Recommended listening: Dashboard, by Modest Mouse.
"Onii is for brother, imouto for sister."
"And you'd add -chan to it, because siblings are usually friends."
"Speak for yourself, but – Oh. That's Ba Sing Se."
"Really? I never would have guessed."
They'd crested a hill. Fluffy clouds passed overhead; a small stone-walled village stood at the foot of the hill; and in the distance, a long flat line, the great outer wall. Between the village and the walls were dots of red: Fire Nation encampments. Zuko had stuck with his nondescript yoroi, but Katara had switched her conspicuous Water Tribe outfit for a beige Earth Kingdom robe she'd picked up along the way.
"We said we'd do your face once we could see the walls," she reminded him.
"Right." They dismounted, got out of sight of the camps below, and he sat cross-legged and shut his eyes. She got out a brush and tin of pasted charcoal and set about painting his face.
If the Dai Li had their descriptions, they'd surely told any Ba Sing Se border security to watch for them. They'd spent much of the past week thinking up ever more ridiculous disguises. The only sensible one was to put Katara's hair in a topknot and buy her some brown robes at the one village they'd found. The basic problem was that there were only so many pairs of a Water Tribe girl with an older Earth Kingdom-looking boy with a scar over his eye, and they couldn't really do anything about any of that. There was enough brown skin in the Earth Kingdom that Katara could maybe get away with saying she was from some obscure southern or western village, and they'd agreed she shouldn't bend either, but Zuko's scar was a dead giveaway. They could have split up, but then either might vanish without a trace and be impossible to track down.
Their best idea was when he'd suggested concealing it with rice powder ("You and your rice." "I'm not using blubber, and that's final." "That's not what I meant and you know it!"). They'd tried it and it utterly failed at hiding his scar, and when they'd tried to lighten Katara's skin, she'd sweated conspicuous streaks out of it in no time. Still, it had given her another idea, of painting over Zuko's entire face with shamanic-looking symbols. They couldn't get rid of the scar, but they could hide it in plain sight.
"The Water Tribe has a custom of temporary face tattoos when kids reach adulthood," Katara narrated as she worked. "But, I was too young to get mine, and I never learned enough about what they mean or how to make them. I'm pretty sure they're not supposed to go around the eyes like this, and they're supposed to be symmetrical, but I can't copy the scar's colour or texture. Instead, I'm going to lean into it, make the entire thing imbalanced."
"Should I be reading into the subtext?" he asked. "And is it that I'm a girl, that I'm old, or that I'm imbalanced?"
"Yes," she said absently, focusing on her work. "I'd meant to at least try to make it like Southern Water Tribe style, but this is completely different. It's probably for the best, better if we don't look Water Tribe at all. Let's go over our aliases again?"
"I'm Guo," he said, "warrior from the Hua Ti Clan. Which reminds me, I still don't think we should say I rescued you from the Fire Nation, they'll know exactly who you are if you say you were captured." She smacked his arm. "Say I went with you as your bodyguard."
"Guo the guard," she said. "And I'm Uki, daughter of Hua Ti's mayor Long, come to beg assistance of the Avatar. In the old water language, Uki means 'survivor'."
I think. I barely know any of it.
"Hmm," he said. "In Kotoba, it means a few things. To be carefree and fickle. The rainy season. Driftwood. Being a flirt."
"Should I read into that subtext?" she echoed. "Carefree is more like Aang. I suppose I'm the rainy season because I'm a waterbender. I don't know about driftwood, and the flirt …"
"That would be Sokka," Zuko said.
"True. Then you're the driftwood? Aimlessly floating on the ocean for years?"
"I should be the survivor."
"I think that fits Suki best."
He grumbled.
"You don't see me complaining about being the rainy season. We didn't even have rain back home. Okay, open your eyes."
She bent her water into dozens of overlapping layers of very thin shimmering sheets, which together made for a passable mirror. She'd drawn raccoon patches around his eyes, with hooks and swirls and triangles. It was very busy.
"You are your brother's sister."
"Oh, like you'd do better. What do you think?"
"It doesn't look like I have a burn scar over my eye," he said. "But it does look weird, and weird attracts attention. I can tell them it's sacrilege to touch a warrior's holy tattoos, and maybe they'll buy it, but still …"
"Other than the scar, or the tattoos now, you're not that remarkable," she said. "You look Earth Kingdom: they can't take too long checking whether every guy like that is actually a Fire Prince trying to sneak in. And they still think you have your ridiculous baldytail."
"I hope you're right. I think it's as good as it's getting. We'll make it work."
They mounted up, flicked their reins, and headed down toward the village.
"What's that?" Katara asked, pointing off at one of the Fire Nation camps, where there was a bigger patch of red, with men bustling around a massive metal drum.
Zuko frowned. "I don't know. Some sort of machinery."
"I can see that. What does it do?"
"I don't know, I've never seen anything like it. Unless it's a giant outdoor pool."
"I don't think it's an outdoor pool."
"I remember hearing the War Minister talking about a giant drill a few years ago, but I thought it got mothballed, it would have cost a fortune."
"I don't think that's a drill either."
"Those were my only two ideas. Whatever it is, we don't want to find out."
"Can we get through? That looks like a lot of troops, and I don't see any way past."
"I can't see anything from here, but let's get closer for a better look, and – oh."
They'd got close enough to the walled village to realise that no-one was around, and that there was a gap in the walls: an earthbender had torn it open. Inside, everything was burnt out, a ghost town, razed to the ground.
"Right," Zuko said, instinctively dropping his voice. "I forgot. The towns around Ba Sing Se were all destroyed during the first siege."
Katara looked around, taking it all in.
She's not happy, is she.
She glanced back at him.
You once told me it was your uncle who led the siege, didn't you? Uncle Iroh, Prince General Iroh. I'd thought he was nice.
They urged their ostrich horses forward. Everything was totally destroyed, just piles of rubble, a few scraps of charred wood here and there. She tried to picture houses, a market, a well; but if there had ever been any of those things, there wasn't anything recognisable to prove it. No living animals, no plants. There wasn't even any wind.
"Halt!"
Two armoured firebenders jumped out from behind a jumble of broken masonry. Zuko vaulted off his mount to dash at them, but Katara was faster: she bent from her waterskin and knocked down one then the other in moments, then froze them in place.
Maybe the civilians of the Fire Nation aren't so bad, but people like you are the reason this village is gone.
Zuko slowed to a trot and then a stop. "I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?"
"Bad."
