause her pain from how much she pulled on the intricate web of fate.

"And you'll be fine as long as you've got a scarf," she said as she ushered the girl out the door. "Bye-bye, now."

"Okay, okay, but one more thing."

She could feel the angry throbbing of her inner eye as a migraine took form. "All right, what is it?" she asked in grim resignation.

"Should I eat a mango or a papaya for breakfast tomorrow?"

"Papaya!" With that, she slammed the door shut and quickly bolted it.

From outside, she heard Katara grumble, "Aww, I hate papaya."

The report could wait, Aunt Wu decided. What she really needed was a swig of rice wine and a long nap.

Katara grimaced as she held the papaya in her hands

Ever since leaving the South Pole and having the opportunity to try new and exotic fruits, she'd enjoyed just about everything she'd tried. Except for papaya. There was just something so unpleasantly cloying about its taste and a nasty, pungent quality to its aroma that it made her feel nauseous. Sokka and Aang didn't have the same aversion and it made her wonder if there was something wrong with her tastebuds and sense of smell.

She found her way over to the others after leaving Aang behind at the fruit stall and gave a resigned sigh as she sat down.

"What's wrong?" Zuko asked.

"I bought a papaya," she said simply.

"Why'd you do that, Katara?" said Sokka. "I thought you hated papaya."

"I do, but I asked Aunt Wu what fruit to have for breakfast tomorrow and she told me to get a papaya."

Sokka slapped a hand to his forehead and began to complain about fortunetelling again.

"Katara, if you don't like it, you don't have to eat it," said Zuko.

"But Aunt Wu said I have to."

"You don't 'have to' eat something you hate just because someone told you."

"Look, you can give me the papaya," said Sokka. "Go get yourself a mango or something. It's not a big deal."

Why couldn't they get it? If Katara started ignoring what Aunt Wu said, then what would that mean for the fortunes she'd been promised? Katara might lose her chance for that epic love story with a tall, handsome, brave, kind, smart, caring, and powerful bender. Aunt Wu had given her an abundance of details at Katara's insistence and Katara was determined to ensure they came to be. Not even just for her love life, either. She'd asked Aunt Wu for more information about what her future promised outside of romance and she'd been positive that Katara would become a master waterbender and a strong and respected leader in her community. She would bring honor to the memory of her mother, she would inspire others to live better lives, and she would be a renowned hero in the fight against the Fire Nation.

How could she throw that all away simply because she hated the taste of papaya?

"You know, there are ways of making papaya more appetizing if you're determined to eat it," said Zuko.

Katara looked at him hopefully.

"I mean, papaya is pretty popular in the Fire Nation, so there are a lot of recipes. I could share a few of them if you want."

"I'd like that."

Blue eyes met gold and Katara couldn't help but feel like she and Zuko had fallen into a silent staring contest. Right up until Sokka cleared his throat, prompting them both to look away.

"Oh, Katara, there was something I was wondering," Zuko spoke up, cutting through the awkwardness. "What happened to that necklace Aang made for you?"

"Yeah, the one made from our fishing line," Sokka grumbled.

"Ah, see, it kind of unraveled while we were walking into town," Katara said, feeling a twinge of guilt.

"Huh, that's a shame," said Zuko. "It looked all right when Aang made it. Maybe he didn't secure it properly."

"I feel a bit bad about it, though. Aang seemed so happy to give it to me and it fell apart so soon."

"It's not your fault. Stuff happens. And, besides, it won't be long until you get your mother's necklace back, anyway."

That was a deep comfort to her, to know that he hadn't forgotten his promise. Ever since she'd lost her mother's necklace, the lack of that familiar weight had made Katara unable to feel truly at-ease. She knew it was ridiculous to be so attached to an object, a mere thing, but the simple fact that it had once been treasured by her mother and remained the last true tie Katara had to her made its absence so incredibly painful. As kindly-meant a gesture as Aang's fishing line necklace had been, it was not a replacement.

"Hey, has anyone seen Aang?" said Sokka.

As if saying his name had magically summoned him to them, Aang appeared.

"Sokka, Zuko, I need your help with something," he said, though his attention was focused on Katara.

"Do you want me to come along, too?" she said.

"Uh, no, no," Aang stammered, his cheeks turning red. "It's a guy thing. Just for guys. You know. Me, Sokka, and Zuko. No one else."

Katara raised an eyebrow, wondering for perhaps the millionth time what was going on with Aang, recently.

"Fine, you boys have fun," she said, rising to her feet. "I'm going to go ask Aunt Wu some more questions."

