Fic Post - Listen to the Earth - Book Two: Chapters 6-8/13

[damkianna]

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Navigation: Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight

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Chapter Six: The Champion of Gaoling

Kishen had been right: she reached Phnan Chnang a day later than she'd meant to, thanks to a sudden rain and a washed-out road, and it was no problem at all. The ships were still being loaded; when she reached the bridge, Kishen had her orders, still in the roll with the seal unbroken. Soldiers, to be taken to the western coast of the Earth Kingdoms, a bit to the south. Apparently the troops attempting to break the siege of New Ozai required reinforcements. And with soldiers to transport came supplies, too: clothes and weapons, in addition to the usual hefty barrels of drinking water and provisions.

Honestly, she felt a little insulted. Even without her there to open the orders and officially accept, Kishen had taken several officers' word for the truth of it and allowed the process to begin - and he was waiting on deck when she stepped back out of the bridge, overseeing the bustle with calm authority like her presence or absence made no difference whatsoever.

He turned to glance at her over his shoulder when she paused, and something of her thoughts must have shown on her face, because the corner of his mouth quirked very slightly. "I would have sent someone in a day or two, sir," he said, "to make sure you weren't dead."

"The mark of a truly exemplary officer," Yin said dryly.

Kishen let his smile get a little wider. "How was it, sir?" he said.

Yin put a hand to the wall of the bridge, and looked away. A fair enough question, but she had no idea what a fully truthful answer might be, which made it somewhat harder to compose a lie.

"Sir?" Kishen said.

"My little brother is too tall," Yin said at last, letting a little wryness color her voice. "But it was good to see my mother. I had missed her cooking." Even more than she had realized at first. Ship food was mainland food, and usually from the central region; even without homesickness for seasoning, there was nothing quite like the taste of prahok.

She glanced at Kishen, and this time he was the one looking away - absently, though, more like his gaze had drifted into the middle distance than because he was avoiding her eyes.

"What about you?" she said, a little awkwardly, because she had only just realized that she didn't know.

He shrugged. "My mother is a terrible cook," he said. "And yet I miss hers, too."

Yin let her lips twitch to acknowledge the humor in it; but that wasn't quite what she had meant to ask. "And how long will it be," she tried, "until you visit her again?"

He looked over the rail at the water, and the arms of the harbor beyond, the ocean flat and glittering in the sun. "A good while, I should think," he said. "My parents' families are from the south; but my great-great-grandparents were some of the first in the colonies." He smiled at her, but it was odd, flat and humorless. "My great-grandparents were born there, and my grandparents; my mother has never seen the mainland with her own eyes." He hesitated for a moment. "This is the closest I have come to it myself."

Yin blinked. Of course she had heard of such families; it had become increasingly common, as the war persisted through decades, for colonial citizens to live and die without ever setting foot in the homeland. But she had never actually met anyone who had never been back, not until now - and it must have been unspeakably hard for him, to have the place he called home be part of the lands they warred against. "I hope you have the chance to visit the mainland someday," she said, "if you wish it."

He smiled again, and this time it was not flat, only a little rueful. "If only I could tell whether I wished it or not, I think many things in my life would be simpler."

Yin thought of the district gates in Phnan Chnang, of the new Fire Fountain City and her little sister's bitter voice, and knew exactly what he meant.

"Sir?" someone said behind them.

Yin turned; it was Chan Dan, one of her new squadron commanders. A quiet man, from the mainland south, and on the rare occasions he did open his mouth, he was always scrupulously polite.

"Forgive me for interrupting," he said, bowing. "They tell us they are nearly finished, and we should be able to launch tomorrow morning."

"Thank you, Commander," Yin said, and looked out over the rail. A simple enough mission, delivering men and supplies; but given the way things had fallen out during her last simple mission, she suspected it wasn't going to stay that way.

***

Wan Liu brushed the last of the dirt off the stone, and then sighed and straightened up, grimacing at the creak in her back.

Perhaps her standards for cleanliness were a bit too high. She only wanted the path clear and neat; no doubt the boy had done his best, but some people were simply not cut out to keep house well.