"Doctrine is to check in on patrols if they don't return in time. Depending how far away their camp is, their squad mates are going to be here in force, soon."
"Okay. And good?"
"I think I know how to get past the Fire Nation men."
"What do you think?"
She absolutely hated seeing him in firebender armour again. It was what he wore when she first met him, when he was an enemy hunting her, before she reclassified him as a jerk and later threw out any hopes of classifying him at all.
"You look like a soldier," she said, not hiding the distaste in her voice. "Of course you do, you were one. What about me?"
As much as she hated how it looked on him, it was worse on herself. It was hot and heavy, and she felt like she might throw up.
"What?"
"I'm thinking how to put it nicely."
The two soldiers were fairly buff men, about the same size as Zuko, meaning their armour fit him pretty well, considering it was, he said, mass-produced trash that never fit anyone perfectly. Katara was smaller than him, so it fit her like …
"Like a crumpled bit of laundry?" she offered.
"I was going to go with, you look like a five-year-old dressing up in her mother's wedding gown," he said. "It'll never work."
"That's putting it nicely?"
"Would you like me to tell you what I would have said?"
"I'll pass." She stepped out of the armour and left it on the ground with relief. "How do you even move in this? It weighs a ton."
"If it fits, the weight gets distributed evenly and it's fine. I can pass as a soldier, you can't …"
His gaze went to his ostrich horse and its saddlebags. After the time with Hien, he'd bought a coil of rope. He looked back at Katara, back at the rope, back at her. She took his meaning.
"Do you ever have any ideas that don't involve capturing anyone?" Katara asked.
"Sure, some of them involve rice," he said. "Do you ever have any ideas that don't involve being captured?"
"," she said. Well played.
"What do you think?" he asked. "I'd have to rough you up to make it convincing."
She considered this. "I'm not some delicate little kid. But if I'm going to get hurt, I want to earn it. Let's have a wrestling match."
He gave her a blank look. "By wrestling, you mean …"
"I mean what wrestling means," she said patiently. "No bending, punches or kicks. Or augmenting."
"You … do realise I've been training at martial arts from birth?"
"I know you'll win. I just want to see how long I can hold out."
"You also realise I'm a boy?"
She frowned. "Since when have you had a problem with girls being fighters?"
He blinked. "Did you never spar with Sokka, as a kid?"
"He thought it was unmanly to fight a girl," she said bitterly.
"And there were no other men at your village," he said.
"What's your point?"
"You've never wrestled a boy who's hit puberty," he said. "You don't know what it's like to go up against someone twice as strong as you. You have to be a really good martial artist to work around that, if you don't use bending or some other equaliser."
"You aren't twice as strong. Not without augmenting."
"I'm older, I do strength training, and I'm not stick-thin. I'm probably almost four times."
She scoffed.
Zuko gave a little head shake, then put his right hand behind his back and his left on her shoulder and pushed down, taking great care not to go too hard and hurt her. She grunted, grabbed it with both of hers, and tried to push him off, for all the good it did: she might as well have wrestled Appa. He forced her to her knees, then all fours, then to lie down on her front. Once she was down, he got the rope, sat on her thighs, pulled her wrists behind her back, and set about tying them together, all without saying a word.
"Is this too tight?" he asked. "You're breathing hard."
"This is good," she said, her voice husky; she cleared her throat and said more normally, if a bit high-pitched and fast, "I mean I'm fine. Keep going."
"There. Close your eyes, and sorry in advance."
"Why?"
"Are they closed?"
"Yes, why?"
He took the back of her head and ground her face against the dirt, making her look like she'd been knocked down. Then he pulled her to her feet.
"That's a convincing glare," he said. "I'd believe you really want to kill me. Well done."
"Funny." She blinked hard: bits of dirt had got into her eyelashes and threatened her eyes.
"I thought so," he said, brushing the grit out. "Stay in character until we're clear."
He took her water pouch and other belongings and stuffed them under his armour. Next, he cut the ostrich horses loose; they looked around and wandered off back the way they came. He shut his eyes, inhaled, and opened them again, and then he was Prince Zuko, prideful scion of the Fire Lord. He put the skull plate in place over his face. "Keep your filthy mouth shut and your eyes down, Water Tribe scum," he snapped, "or I'll give you something to cry about." He wrapped the end of the rope around his wrist and shoved her in the back, forcing her along.
Past the village, it was just wide open space, dotted with Fire Nation camps, up to the great wall. As they walked, a soldier rode a komodo rhino out to meet them.
"Who's this?" he asked.
"A pain in my neck," Zuko said. He shoved Katara; with her arms tied, she couldn't break her fall, and she landed hard with a grunt. "Shut it," he added, kicking her in the ribs, hard enough to wind her.
Ow! Not so hard! We're not indestructible like you!
Yeah, I definitely preferred the ropes.
You can shut up.
"We caught her stealing food. If she's going to be a useless walking stomach, she can be a useless walking stomach eating the dirt people's food. Lieutenant's orders. Where do I go to drop her off?"
"There's an active gate that way," the soldier said, pointing. "Stay away from the wall, they shoot boulders if you get too close."
"Fantastic, maybe they'll squash her and save me the trouble," Zuko said. He hauled Katara to her feet and they kept walking.
They could see benders atop the wall, patrolling, wary of any incoming attack. One marked them and kept pace, making sure to stay at the point nearest them. Zuko smacked Katara in the back of the head, not hard.
"Eyes down," he barked. "Prisoners don't get to look up."
Would it be petty of us to feed him raw blubber again after this?
Yes: we'll be cooking for Aang again by tonight, and he gets nauseated even looking at that. Actually, let's ask Aang, he knows some good revenge pranks.
Closer to the wall, the ground was broken up. Earthbenders, either refugees going in or soldiers sortieing out, had churned the land to make cover. Zuko lifted Katara into a ditch, then untied her ropes, stripped off his armour, and gave her back her waterskin.
"You're pretty good at pretending to be a brutal Fire Nation soldier," she said.
"Thanks. You're pretty good at pretending to be a helpless, easily captured damsel in distress."
"Don't mention it," she said, "ever. Come on."
They followed the ditch up to the wall. The soldier above them motioned them to stay put, then disappeared from sight; a moment later, a short passageway opened in the wall. They walked in; it closed behind them, and the back opened up, letting them through.
On the other side was a secondary stone wall, and a large building, an office. Ten soldiers were waiting for them. A sergeant stepped forward.
"Are you Fire Nation?" he asked.
"No, that was just a disguise to get past the siege," Katara said. "We're not soldiers. We're looking for the Avatar."