"Great! See ya in a bit!" Aang then grabbed Sokka and Zuko and dragged them off, ignoring their protestations.

After going over to the space outside the village gates where Appa was grazing in order to stow her papaya in the food pack for the next day, Katara made her way as quickly as possible over to Aunt Wu's establishment. She knocked on the door only for the doorman to appear and inform her that Aunt Wu was not doing any further readings for the day.

All Katara could do was stand there in disbelief. She had so many questions she hadn't thought to ask yet, and these were really, really important ones about their journey and how they could prepare themselves for fighting the Fire Nation.

So why wouldn't Aunt Wu see her?

"I can't believe you're dragging us all the way up here for a stupid flower."

Zuko agreed with Sokka, though not quite for the same reason.

"Not just any flower," said Aang. "A panda lily. I've seen it in action and, boy, does it work."

"Flowers are fine once you're married, but at this early stage, it's critical that you maintain maximum aloofness."

"Sokka, for the hundredth time, that is a stupid dating strategy," said Zuko. "If you ignore someone, they're just going to ignore you right back."

"So, you agree with my plan, right?" said Aang.

"Actually, no. Aang, not to be rude, but I don't think bribing Katara into a relationship with you is going to work out."

"Wh-what? Who said anything about Katara?" Aang's face was as red as a tomato-beet.

Zuko and Sokka both stared at him, impassively. Aang meekly hung his head.

"Does…does Katara know?"

"Not as far as I could tell," said Zuko. "More to the point, though, I find it hard to believe she'd automatically fall in love with you just because you give her a flower."

"But I really like Katara. Like, I really, really, really like her, you know. Once I show her how I feel, why wouldn't she like me back?"

Sokka made a disgusted noise and rolled his head to face the heavens, as if pleading for someone to strike him down.

"Look, Aang, I don't have much by way of experience in stuff like this." Zuko shot Sokka look. "And neither does Sokka, just so we're clear."

"Hey!" Sokka yelled.

"But I'm not certain Katara feels the same way towards you."

"How do you know?" Aang said, a bit of anger coloring his tone.

"Because I've been around you long enough to see she treats you pretty much the same way she treats Sokka."

"But it's different!"

"In what way?"

"I don't know! It just is. Whenever I'm around Katara, I feel this fluttering in my stomach and my heart starts beating really fast and I…" He looked at the ground, somehow managing to seem even more embarrassed than before.

"Look, I'm not saying you shouldn't tell Katara how you feel," Zuko stressed. "Far be it from me to tell people they can or can't get together if they want. If Katara likes you back, then that's great. I'll be the first to congratulate you two. But how will you respond if she says 'no.'"

"I…I'll have to try again. There has to be some way I can tell her how I feel that will get her to like me the same way, right?"

"And what about how Katara feels?" Sokka said in a sharp voice.

"Huh?"

"Aang, you talked an awful lot about how you feel. What about my sister? Shouldn't she get a say in this?"

"But you said you thought she likes me, too!"

"I didn't realize you were talking about Katara when you asked me. I thought you meant that little girl in the pink dress."

"Who?"

"Aang, you're missing the point," Zuko continued. "If you want to be in a romantic relationship with Katara, it has to happen naturally and you need to respect her boundaries. If you start pestering her with gifts and love confessions, she's probably not going to take it well that you won't accept a polite refusal."

"She hasn't said 'no,' yet. And I'm certain I can convince her to like me back."

"Aang, this isn't a thing you can 'convince' someone into. Being pushy and expecting someone to fall for you just because you like them, especially when they haven't shown the same interest in you, isn't going to work."

"Katara hasn't even had the chance to think of me in that way. I can't give up just because you want to be a pessimist."

Zuko massaged his temples, feeling another headache starting to bloom. He wasn't trying to be mean or to rain on Aang's parade, but he didn't want the kid to get his hopes up for nothing or start pestering Katara until she agreed to date him. Not once had Katara exhibited any kind of attraction to Aang, as far as he could see. Zuko might be terrible at reading romantic situations between people, but he had eyes and ears enough to know that Katara had expressed her feelings towards Aang very plainly.

As much as he knew it might upset the cheery airbender, Zuko told Aang his observations. He made sure to point out that this was all purely observational and that there was every possibility that he was wrong and Katara simply didn't express her romantic feelings openly, only for Sokka to point out that Katara had had a flagrant and very obvious crush on Jet, complete with blushing and stammering and even aiding and abetting war crimes.

