AN: Thank you for reading! And following! And favoriting! Just thank you! I know I was going to be all responsible about responding to everybody's reviews personally, but dang, there are a lot of em now. :) Thank you all so so so much! Sorry for the long wait - hope you enjoy the chapter!
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"Put me down! Dad, you can't do this!" Katara's head throbbed from the pressure of hanging upside down and her breath came out in short hisses as Hakoda's shoulder plate dug into her belly. "I'm only going to escape the second we come close enough to water."
"I'm counting on good sense to have returned to you by then," Hakoda rumbled.
His pace was still quick, even after they rejoined with Nuklok, Akuma and Miku. Miku was limping along mostly on his own now, but he still looked dazed. The other members of the tribe followed along the narrow corridor, pointedly not looking at Katara where she hung. She pulled in as deep a breath as she could and tried for a reasonable tone.
"There's nothing wrong with my sense. I have to stay and fulfill the terms of my oath, or all the people enslaved by the Fire Nation will-"
"I don't want to hear it, Katara. Whatever he told you to make you think you had to stay, you need to forget it right now."
"No!" Katara thumped her fist on the red steel hard enough to sting. "This isn't about anything Zuko said! It's about the Water Tribe. The Fire Nation thinks we're-"
"You can't reason with them," Hakoda snarled. "You can't save our people by sacrificing yourself. And I refuse to let you make another mistake when I can prevent it. I will not lose you again."
Katara glared back at Bato and the rest. "Are you just going to let him do this?"
Bato shrugged, his eyes fixed above and beyond her. "He has a point, Katara. The last time you insisted on trusting the firebender, things didn't turn out well for us. You and Sokka were captured... And we lost Tukna."
Hakoda's shoulder caught at a searing angle on her ribs, and Katara's eyes flitted to Akuma before she pinched them shut. Tukna and Akuma had been more like brothers than cousins and, though he stared straight ahead as if he had not heard, the reminder of his loss struck Katara like a slap.
Kottik muttered from behind Bato, a distasteful twist to his mouth. "We've risked everything and come around the world to rescue you. And you want to stay. Healing our enemies and meddling with a firebender. Bowing and scraping through this place like some-"
Hakoda stopped abruptly and swung around. Katara couldn't see, but she could tell from the silence that the other men had all stopped. "Stow that. You're talking to my daughter."
"Your girl has-"
"It doesn't matter," Hakoda barked. "It's done."
In the tense silence that followed, Katara dropped her eyes back to the stone floor, blood beating in her face. She pressed her hot cheek against the cool steel on her dad's back, just for a second.
From far behind them in the tunnel there came a distant clamor of other armor, other boots. Hakoda turned back and hurried on, and the others swiftly followed. Time was running out. Katara swallowed hard against a wave of bitter nausea.
"He's right though," she said. "I've been sitting in Zuko's shadow like a good little slave. I pour his tea and keep my head down and let Fire Nation nobles stare at me, and I don't speak above a murmur, and I don't waterbend unless my master tells me to-"
"Katara…" Hakoda emitted a low growl, but she only pressed on.
"-and I've endured all of it for my people," she snapped. "I hate it here. I hate the tedium and I hate being constantly reminded that these smug aristocrats think they're above me. And I'm - I'm ashamed. I want to leave. Dad, I want it more than anything."
Her voice cracked, but Katara clenched her teeth together and kept going.
"But if I go now, all of this will have been a waste of time. All those nobles who looked at me and just saw a- a collared savage? If I don't stay long enough to prove them wrong, that's all they'll ever think of the Water Tribe. I will have made things worse for our people, not better."
Several of the men let out weary sighs and grumbles. Hakoda's arm hardened where he held her knees to his chest. "There is no making this better. You can't fight a war by submitting to the enemy."
The words stung her, sharp and unexpected as the pinpricks dancing across her numb hands. The silence was filled with the creaks of armor and scuffs of boots and her own strained breathing, and in the absence of words, doubt echoed louder and louder in Katara's ears.
With the men of her tribe surrounding her, she felt suddenly very young. Young enough that maybe all these ideas were just silly after all. It was all nothing more than a little girl's fantasy, thinking she could make an impact on the Fire Nation. Her face burned, harder than before.
Maybe… maybe she really didn't have to do this anymore. Her dad had come, and together with Toph they could free Sokka and Aang. They could escape the city together and fight this war in a way that guaranteed results - by helping Aang become a fully realized Avatar. He was the only one with the power to truly end the war, after all. The Avatar had to be the top priority, and Katara was only allowing herself to become distracted by engaging with the inner workings of the Fire Nation. She belonged at Aang's side, lending her support, helping him believe that he could defeat the Fire Lord.
