AN: Yay! It's a chapter! It's long! Thank you for reading it!
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The jerkbender had said that the Boiling Rock was inescapable, but Sokka had thought that meant something a little less… impossible than the bubbling death lake that spread out below him now.
Through the barred windows of the trolly, and the curls of steam rippling the air, he could see the blocky mass of the prison squatting on the island at the center of the lake. Even from so very, very high up, he could feel the steam the minute the trolly had launched. Now that it was perhaps halfway down, vapor condensed heavily on the morning-cool steel bars. He thought he could even feel the heat through the soles of his uniform cloth shoes. Sokka drew a long breath and tried to blow the lank shag of his hair away from his nose, but most of it stayed where it hung, stuck to his forehead by his own sweat.
"Because Fire Nation weather wasn't hot enough," he sighed.
The prisoner next to him - a huge guy with a dragon tattooed up one side of his neck and both sleeves torn off his brown tunic to reveal arms bigger than Sokka's legs - grunted. Sokka made the mistake of making eye-contact. There were thickets of red crawly veins peeking out from under the guy's eyelids.
"It's the humidity," he said in a voice like gravel striking the bottom of a wood bucket. "I was in Si Wong last year. They've got this little dive, sell you a cold drink. You sit out in the shade while the wind blows in off the sand." His eyes flicked up to a distant spot. "S'like heaven."
"Wow," Sokka said, genuinely surprised. His smile was no little bit relieved. "That sounds like my kind of vacation! What were you doing all the way out-"
"Killing people." Those deranged eyes snapped back onto Sokka, their pupils big and unnervingly steady. "Rumor came through command there were airbenders hiding out there. But all I saw was sandbenders. You ever fight a sandbender?"
"I have not," Sokka managed.
"Bury you up to your eyeballs soon as look at you. What you gotta do is sneak up on em." He leaned closer as if sharing trade secrets. Sokka leaned away, but the guy on his other side was like a stone wall. Neck Dragon didn't seem to notice. "Nights are cold. Wait till they're in their blankets. Then come creeping behind the dunes with a full regiment…"
The aforementioned other guy elbowed Sokka away, growling.
"Get off me, Water Tribe."
Sokka stiffened as eyes snapped to him. Yellow eyes, tawny eyes, bloodshot eyes.
He had been alone for the first days of his journey out of Caldera, locked in a cart with only guards to talk to - and they were not as good humored as the soldiers who had captured him back in the Earth Kingdom. Perhaps, like him, they were more focused on keeping their teeth from clacking together on those rough roads, but Sokka felt his isolation was more than that. After the cart, he had spent more days on a prison barge, and he was happy to be separated from his neighbors by bars, because bars may not keep out profanities or projectiles or slurs against "your kingdom and your kind" but they did a pretty good job of keeping those grasping hands just out of grasping range.
Right now, though, the only thing protecting him from all the criminals surrounding him were the irons they all wore around their wrists and ankles - which was no protection at all. Everyone was very quiet. He heard the distinctive sound of knuckles being cracked.
Sokka dared a glance over at the guards standing by the doors. They looked on, eyes concealed by their visored helmets, but their mouths indifferent. One raised her chin, seeming to consider, and Sokka's heart thudded in shuddering relief.
"That's Prince Water Tribe, scum," she said with a tight upward quirk of her mouth. "And if any one of you touches him, the warden will have you all in the cooler before your feet hit solid ground."
Relief shriveled up and vanished out of him like snow on a hot skillet. That was it, the source of this deep isolation. He wasn't just a prisoner. He wasn't just an enemy soldier. He was royalty. He was the Prince of the Southern Water Tribe and, when he had stood on that balcony and embraced that role to protect Katara, when Zuko had cut off his hair to satiate the crowd, he had been yoked with that frightening loneliness - and an enormous responsibility.
He'd never really thought about what it meant to be a prince until he'd been sitting in that cell on the prison barge. Then, what Zuko had said that last day in the brig of the royal cruiser had come back to him. A prince is emblematic of his people. To the raging prisoners around him and the cold-eyed guards, he wasn't a young rebel caught fighting for his people - he was the embodiment of his people. He was the Water Tribe, and when they spat on him, they spat on the Water Tribe. When they sawed off his wolftail, they severed the traditions of the Water Tribe.
And when he let his shame or fear show, it was the Water Tribe that was ashamed and afraid. Katara was going to a lot of trouble to change the way the Fire Nation thought of their people, and Sokka was in a position to either reinforce her efforts or undermine them. He knew what he had to do. It was not easy, but it was for Katara, and for the Water Tribe.
As if he was dragging a heavy banner up a pole, Sokka stood straighter. He held his chin high. While his heart beat like a rabbaroo's, he showed them the face of a wolf.
"The Water Tribe will nev-urph!"
He bent double on someone's meaty fist - his money was on Neck Dragon - and the trolly broke into chaos. Prisoners struggled to get close enough to lay a hand on him, but Sokka hardly noticed under the flurry of punches. Someone's iron chain slammed down on his shoulder, knocking him straight to the deck, and a few cloth shoes kicked him in the belly and shins. Somewhere, the guards shouted and emitted controlled blasts of firebending.
Finally, the assault ended and the trolly cleared out. Sokka blinked at the open rectangle of the door as the guards hustled the last prisoners through, marveling that he was still somehow alive. His head was ringing, so he hardly heard the shouts and clamor coming from outside. As the guards returned to collect him, Sokka pushed himself upright and, dribbling a little blood from some part of his throbbing face, climbed to his feet using the wall.