"None of this is going to matter, anyway," Aang said firmly. "My heart is telling me to get this flower, and Aunt Wu said if I trusted in my heart, I will be with the one I love."

"What? Don't tell me you believe in that stuff, too," Sokka said in utter exasperation.

"Well, Aunt Wu hasn't been wrong yet. Why should she be wrong about love?" He scanned the terrain of the volcano and pointed as something caught his eye. "There! On the rim!"

He dashed up ahead and grabbed a pretty black-and-white-striped lily, only to freeze in place and gasp, "Oh, no." As Zuko and Sokka drew up behind him, they realized what had gotten him so shaken. In the deep pit of the volcano, furious red lava bubbled away like a menacing cauldron.

"Aunt Wu was wrong."

They all stood there for a few moments, simply transfixed by the sight below. For Zuko, volcanoes were not really a new thing. There were plenty of active ones in the Fire Nation and there were lots of safeguards in place to deal with them during potential eruptions. Still, the unyielding fury of a roiling pit of lava never ceased to be awe-inspiring.

"Those people all think they're safe!" said Sokka, finally snapping them all back to attention. "We've got to warn them!"

"There's no time to walk!" Aang said as he unfurled his glider. "Grab on!"

Zuko would never admit that flying at high speed down a volcano while barely clinging onto an airbender's glider had frightened him. Nope. Not at all. He was not the least bit rattled. His shaking was simply due to vertigo from the experience. That was all.

They found Katara waiting outside Aunt Wu's door, moping about being denied another session. Thankfully, despite her resolute insistence on the accuracy of Aunt Wu's predictions, it only took the volcano making a loud rumbling and emitting massive clouds of black smoke and a few flashes of fire to convince her to listen to them.

The Makapu villagers, however, were not so accommodating.

"Yeah, yeah, we know you don't believe in Aunt Wu, Mr. science-and-reason-lover," a local woman taunted Sokka when he tried to persuade them of the impending death sentence currently smoldering behind them.

Not even a firm yet gentle and heartfelt speech from Katara could get through to them.

"Please listen to us!" Aang yelled desperately. "You are all in danger! And we have to get out of here! You can't rely on Aunt Wu's prediction! You have to take fate into your own hands!"

"Look!" Sokka added, pointing to where the volcano was rumbling and spewing thicker and thicker columns of smoke. "Can your fortunetelling explain that?"

"Can your science explain why it rains?" said a man in the crowd, the one with the red shoes if Zuko wasn't mistaken.

"Yes! Yes, it can!"

The villagers just dispersed, ignoring the pleas of their would-be rescuers.

"They just won't listen to reason," said Sokka.

"But they will listen to Aunt Wu!" said Aang.

"I know that's the problem."

"Well, it's about to become the solution. We're taking fate in our own hands."

The plan worked like a charm. All it really required was Aang borrowing Aunt Wu's cloud-reading book and then he and Katara went up on Appa to bend the clouds into something that would kick those villagers' butts into action.

Katara could only hope it wasn't too late as everyone worked relentlessly to clear out a massive trench for the lava to empty into. It was nightfall by the time they'd finished their work.

As the eruption began in earnest, Sokka ordered all the villagers to evacuate in case their safety measure failed. An outcome that was looking more and more likely as the lava flowed rapidly downhill and started to pour into the trench.

"It's too much," Katara said. "It's going to overflow!"

Sokka immediately started leading them away to get to a safer location.

It was about then that Katara truly began to feel the weight of truth surrounding Aunt Wu's predictions. If she could be this wrong about the volcano, what else was she wrong about? Was everything she'd told Katara completely made up? It made Katara feel like such an idiot for wasting time on something that seemed so frivolous, now.

She then realized that someone wasn't with them.

"Aang, what are you doing?!" Zuko yelled, prompting Katara and Sokka to turn and see Aang still standing before the trench.

"Aang, come on!" Sokka called out. "We've gotta go!"

But Aang reminded steadfastly in place, his intentions clear.

"I can't believe this," Zuko muttered and then began to walk back to him, only for Sokka to grab him by the shoulder.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Aang needs help."

"Oh, no, you're going to use this chance to snatch him."

"Sokka, please, there isn't time for this. I'm a firebender. I know how to deal with volcanoes. Let me help."

He turned to Katara, his expression sincere and pleading. Katara nodded.

"I trust you," she said.

Sokka huffed but let him go.