She would have fed him anyway, of course, for he had been far too thin - but it had not hurt that his uncle had been excellent with the pig chickens. They were quite hard to catch, but Mushi had not grown impatient, and once they were caught, he had not flinched from their muddy feet or sharp beaks.

Their manners had been excellent also; even the boy, who had spoken barely at all, had eaten with care and restraint. Monks, perhaps, or a traveling sage with his own nephew for apprentice. Surely nothing dramatic, Wan Liu thought, which was perhaps why the mongoose dragons drew even with her door at precisely that moment.

Mongoose dragons were not a wholly uncommon sight, but they were expensive creatures to care for, and not everyday beasts of burden. Yet the girl who sat astride the first, cloaked and hooded, looked eminently comfortable there, as if she had ridden one many times before. "And you," she said, "have you seen an old man and a boy?"

Evidently she had been asking around. Wan Liu leaned her broom against her shoulder, and considered. "You have misplaced some?" she said.

The girl looked angry for a moment; but the boy who had drawn up beside her touched her elbow, and said, "Please, honored mistress: my friend's brother and uncle, wrongly exiled for crimes they did not commit."

The girl drew a breath, as though to calm herself, and then dipped her head the barest distance in apology. "I hope you will forgive my temper," she said. "I have been looking for them for a very long time, to tell them they may come home. I've missed them so much - my impatience has gotten the better of me."

One of the girls behind her coughed abruptly, covering her face with her hand for a long moment; but the girl in front did not so much as twitch, her eyes still fixed to Wan Liu's face.

Good of her, to search for so long; no wonder their manners had been refined, if they had fallen from some higher position in disgrace. Wan Liu smiled. "Then you will be glad to hear they are well," she said. "They were here not more than a few days ago; they assisted me, and slept here for the night."

The girl in front smiled, though there was rather more amusement than relief in it, to Wan Liu's mind. "And which way did they go?"

"They left to the south," Wan Liu said, pointing down the road, "though I cannot say where they have gone since."

She meant to say more, but paused; the girl was still smiling, but there was something different about it, some sharp cool edge that had not been there before. "They stayed here, you said?" The girl tapped a finger against her mongoose dragon's reins thoughtfully. "You sheltered them."

The answer was yes; but Wan Liu, looking at the girl's eyes, abruptly did not want to say it. She was the only one with her hood up, but she was not the only one cloaked - they all were, the cloaks drawn closed across their chests even though the day was warm. The front, where the Fire Nation pressed in toward the mountains, was to the north, and had been as long as Wan Liu could remember; but that did not excuse her lack of caution.

She cursed aloud, dropped the broom, and ran. The girl took her time, which was generosity Wan Liu would not have expected from a Firebender: she let Wan Liu reach the door before she sent a blast of fire toward the roof, and Wan Liu had plenty of time to wake Qingying with a shout and hurry the children to the back door.

***

Katara gazed down the avenue and grinned.

Taneko definitely hadn't led them astray: one side of the street was taken up for quite a way with the grounds of an Earthbending school, and Katara was fairly certain she could see a sign for another in the distance. There were flyers on every wall advertising Earthbending competitions in the lower districts; there was a man moving four huge sacks of rice by bending the large stone tile they were stacked on, and a woman grinding flour, moving the massive grinding stone with easy flicks of her fingers.

"Oh, you are definitely going to find a teacher here," Sokka said. "Look at that - she's not even moving her arms!"

"Well, it can't be just anybody," Katara said. "King Bumi said I should look for somebody who waited and listened, like he did-"

"Fair enough," Suki said, "but I think if you're hoping to find another king in a metal box with crazy hair, you might be out of luck."

Yue giggled; Katara shot them both a flat look.

"She only means you should not close your mind," Yue said, a little apologetic.

"Yeah - maybe he meant that you should wait and listen, and not ignore people just because you think they don't wait and listen, because maybe they do and you don't know it because you aren't waiting and listening." Sokka nodded knowingly.

"... Thanks, Sokka, that was really helpful," Aang murmured at her shoulder, and Katara gave in and let herself laugh. Maybe things were going to go wrong again - almost definitely, things were going to go wrong again. But right now, they were where they were supposed to be, and the tense nervous part of Katara that always felt a step behind had gone quiet. They were in a city full of Earthbenders and it was still almost eight months until Roku's deadline - maybe not enough time to do it right, but enough time to at least try.