But however Katara repeated the words in her head, they felt wrong. Like a fur mitten sewn too small - the plush lining would keep her hand warm, but only if she held her fingers perpetually curled in on themselves to fit.
It would be easier to stay here - hanging over her father's shoulder like no sixteen-year-old son ever - but Katara knew this was not where she belonged. She knew it the same way she had known that she had to be the one who rescued Sokka, and that she couldn't just stay home in the village waiting for the war to end. If she did not act, no one else was going to stand in her place. The war was all over this world, she would face it wherever she went, but the fight she was leaving behind in the palace, that was hers alone.
At length, they began climbing a slope upward and, at Hakoda's signal, Akuma and Bato hurried ahead. There was a distant sound of a door creaking open.
Katara felt the warm, dry air before Hakoda carried her through the door and into the sun. They emerged in a rocky gully with thickets of low scrubby plants. To the east along the crater wall, a tower was built into the rock. Katara got a good look at it, just the pointed roof visible over the gully's edge, as Hakoda turned back toward the tunnel entrance.
"Block it."
"With me," Bato said. Katara didn't see what he did, but she heard boots rattle the rocks, some grunts of exertion, and then the grinding thunder of massive stones tumbling. The door crunched under the impact.
Katara's stomach heaved with fresh dread. The way back was closed.
"Dad, you have to put me down," she said with careful calm. "You can't carry me into that prison."
He hesitated a beat, then bent down to settle her on the uneven ground. When he pulled back, Katara folded her arms over her chest and frowned at him. Hakoda frowned back, but the lines around his eyes spoke more of sorrow and worry than anger. Even though he had just carried her from the palace like a child, Katara felt her outrage soften under that look.
"I know you feel like you don't have a choice in this, Katara. It can be hard to see a situation clearly when you're caught up in the middle of it. But trust me when I say this; there's nothing for you here." Hakoda rested his hand on her shoulder, and Katara felt herself nearly melt at the touch. "We need you. Your family, your people - we're right here, and we need you."
Katara could not look away, could hardly breathe. She was trapped, torn between what her heart ached for, and what had to be done.
"Dad…" She looked down, struggling for the right words. "I always thought the Fire Nation had to hate the Water Tribe to treat us the way they do. And they do. They hate us. They think we're weak and honorless and that makes it okay to wipe out our culture and turn us into slaves."
He squeezed her shoulder gently as if to pull her into a hug, but Katara shook her head and straightened, backing away.
"When Aang masters the elements, I have no doubt that he will defeat the Fire Lord. It's his destiny. But it's not just the Fire Lord he has to stop - it's the entire Fire Nation, and a century of hatred and cruelty and violence. We can't put all of that on Aang. We all have to do everything in our power to change the world if there's ever going to be peace."
Hakoda's eyes were widening, his mouth pulling down and open as if he knew what was to come next and wanted to stop her from saying it.
"What I'm doing here won't win the war," she pressed on, harder than before. "I know that. But I made a promise, and the Fire Nation won't forget if I break it. I refuse to make it that easy for them to justify what they're doing to us."
Hakoda shook his head side to side in sharp jerks. "I'm proud of you for being so brave, Katara, but I can't leave you here. I won't."
"I know."
Katara felt something in her chest rip, but she still dropped into a bending stance. With circular sweeps of her arms, she tore the water from the scrubby plants in the gully, leaching them down to their very roots. The stream swooped around her and stopped, poised as her ready posture.
Hakoda fell back a step, gaping at her. Beyond him, the other men of the tribe, who had busied themselves with blocking the door to pretend they did not hear the argument, turned back. They watched with expressions ranging from shock to betrayal. Katara focused only on her father, his empty palms held out to both sides.
"Katara-"
"I love you, Dad. Get Sokka out of here."
Before he could argue, Katara used the water to boost herself up to the lip of the gully and began running down the slope, back toward the city. She dodged around boulders to avoid being spotted from the tower just in case, but she did not look back. Her nape itched and burned with the heat of remembered stares, scorching as the Fire Nation sun. She could almost hear the plants she'd leached dry as they cracked and broke in the weak breeze.
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"You don't sound so hot, Twinkle Toes." Toph paused in the rough-hewn tunnel, turning her head to listen more closely.