Zuko raced over to Aang's side and performed a bending move to funnel some of the heat off the lava below. Aang began to follow Zuko's lead, listening to him as he gave instructions in how to use firebending to cool the lava which Katara could only faintly hear through the roar of the eruption.

"…don't breathe the fumes, they'll cook you from the inside out…"

"…no, the move goes like this…"

"…Aang, stop trying to make the lava into funny shapes! This is serious!"

Eventually, Aang managed to move the lava upwards with his airbending and then let loose a massive breath that mostly hardened the lava. Zuko, for his part, was ensuring the base of the lava was steady as he continued to draw the heat out of it. It was an, admittedly, very captivating display.

"Man, sometimes I forget what a powerful bender that kid is," Sokka said quietly.

"Wait, what did you just say?" said Katara.

"Nothing, just that Aang is one powerful bender."

Aunt Wu's prediction rung in her brain. But it did not fill her with the same excitement she'd felt before.

"I suppose he is."

Aang was just a friend to her. He was a kind and sweet kid, but he wasn't what she pictured when she thought of her future husband. If anything, she saw him as a little brother, someone she needed to protect and teach and tidy up after. He was only a child. An extremely powerful child, to be sure, but still only a child. And that was how she'd seen him since they met.

Katara wasn't looking for a child, she was looking for a partner. An equal. The yang to her yin. The sun to her moon. A person who was willing to share the load of both physical and emotional responsibilities.

And Aang…well, again, he was only a child. Sokka was probably right about Aunt Wu's predictions, anyway. She'd been wrong about the volcano, after all.

"Although, I've gotta say, Zuko's pretty impressive, too," Sokka added.

"What?"

"I mean, Aang is powerful because he's the Avatar, but Zuko…those moves took some serious training."

Katara wasn't sure why her stomach suddenly felt like there was a butterfly-bee fluttering around in it, but it was probably just the anxiety of the situation finally hitting her. And the warmth in her face was certainly just from the heat coming off of the cooling lava above them.

That was all.

Aang let out a relieved breath as the ash and soot began to settle.

He gave a bright smile to Zuko and thanked him for his help. It was amazing how similar the lava-cooling technique used by firebenders was to the temperature-regulating method used by airbenders. Zuko was also a pretty good teacher and Aang excitedly asked if Zuko would show him more firebending moves. After all, as the Avatar, he did need to learn firebending.

"Oh, no, that is not happening," Zuko said as they walked back to the others.

"Why not?"

"Aang, what you're asking is so far beyond treasonous that they'll need to invent a new rating system in the list of treasonous actions."

"There's a list for that?"

"…There is, as it happens. It's called the 'Big List of Very Treasonous Things that No Fire National Should Ever Do.'"

"Really?"

"No!"

Once they were able to determine with absolute certainty that the wall of hardened lava was not going to fall in and crush everyone, they went off to the safe zone early the next morning to let the villagers know that everything was fine. As the crowd gathered in the village square to celebrate not having their homes destroyed, Aang nervously shuffled forward to speak with Aunt Wu.

"By the way, we kind of borrowed your book," he said, handing the tome to her.

"So, you messed with the clouds, did you?" she said sharply, snatching the book back. After a few seconds, however, she chuckled. "Very clever!"

"No offense," said Sokka, "but I hope this taught everyone a lesson about not relying too much on fortune telling."

"But Aunt Wu predicted the village wouldn't be destroyed and it wasn't," said the calm man who seemed to appear everywhere. "She was right, after all."

"I hate you," Sokka practically growled in barely-suppressed rage.

"It's okay, Sokka," Katara said, leading him over to Appa so they could get ready to leave. "Everything's going to be all right."

"Can I ask you something?" Aang said, an unhappy weight in his heart.

"Of course, honey," Aunt Wu replied kindly.

"You didn't really see love in my fortune, did you? You just told me what I wanted to hear."

"I'll tell you a little secret, young airbender. Just as you reshaped those clouds, you have the power to shape your own destiny."

Aang smiled at that.

While it wasn't a promise that Katara would return his feelings, it meant there was still a chance. He did feel a bit of a guilty knot in his stomach, though, as they gave their goodbyes to the villagers. Katara had called out a friendly, "Take care, Meng," to Aunt Wu's little assistant, the girl who had confessed her crush on Aang while he'd been poking around searching for the cloud-reading book. It had been so uncomfortable having to tell her that, no, he didn't see her the same way. She was a nice girl, from what little he'd seen of her, and it made him feel like a bad person for turning her down.

Of course, her admission that she'd been stalking him all of that afternoon only served to make him uncomfortable in an entirely different way.