"I'm okay, I'm-"
"Stir your stump, prisoner," one sad. She grabbed Sokka's arm and hauled him across the trolly with surprising strength. "The warden's waiting."
She shoved him out the door and Sokka stumbled across the wooden landing platform. The scene before him spun, not really making sense. Guards were herding the other new arrivals down some stairs and across a walkway to the main building, where they disappeared one at a time through a dark doorway. In the yard below, what appeared to be every prisoner on the Boiling Rock was at work, hammering planks onto scaffolding just a few feet off the ground. They appeared to be building a massive deck that spanned the packed-earth yard. Guards walked among them, barking commands at any prisoner who slowed. The din of hammer-falls was a chorus shouted from a hundred throats.
"Welcome to the Boiling Rock," a smooth voice said from nearby. Sokka turned to find a sour-faced middle-aged man watching him. He was obviously important, flanked by guards and decked out in polished armor and an ornate plated headpiece. Sure enough, he introduced himself as the warden. "And you must be Prince Sokka. What an honor to have a royal scion in our midst. Tell me, is there anything you need, Your Highness?"
Sokka could read the glitter in this man's eyes like a starry sky. The question was meant to goad him into asking for something, thereby revealing a desire that could be denied. A smart remark drifted through his head, a joke that would diffuse the threat, but Sokka did not speak.
Even though you're a prisoner, you have to hold yourself as if you command every room you enter.
Jokes and buffoonery, that's what Zuko had called Sokka's approach. Then, it hadn't meant anything, because Sokka hadn't meant anything. He had no desire to be treated like a prince, especially when it was such a wheeze that the Fire Nation would think of him as one in the first place. But Katara needed all the help she could get, and if this was the only way he could give it, then he would be the best prince he could be.
Sokka straightened up to his full height despite the aches in his back and stomach and ribs. He held his head up as high as Zuko ever had. "I don't need anything that comes from a Fire Nation savage."
The glitter in the warden's eyes lost any hint of amusement. "Then that is what you'll have. Nothing. No food. No water. Until you wither into a pleading husk, until you beg me for your life." He bared his wide white teeth. "Take Prince Sokka to his cell!"
The guards hustled forward and Sokka offered some token resistance, but they quickly marched him off the platform and into the prison tower. They climbed four flights of stairs, then took two long hallways, and finally shoved him into a small room with a small barred window that had been boarded shut from the outside. He tripped in the doorway and went sprawling on what seemed to be a rough plank floor that had been installed on top of the old steel one.
The door clanged shut behind him. The guards' clanking boot-steps receded. Other sounds became evident. Sokka could hear them faintly in the other cells. A woman muttering the same five indistinct words over and over. A slow, rhythmic thunk that might have been someone's head thumping repeatedly on the wood floor of some other cell. And beyond that, the thunder of hammers.
If seemed a little insane to build all of this wood work in such a steamy place. Sokka didn't know a ton about building with wood, but he did know that it swelled and softened in humidity. After a while, all those planks were going to curl and pull their nails right out of the crossbeams. So why waste the energy and materials on something so temporary?
Except to prevent a particular someone from setting foot on the ground or sensing who was in what room through the steel of the prison. Which meant that that someone had taken her shot and revealed her metalbending - and was probably on her way right now.
Sokka dragged himself up from the floor and paced over to the boarded-up window. Slits of daylight peeked through, and he pressed his forehead right up against the splintery wood to try and see more of the sky. All there was was white light. Steam.
"Come on guys," he said to the boards. His voice bounced tightly back to him, his own breath dampened his chin. "Already getting kinda thirsty here…"
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"In any case, I rather imagine your Highness would enjoy the story, at the very least, but the troupe is quite skilled as well. They found the most passionate young man to play Lord Azen and his performance is…"
They paused in their stately walk toward the door and Katara watched from under hooded eyes as their host shrugged and performed an excited wiggle, hands raised up near her shoulders like a little girl's.
"…most exhilarating. Truly worthy of a hero of modern theatre. Which Lord Azen is." She seemed to return to herself and fixed a firm look on Zuko where he stood stiff beside her. "Which is why I truly hope the crown will consider attending their next showing instead of that perversion the Royal Theater has slapped together."
She was an elderly woman, and her energy was surprising, considering her tiny frame, great round spectacles, and the white shock of her hair. Her home was heavily decorated with paintings and sculptures, some of which she had clearly commissioned to be built as a part of the stately house. Most of them - including the alabaster statue that stood on its own pedestal in the center of the entry hall - featured images of lovers entwined. Katara felt herself blushing again just knowing that that statue was right behind her, all tangled limbs and grasping fingers that dug into plush stone flesh.
Zuko stood facing the Lady as if he, too, was made of stone. "I will pass along your recommendation to the rest of the royal family, but any talk of sponsorship should be taken up with the Minister of Ceremonies."
"Of course, of course," she said, smiling wide enough to reveal her porcelain false teeth. "I wanted only to broach the topic because it is my belief that the greatness of the Fire Nation is best represented in our cultural works. It is essential that the correct versions be promoted, because subtleties in tone and content can entirely alter the underlying message..."
They made their formal farewells and Zuko led the way out to the short drive. When they had settled into the palanquin - Katara behind and to one side - and begun the ride back to the palace, she finally broke the silence that had hung between them all day.
"She seems… weird."