Aang tried to slow his breathing, but he couldn't help it. He felt like his lungs couldn't draw in enough air and like his muscles had given about all they had to give. They hadn't come far at all up the steep incline and yet he kept stumbling over uneven places in the rock, barely saving himself from a fall with his grip on Churri's spear.
"Well," he puffed, "I have kinda been chained up for weeks. And I've been eating a lot of gruel and gruel-like things. You know what they say about diet and exercise!"
"Yeah. Get some." Toph frowned and pressed her hand against the wall. "Okay, no offense, but me going up against Azula with you wheezing in the background like a dying tigerdillo is probably gonna turn out as well as that time Snoozles got shish-kebabbed."
Aang winced and rubbed at the stitch in his side. "I guess I see your point."
"Nice one-" Toph grinned toothily- "but anyway, new plan. I'm gonna go take care of Gramps alone, and you're gonna go bust your giant stink-monster out of monster jail."
"Appa!"
He was so elated that he almost didn't notice Toph narrow her eyes and lower her head, shifting her hand slightly on the wall. "Huh. What are they doing?"
"Who? What're who doing? Where's Appa?"
"Chief Hakoda and the other Water Tribe warriors. They're on the edge of the crater, near a tower. There's a path over the side of the mountain there, but… they're just hanging out right now. And Spla-"
She jerked a little as if suddenly remembering something. "Splitting up. They might be about to split up. You've gotta get Appa and find them before anybody gets lost. Here."
Aang frowned at her, but Toph only fell into a low stance and, with quick punches and a push, opened a tunnel almost straight up through the rock. "This should take you to the basement of the guard post where they're keeping Stinky."
Aang peered up into the new tunnel, bracing his hand on the wall. It intersected with several pre-existing passageways, so parts were lit by the torches that burned along the walls there. Each lit place in the new tunnel grew smaller than the one before, vanishing to darkness far, far above. It was a long way to climb or even airbend the way he was feeling, and the thought of heading into a fight at the end of that leached the strength from him.
"Toph… What if I'm too weak? What if they catch me again?"
Even as the words fell from his mouth, he felt a terrible chill, a sick twist in his gut. What if this whole escape was nothing but another dream? What if he was about to wake up, his hands numb again from his weight and the chains?
Toph grabbed him by the arm and pulled him close. "Listen up, gruel-breath. All that noise you just made? All that defeatist mumbo-jumbo? You let that crap stand and you will definitely get caught again."
Aang looked at her with an alarmed frown. "Is this supposed to be a pep talk? Because this kind of pep is seriously not helping."
"Look," Toph said, letting him go with a nonchalant shrug, "you're the Avatar. Those guards up there have no clue what's about to happen. They might suspect an attack to come from outside the compound - but not from the basement. Just slip in, do your tricky airbender tricks, and free Appa. Don't let that little voice in your head tell you that you can't do this, because you can."
Aang looked at her, the earnest expression she wore dimly visible by the light of a distant torch. He drew a breath and straightened his shoulders. "Right. I can do this."
"Great! Now hurry up, because we don't actually have time for touchy-feely hand-holding sessions." Toph turned to go, her bare feet thumping on the stone. Aang hesitated.
"Hey Toph?"
She stopped and let out an annoyed breath. "What now?"
"I just wanted to say thanks. For getting me out, and for the pep talk."
"No problem, Twinkle Toes. Now get out of here!"
Aang went, leaping up the tunnel only a little bit less weightlessly than he normally would.
He finally came to the small hole at the top of the tunnel and squeezed through into the chamber beyond. The cellar, thankfully, was not entirely dark. He could see vague shapes - heaps of full sacks, stacked crates, what might have been a flight of stairs built against one wall. Light and indistinct voices leaked down from the guardhouse above, filtering through the gaps in the floorboards. Farther off, an alarm bell tolled repeatedly. Aang settled on the floor and, carefully setting aside the spear so that it did not clatter on the flat foundation stones, allowed himself to rest for a moment.
It smelled like grain and molasses in the gloom. The cellar must have been used to store extra feed for whatever animals they kept in the 'monster jail' above. Aang slowed his breathing and wondered what kinds of animals they fed sweetened grain to. Surely not Komodo rhinos - they were pretty much just carnivores as far as Aang knew. Maybe ostrich-horses or hippo-cows…
There was a faint scrabbling sound from the hole. Aang hopped up to a ready stance and stared into the darkness, his mind darting to other carnivorous things.