Was that what Zuko had been trying to warn Aang about the previous day? If so, Aang did not like the implication that he was putting Katara in the same position that Meng had put him.

Sokka still hated Zuko.

All right, so he hadn't taken advantage of Katara's far too trusting nature and used a perfect opportunity to capture Aang, but he was still a no-good-bad-news-firebender. Even if Zuko was super considerate and helping make a fire so they could cook up a late breakfast as they'd spent the whole night making sure that stupid village full of stupid, stupid people wasn't killed by the stupid volcano they'd stupidly built their village under. Like stupid idiots.

Sokka, for his part, was getting out the ingredients from the food pack and passing them to Zuko. That was when his hand fell upon that papaya that Katara had bought.

"Katara, you don't still want this, do you?" Sokka asked, holding up the fruit that she had always professed to despise.

"Well, I did buy it," she said, very unhappily.

"Yeah, but you don't have to eat it. Especially now that you've seen how wrong Aunt Wu actually is."

Katara still looked undecided on the matter, which only made Sokka annoyed. Hadn't she learned anything from that mind-numbingly stupid experience? Before he could make his argument, Zuko plucked the papaya from his hand and began slicing it into four large pieces.

"What are you doing?"

"I promised Katara I would find a way to make papaya more appetizing," he said with a shrug. He began putting the fruit slices onto cooking skewers and then took out a lime and some salt.

"Where'd you get those?"

"I picked up a few extra ingredients in town."

He squirted some lime juice onto the papayas and then began to roast them over the fire. As they cooked, Zuko took a few small pinches of salt and lightly flecked each of them. Once they had a decent char, Zuko offered one to Katara, who took it hesitantly.

"Again, you don't have to eat it if you don't want to," he said. He gave a small smile. "There will just be more for me."

Frowning, Katara took a small, tentative bite of the papaya. Her expression quickly changed and she took another bite.

"Wow, that is pretty good," she said.

Sokka couldn't believe it and insisted on trying one. Zuko obliged and also passed one to Aang, who eagerly accepted, and then proceeded to eat his own portion.

He had to give it to Zuko, it was quite tasty. The smokiness from the fire, the tanginess of the lime juice, and the little bit of savory bite from the salt balanced out nicely with the sweetness of the papaya.

"That was great," said Aang. "I just wish we'd thought to buy more."

Zuko smirked and then pulled another papaya out of the food pack.

"I did say I got some more ingredients," he reminded them.

After another portion of roasted papaya skewers, they cleaned up from their picnic breakfast and got ready to hit the skies again. As they packed up, however, Sokka got more and more concerned about the small matter of Zuko still being a risk to them in the future. Leaving aside all the good things he'd done recently, both big and small, the guy was going to go right back to hunting them as soon as he got back to his crew.

He might even snap sooner than that. Just because he didn't take the opening back in Makapu didn't mean he wasn't waiting for them to let their guard down. As long as Zuko was intent on capturing Aang, he couldn't be trusted. And Sokka needed to figure out a solution.

"Zuko," Sokka said as they finished clearing up. "Once we get you back to your ship, will you still come after us?"

Zuko gave a tired sigh.

"You know I have to," he replied. "Bringing Aang back to the Fire Nation is the only way my banishment will be lifted."

"And you know Katara and I won't and can't let that happen."

"Then just leave me behind, then! I can find my own way to the rendezvous spot. Just leave me and go to the North Pole."

"That's not happening, either."

"What? You don't want to miss out on getting the ransom money?" Zuko scoffed.

"No, because, for one thing, you probably wouldn't get there in time on foot. Secondly, Aang and Katara probably won't let me leave you out here in the middle of Earth Kingdom territory. And, thirdly, you're just going to start hunting Aang, again. Frankly, I'm starting to rethink ransoming you back at all."

"Don't be an idiot, Sokka! If you don't want me trying to capture Aang, then that's even more reason why you should leave me behind."

"Actually, it makes perfect sense. The way I see it, if you're with us, then that means you can't hunt Aang. At least not very effectively. And, like this, we can keep a closer eye on you."

"That still doesn't prevent me from trying."

"No, but this might."

In a flash and two clicks, Sokka whipped out the handcuffs he'd kept hidden up his sleeve and neatly secured his wrist to Zuko's. Zuko stared at their wrists, then back to Sokka, then back to their wrists. Finally, he properly registered what had just happened.

"Are you out of your mind?!" Zuko shouted, bringing Aang and Katara running at the commotion.