"Then you'll have to go through refugee processing," he said, indicating the office.
"We're not refugees either," she said. "We're searching for the Avatar on behalf of our village. We heard he'd come to Ba Sing Se."
"Yeah, you and everyone else who's come through here in the past month," said the sergeant. "Refugee processing."
"Isn't there an alternative?" Katara asked.
"Prison," he said.
"Refugee processing sounds good."
The sergeant nodded and pointed to the office. "Lose the sword," he added to Zuko. "No weapons. Don't bend, either, or there'll be consequences." Zuko shrugged and handed his swords over.
We're not seeing those again.
The soldiers marched them into the office, then left to return to the wall. Katara looked around. It was a spartan stone building with almost no decoration, probably made by benders in a hurry. It was packed and noisy, there were long queues all over to booths, bureaucrats were moving boxes around, people were talking and arguing, and soldiers patrolled, breaking up the odd fight. There were ten people in line ahead of them, refugees, then a woman at a booth arguing with one.
Well, it's only ten people. It'll just be a few minutes, right?
Fifteen minutes later, only one person had gone through, and she'd lost her patience. She cut ahead to the front of the line.
"Um, excuse me," she began.
"Hey!" said the refugee she'd interrupted.
"I'm sorry, but you must return to the line and await your turn," the clerk said with a wide smile.
"I'm not really a refugee, I'm just looking for the Avatar," she said.
"I'm afraid we do not have a line for that," said the clerk, "but if you return to your place, I will see you shortly."
"I just need to send a message."
"Problem?" asked a soldier, walking up.
"I need to talk to the Avatar," Katara said. "It's really important."
"Back of the line," said the soldier.
"No, I really mean it."
"Me too," the soldier said, taking a step forward and putting his hand on his sword hilt. "Back of the line."
"!" said Katara, but she walked back to Zuko rather than pick a fight. "Thanks for helping."
"I did help," he said, "I saved our place." He indicated five people who'd shown up behind him, who were looking annoyed Katara could stay in front of them. He sat down cross-legged and shut his eyes, presumably meditating.
Honestly that's probably a good idea. And really, what's another hour after travelling for a month?
Yes, but don't let on that he was right.
She sat down next to him huffily.
It was almost two hours before they got to the booth. The light was shifting, they'd wasted the entire morning and half the afternoon. The clerk beamed at them.
"Welcome to Ba Sing Se!" she said. "There is no war inside our impenetrable walls." Zuko and Katara exchanged glances. "Here, you are safe. My job is to explain to you how to resettle inside our great city."
"Um, about that," Katara said, "I mentioned earlier, we're looking for the Avatar. If we could just get a message to him?"
"I'm afraid it is quite impossible for immigrants to contact the Avatar," the Joo Dee smiled. "He is very busy mastering earthbending and meeting with nobles, senior bureaucrats, and other important people. You must be processed as immigrants. First, we must establish your identity. Do you have passports?"
"Our passports were stolen along the way," Katara said.
"That's most unfortunate. This will complicate your admission. We must perform thorough background checks on all immigrants, to ensure that unsavoury types are kept out of our great city and that order is preserved. Valid passports would expedite these checks. Instead, you must provide as much information as possible. Our associates will investigate with whatever you can give, but it typically takes significantly longer."
"How long?" Katara asked apprehensively.
How does that even work? Refugees can't all have passports, half don't even have shoes. And I bet half the villages in the Earth Kingdom aren't recorded anywhere. Or what about people who travel a lot?
Is it just a pretext so they can check for people they're specifically looking for? Like us?
"Every case is unique," said the Joo Dee. "Typically, processing could be done in as little as two weeks with a valid passport. Without one, depending on details, it might take four to eight weeks. Of course, given recent events, our team is very busy, and wait times may be longer."
"Recent – you must mean Omashu? The resistance made it over here?"
"I can't comment on other cases," she said. "However, there have indeed been additional immigrants from the Earth Kingdom and Northern Water Tribe. Now –"
"Wait, the Northern Water Tribe? Are you sure? Why would they need refuge?"
I thought Azula just broke out and ran for it. What did she do?!
"I can't comment on other cases," the Joo Dee repeated. Katara frowned. "Now, while you wait to be processed, you will be offered housing at a nearby immigration camp. The accommodation is offered freely by the great King of Ba Sing Se, but you will be required to pay for food and other amenities. If you have savings, you may be able to buy it; and farm work is available to men, so your husband should be able to support you."
Katara, who had been mistaken for Zuko's wife at every single village they'd visited in the past month, let it go for once. "How long does processing take these days?" she asked.
"These are exceptional times, and I can't comment on specifics."
"Do you know roughly how many refugees per day are admitted?" Zuko asked. "Or what the official quota is?"
"Ba Sing Se has a policy target of admitting ten thousand immigrants per year," she said.
Zuko did some mental arithmetic. "If a division's worth of men made it out of Omashu, it'd take seven months to resettle them," he said. "Plus however many were already in the queue and however many fled the Water Tribe."
"We don't have seven months," Katara said. "The Comet arrives in less than four."
"The administration will resettle you as quickly as practical while maintaining public order," the Joo Dee smiled.
"Can't I just send the Avatar a message? I only need to send a single line!"
"I'm afraid that is impossible."
Katara growled. "Do we have any other options?" she asked. "Any way to speed things up?"
Zuko shifted uncomfortably, feeling the need for a bribe coming on, unhappy at the thought of giving Fire Nation money to Ba Sing Se.
"There are certain channels with priority processing or whose requirements may be deferred until after you are admitted to the Lower Ring," the Joo Dee said, pulling out another paper. "Shall I list them?"
"Yes please."
"There are special considerations given to nobility, including of the other kingdoms –"
"I'm the daughter of the mayor," Katara tried. "Uki, daughter of mayor Long of Hua Ti."
"Oh?" said the Joo Dee. She rummaged around for a paper. "… I'm afraid that isn't on the list. If you have family or coworkers in the city who can sponsor you, that can be used."
Zuko and Katara exchanged glances and shrugs.
"For your husband," the Joo Dee continued, "if he is willing to perform farm labour, he would be allowed into the agricultural zone, but not the city proper. Our spiritual authorities have some influence, so if either of you is a bender, it would be given consideration. Of any element."
"Of any element," Katara echoed.
"Indeed," smiled the Joo Dee. "As the spiritual heart of the Earth Kingdom, naturally we favour earthbenders, but as the world's cultural capital" Zuko restrained himself from rolling his eyes "we welcome representatives of all four nations. Waterbenders are especially prized right now, as they have an excellent reputation as doctors, and with the immigrant influx, we have a shortage of medical experts. If either of you was, you would both be given priority admission."