Two big white ears poked up from the tunnel, followed by round green eyes.
Aang slumped and gusted out a big breath as Momo launched out of the hole, flew a short circle, and perched on his shoulder with a chittering purr.
"Shh," Aang said, holding a finger to his lips and then pointing overhead. "We're biding our time, Momo. If you don't keep it down, those guards will hear us and we'll lose the element of surprise."
Momo cocked his head and churred again. When Aang shushed him a second time, he dropped his ears back. Aang glanced up at the lines of light, then petted the lemur on his shoulder.
"Sorry, Momo. I guess I'm doing a lot more hiding than biding down here. It's hard not to be scared of what's going to happen when I go up there. I know Toph has a point - doubt won't help me win this fight - but dismissing it is easier said than done. I… I don't want to do this alone."
Momo purred and draped his tail around Aang's neck, a warm and ticklish brush of fur. Aang grinned and petted him again.
"It's a lucky thing I have you with me, buddy."
They remained that way for a few long breaths, and Aang felt the small weight on his shoulder shift minutely. At length, he bent down to retrieve the spear.
"Come on. We have to get to that tower and help the others."
With Momo still clinging to his shoulder, Aang crept up the stairs and pressed his face to the crack around the door at the top. Beyond, he could see a dusty courtyard and another building on the other side. Guards marched along the perimeter of the fenced-in enclosure, and a few people in workers' clothes went about leading some giant lizards into the far building - a large and well-kept barn.
"I'll bet Appa's in there," Aang whispered.
Momo, clinging to the hair on top of his head now and peeking through the crack as well, churred.
"We just have to get to the other side of that courtyard without all those guards closing in on us. We don't want to get trapped."
Aang retreated from the door and peered around the basement for something he might use as a distraction. Momo launched off his shoulder and flew to a shelf built into one wall, which was lined with wide-mouthed canisters. Aang watched, momentarily bewildered, as Momo began licking one intently.
"Find something tasty?"
Not waiting for a response, he crossed the basement and picked up a canister. It had been opened and the sides were drizzled with lines of sticky molasses, which came off on Aang's fingers in dark smears.
"Blech. But..."
He popped a finger in his mouth, and the sweetness was a burst of flavor after so many weeks of gruel. Aang looked at the canister again and, with a surreptitious glance around the empty basement, unscrewed the lid so he could dip a whole finger into the gooey substance. Even in the relatively cool basement, the heat of the Fire Nation day made the molasses run thin, and Aang had to interrupt the dangling line of syrup with his mouth before he could suck the layer off his finger. When he did, his eyes rolled back into his head.
"This stuff is irresistible. I think I'd eat raw grain, too, if it was coated in a little of this..."
Aang froze with his finger poised over the canister as a brilliant idea occurred to him. He looked at all the canisters lining the shelf, and he looked up at the floorboards above him. A smile spread across his face, slow and sweet.
"One tricky, sticky airbender trick, coming right up."
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Iroh stood across the chamber from Azula, and for a long moment, neither spoke. The marching boots in the distance grew louder, then quieter again. The torches crackled in the silence.
"What," Azula finally said, her smirk deepening, "aren't you happy to see me, Uncle?"
Iroh watched her from behind hooded eyelids. He could almost see the precocious little girl she had been, before her viciousness had become honed to Ozai's liking. Talking with her was not necessarily less dangerous than fighting her, but it was preferable none the less.
"You look pleased enough for us both, Azula."
"I've merely come to appreciate the company of my family. Even the weak, traitorous branches."
Iroh did not miss her use of the plural, but his stomach still clenched when she went on.
"Speaking of Zuko, was it a pleasant reunion?"
"I am surprised you were not there yourself. Watching your brother stamp out the last embers of his conscience seems like the kind of activity you would enjoy a great deal."
"Surprised, Uncle? You should know better. Zuko never would have acted so foolishly if I had been watching. "
Iroh glowered at her. "I have no idea what you are referring to."
"No?" Azula smirked again, and the torchlight glittered in her eyes. "Setting aside for a moment that he allowed you to leave the throne room alive, I know he told you and your flea-bitten allies where that scraggly excuse for a prince was being held. It was foolish to come here alone, decrepit as you are, but I suppose you had no choice once the wolves had picked up the scent of their lost pup."
"Zuko said nothing," Iroh grated. "Do you think my years away from the palace have cleared my memory of the way things are done here? Sokka could only be held in the prison tower."