"What happened?" said Katara.

Zuko sharply tugged up his and Sokka's bound wrists.

"Sokka," Katara snapped. "What are thinking?"

"I'm thinking that this is the best way to keep Zuko out of trouble," he said, not at all fazed by the lack of faith in his brilliance.

"What if we run into a dangerous situation? Neither of you will be much good in a fight if you're tied together like that."

That made him pause. It was a very reasonable scenario to be paranoid about considering their little team's track record. Sokka grimaced as he realized he might not have thought this plan through enough.

"Look, just give me the key to the handcuffs, Sokka," said Zuko.

"Right…the key."

"SOKKA!"

Author's Note: Ah, yes, Sokka. It's Zuko's fault for making you grow as a person and be a more considerate big brother.

I really think they should have focused a little more on Sokka becoming less sexist. I love "Warriors of Kyoshi," but it takes more than a single beating from a badass warrior woman and wearing a dress for an afternoon to make a sexist fully drink the "respect women" juice. Sokka respected Suki as a warrior, but I find it hard to believe he'd immediately drop all of his hang-ups. Obviously, his most blatant sexism regarding women and fighting got knocked out, but he could still struggle with the subtler, more deeply-ingrained prejudices, like women doing the cooking, cleaning, sewing, etc. Having it finally click how much Katara actually does for him, and deciding to learn how to do those things he'd previously dismissed as "girly," would be a tremendous next step.

Also, yeah, I headcanon that the Air Nomads had a chore wheel.

Zuko is canonically terrible at history. Honestly, I think Zuko probably struggled a lot with lectures and reading in school. He seems like more of a kinesthetic learner (I work in education and Zuko definitely seems to benefit more from physical, experiential lessons than being told how stuff is supposed to work). What Zuko is good at (aside from fighting) is picking up on cultural details; at one look, he figured out the link between Sun Warrior architecture and Fire Nation temples.

In the words of Xiran Jay Zhao, "Katara did not friendzone Aang. Aang relationship-zoned Katara." Seriously, check out their YouTube channel.

I love the idea of Aunt Wu being a White Lotus member. That whole scene with Zuko was inspired by one from "The Worst Prisoner."

I wonder if "red shoes" guy ever found his true love. Seriously, though, those shoes had to have been of Fire Nation make. No one in the Earth Kingdom uses red (other than "Fire Nation Man" from Earth Rumble and Oma in the "Cave of Two Lovers" flashback), as far as I could see.

Today's C-drama recommendation is "The Journey of Flower." Be sure to have a box of tissues on hand for this one, because it's a rough ride. Hua Qiangu was born cursed; her whole life, she was hated due to her ability to draw monsters and misfortunes to her. The only one who ever cared about her was her father. On the night she loses her father during an attack by an angry mob, she is saved by a mysterious man who is really an immortal Daoist master, Bai Zihua. Bai Zihua is determined to protect humanity and has descended to take up his post at Mount Chang Liu; while passing through the mortal world, he was forbidden to reveal his true name and powers. After rescuing Hua Qiangu, he makes the terrible realization that she is his predestined doom, fated to either kill or corrupt him. His master had ordered him to destroy such a calamity, but he cannot bring himself to kill someone so innocent and kind, so he does all he can to keep her away for both their sakes.

However, dark forces are at work and the demons of the Seven Murders Faction have been seeking out magical devices that, when combined, can reawaken the demon god. Fate seems determined to force Hua Qiangu and Bai Zihua to share a dangerous path, and a forbidden love.

As much as the series frustrated and even angered me, at times, it was incredible and did what it set out to do. It wanted me to rail against the injustice committed by self-righteous a-holes who think they have all the answers just for being "the good guys," and it did exactly that. It wanted me to be invested in the characters, so their sufferings and tragedies would hurt me, and that's what happened. The overall message of the work is about fighting against destiny and sticking by what you believe is right even when the world is against you. Of course, the ending felt like a massive middle finger, so that wasn't as great (maybe some people like the ending, but it just pissed me off) and the romance really felt toxic (if you try to take everything at face value, you can overlook the obviously unhealthy nature of it).

Honestly, what kept me invested and drove me to finish the series was Sha Qian Mo, the leader of the Seven Murders Faction. He is straight up the most likeable, entertaining, and decent person in the entire series – which seems odd when you consider that he's supposed to be evil, but that just puts the awfulness of the "good guys" into sharper focus. Actually, I recommend this series just so people can see Sha Qian Mo; he is absolutely worth it.