"Lady Pi Mai has been a patron of the arts longer than I've been alive. She finds an excuse to petition the crown at least once a season. Probably, she's had more influence on Fire Nation culture than any other individual citizen…" He turned his head slightly and looked at her from the corner of his eye. "But yeah. Pretty weird."
Katara's mouth quirked up to one side, but it wasn't a real smile. "She's the only noble who didn't ask about Aang today."
"She probably hasn't heard yet. I don't think she goes outside for anything but performances and exhibitions."
Katara sat silent for a moment, then drew a deep breath and tried to make her voice come out even. "Do you really believe your soldiers are going to capture him?"
Zuko turned his head to really look at her, mild annoyance creasing his brow. "What else am I supposed to tell them?"
"That's not what I asked."
He frowned at her a moment longer, then faced forward again. Katara began to think he would just ignore her question completely, and her own annoyance bubbled up. It was so much easier to be civil when she said nothing and deprived him of opportunities to act like a moody jerk. Finally, though, he spoke in a rigidly controlled tone.
"I don't know. Azula has some kind of plan for the Boiling Rock, but she's not going to let me near it. Even if I did know something, I wouldn't be able to send a warning. You're just going to have to trust that your friends are smart enough to not get caught."
Katara didn't care for the insinuation that Aang and Toph might not be that smart, but she let it pass. She pressed her fingers to the fold in her sash where she hid Sokka's wolftail and her mother's necklace. They would be safe, and so would her dad and the other warriors, and Iroh too, and they would save Sokka and get out of the Fire Nation. Until she heard that it had happened, that was what she would believe.
"I'll find out what I can," Zuko said abruptly, "but don't expect too much."
"I don't."
He snapped his head around to glare at her, and Katara sighed and rolled her eyes.
"I mean I don't expect you to work a miracle. Just tell me what's going on."
At length he nodded and turned back to face the palace as they approached. They did not speak again - not when they left the palanquin, or when they arrived at his quarters, or when Katara bowed and Zuko disappeared behind the double doors. She returned to her own apartment more slowly, preoccupied with irritations and worries.
Upon her approach, one of the guards stationed in the hall opened the door to the small antechamber, but the door in the far wall that led to the rest of the apartment stood open already. Katara slowed to a creep, listening carefully for some sign of what waited for her there. Muffled, she heard a woman's voice, and the clipped tone and precise enunciation were enough to tell her that it was the majordomo.
"…cannot imagine that there is much need for you anymore but I suppose your presence offers a certain illusion of control."
The response was a rumble, too quiet for Katara to make out any words.
"Then don't trouble yourself," Pokui spat. "Small wonder it should fall to me to ensure she does not forget her place here. With only ten days left to prepare for the celebration, it is most inconvenient that I should be troubled with this as well."
The rumbling voice spoke again. This time, Katara was closer to the door and could hear the strained rattle of it, though she picked out only a few words. "…antagonize her when the… avoided."
"And were I you, I would not presume to dole out unsolicited advice to the majordomo of the Heir Apparent. The running of this household is my duty. Do not look to mine when you are incapable of performing your own."
A loaded silence fell upon the room and, after a long moment, Katara stepped through the door and onto the open walkway. To her left, the garden sat perfectly still in the windless afternoon sun. To the right, the doors to the bedroom and bath were open, and faint noises of cleaning came from the rooms beyond.
And straight ahead stood Pokui and Roshu, watching one another with unconcealed dislike. The majordomo was by far the fiercer-looking, although the lieutenant stood a head taller and three times wider in his armor. Perhaps the bandage hugging his neck softened his appearance, but Katara thought it was all in Pokui. She had never seen the woman so tense; her thin limbs looked spring-loaded and her mouth was pressed hard as an iron vice.
The instant after Katara stepped through the doorway, their eyes snapped to her. She looked directly at them each in turn. These were her rooms, after all, and Pokui might have the power to change them around her, but she wasn't a noble, and was therefore not entitled to the same level of groveling. Or, at least, that was Katara's theory, and she had yet to be… corrected, as Pokui had threatened.
Looking at her burning dark eyes now, she wondered if that was about to change.
The majordomo marched the length of the walkway with rapid, hard thumps, her soft servants' shoes insufficient to muffle the strikes of her heels. She stopped before Katara and held out one hand, flat as if she had pressed it with the hot iron that was used on the linens.
"Give me those trinkets you carry. The necklace and lock of hair."
Katara stiffened, but did not raise her hands to cover the place in her sash where her treasures were hidden. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Do not be difficult. Your maids have observed you secreting these items on your person since the day you arrived here. I allowed you to keep them so long as you behaved in a manner befitting your station, but after that-" Her face reddened with restrained feeling as she fought for the correct word. "…spectacle you made out in the city, it is clear you think too much of yourself to be allowed such leniencies. Slaves do not own property. You will give the items to me now."
"What was I supposed to do?" Katara fought to keep the anger from her voice, struggled to remain calm, but the result was a compressed sound, a strangled growl. "I was kidnapped. I was only trying to fulfill my oath-"
Pokui's demanding palm knotted into a pointed finger. "You trespassed on Lord Ra Zin's property and assaulted his guards. You resisted arrest and used your bending against Fire Nation citizens. Whatever lying words might emerge from your mouth, it is clear to every servant in this city that you are willful and defiant. If you do not obey me now as a sign of your contrition, I will have you back in chains."
It was clear that she meant it, and a part of Katara wanted to fold before the situation got worse. But this was her mother's necklace. It was the only part of Sokka she was going to see, probably for a long time. She couldn't just hand them over.