Azula went on smiling. "You have your story, and I have mine. It hardly matters. That prisoner was sent away days ago. But, now that I think of it, it must have slipped my mind to notify Zuko."
Iroh held an unflinching expression, but a chill crept down his spine. However their paths may have diverged, it alarmed him to know his nephew was so ensnared with an opponent against whom he was completely outmatched. Azula went on, her voice a steady flow, smooth as a spider stepping across her web.
"It's been obvious from the start that my brother still harbors certain weaknesses, but I had maintained such high hopes for his rehabilitation. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that my efforts on his behalf have gone most unappreciated. Perhaps this little exercise will teach him the proper respect for my goodwill."
"Respect?" Iroh barked. "The Fire Lord will kill him!"
"Father is busy with more important matters. I see no reason to involve him in Zuko's feeble gestures at treason. Yet."
Iroh gaped at her, unable to hide the shock and worry on his face as her plans began to come clear.
"At the end of the day," Azula patiently explained, "your attack will result in nothing. You will be arrested here and taken on to your just reward. Your friends, on the other hand, will shortly find themselves trapped in the prison tower. The guards will cut them all down one by one, except perhaps for their leader - though we don't really need him, since we have his heirs already…"
The air in the chamber felt stuffy, the glare from the torches seemed suddenly too bright. Iroh cursed himself. Blind old man, foolish old man…
"…The Avatar shall remain safely undisturbed," Azula went on, "and Father will return from his pressing business to find the situation well in hand. Most importantly, Zuko will learn what happens when he attempts to play at subterfuge."
"You are going to a great deal of trouble to keep him between you and the throne," Iroh said, finally restoring his stony expression.
This was none of his concern. He should not allow Zuko's predicament to add to his own. Not any more. And yet he watched Azula with keen attention, searching her expression for hints of deceit. Her mouth quirked slightly downward and her eyes tightened.
But before she could speak, a mighty rumble shook the room. Azula leapt to her feet in a flash, and her stare told Iroh she had not expected this interruption. One of the rough-hewn side walls of the chamber punched in in a cloud of dust and debris, knocking the nearest standing torches clattering to the floor. Through the gaping hole stepped a slim girl dressed all in pink. She cracked her knuckles and swung up one arm to point unfailingly at Azula.
"Hey Princess," she sneered, "it's time for our rematch."
For the space of a heartbeat, Iroh stood transfixed, facts rearranging in his mind. Then Azula pounced in his momentary distraction, punching a fierce blue gout of flame at him. Iroh stumbled back, evading so narrowly that he smelled burnt hair from his beard.
Toph stepped forward and punched overhead. A great spar of stone erupted through the polished granite of the royal sitting platform, shattering it. Unfazed, Azula leapt back acrobatically and propelled herself off the wall, then kicked a wild line of flame at Toph as she was arching through the air. The earthbender raised up a stout defensive wall on which the flames broke and, the second Azula touched down, sent it like a wave across the room, tearing the floor to rubble in its passing.
Over the roar of fire and stone, Iroh could not possibly have heard guards approaching from behind the shut doors at his back, but he knew they were coming. Though he and Toph together were probably strong enough to defeat Azula, they could not afford to become embroiled in a fight now. Lives were at stake.
Just before the short wall struck her, Azula jumped on top of it and delivered a flurry of punches and kicks. Iroh surged into the path of the blows, blocking and sweeping them aside in flashes of yellow and orange.
"We must go! Now!" he shouted over his shoulder.
"No way!" Toph stomped to his side and sent an array of boulders flying at Azula, who ducked them with ease and came back up to attack again. Iroh blocked, but Toph continued her assault.
"I've got a lot of feelings to work through, here-" She raised up pillars in her opponent's path, but Azula dodged around them. "-lots of icky vulnerable emotional-" With every word, she stabbed stone into the air to no avail. "Rrh! Hold still!"
"I'm hardly moving," Azula said as she ricocheted off a pillar and flipped upside down to kick a wheel of fire at them.
Iroh countered with a hard punch, busting the blue flame apart. No sooner had Azula come down than she was moving again, evading flying rocks and huge jutting spalls.
"Is this all it took to win your little barbarian pit-fights? No wonder the Earth Kingdom is on its knees."
"That's it. Now you're gonna-"
"Do not let her bait you!" Iroh shouted, but the thunder of bending went on. Every time Toph slowed her assault, Azula pressed the opening - so Toph did not stop. Between countering the blue flames and yelling to be heard, Iroh was shortly breathless.