"Is that so," Katara said. She exchanged glances with Zuko.
It could get us past this.
They're looking for a boy plus a girl waterbender. They'll arrest us for sure.
"Are non-bending healers welcome?" she asked. "I know a bit about it." This was true: Yagoda had taught her a little conventional medicine and first aid to supplement her water-healing, and she'd helped deliver babies, which wasn't exactly healing but close enough.
"Yes, with a lower priority," said the Joo Dee. "You may be able to get sponsored as an assistant to an acupuncturist. If you do, and your sponsor is impressed, you could even be allowed into the Middle Ring! Not only that, but if you were accepted and granted access to the Middle Ring, you would be allowed to sponsor your husband in turn. Provided you could prove he was your husband."
Katara bluescreened, before remembering that other cultures counted marriage as a ceremony, rather than having a kid.
"How long would a sponsorship take?" Zuko asked.
"With some luck, your wife might be permitted into the Lower Ring and allowed to practise under supervision within three weeks. Within another two months, she would be certified to practise as an independent doctor and get residency. She would be permitted into the Middle Ring, and could bring you in."
Two and a half months. That's … a long time, but at least it's before the Comet.
Yeah, but, will Aang even still be here then? He trained at waterbending for a month before he moved on, and he's already been working at earthbending for about that long.
What's he been up to all this time?
"Are there any faster ways through?" Katara asked.
There came a peal of horns. Everyone looked up, and a lot of the other refugees started fidgeting, nervous. It was unmistakably a military alert.
The Joo Dee was unfazed. "Please remain calm," she said. "There is no war within the walls. Here we are safe." To Katara, "Without a passport, someone to vouch for you, or being a bender, I'm afraid there are no faster pathways into Ba Sing Se."
Katara and Zuko exchanged glances.
"We'll apply as non-bending doctors," she said regretfully.
Maybe something will come up. Or I could tutor Zuko, then if we both get into the Lower Ring, he can do his ninja thing and we find Aang ourselves? Three weeks wouldn't be too bad.
"Excellent," said the Joo Dee. "First, I need as many identifying details as possible. Your names, places of birth and residency, and I'll need to note physical characteristics."
More horns were blowing.
"What's wrong?" Katara asked Zuko, who was frowning.
"Those horn patterns don't make sense," he said. There was a window by the far wall, ten feet up; he went over, leapt and hauled himself up, and looked out and up. "What the –" He dropped down, sprinted back to Katara, and tackled her to the ground, throwing himself under to cushion her from the fall before rolling on top. A moment later, the office exploded.
There was a moment of disorientation while she rebooted. Zuko was atop her, there were dust and chunks of rubble over everything, and she could hear screaming in one ear but only a high-pitched whine in the other. The sky was clearly visible overhead, orange in the late afternoon, and she could see a squadron of gliders flying overhead.
Teo?
There came flashes of light under them.
That's not Teo.
They drifted out of sight, dropping more bombs. She couldn't see what they hit, but she could hear the blasts petering out into the distance, people yelling, masonry collapsing.
"Zuko, I can't move," she complained. He didn't react. "Uh, I mean, Guo. That was stupid. I don't think anyone heard. Are you listening? Guo, get off me!"
She slapped at the back of his head: her hand came away red. Her heart banged in her chest. She whipped out her water and set about healing it, which was difficult and awkward without being able to see what she was doing, but he was too heavy to move, she had no leverage, and her body wasn't working properly. She had to feel her way around. His skin was bloody, but the skull felt fine. She shut her eyes and poured chi into it, willing him to be okay. She'd got to him just a few seconds after he was hit, it couldn't be too bad …
"Nn." He stirred and lifted his head.
She touched his cheeks. "Hey. Can you hear me?"
"Yeah. Go back to healing. It feels really nice."
She did, and he lay his head on her shoulder. "So why do you always tell me to stop?"
"It'd be embarrassing if you knew how much I like it."
"… Oh."
Does it go against our code of medical ethics to ask him personal questions when he's too hurt to have any filters?
I don't know, pretty sure we skipped that class.
It'd be wrong, though, so we're not going to do it. … Right?
"Did you ever kiss Lee?" she asked.
You're a horrible person, you know that?
Relax, we're not going to tell anyone.
Oh well that's okay then.
"Lee me?"
"Lee from Gaoling. The Air Nomad?"
Seriously? We were just bombed, and this is your priority?
We can't help anyone else with him on top of us anyway.
"Oh, Ty Lee. She's just a friend."
"Oh?" she asked. A family name, like Toph? Maybe she's rich too. Not a very good Air Nomad then. "She's really pretty."
"Yeah."
"… Do you think I'm pretty?"
He slapped her hands away and pulled back into a kneel. "What? Do I think you're pretty?"
"You're supposed to keep concussion patients talking," she said smoothly. "It helps keep them awake."
"What did I say?" he asked, alarmed.
"That you secretly like Water Tribe cooking," she said.
He rubbed the back of his head. "Maybe I have had too many concussions," he said, worried.
"You're a jerk."
He shoved rubble off her legs and helped her stand. The office was a mess. The gliders had hit it with multiple bombs, blowing holes in the ceiling and taking out load-bearing walls, leading to more collapses. Zuko had knocked Katara under the wave of shrapnel and shielded her with his body. Just about everyone else had injuries or was partly buried.
Darn it! He saved us again! We're never going to work down our debt at this rate.
We healed him. That has to at least cancel out one-to-one, doesn't it?
Zuko set about digging people out of the rubble, while Katara found a barrel of water and set about healing people one by one, as well as her own deafened ear. After a minute, soldiers showed up, including an earthbender who took over from Zuko, and they set up a first aid station. Field medics showed up presently, although there weren't anywhere near enough. With the bender taking charge of rescuing people, Zuko came back over to Katara and stood guard behind her, his eyes panning over everyone.
"It is an offence to lie to a customs agent."
The Joo Dee was still smiling, even though she held a wad of cloth over her forehead and another to her thigh.
"Ah," Katara said.
Right, we pretended not to be benders.
I don't think we quite said we weren't, though, did we?
"Well, you see … the Fire Nation has been hunting waterbenders. I didn't want to make myself a target."
"There is no war in Ba Sing Se. Here, you are safe."
"Clearly," Zuko said.