And besides, the threat didn't make sense with what Katara knew about her position here. She narrowed her eyes and held her head a degree higher.
"No," Katara said thoughtfully, "you won't."
Pokui's furious eyes bulged and her mouth pinched tighter than ever. "Do not test me."
"I think it's you who shouldn't be testing me. I can get out of waterbender chains faster than I can get out of this tunic. Roshu could tell you all about it."
The lieutenant said nothing, only remained stiffly where he stood some four paces away. He narrowed his eyes and his neck reddened above the bandage, but Katara did not see those things. Her focus was locked on the taller woman before her.
"Do you really think Prince Zuko will be pleased to have his meetings interrupted by chains rattling and clanking? Is that the picture of refinement you have in mind?" Pokui blinked, seeming suddenly to see the slave before her anew. Katara pressed on, stepping nearer. "Or do you plan to remove me from tea serving completely? Everybody knows Prince Zuko uses me to remind the nobility of his own strength. I may be willful and defiant, but that's to be expected. I'm enslaved by a debt of honor, but I'm still the Southern Princess."
As the words spilled out, Katara felt herself growing. She felt warm and strong, and she stood almost nose-to-nose with the woman looming tall before her, no longer aware of anyone else around them.
"I'm still Katto of the Water Tribe."
Pokui stood transfixed, her eyes wide enough to reveal the crackle of yellow in the dark brown irises. Watching her was unnervingly like watching a glowing coal nestled in a pad of dry straw.
"So I see," she said softly, like the first licks of flame. She peered down her nose at Katara, and the flicker ignited. "A leader must protect her followers, is that not so? It would be quite simple for me to have your bumbling little maid turned out on the street. Or perhaps simply flogged. A beating may be kinder than leaving that witless girl to starve to death."
Katara felt the warmth and strength drain away. "You can't do that."
"I am majordomo to the Crown Prince. My entire purpose is to manage the staff, which includes Sian-" Pokui narrowed her eyes and peeled her lips back off her teeth. "-and you. If this is how I must accomplish my duty, then I will do it. Have no doubt."
Katara did not. She pressed her hands to her stomach to contain the sick lurch of it, but immediately felt the lumps of the necklace and lock of hair. Pokui followed the gesture with her fierce eyes. Her hand slashed back up into position, waiting.
The sash was snug and Katara's fingers were numb, but she fumbled out the lock of hair - this is fine, no big deal, Sokka grows hair like a muskowl, he'll have it all back by the time I see him next so this is nothing to give up for another person's safety - and placed it in the hard, shallow hollow of Pokui's hand.
"The necklace as well."
Katara opened her mouth and shut it again. In her mind, she saw her mother smiling, felt her fingers sifting her hair into beads and braids. The fingers became Sian's - different, unfamiliar, and yet warmer. Alive. Sian was alive.
The ivory disk was warm from the heat of her own body, and the edges were far too smooth to cut, but taking it into her fingers was like handling a razor. Katara was so careful as she placed the necklace into Pokui's hand.
Then it disappeared inside her fist. The majordomo said some final thing that Katara did not hear, then marched from the suite. A few maids scurried in her wake like forgotten children.
At length, Katara let out a shaky breath and felt something collapse inside her. She stepped carefully to the edge of the walkway and sat down in the sun, needing its warmth. Her legs hung down before her, silk slippers brushing the bending young grass.
She had forgotten Lieutenant Roshu, and did not think of him at all until his heavy steps announced his approach. He stopped at her side, just beyond arm's reach, and frowned out at the garden with his arms folded over his armored chest. In the tree, a red and orange bird sang loudly, the same tune over and over. It flitted from branch to branch, bobbing its tail and calling out, but no one answered. Katara sighed.
"Still angry to be alive, Roshu?"
He slowly shifted his weight from one foot to the other, belts and plates creaking with the movement, but he did not speak.
In fact, he was angry. Angry to have an honorable death snatched away by this teenaged girl, the very wolf pup he was supposed to be keeping under control - though that was becoming more and more an open joke. He was angry about that, too. If the best he could do was warn fools like Pokui against provoking the waterbender - only to be ignored in any case - then she was right. He was useless. Without physical power or a staff who would take his advice seriously, how could he protect the prince from this deceptively small barrel of blasting jelly?
But then, had the prince ever truly been in danger at all?
When he had laid against the dais, drenched in his own blood but no longer bleeding, Roshu had hovered in a place between waking and sleeping. It was frighteningly calm there, so the words echoing through the throne room had floated gently through his mind, and it was only later that they regained their true weight. Roshu had awakened late this morning in the infirmary with those words tumbling inside him like an avalanche.
Prince Zuko had let the invaders go without a fight. He had sent his slave away with them. He had told them where to find their prince, had implicated himself in the escape of the earthbender, had blurted out his feelings for his prisoner like a lovesick boy. He was precisely as weak and corrupted as the old rumors said. Roshu had gasped awake in the infirmary this morning and demanded to make a report at once. But then the notary had come, and the bureaucrat who asked the questions, and Roshu had remembered something else.
These are our people, you crazy old man! Unlike you, I haven't abandoned my duty to them.
What came out of his mouth when he made his report was muddled and not the whole truth, and the officials eyed him with some annoyance. It was a relief when they finally sniffed and went away. Then Roshu lay there, staring at the ceiling and trying to understand why he had just lied, risking his career and honor, not to mention the good of the Fire Nation. He had chosen to protect the prince from justice, and he did not know why.
