Happy Independence Day to any Finnish readers!

Responses to Reviews:

RonaldM40196867: Yes, it absolutely does. Depending on what kind you have, being good at it can help you do a huge amount of things.

Zigzagdoublezee: He doesn't know they're here, no. The reunion is going to be interesting. Of course this isn't really the same Iroh as in canon either, so there's no telling how he'll react.

As Always, Please Review!

Zuko shoved open the door to his flat angrily, and stomped over to the window. The street below was relatively quiet and empty. Mai looked up sharply from where she was sat among their blankets. She had already returned from her own job hunt, then.

"No luck?" She asked.

"No," Zuko growled. "Not. A. Single. Job. It's ridiculous."

He had tried pubs, shops, warehouses, even labourer work in the ring of farmland between the inner and outer walls. All, he had been informed, were full.

He supposed he should have seen this coming. He didn't have his cousin's intelligence, his sister's cunning or skill, or his uncle's tea-brewing abilities.

I had no luck either," Mai said. "At this rate, we're going to have to enlist."

"Not the army," Zuko groaned. "That's probably where we're most likely to be recognised, by some nobleman officer who visited the Fire Nation before the war. And if we get captured..."

"But it is the most reliable work we're likely to get. They're at war, they need soldiers."

"Do they even recruit women?" Zuko asked.

Mai stood up.

"Seems a little sexist," she remarked.

"I'm not the one in charge of Earth Kingdom recruitment policy."

Mai wrapped her arms around him from behind.

"I suppose I'll just have to be a soldier's wife then," she murmured. "There are worse lives, I suppose."

"Who said I'd be a soldier?" Zuko retorted. Then he stiffened and went red as he registered what she had said.

"...Wife?"

"I mean, if you want," Mai replied, a little quickly. "That is the way things are going, isn't it?"

Zuko didn't know how to react for a moment. Then he turned around in her arms to face her.

"Yes," he said. "I think it is."

He grinned at her, and she beamed back.

"Or," Zuko shrugged, a thought occuring to him, "you can disguise yourself as a man."

Mai made a show of looking offended.

"But," he continued, "I don't think I can be a soldier. That would be the very definition of treason to the Fire Nation."

"We're already hiding from your father," Mai pointed out. "And we do need the money."

"We'll find some other way," Zuko promised. "Now, anything for dinner?"

"I did go to the market. I had a look around, spent ages picking out the best deals..."

"It's rice again, isn't it?"

"It's rice again," Mai confirmed.

Zuko felt his stomach rumbling.

"Great."

Suddenly, a lone voice was heard from outside. Zuko swivelled to see a man running down the street, running along with his arms waving in what looked like panic. He strained to see what they were saying.

"The Fire Nation!"

Zuko felt his blood run cold.

"The Fire Nation are coming! They are outside the city walls!"

"They're here already?" Zuko hissed. "Agni, what do we do?"

The man carried on running and shouting, but his voice was soon lost amidst a rising tide of panic. People spilled out onto the streets, and it became apparent disorder was brewing.

"We do nothing," Mai shrugged. "We are still in Ba Sing Se. The reason we came here was to get those walls between us and our army. We're here now, and we've done that."

Zuko felt himself calm down at those words. She was right, he knew. Reaching the walls of the city was one thing; getting through them, quite another.

"And if they do get through?"

"I'll pretend to have rescued you from the clutches of the Earth King's prison in the confusion," Mai suggested. "Then I go home a hero."

"And me? What do I go home as?"

"Depends on how the Fire Lord is feeling," Mai said. "If he wins, and he thinks you genuinely were kidnapped, and is pleased enough to see you... you might just get away with it."

"And if I don't?"

Mai frowned ominously.

"Hope that you do."

"Very reassuring," Zuko grumbled. "It doesn't exactly make me want to cast myself upon my father's mercy."

He looked out of the window.

"They look like they're having a riot, by the way."

"Really?" Mai came to stand next to him and peered down curiously. "That was quick. How exciting."

Sure enough, the street below them was suddenly all pandemonium. A crowd had gathered, opposed by a group of soldiers who had seemed to come from nowhere. But these were not like the soldiers Zuko had encountered beyond the walls of the city. These ones wore flowing green robes and no armour. Wide-brimmed hats hid their faces, and they carried no discernable weapons. They formed a disciplined line as people began to shout at them.

Zuko couldn't hear what they were shouting about, but he could guess. The grievances of a people under pressure. He had noted the subpar housing, the lack of jobs, the poor food, and now the outside threat of the Fire Nation himself, and he had only been here for a couple of days; he was sure he wasn't the only one, and others would have been dealing with it for far longer.

"I think things are going to get nasty," he said.

"Should we do something?" Mai asked.

Zuko considered. Then he shook his head.

"The one thing we can't do is get caught," he said, "so we have to stay away from trouble. If we're arrested and recognised like this, they might think we're spies."

He watched more people spill out onto the street, chanting at the soldiers. Steadily, as the evening wore on, the street filled up until it was heaving with people. Zuko and Mai stood where they were, looking down, waiting for something to happen. The room was only lit by the torches held by some members of the crowd, casting an eerie glow across Mai's face. The rest of the room was shrouded in darkness.

Together they stayed, and watched as the tensions of the city bubbled beneath them long into the night.