"Penalties are likely to apply," the Joo Dee went on, in a stern tone that didn't match her smile. "However, right now, as I see you are a waterbender, I am pleased to announce that you and your husband have been given priority entrance rights to the Lower Ring! Your train is waiting."
"Uh," Katara said. "That's … great! We'll come as soon as we're done here."
"Your train is wAitINg," the Joo Dee repeated. A trail of blood trickled down her forehead and into her eye; she wiped it away and put the cloth back, her smile never slipping. "You must leave at once."
Run. Get out of here. Go.
It's fine. They're creepy, but they haven't actually threatened us.
There's wilful optimism, and then there's insanity! Run!
"These people are hurt," she said, trying and not entirely succeeding at keeping her voice steady. "I'm not leaving until they're okay." There were about sixty casualties left.
"Your train is wAitINg."
"I said I'm not leaving them!" she almost-shouted, emboldened by having an enemy to oppose.
Two guards wandered over. They both beamed.
"Your train is wAitINg," one said.
"You must LEavE at oNcE," said the other, with the exact same cadence. He was the same one who'd told Katara not to push in two hours earlier.
"Uh," Zuko said, looking around. There were more guards and clerks approaching. All of them had ear-to-ear grins. "Uki."
She followed his gaze, and her nerve broke.
"I'll come back as soon as I can," she told the patient she'd been working on, an older man with a hurt leg. He gave her a stoic shrug. She and Zuko let the Joo Dee swarm lead them away from the ruined customs office and onto an earth train.
Katara, who'd never seen a train before, was impressed in spite of herself, watching the earthbenders push it along; Zuko, who'd ridden on steam-powered trains enough times, just looked out the window at the evening sky, tension in his jawline. The clerk had followed them on, beaming, sitting close enough that they couldn't feasibly talk without her overhearing. The ensuing silence was incredibly awkward.
They went along a road, passing field after field of rice paddies, some still with workers going at it. Seeing this, Zuko got up and started stretching.
"Feeling stiff?" Katara asked.
"Uncle always says that being limber can be good for your health," Zuko said, putting a slight stress on the last four words. Katara took his meaning and started her own yoga exercises. As with so many things, there was overlap between her forms and his; but hers were always smooth and flowing, his sharp and violent.
Back at Agna Qel'a, he said his uncle told him to study waterbending. At the time, I thought he was looking for new special secret techniques, but, those stretches, they look … dangerous. Like he might injure himself.
Zuko was doing high kicks, his foot going well above his head, higher than it did in actual combat.
Firebenders seem too weak. I used to be terrified of them, but now that I know how to fight, they actually lose all the time, even with metal armour and artillery and being better-fed. They only ever seem to win by using steamers to concentrate forces and outnumber us.
The masters, people like Azula and Iroh, and Zuko when he's angry enough, are scary.
Yes, but below that level, they seem to lose one-to-one to any other soldiers, even with their better equipment. Remember Jet? A band of kids without even any bending took on dozens of soldiers, no problem. Is conventional firebending broken? And you have to 'fix' it somehow to become a master? Is that what his uncle meant when he said Zuko should study waterbenders?
"Hey," she said. "Guo. Try following along with me. This is the upward tree pose."
He blinked, then his eyes zigzagged her body. She fought back a blush, but he was just studying her conformation so he could mimic her. He picked it up quickly.
"What do you think?" she asked, moving into a standing forward bend. He followed along.
"Am I doing it wrong?" he asked. "It doesn't feel intense enough."
"It's not supposed to be intense. It's supposed to awaken your body. This sequence is called Saluting The Sun."
"The sun," Zuko repeated softly, frowning.
We worship the sun, they worship the moon. Is the name a coincidence?
"How old is this technique?" he asked.
"I don't know. Old."
Could it be that the Fire Nation conquered the Water Tribe at some point long ago, we forced them to learn our martial arts, then we forgot about them and they remembered?
He followed along awhile. But it didn't quite click.
"These are so slow. I feel like I can push myself faster."
"I told you, it's not supposed to be intense. I'm starting you with the basics because it's your first time. I'll show you more advanced ones later." She dropped to the floor of the train, into high plank. "Does your body feel awake?"
"As opposed to asleep?"
She rolled her eyes.
"Your fighting style always looks … jagged," she said. "Like you're fighting your body as much as the enemy." She dropped to low plank.
"It's fighting. It's supposed to be sharp. That's what makes it powerful."
"Just try it," she said. "Maybe it'll grow on you."
"This is because I showed you grappling that one time, isn't it?"
Sort of. You started my journey of learning waterbending. I owe you for that.
Wouldn't we do this anyway? His technique is broken. And after all, we are the Healer.
"I know you've been training for a long time," she said, "you know what you're doing. But it still looks wrong. Maybe you can incorporate bits of waterbending forms into your style and make it a bit more, I don't know …" She moved to the next form.
"Watery?" Zuko suggested, and if it had come from anyone but him she might have believed it wasn't sarcastic.
"Fluid," she said. "So yes."
They finished the salute and sat back down, next to Joo Dee, who'd watched them closely the entire time, beaming all the while. They tried to ignore her.
"What do you think?" Katara asked, trying not to keep glancing at Joo Dee.
"I don't know," Zuko said, trying not to keep glancing at Joo Dee. "It felt okay, but I don't understand why it worked like that."
The train ground through the inner wall to a station. Another Joo Dee approached them; the first Joo Dee nodded and walked off into a side building.
"Welcome to Ba Sing Se!" she said. "You are safe here. Due to the special nature of a waterbender's admission, we require additional screening protocols before you can be permitted any further. Do not worry, these are a mere formality and will be dispensed with soon."
"Okay," Katara said, and they followed her off into a side office.
At the station, there had been people bustling around, talking, and they could hear people from beyond the enclosing walls. The guide led them away from all that, to a quieter network of offices. The skin on the back of their necks prickled.
"We require a special examination," the guide told Katara. "It would be improper to allow your husband along."
Katara blinked. "What exactly do you think I'm going to do here? I'm here to deliver a message to the Avatar, not … I don't even know what you're implying."
"I apologise, but this is required by protocol," said the guide.
Zuko frowned, but said nothing while the guide led Katara into the next room and out of sight.
He paced, irritable. Presently, there came a clomp from behind him: four armoured soldiers.
"Hello," said a corporal, a tall, handsome young man. "Lee, isn't it?"
Oh dear.
Need a hand, Zuzu?
Push off. We can talk our way out of this. Just deny everything.
This should be good. Let me fix some popcorn.
"It's Guo, actually," Zuko said.