Even now, as he stood beside the waterbender and watched the hedge oriole hop its way through the branches, he was still struggling to understand, and still failing. Perhaps it was her fault in some way. He owed her a life debt, however he despised the notion of being beholden to a waterbender. More than that, she had saved him not because she was commanded to do so but because she was soft in a way her people usually were not. Roshu had never forgotten that, even in her most brutal moments aboard the ship, she had not killed a single guard.
It was a weakness, of course, he knew that, but it made him think of his brother, his smiling young face going off to glorious war in the north. He was angry about that, too, and the well of his rage ran deeper than any might have guessed.
Especially Katara, who sat in a silence broken only by the bird's song until her mind drifted to other thoughts and she forgot that the silence had ever been there at all. After a time, the bird launched itself out of the tree and over the palace, probably headed someplace less lonely.
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Zuko stopped in his chambers long enough to pen a query to the harbormaster regarding the whereabouts of his crew. The report he had received yesterday had stated that every man was accounted for, but as of yet there had been no response to his summons. He paused midway through the missive, his brush hovering over the page, and wondered if he was perhaps being too impatient. Lieutenant Jee and the others had been imprisoned on their own ship for at least two weeks. He could give them until the end of today before he pressed the issue.
Zuko turned to another report demanding his attention, and the unfinished note slipped off to one side of his writing desk. By the time he left his study, he had forgotten it entirely.
On a tip from Yotsu, Zuko found Azula out on the royal training grounds performing katas while Li and Lo looked on from under the shade of a fluttering silk pavilion. Her form was precise as ever, her leaps weightless. Blue flame burst around her with such force that Zuko could feel the impacts from across the yard. She spotted him and finished the succession of movements without so much as a flicker of hesitation. Li and Lo made some comments about her form - though Zuko wondered if they had been watching the same scene he had just witnessed. Azula's form was perfect. Maybe they were losing their eyesight.
At last, she bowed the final time and strode across the yard, not toward Zuko but to a spot in the deep shade of the palace where a footman held a tray on which waited a towel, a pitcher, and a cut glass goblet. Azula swept the towel over her shoulder, took up the goblet with easy grace, and sat down in the chair someone had brought out for her.
Zuko approached slowly and dismissed the footman with a wave. Azula frowned after him, goblet half-raised to her mouth.
"I might have wanted a refill."
"That can wait. I can't."
"Ah yes," she sighed and sat back in her chair, using the end of the towel to dab at the sparkling motes of sweat on her face. She didn't even seem winded, despite probably having been at this since morning. "And as we all know, the universe does revolve around you and your incurable malcontent. What do you want?"
"I need," he emphasized, "to know your plan for the Boiling Rock. If Father asks-"
"He won't." Her eyes flashed up at him. "In case it's escaped your notice, he isn't pleased with you at present. It's unlikely he will want anything to do with you before you redeem yourself."
The words cut, and needled at a very real worry Zuko had not realized he had. He began to pace a short distance in front of the chair. "How am I supposed to redeem myself? All of my opportunities have been shut down! You won't let me help recapture the Avatar, and Father forbade me to discipline Zhao - am I just supposed to sit in little old ladies' parlors until enough time passes for Father to forget?"
Azula watched him for a beat, a hunter's measuring stare, then smiled. "Poor Zuzu. Palace life is so difficult for you. Maybe you should have stayed on your sad little ship, where things made sense."
"This isn't a game, Azula!"
"It is," she said smoothly, "and as I told you before, you were never any good at it."
Zuko stopped to scowl at her, half furious and half incredulous. Azula watched him steadily as she sipped her water.
"If you were still banished, how would you have dealt with Zhao's disrespect?"
It sounded like a genuine question, but that only made Zuko more uneasy. It gave him the feeling that she already knew what his answer would be, and she was leading him toward it. She was trying to get him to do something, and to believe that it was his idea to do it.
"I am not challenging Father's favorite admiral to an Agni Kai."
Azula rolled her eyes. "Be serious, Dum-dum. You're no longer a powerless exile, and princes don't soil their hands by standing as equals against jumped-up commoners." She tipped her head to one side, speaking almost idly now. "At the same time, you can't simply command that justice be done, for reasons already stated…"
Zuko crossed his arms over his chest. His mind darted around the thing his father had said last night, like a small animal drawn by the scent of bait in a spike trap. Azula noticed his face go a little pale, but went on with hardly a pause.
"But you were right. Zhao's disrespect to the royal family cannot be allowed to stand. You summoned him here, and you must find some way to enact justice."
"Thank you," Zuko said with bitter sarcasm. "I'm aware."
Azula narrowed her eyes at him, then peered coolly down at the water in her goblet. "If only you had a powerful servant who hates Zhao as much as you do."
Zuko stiffened and stared, unseeing, at the royal practice yard glowing hot and dry in the summer sun. His thoughts whirled into a perfect order.
Katara. Agni Kai. Honor. Freedom.
It was unheard of for a slave to issue a challenge to duel - probably because the Water Tribe didn't have such a custom - and there was no guarantee that Zhao would accept in any case… But Zuko remembered the moment on the ship when Katara and the admiral had stood toe-to-toe. Zhao hadn't backed down then.
And, in front of the right audience, with the right provocation, he wouldn't back down this time, either.
"If you're struggling to think of a way to repay me for all of my guidance, get me a very special birthday present."
Zuko jerked back to reality in a snap. Azula had risen and draped the towel over the high back of the chair. She held out the goblet to one side and, as if appearing out of nowhere, the footman swooped his tray in to receive it. Azula did not so much as glance his way. She only frowned at Zuko dryly before striding back toward the practice field.