"She knows she cannot defeat us together, but if she delays us long enough, it could mean the deaths of our friends. We must rejoin Hakoda and his men! They are heading into a trap!"
Toph paused for an instant in her assault, and Azula landed on one of the long stones angling out of the floor. "No," Toph said, a furrow in her brow, "they're already in it."
Azula peeled her teeth back in a feral sort of grin. "Then they are as good as dead. It seems you have that in common!"
At that moment, the doors burst inward and a swarm of guards hustled into the room. Iroh turned toward the tunnel through which Toph had come. "Now! We must go now!"
"Uh, right!"
Iroh ran a few steps and turned back to see the young earthbender still in the mouth of the tunnel, reaching as if to grab something huge before her. Beyond her, he could see the soldiers closing in. Azula drew back for a strike.
Then, in response to her clutching fingers, the steel I-beams on either side of the hole twisted together in front of the hole. The wall, suddenly unsupported, groaned. Iroh had a final glimpse of many alarmed faces turning upward toward the shifting ceiling, then massive stones fell and blocked off the chamber. All light winked out.
Iroh, his heart in his throat, could not see Toph bend down to press her palm to the floor, but he could hear the fading rumble, the muffled clack of massive stones shifting and settling.
"Relax, Gramps. The rest of the chamber is holding. Nobody's getting squished today."
"That is a relief," he managed, then lit a flicker over his palm. By the light, he could see her smudged face approaching at a quick walk through the settling dust. He couldn't help but smile. "I admit I did not entirely believe it when Katara said that you could bend metal, since such a thing is entirely unheard of. How silly of me! I have never been so glad to be wrong."
A grin split Toph's face. "Don't beat yourself up about it, Gramps. After all that time you kept me company while I was puking my guts up on the Water Tribe ship, how could you have known you were dealing with the greatest earthbender in the world?"
"Even then, I did not lack for signs." Iroh watched a little color rise in her cheeks. She reminded him so much of his nephew in moments like this, when a parent's doting praise bucked her from her arrogant performance. Iroh felt an ache in his own chest resonate in answer, and he rested one hand on her shoulder. "It is good to see you, Toph. But we must hurry and help the others."
"Right. I think I can take us straight up to the tower, but it's gonna be a rough ride. You ready?"
"I am with you," Iroh said, warmth in his voice, "but we cannot forget the Avatar..."
"Way ahead of you," Toph said with an easy grin.
She dropped into horse stance and, with rough gestures of her arms, broke the rock they stood on away from the tunnel so that they were riding it like a sled up the steep slope. The wind swiftly puffed out Iroh's light and they rumbled through the darkness. Iroh's heart returned to his throat.
"Actually," Toph went on, shouting over the grinding rock, "Aang's doing better than anybody else right now. Go figure!"
Iroh, swaying with the motions of the stone, allowed himself a bewildered smile. "How cosmically just that we old men came here believing we would fish all of you out of hot water, only to find each of you had the situation in hand in your own ways."
"Yeah..." Toph hesitated, an uncharacteristic note of uncertainty in her voice. "Totally under control."
She said no more on it, and Iroh let the moment pass, but his mind whirred. The situation was not at all under control. It was little more than luck that Zuko had enabled Toph to make her escape at such an opportune moment, and that his plan coincided so beneficially with Iroh's. Less lucky was Azula's keen awareness of her brother's complicated allegiances. She had clearly had no warning of Toph's metalbending, but Zuko was not likely to have another such powerful surprise up his sleeve. Whatever Azula was up to, she would not be so easily misdirected again.
But Iroh could not fight the intricate political war Zuko had steered himself into. That was a struggle for Zuko, alone. Iroh fixed his eyes on the darkness ahead and let the dank wind cool his heated brow as they rumbled ever nearer to the surface.
.
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Hakoda stared at the spot of sky where Katara had just disappeared over the lip of the gully. He felt breathless, and although his legs strained beneath him and his boots scraped over the gritty earth, he could not seem to move forward. Finally, he became aware of the arms holding him back.
"If we go chasing after her," Bato was saying, "we won't escape the city. Hakoda, we have to get Sokka and run."
Hakoda strained against them with a wordless snarl. These men were his brothers. They had grown up together, gone to war together. The men standing around him now had stood beside him through all the hardest times. Every hard-won victory in the last four harrowing years, every crushing loss. Kya. But warm as their hands were where they gripped his shoulders and arms, they did not ease the chill wracking through him now.