"Guo, huh?" said the soldier. "Where are you from, Guo?"
"Hua Ti Village. Little place near Omashu, used to be bigger before the war."
"Yeah? What direction? North, east, south?"
"East," Zuko improvised. "About twenty miles. We sometimes called it East Village to visitors."
"The road to Omashu good?"
"It's okay. Some of the farmers there used to sell to Omashu on market days."
Another soldier spoke up. "I've been to Omashu," he said. "There's no road east. There's just the swamp that way."
munch munch munch
Wait, we actually have popcorn in here? Why? How?!
"We buried the road," he said. "To hide the village from the Fire Nation."
"Search him," ordered the corporal.
The second went over and began patting Zuko down, who let him. He pulled out Zuko's very fat purse and tossed it to the corporal.
It's just money. We can always get more …
"That's a lot of gold for a villager," said the corporal.
"We looted a Fire Nation treasure convoy on the way over," Zuko said.
The second soldier kept searching and reached Zuko's bundle of passports.
Yeah, no.
Zuko seized his hand and twisted, forcing him to his knees with a grunt. The other three soldiers drew weapons: twin swords, a spear, a club.
"You're under arrest," the corporal said, pointing with one sword. "Let him go."
"Where's Uki?" Zuko asked.
"She's fine. She'll be better than fine once you're gone. I said, let, him, go."
"You think you know what I am," Zuko said, "but I don't think you have any idea of who I am."
Halfway across the building, Katara frowned. "What is this exam?"
"We need to see a special doctor," the guide smiled.
"Where is he?"
"He will be along shortly."
"Why'd we have to be split up if the doctor isn't even here yet?" Katara asked.
"The protocol requires that you be examined," the guide said. "It would be improper to have a man present."
"There's nothing improper about waiting with my friend," Katara said. She could feel her heart beating in her chest.
"I am sorry, but it is impossible –"
"I'm going back to him until this doctor arrives," she said.
"Protocol demands –" the guide began, and she caught Katara's wrist. Katara twisted free, the move Zuko had taught her so long ago. The guide caught her bicep, twisted it round roughly, and shoved her face-first against a wall.
Katara whoofed out her lungful of air, then went into fight or flight mode: one-handed, she bent a stream out of her waterskin and smacked it into the guide, knocking her down. Katara turned and ran for it.
There came three dull thuds in rapid succession, a shout of "Don't let him get –!", and a nasty crack. Katara skidded to a stop; a moment later, Zuko was tossed through a wall, spraying shards of masonry. He got up, dusting a bootprint off his chest, not particularly concerned by the impact.
Two of the soldiers were still on their feet, two more lying crumpled on the ground, and the guide was just behind Katara. Katara water-whipped the soldiers, freezing them to the walls, while Zuko intercepted the guide, blocked her jab-cross combo, and got her on the ground in a wrist lock.
"I left you alone for five minutes," said Katara.
"This time was not my fault," he whined.
"Protocol requires that you be thoroughly examined," the guide said cheerfully; he kicked her in the solar plexus, and she sucked for air.
"Can you not," Katara began, then looked the soldiers over again and did a double-take. "Jet?! What are you doing here?"
"Same thing I've always been doing, Katara," said Corporal Jet, tugging at the mass of ice with which she'd frozen his hands to the wall. "Fighting the Fire Nation. You shouldn't have turned traitor."
Katara gave Zuko a stern look.
"I don't know how he jumped to that conclusion," he said. "I'm just a martial artist, the Earth Kingdom has those too." He walked over and took his purse back.
"You've been one for a while, haven't you," Jet taunted her. "You were there when this ashmaker assaulted and maimed General Fong, weren't you?"
See? You are why we can't have nice things!
Cope and seethe, Zuzu. munch munch
"That's not how I remember it," Katara said, her expression darkening.
"Do I know him?" Zuko asked, peering at Jet.
"No," she said, "I ran into him before you joined us. He was a jerk then, too."
"I was a freedom fighter," Jet said proudly.
"Bravely attacking unarmed old men," Katara said, "and trying to flood innocent Earth Kingdom villages without evacuating them."
"'Jerk' is what you call me when I don't say please or thank you," Zuko said. "The word you want for someone who attacks civilians is 'terrorist'. Say it with me, teh_?"
"Like it was terrorism when the Fire Nation burned my village?" Jet shot back.
Reprisals are collective punishment, not terrorism. Get it straight.
"Whatever the Fire Nation did didn't excuse you doing the same!" Katara snapped back.
"Why are you arguing with a terrorist?" Zuko asked. "Who cares what he thinks, he's either delusional or a liar. Probably both."
"She and I used to have a thing," Jet said.
A violent hair-trigger-temper pretty boy who blames the Fire Nation for everything? Whatever did you have in common.
"That was before I realised you'd sooner join up with the Fire Nation than fight them. You traitor. Your mother would be –"
Zuko socked him, hard, then went back and touched Katara's arm, seeing tendons flexing under her skin.
"… Thanks," she said, slowly relaxing. To the other frozen soldier, "Why are you here?"
"You and your husband are suspected of subversive activities," the soldier said, smiling. "You must surrender yourselves to the authorities for questioning."
Zuko walked over and put him in a sleep hold.
Katara shook her head. "Let's take stock," she said. "We're trapped inside the city, which is being sieged and bombed from the air. We're on the run from the secret police, who have apparently brainwashed half the entire population, men and women, and they're now expert martial artists. They know we're here, what we look like, what we can do, and they can probably guess exactly where we're going. Have I missed anything?"
"We're also lost," Zuko said. "We have no idea about the city layout or where the Avatar is."
They considered this.
"Blue Spirit style, then?" Katara asked, starting to smile.
These are always fun.
"Blue Spirit style," he said, smiling back.
I know, right?
Zuko relieved Jet of his armour and swords, and he wiped off his makeup, which was starting to itch. Katara swapped her peasant clothing for the female Joo Dee's nicer dress. They went back out to the train station. Yet another Joo Dee smiled at them; Zuko gave her a glance, then ignored her and strode out and to the door the refugees had gone through, Katara scurrying along behind him.
It opened into a dirty market street, full of obvious refugees and peasants, carrying baskets of goods or hawking cheap food at the night market. There were lampposts spaced too far apart, islands of light in a sea of darkness. Zuko pushed through, doing his best to look as though he'd been there a thousand times, and people mostly got out of his way, while Katara scurried along in his wake, an idiot civilian who needed help with something simple.
"Hey!" she said. Zuko stopped as she buttonholed a dark-skinned man. "You're Water Tribe, aren't you?"