"And try not to embarrass me at my party."
.
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After sitting out in the garden until dusk, Katara ate her solitary, silent evening meal and then adjourned to the sitting room where she reclined now on a cushion, trying to read one of the few books that had been left in her apartment.
Modernization of industry was the turning point in the rise of Fire Nation sovereignty as a result of three main factors: fast and efficient production of ships and goods, full utilization of natural resources, and an economic boom resulting in population growth.
She read this sentence a dozen times, not really grasping its meaning but too preoccupied with the sight just above the page to really notice. In the far corner, the two maids did their usual evening tasks. Katara couldn't even remember their names, which embarrassed her for a second and then gave her a surge of ugly righteousness. It didn't matter if she didn't know their names; they had informed on her to Pokui and they didn't even trouble themselves to look abashed. They just sat there, sharing the task of mending. Their names might as well be Traitor One and Traitor Two.
Modernization of industry was the turning point in the rise…
Of course, it was their job to report to the majordomo. And they had never responded to any of Katara's friendly overtures, holding religiously to their silence and service. Was it really a betrayal if they had no relationship to betray?
One of them jerked as she pricked her finger, then shook her head at the other's questioning look. Katara dropped her eyes back to the page, glumly fixed on the row of characters she was not really trying to understand anymore. It had never occurred to her in this way, but these evenings had reminded her of back home, mending with Gran-gran while Sokka sharpened his weapons. Maybe it was only because her days were so full of misery, and the quiet evenings came as a respite from the physical and emotional strain of her current situation. She did not like to think that she had come to feel at home in this apartment, but it was the closest she could come now to home.
And the women she shared that private, peaceful time with had betrayed her trust before she had ever really invested it in them. Her mother's necklace was gone into Pokui's keeping, and who could say what she would have to go through to get it back? It was sort of the maids' fault, but blaming them, taking out her frustration on them, really didn't do anything to fix the situation.
Modernization of industry… Modernization of industry…
Pokui had an office somewhere - Katara was fairly certain she had heard it mentioned. Maybe, if she could get one of the maids to tell her where it was, she could sneak out and take her stuff back. Roshu would probably sleep heavily tonight, since he was still healing. If she was careful enough, no one would ever know she had left the apartment.
Except… even if she wasn't caught, the necklace would still be missing. It wouldn't take a brilliant mind to work out who had taken it, and then Pokui wouldn't punish Katara. She would punish Sian.
Katara stared blankly at the page before her as the rows of ink became bars, and the bars closed in around her.
A scraping sound came from beyond the sitting room door, the rumble of rollers as one of the panels was slid open. There were footfalls out in the hallway as Roshu came hurrying out of the antechamber. Abruptly, they stopped.
"Prince Zuko."
The hint of surprise in his voice was nothing compared to Katara's shock. She gaped openly as Zuko stepped through the sitting room door. He spared her a glance, then dismissed the maids - and ordered the door shut behind them. Katara managed to tear her stare away from him long enough to watch the maid who shut the door; her expression was blank and calm as ever, but her eyebrows were hitched ever-so-slightly up. Then the door was closed, and Katara found herself alone with him for the second time in as many days.
"I have a plan," he said in a quiet rush.
Katara gaped at him, not really grasping the meaning of his words. These were her rooms. He had no right to just barge into her rooms. The censure was on the tip of her tongue.
But these weren't her rooms, not really. This wasn't her home. Slaves did not own possessions. And the Crown Prince most certainly did have the right to barge in. He had the right to do whatever he wanted.
Katara only stared at him as he crossed the room and knelt before her, quickly and quietly explaining his plan. The words finally began making sense to her when she breathed in deeply and caught the hint of jasmine that had clung to his clothes as he passed through the garden.
"You want me to fight Zhao."
"It's not a fight - it's a duel. And you have to challenge him at the right time to get him to accept." Zuko leaned back and frowned at her as if suspecting she might be unwell.
Katara worked to clear her mind, to focus. She could be free, and all she had to do was beat a vile man in a bending match. No more shame, no more submission. No more being backed into one corner after another. This chance was better than she had dared hope for - and it had come so suddenly, so soon. Just a few more days, and she would be free. She could catch up to Sokka and the others before they even left the Fire Nation. She could apologize to her dad. She could fulfill the terms of her oath in full view of the Fire Court and leave with all the honor Zuko had promised her
She looked at him now. He still knelt before her, his hands braced on his thighs and his fine clothes rumpled from the long day. His assessment had sharpened; he watched her evenly, and the bright light of the sitting room caught in both his eyes - scarred and unscarred - and shone clearly in both just the same. For the first time in a long time, Katara could see that the worry creasing his brow was perhaps not only for himself.
Not liking the feeling she got looking at him, she frowned down at the book in her hands. Gratitude. Hope. She snapped the red cover shut, and discarded it with a thump onto the floorboards. When she looked back at Zuko, her mind was clear as a fast stream. He was keeping his word, and it was a credit to him if she expected no less.
"Tell me what to do."
.
.
The little house stood alone on the boundary between a quiet forest and a meadow where the grass shivered in waves. It had crouched on that borderline for more years than anyone in the village on the other side of the forest knew. For years it had stood empty, and then the herbalist had come, stringing bunches of drying leaves and flowers from the awnings, filling the meadow air with the bubbling smells of her medicines. Each year, she carved out a garden where she grew odd plants, but when she made her rare appearances in the town to trade vegetables for supplies, her spark squash and char chilies were normal enough, if especially lush.