"Okay," Katara said. "Let's start with this one."

*

Okay, so she had glared a little, but Suki and Yue probably had been right: she couldn't afford to ignore any options just because they didn't fit Bumi's description immediately. But except for about thirty seconds at the beginning, Master Yu had shown no ability to listen at all, let alone to the earth.

"Somehow I don't think this is the guy," Aang said doubtfully, and Katara waited until Master Yu glanced away to wrinkle her nose in agreement.

Their Earth Kingdom disguises had been getting a lot of wear lately, and Katara had figured it would be easier to make her case for being the Avatar if she looked completely Water Tribe again - after all, what Waterbender would be trying to find an Earthbending teacher, except the Avatar?

But, as it turned out, she hadn't really needed to. During the time they'd been in the north, the rumors about the Avatar had apparently spread like wildfire, despite the Fire Nation's efforts - and so had some of the posters of her from the northwest Earth Kingdoms. She still wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing; but either way, Master Yu had shown no surprise when she had told him who she was. He had only peered at her for a moment and then clapped his hands together and smiled.

And he hadn't stopped talking since.

"-and as you can see, all the training rooms are very well-equipped - the Avatar, of course, will have her own, we would never make so august a personage train in a class with just any ordinary students-"

"Of course," Yue interrupted suddenly; evidently, Katara thought, she was tired of him, too, though her tone was surprisingly cold. And it was peculiar - Yue was shorter than Master Yu, but she somehow managed to look abruptly as though she were not. "We would expect nothing less."

Katara blinked.

"However," Yue continued in the same tone, "surely you see that the Avatar requires only the best. Your school is quite impressive, Master Yu; but only a fool declares the first plum on the bough the best of the season."

"I - yes, quite so, quite so," Master Yu said hurriedly. He looked nearly as off-balance as Katara felt.

Yue leaned toward him a little, as though to speak in confidence, but her voice wasn't actually low enough that Katara couldn't hear. "And of course the Avatar cannot appear partial, no matter what the obvious truth of a situation may be; she must seem to consider every option, even when she may have already chosen a course of action."

This seemed to restore Master Yu's equilibrium, and he smiled like Yue had imparted a delicate secret. "Of course - balance in all things," he said, and bowed. "I hope you find our noble city to your liking, Avatar; and we are honored by your ... consideration." He didn't actually wink at Katara, but she wouldn't have been particularly surprised if he had.

She tried to figure out what to say - or, rather, what the Avatar Yue had just painted her as would say - and settled for an imperious nod. "A pleasure, Master Yu," she said, voice as close to Yue's haughty tone as she could manage, and then she did her best to sweep out the door and down the hall.

*

The second the gate of Master Yu's Academy had closed behind them, Sokka burst out laughing, and Suki had to clutch his sleeve to keep her balance as she chuckled. "That was priceless," she said to Yue, wiping a little at her eyes. "Did you see his face?"

Yue grinned. "I only did as he expected," she said, a little bashful. "In my father's halls, I was often shown the value of meeting such expectations. People rarely look further."

"I'm just glad we got out of there," Aang said, and Katara grinned at him. "I thought he was never going to stop."

"Well-equipped," Sokka said, between gasps for breath. "Well-equipped! Yeah, with rocks."

"Yeah," Katara agreed, "somehow I don't think he was the one. But it sounds like there's plenty to choose from."

"Let's hope so," Suki said, "and let's hope most of them aren't like that guy. Okay, Avatar," and her tone was so much like Master Yu's that Katara stuck out her tongue. "Which way next?"

***

Honestly, Enyu didn't much mind being sent into town to arrange the young mistress's lessons; it was an easy task, no scrubbing yourself into hand cramps or straining your back with heavy lifting, and if she walked perhaps a little more slowly than she had to, well, there was no way for anyone back at the mansion to know it.

And it was a pleasant day for a walk, sweet and sunny. Even the dusty streets of the city center weren't so bad, with a southern breeze off the sea, and Enyu was almost sorry to reach the side door of the Academy.