"Yeah," he said, sizing her up. He was maybe in his thirties, handsome, but run-down. "Are you new around here? If you need somewhere to stay, I'm part of a group that's renting an apartment building a couple blocks away. It's crowded, but we can squeeze another one in."
"Thanks, but we're actually looking for the Avatar," she said. "We were travelling with him."
The man blinked. "You're Katara, aren't you?" he asked. "The girl waterbender from the South. I'm Sivullik of the Kusugak clan."
"Why are Northern Water Tribe refugees here? I thought the North Pole was still safe?"
He smiled wryly. "The North Pole is a war zone right now," he said. "It's been chaos ever since the battle."
"How did the Fire Nation do that? We destroyed their fleet."
"Not the Fire Nation, the Kilabuk clan and some idiots from the Saila and Idlout clans." She blinked: she hadn't paid any attention at all to internal politics. "The Putuguk lost too many men, and after whatever happened to Princess Yue, the other tribes made a power play. It's a full-on civil war."
"Yue?! What happened to her?"
"I don't know. The rumours were crazy. She'd been killed, or kidnapped, or defected to the Fire Nation, or something about the Moon Spirit. All I know for sure is, she was gone. And then there was whatever happened with that fire witch, and Hahn was missing too. After the battle, everyone important was gone, I don't know how many were just lost or had run away, a bunch of people said it was the Avatar's fault and that we needed different leadership, and then everyone went insane. I just wanted to get my family out, I didn't stay long enough to find out what really happened."
Katara needed a moment to process this.
Zuko, who didn't care, said, "We're looking for the Avatar. Do you know how to find him?"
"He's in the Upper Ring. You'd have to go through the Middle Ring, which is down that way, take a right, and keep going straight for a couple miles. I don't know the way after that. But, they don't let Water Tribe in there, much less the Upper Ring. And even once you get in there, I hear you need an invitation to see him. He came out to the Lower Ring a couple times, but I never saw him. Ba Sing Se is a really big place."
"We'll make our own invitation," Katara said.
"Uh. These guys don't mess around. There is no war in Ba Sing Se, and they intend to keep it that way."
"We don't mess around either," Zuko said.
"I guess if you were travelling with the Avatar, maybe you have a chance. If you see any more of us, though, maybe don't mention you were with the Avatar. A lot of us blame him."
Katara frowned but nodded. "We'll fix things," she promised. "We just have to find him first."
"Good luck."
They left him and headed along a busy street. As they went, Zuko slowed, looking uneasy.
Katara pulled level with him. "Is there a problem?"
"Don't look, but we're being followed. Two men, moving on rooftops. We've been made."
"I don't think they'll do anything while we're in a crowd. The Joo Dees seemed to care a lot about public order."
"Right," he said.
The street led to huge wall with a big gate, with a dozen soldiers lounging in front of it. Zuko pulled Katara down a dark side alley.
"We're not trying to bluff our way through?"
"They look bored," he said. "Bored soldiers pick fights, especially with minorities. I have a better idea. But once we get through, we still have to get into the Upper Ring. Do you know anything about it?"
"How would I?"
He shrugged. "You sometimes have ideas. In a minute, I'm going to get you a disguise, we need to hide your skin. I don't have a plan for the Middle or Upper Rings, so we'll just have to improvise."
"I do actually have a couple of ideas," she said. "We don't have to make it all the way to Aang. If we just get close and find a canal, I can use big waterbending. If Water Tribesfolk aren't normally allowed that far, he'll know it has to be me."
"Big waterbending?"
"You'll know it when you see it. What's this about a disguise?"
He jumped backward, and a pair of stone gauntlets slammed into the ground where he'd been standing. Katara bent water at two Dai Li clinging to the walls above them, smacking them down and to the ground, hard.
"I take it back," she said, as they relieved the smaller man of his changshan and hat. It was still a bit big for her, but given the style, it didn't really matter. It looked okay, from a distance, and it hid her dark skin. "You have plans other than kidnapping and rice. You also undress men."
He turned pink. "I like girls," he said, almost yelled.
Coulda fooled me.
"To steal their clothes," she said airily. "What did you think I meant?"
"You should talk, you klepto. Stolen any scrolls lately?" He crouched.
She climbed onto his back. "I prefer to call it high-risk trading. Yip yip."
He scaled the building beside them, a four-storey apartment block; this conveniently put it most of the way up to the Middle Ring wall. He took a run-up, jumped, and caught the lip of the wall; he hauled himself up, and looked out over the Middle Ring. It was similar to the Outer Ring, a long built-up area, but notably nicer: cleaner, more spacious dwellings, some trees, and signs for more upmarket shops, things like doctors and artists.
"Zuko," Katara said, still on his back. "Company."
He glanced over his shoulder: two more Dai Li Naruto-running across rooftops toward them. Another pair approached from the left, and another from the right.
He turned and jumped off the wall onto the nearest rooftop. The impact almost sent her flying; she wrapped all four limbs round him in a death grip. He didn't stop, in fact he was still accelerating, hopping from one roof to the next.
She looked around. More men were converging, using earthbending to create little ramps and bridges or push themselves a bit further. Between that and her weight slowing Zuko, the Dai Li were gaining, fast.
"Down!" she hissed into Zuko's ear.
One might have thought he just missed the next jump; but it was a controlled fall and wall jump to land on the street floor. He skidded at the last moment and fell backward onto Katara.
Oof. "Can you get off me?"
She's soft. "Sorry."
Shadows fell over them.
"Go!"
She grabbed his hand, and they ran, out of the alley he'd dropped into, out into a street with a bridge over a canal, and into the canal. She bent the water apart and over them.
They looked around. It was well past sunset; there were more lampposts in the Middle Ring, still not many, and between that and the water, it was very dark. There was a scummy stone canal floor and walls. The water level was low enough that they had to crouch to hide beneath the surface.
Zuko wasted no time: he pulled Katara along the canal at a cross between a waddle and a jog, skidding on slime all the while, before the Dai Li could bend walls and hem them in. They made a few hundred feet of distance, then came up under a stone bridge.
He held up a hand for silence. He hauled himself to the underside of the bridge, Katara couldn't see how, and tapped at it, feeling how the stone vibrated. Katara parted the waters so he wouldn't splash when he dropped back down. He held up two fingers, pointed at two spots overhead, and made a sharp chopping motion. She nodded and swept waves up, over the bridge, and into ice.