Katara had looked so like her mother in the moment she turned away, and it wrenched at Hakoda with the power of the nightmares that had snapped him awake sweating and choking on his cries in the years when Kya's death was still a fresh wound. He had not protected his wife, and now his daughter was running straight to her own end, and he could do nothing to prevent that, either.
"Hey, you know what?" Miku said with forced brightness. "I think she's going to do okay here."
Several of the others made disgusted sounds and muttered about head injuries. Hakoda seemed not to hear at all. Bato shot the younger man a warning look, but Miku just shrugged and persisted.
"Am I the only one who saw what she just did? She pulled water out of nowhere."
The men were silent, and the words against us floated through all their minds and eyes.
At last, Hakoda stopped struggling. The others withdrew a step, but Bato remained, still gripping his shoulder and peering into his face.
"We'll free Sokka," he promised. "This fight isn't over yet."
Hakoda let a few more breaths ease the raw place inside him, then nodded. "Right." He turned and set his eyes on the tower. "Right. We go in in pairs. The alarm is already sounding in the city, so the guards will be on alert. I want a distraction from the cliffside, and the other group will slip in over the front walls. Make your disguises count. Kottik-" He caught the dour man's eye. "You and I will take the roof."
Kottik nodded, but said nothing.
"I'm a better climber," Miku said, holding up one hand. He had lost a gauntlet somewhere and his palm looked skinny and naked.
"You'd make a prettier smear on the rocks, too."
"Kovu has a point," Hakoda said dryly. "Best you stay grounded until your head clears. You're in the group of three."
After he sketched a diagram of the tower in the dust and everyone was clear on their roles, they moved out. Hakoda led the way up the slope to the base of the crater wall and, hidden from the tower by a rocky outcropping, he and Kottik shed their Fire Nation armor. Neither of them were young anymore, and they would need all of their agility for the climb.
Kottik did not protest, but his mouth held in the same tight downward slant. "Your sword."
"Back in the palace."
Hakoda said no more and began to climb, but he remembered the moment the firebender had rolled back and kicked his weapon right out of his hand. Maybe, if his initial strike had been just a little harder, things would have turned out differently. Iroh would not have forgiven him, but Katara might not have been so determined to stay. A fair trade, if not a prudent one.
But Hakoda had not quite put his all into murdering Zuko, and now he had to pay for that sentimental lapse. He had never been bloodthirsty, had never allowed his fight to be tainted with a thirst for vengeance. Hakoda's war had always been a matter of inevitability, a struggle for the survival of his people - not the punishment of individual soldiers for the Fire Nation's crimes.
Seeing Katara in a collar, though. That made him regret not pushing the extra half-inch it would have taken to put an end to that firebender once and for all.
He jammed his fingers into the crevices between rocks and hauled himself higher, faster. Kottik followed along, silent as a pointing finger. That was why Hakoda had chosen him. It didn't matter how much the man disapproved - so long as there was a fight ahead of them, Kottik was reliably focused, silent, ready to do whatever needed done.
They came to the highest ledge and crept along it as far as they could, then made the daring leap over to the sloped roof of the tower. Tiles crunched under Hakoda's boots, but the pieces did not slide away. He and Kottik shared a loaded look, then each chose a window on the level below. Swift and silent, impervious to the dizzying fall below, they swung from the roof and through the windows.
Hakoda landed clear and clean on the floor of the observation room, but Kottik slammed boots-first into a guard. They went sprawling, but Hakoda was not watching anymore. Two more guards stood stunned with their backs to him, gaping at the pair on the floor. The second they regained their senses, they would shout an alarm and the advantage would be lost.
In one smooth sweep, Hakoda spun the first man's helmet around so that it covered his face, then kicked the second man in the back of the knee. As he went down, Hakoda darted in to slug him in the face, knocking him flat to the floor. Then he spun back to the first man, swept the legs out from under him, and wrestled his arms behind him in his moment of breathlessness. A moment later, one man was bound and gagged and the other was unconscious. Hakoda rose and claimed a fallen spear, ready to move on.
Kottik, however, was still crouching atop the guard he had subdued, his sword drawn back for a killing blow to the throat. He was hesitating. That all on its own was enough to make Hakoda pause and stare.
The guard bared her teeth at him, but her eyes were afraid. Her voice, when she tried to cry out, was faint, breathless from the larger man's weight on her breastplate.
Kottik did not look away from her. His expression was as unyielding as the icy peaks of home. His sword hand, though, shook almost imperceptibly.