They thought, some of the villagers, that she was probably a witch of some kind, but she called herself an herbalist, so that was what they called her as well. Still, the word hung at the backs of their minds when they spoke of her or to her, and she could see it in their eyes. Even the women who sat to visit when they came for a tonic would go silent sometimes, cautious with their teacups. They always left well before dark.
She never discouraged the notion. It was better that they did not come too close. Better to be friendly, but never friends.
So she was startled when she stepped out of her steamy kitchen during the thickening hour of dusk and saw a handful of soldiers emerge from the forest, silent as ghosts. A chill stuttered up her spine at the sight of them - something was not right - but she silenced it and tucked it away, and stepped out from beneath her awning.
They were hard men - she could see in their faces the hollows of strife and grief, and she could see in their measured steps that they were fighters to match the scraps of uniforms they all wore - but two of their number were being carried on makeshift stretchers, and most of the rest had visible injuries. The man who stepped forward to address her had a cloth wrapped around his head and a deep bruise spreading across one cheek.
"Good evening, Lady Kuo. My men and I were ambushed by bandits on the road nearby. The villagers over the hill said that you might help us."
She did not think that they had. There was an old field surgeon who lived in the village and provided medical care for the farm animals. If these men had appeared in the village, he would have seen to them. Instead they had come to her, a woman alone.
Their swords, she noticed, were not Fire Nation swords.
Had she been twenty years younger, perhaps her hands would have shaken or her eyes would have flashed, revealing too much of what she knew. But she was not that frightened girl anymore. She had not been that girl for many years now. The fears that plagued her now were deeper, more real and insurmountable.
She formed her lips into a welcoming smile and bowed. "Thanks to you and your men for your brave service to our nation. Come into my house, and I will gladly help you."
She led them into the fragrant humidity of the kitchen and used a straw to carry a flame from the belly of the wood stove to a lantern. She moved deliberately, slowly, made them watch her do it. Then she guided them through the curtain to the cramped room that served as both bedroom and sitting room. The leader pushed the low table into one corner so that there would be space to lay the second stretcher alongside the narrow bed. The single lantern cast a soft glow, but the shadows were deep and one loomed behind each man.
"Make yourselves comfortable," she said from the doorway. "I must gather some supplies."
She withdrew to the kitchen without waiting for a response and paused to survey the room before her. In an iron pot on the stove, the base of a pain tonic was boiling violently as it reduced, sending up clouds of steam to break and roll in the rafters. The fogged windows were open to coax in the cool night air. Along one entire wall and above all the counters, narrow shelves held dozens of jars, ceramic pots, and flasks. The contents varied widely: glass-clear tinctures, pastes and oils and scrubs, herbs alone and blended, whole and shredded. Nothing was labeled. She knew where everything was, and everything she needed was here.
In her mind, a plan took clear form. She shut the windows first, then poured the last of the fresh water she had drawn this morning from the stream into her kettle and clanked it onto the other side of the stove. On a wooden tray, she arranged a stack of clean rags, a wide pot of burn ointment, two glass jars of dry crushed herbs, a nearly-empty jar of honey, and a spoon.
There was no pause in her movements as she took down a third jar of herbs, unscrewed the cap with short twists of her fingers, and upended the contents into the boiling tonic base. The pain tonic was instantly ruined, but that no longer mattered.
"Is there anything I can do to help?"
She tensed at the sound of his voice, and did not turn around until she was certain her expression was clear of surprise or fear. Lowering the empty jar to the counter, she looked back at the man standing in her doorway.
By the brighter hanging lamps of the kitchen, more unsettling things became clear. The cloth tied across his brow did not quite conceal his slap-dash topknot. The uniform he wore was a measure too narrow in the chest. And his eyes. His eyes were a brilliant and unmistakeable blue.
"Tie back the curtain," she said levelly, "and then reach down one of the lamps. I'll need more light to see."
He nodded shortly and went about the tasks with quick efficiency. By the time she had lifted the tray and crossed the room to the door, it was done. He followed her into the back room, casting lamplight on her shoulders.
The wounds were not fresh, but she lacked experience as a healer and could not have guessed how long they had gone untreated. Most were minor burns, some cuts and scrapes, all scabbed over and swollen. One of the men who had come in on a stretcher - the one on the floor - had a grotesque burn across his chest, made worse by the charred bits of his shirt that had stuck to its edges. The other had been flayed across his side by a spear and had also - in the moment before the spear, he told her - twisted his ankle.
New boots, he slurred.
She said nothing to that and kept her head bent to the bloody work as long as her roiling stomach would allow.
By the time it was finished, the house had grown warm and sticky, and had filled with a sweet scent that dulled the senses, though none of them noticed. They rested around the room in fresh bandages, some jesting together quietly at the table. Their blue eyes gleamed like fresh edges on knives.
But one of them was missing. That wouldn't do. They all had to be together inside the house, or her plan would fail. When no one watched her, she retreated quietly through the kitchen and out the door beyond, shutting it softly behind her.
Even the cool evening air could not fully cut the drifting fog in her head, and she had to lean one shoulder against the middle awning post to keep from falling over. That was alright, though. The men inside had breathed as much of the vapor as she had, and soon they would all doze off where they sat, never knowing they had been coaxed into sleep by the air they breathed. She could afford to be muzzy-headed - she needed only slip away and hide in the woods until they left - so long as they were further along the road to sleep. All of them, which meant she had to find the Captain quickly.