She and Zuko climbed out of the canal onto the road. Other than the two now-frozen agents who'd been watching the bridge, they could see more Dai Li fanning out along the waterway. She thawed the men, Zuko put them into the recovery position, they found an alleyway, Katara dried herself and Zuko, they crossed to another street, Zuko checked the stars to orient himself, and they set off again.
The Middle Ring was much sparser than the Lower Ring, although maybe that was partly just that it was getting late in the evening. There was less a crush of people, more just the occasional passerby. After a block, they ducked into a side street, then another, and Zuko ferried Katara over a cul-de-sac wall.
"I've been wondering something awhile," she said, keeping her voice low. "Aang beat you, but you beat Suki, and she beat Aang." Zuko blinked, surprised. "She sneaked up on him, so maybe that doesn't count. But you also beat Jet, who also beat Aang. And maybe Aang wasn't going all-out when he fought them, but still. You weren't ever really trying back when you fought Aang, were you?"
"Sort of," he said. "I was trying my hardest, but I had to take him alive and unharmed. Firebending isn't made for that, it's all power moves. There's a narrow line between pulling attacks so hard they're easy to dodge, and not pulling them enough and causing an injury."
"Try again. The Fire Lord isn't going to complain about prisoners being treated rough."
"Okay, fine. He's a kid, I'm not going to go all-out and risk hurting him. I know you thought I was evil, but I always had standards."
"You went pretty hard against Toph, in the desert."
He fidgeted. "I was in a bad headspace then."
After an hour of walking, they came to another large wall, segregating the Middle and Upper Rings. They turned down a side alley.
"That's even more guards than before," Katara said, keeping her voice down. "And I saw some on top, too. They must guess we're heading for Aang."
"I don't think we can make it past that many men," Zuko replied. "Let's look for another way past."
They walked parallel to the wall, keeping to shadows. It was convenient that people were scared of the Dai Li: the odd drunk spotted them, but just hurried about their business.
"There," she said. "Can you get through that?"
"Breaking metal is loud, but yes."
They'd come to another canal, this one flowing out of a heavy steel grate in the Upper Ring wall. She parted the water and they hopped in. He squared off against the grate, bounced on the balls of his feet, and –
"Hold on," she said. She bent layers of water curtains around the grate. Zuko gave her a questioning look. "Soundproofing. It works better than you'd think."
He shrugged, turned back to the grate, focused his chi, and axe kicked it; it tore off its heavy steel bolts and splashed into the canal. Katara was right, the sound was oddly muted.
They crept along the canal, went a block past the wall, and climbed out. It was better again than the Middle Ring: wide, spacious roads, lots of manicured trees, everything very clean, mansions, frequent lampposts, bright murals. As nice as the streets were, they were practically empty, with just a few men and women out, usually alone, occasionally in pairs, never in larger groups.
A problem soon presented itself: while it had been easy enough to find the city-within-a-city that was the Middle Ring, or the Upper Ring, they were now looking for a single house, with no idea of where it was or what it looked like.
"Or if they're even staying at a house," Katara pointed out, "they could be in the palace, or they might be spending the night with someone else. They might not even be in the Upper Ring."
"We'll have to go door to door and search every single building," Zuko said.
"That'll take too long. The Dai Li are looking for us too."
"We don't have a choice, it's the only way. Even if it takes days, weeks, months –"
A trapdoor opened itself in the road, and out walked a familiar figure.
"Holy mantis bonobos," Toph said, "is that you?"
"Toph?!" Katara said.
Sokka came up from behind her. His face went from alert through astonished to delighted.
"Katara!" He stepped forward and swept her up to a hug.
Zuko and Toph stood on the sidelines.
"Sup," she said.
He considered this.
"Sup," he replied.
"Sokka! What are you doing out here –"
"We're on a raid, we think there's something in the water –"
"Hey," Toph said, "uh, guys, fun police, incoming."
Sokka pulled back from Katara, his face falling. "Shoot, assembly." He moved toward the trapdoor. "We've got to –" A stone plug slammed into place, startling him backward.
Six figures had sprung up out of nowhere, four women and two men. Toph stomped, bending an earth platform up and sending one of the men flying; the other five rushed them. Katara bent a stream of water to whip one back and down; Zuko and Sokka moved forward to engage the other four.
"It is against –" one woman began, beaming, jab-crossing at Zuko; he ducked down and to the side, then flipped her over his shoulder.
"– regulations to assemble –" said the other man, and Sokka whacked him in the gut with his club.
"– in groups of three or –" said another woman, aiming a kick at Zuko's thigh; he blocked with his shin, then punched her in the face.
"– more after dark," said the last woman, and she grabbed Sokka's arm and stepped around, trying to twist him into an arm lock; Toph kicked out her footing, and she stumbled and fell.
Sokka shoved her away. "Run!"
All six Joo Dees were getting back to their feet. He glanced around and set off down the road.
Maybe two thirds of the passers-by were beelining for them, the rest running away. Toph took the lead, and every slap of her feet on the pavement raised another earth platform or a wall, blocking the Joo Dees or catapulting them into the air and away. Sokka followed right behind her, with Zuko and Katara just behind him.
"What's going on?!" Katara asked Sokka, as a Joo Dee got past their defences and tackled Zuko; he rolled, got his feet up under her stomach, and kicked her off and into a thicket of bushes at the edge of the road.
"Groups of two only. We're almost there!" He brought his hands up and bellowed. "AANG!"
The door to a house just up ahead opened. Aang poked his head out quizzically and saw them running forward and the horde of Joo Dees charging at them. Without missing a beat, he stepped forward and swept a gust out to one side, sweeping half a dozen Joo Dees away. Toph kicked up a wall, blocking the other side. Everyone sprinted through the front door, and Suki slammed it and dropped a heavy wooden bar down. There was a toccata of bangs from the other side.
"TherE Is nO WAr in ba SiNG sE," chorused eight voices from outside. Then there was quiet.
Everyone panted for breath. Then Sokka and Aang swept Katara into a crushing hug.
"You're back!"
"I can't believe it!"
They were in the living room of a very nice house, all expensive carpets and tapestries and artisanally crafted furniture made from imported woods. The windows had all been boarded up from inside.
"I've missed you both so much," she said. "What did we miss?"
Sokka broke the hug. "This might take a while …"
AN: And with this 10k-word epic in which Zuko and Katara walk into a city, we begin the TINWIBSS arc. As there is no war here, there definitely won't be any fight scenes until they leave, it'll all be about the city's rich cultural tradition and the romantic comedy plotline. Municipal regulations require likes and comments.