All in a rush, he set the weapon aside and yanked down her paneled headdress, tightening the knot in her mouth as an impromptu gag. He rolled her over despite her struggles and bound her wrists behind her with a strip torn off his uniform brown tunic.
As he snatched up his sword and joined Hakoda at the door, he would not make eye contact. Whatever had passed through his head, it was behind him now. Abandoned for the focus of the moment. Hakoda drew a breath and found his own focus. Then they moved on.
They crept down the stairs, past a level of dark barracks, then ventured lower into the prison proper. Like shadows, they darted along the blocks of cells, searching the slumped bodies and despairing faces for one in particular. They hid away in the stairs and in empty cells as patrols of guards marched past, then hastened on.
Sokka was not on the first level, nor the second. Hakoda's jaw ached from how hard he clenched his teeth together, but he was steady and patient as he led Kottik down another level.
Sokka was not there, either.
Beyond the barred windows, sounds of commotion came from the courtyard. A small explosion marked Bato's use of their only bit of blasting jelly. The distraction had begun. Hakoda was supposed to be freeing Sokka now and using the chaos as cover to get him out of the tower. A swell of feeling mounted in him as they completed a circuit of the fourth level. Only one remained.
Somewhere outside, a man screamed. His voice was nearly unrecognizable in its agony, but Hakoda knew at once that it was Akuma. The distraction was failing. Time was running out.
But they finished their circuit of the final level and there was still no sign of Sokka. Hakoda turned toward the stairs. Perhaps they had overlooked him.
Kottik grabbed him by the elbow with a grip like iron. "He's not here."
Hakoda turned on him in a rush, shoving his hand away, but Kottik didn't even flinch. He just frowned evenly up at his chief, ready to do whatever needed to be done.
And Hakoda knew what had to be done. He did. It was a maelstrom opening up inside him, that certainty. Sokka was not here. They had been deceived. They had come here for nothing, and now they would have to fight their way free, all for nothing.
Hakoda grimaced against the roar rising up in him, then shut it all away. He let himself become ice, still and calm and deadly. When he looked back at Kottik, he felt nothing but the thump of his heart.
"Let's go."
They found their way to the heavy bolted door and made quick work of the guards waiting there. It was easy. They were unprepared for an attack from within.
Outside, the courtyard bristled with squadrons of soldiers running back and forth, far more than Hakoda would have anticipated for a stronghold of this size. The anterior gate stood open and a stream of soldiers rushed out, shouting as they closed in on the warriors outside. Near the main gate, Nuklok backed into the corner where Akuma lay crumpled and shivering. Their disguises had apparently afforded them no advantage at all, but Nuklok held his spear at the ready, leveled against the advancing line of firebenders.
Hakoda and Kottik did not shout as they rushed in to attack the firebenders from behind. Their first strikes were deadly. Two enemies fell, never to rise. Before they even hit the ground, Hakoda had spun to his next opponent. He did not see Kottik, but heard the sound of his sword screeching against armor. Nuklok lunged at another in his moment of distraction. Two more enemies fell.
Then the advantage was lost. A grunt and a blast of heat were the only warnings before Kottik staggered into Hakoda's back. There was a smell of burnt cloth and flesh. Hakoda stumbled too close to the next firebender and caught the man's fist with one cheek in a blast of stars and premature flames. In the moment it took his vision to clear from the impact and the haze of pain, he realized the howling sound was the enemy who had struck him, clutching his broken hand.
A fireless blast hit his side and Hakoda went tumbling to the packed dirt. For a few seconds he lay where he had fallen, his head ringing anew. Smoke and dust filled the air in a choking cloud. An officer was shouting something, but it seemed so distant, lost somewhere out of sight.
Unaccountably, he remembered a blizzard years ago, one of the big ones that would occasionally require that they ran ropes from one hut to another just so no one got lost going to see a neighbor. He remembered following the rope home from Bato's hut, pellets of ice rasping off against his mitten as he walked. That flat whiteness had seemed to go on forever. He could have been miles or feet from home, and he would never know the difference - until the baby cried. Then her voice rang out across whatever distance remained, slicing through the indistinct landscape like an arrow shot straight for his heart.
Her cries would not reach him here, so far from the clean cold of home, but he still felt it. The punch of impact, the ache.
Hakoda choked and coughed in the hot dust before covering his mouth with his uniform shirt. The earth shuddered under his hands as he pushed himself up to his knees, then forced himself to his feet. Then, through the clamor of armor and groans, he heard it - the voice of a child, calling his name.