They called him Captain, even though a captain would more likely head a larger force, but the term seemed to fit all the same. He carried himself with too much authority to be anything less. Commanding. He was a commanding man, and experience had taught her that such men were to be dealt with warily, and only when absolutely necessary.
At length, she spotted him on the far side of the meadow. One second there was only the deep darkness of the forest, and then he rose from the high grass brushing his hands together and walked along the tree line, flickering in and out of shadow. Some twenty paces later, he crouched out of sight again.
She cut through her young garden and hurried across the open space toward the spot where he had disappeared, occasionally wobbling to one side or the other. However hard she blinked or shook her head, she could not dispel the dreamy quality of the starlit world around her. That was not good. She needed her full senses to deal with this man, especially since she was not sure exactly when he had stepped out. He might have had ample time by now for his head to clear, and she could tell he was a shrewd man, a dangerous man. It would not do at all for him to notice anything untoward in her behavior.
He popped up as she approached, and it should not have startled her, but it did. She pressed one hand to her chest as if to reassure her own heart.
"Captain! I- I worried you had become lost in the woods."
"Not at all," he said quietly. "I took the liberty of setting some traps. We have nothing to repay your kindness, but we can leave you with fresh meat in the morning."
She hesitated. The Captain and his men had declined her offers of food, despite how their faces melted at the taste of the honey she used to gentle her bitter medicines. Hunger rang through them, obvious as a stricken bell, but they would not be coaxed. The tall man who seemed to be second in command had shrugged amiably enough when she asked for the third time.
"There are women and children back in our home village who live off the land," he had said. "We hope any soldier passing through would think the same way."
Squadrons never all came from the same village. And soldiers did not concern themselves with such mundane troubles. They took what they needed and the people were proud to give it. It was an honor to contribute to the army's brave work.
But these soldiers did not know that, and she certainly was not foolish enough to point out their ignorance.
In the starlight, the Captain's eyes were the color of a cold sea that washed a vastly different shore. "It's not much, but vegetable stew is always a little more filling when there's a rabbit in it."
She swallowed, wet her suddenly very dry lips, and spoke carefully so that her words would not slur together. "That is… gracious of you, Captain. But not necessary…"
"It is," he said, firmly now. He seemed to hesitate, watching her closely. "Please. We would be ashamed to give nothing back to a woman with two children to provide for."
The ground seemed to lurch beneath her as if she had stepped in an unexpected drop, and the stars seemed to spin overhead. "I- I have no children."
"We saw their likenesses hanging on your wall."
She almost told him the truth; those portraits were the prince and princess, simple icons that could be found in many loyal Fire Nation citizens' homes. As for why they were nearing a decade out of date - well, she was not a wealthy woman…
"The boy especially has your look," the Captain said.
"I always thought-" she said, fighting to shut her mouth on the words even as they slipped out, "-he had more of me than his father."
She dashed at her eyes, her head spinning. She shouldn't be thinking of this now. She should shut away the rumors the village women swapped like recipes, clamp down on the despair and horror and guilt that rode roughshod through her. A warm hand lighted on the very corner of her shoulder.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have broached the subject. I- My own children are… fighting. The very thought terrifies me."
"Where are they stationed?" she asked, mostly to give herself a chance to regain some calm. He would lie of course, but the answers weren't really important.
He paused, withdrew his hand, and let out a restrained sigh. "They're here… Guarding the homeland. My son is at the Boiling Rock. And my daughter… is in the palace."
She did not react, did not move, but her stomach tensed up into a giant knot. "She must be a skilled bender. It is a great honor to be chosen to serve the royal family."
"So she tells me," he said with audible disgust. Again, he sighed. "I'm sorry. We argued the last time we spoke, and it's weighed heavily on my mind, and on my heart. I don't know why I'm speaking of it now…"
The sweet vapor, then, had at least begun its work, but somehow that no longer seemed so important. Instead, a question rose out of the murk of her mind, a desperately hungry question.
"Can you ever hope to reconcile? With your paths so diverged?"
The Captain looked closely at her then, and perhaps he realized the question was not truly about him, because his answer was gentle, sure. "I have no doubt that we will. A parent who loves their child can always find a way to lend a hand when it is finally needed again."
She nodded and folded her arms around herself, pressed those words close like a bandage to a weeping wound. It was a comforting thought. But in her case, impossible.
And yet, it broke on her now like a frigid wave, she could no longer stay here in any case. It didn't matter if these men left peacefully with the dawn. If they had come from the palace, they would shortly be followed, this time by real soldiers. Those soldiers would want to know why she had aided the enemies of the Fire Nation. They would want to know why she hadn't simply poisoned them, why she hadn't cut their throats as they slept.
And maybe one of them would see her face through the grime and difficult years and make the connection that no one else had. Then… Oh, the chill that tore through her at the thought.
"It's gotten cold, Lady Kuo. Let's go back inside."
She nodded and allowed him to put an arm loosely around her back and guide her through the tall grass toward the warm light of the house. Soon he would sleep along with his men, and she would pack a bag with the few things she could not do without. She would go far west before turning south, avoiding the roads and avoiding Caldera - but tonight she would be lucky to make it a few miles before the drugged sleep finally took her. That was alright, though. Any distance she could put between herself and this place would be a start.
When he and his men woke in the morning, the Captain would know not to leave one of his rabbits behind for her; he would know she meant not to return the second he saw the empty wall where the portraits of her children used to hang.