Weng was waiting for her today, the door wide open to let in the wind, and he grinned, more widely the further she came up the street. Sometimes she resented him a little for having such a stupidly nice smile. It was unfair.

"Enyu," he said, rising so that he could bow properly.

"Master Weng," she said, bowing back, and he laughed.

"I told you to stop calling me that," he said.

Enyu grinned involuntarily, and then composed herself. "It is the proper address for a teacher of such stature," she said, demure.

Weng made a face. "Yes, but it also makes me sound incredibly old."

Enyu laughed. "So," she said, "how is Master Yu today? Will he be in a fine mood if the young mistress should have her lessons tomorrow?"

Usually, the answer was a roll of the eyes, or another ridiculous face; but this time, Weng actually paused to look thoughtful. "He will, I think," he said, and then grinned when she raised an eyebrow. "Oh," he said, "so you haven't heard, then?"

"Heard what?"

"Why, the Avatar herself graced Master Yu with her patronage!" Weng tilted a hand theatrically to indicate the open door behind him, and the hallway beyond. "She walked these very halls with her own two feet not an hour ago. Or it looked like her, at least - and she was dressed like Water Tribe. I didn't see her bend myself, but I'd believe it. Apparently she's searching for an Earthbending teacher; she must be planning to stay in the city for a while."

Enyu raised her eyebrows. Perhaps she would walk a little more quickly on her way back; the master was going to want to hear this.

***

There were no more masters like Yu, for which Katara was extremely grateful; but even so, none of them seemed quite right. Mistress Shao was a pleasant woman with a kindly face who taught her students by hurling rocks at their faces until they learned to catch them out of self-defense; Mistress Ongdai seemed to think that shouting at the top of her considerable lungs was the best way to pass on instructions; and Master Mu Tao apparently made his classes meditate for hours. Sitting and staring intently at a rock might have been waiting, but it was waiting without any sign of the moment of best action Bumi had mentioned. Not quite what Katara was supposed to be looking for.

They took a break at midday, dusty and a little dispirited, for grilled rice balls and hot dumplings from a vendor in the street. Katara was so preoccupied that she might easily have walked right by; but then Sokka groaned and said, "Whatever that smell is coming from, I need to eat it," and she suddenly realized how hungry she was.

As always when the tangible members of the group stopped to eat, Aang was stuck drifting around aimlessly, which was why he spotted the quartet of guards approaching before anybody else.

"Wonder where they're headed," he said, and Katara turned her head. Evidently somewhere important - they were dressed in fine uniforms, better quality than most you saw on city guards, and there was a certain imperious tilt to their heads.

They drew closer, slowing as they did, and then they came to a stop.

Katara stared at them, halfway through biting into the side of a dumpling. ... Was she in their way?

She mumbled something that was meant to be "Excuse me" around the side of the dumpling, and backed up a little - they were sort of in the street, although they certainly weren't blocking the whole thing.

The guards did not proceed.

Katara swallowed the bite and lowered her dumpling. "Can I help you?" she said uncertainly.

The nearest guard eyed the dumpling with obvious disapproval. "Honored Avatar," he said, sounding somewhat dubious.

"Oh - um, yes. Yes, that's me," Katara said. If Yangchen were here, Katara thought, she would laugh. Or maybe cry.

The guard's expression didn't change - his eyebrows didn't so much as twitch - but he still managed to convey that it was a strain to refrain from comment. "The Bei Fong family wishes to extend an invitation for you to lodge at their estate for the duration of your stay in Gaoling; theirs is a humble home, and they do not deserve the honor, but if there is the slightest chance they can assist the Avatar, they are grateful for it."

"Um," Katara said. She glanced over her shoulder.

Suki tipped her shoulders, ever so slightly; clearly she didn't see any danger in the offer. Yue looked willing to do whatever Katara decided, and Sokka was mouthing "TAKE IT" over and over.

Well, Katara thought, it couldn't hurt to have something to sleep on other than dirt; and perhaps the Bei Fongs would be able to tell them where to look for the best Earthbenders in the city. "That's - very kind?" she said. "We - I - I mean, my friends can come, too?"

"The Bei Fongs will find the space somehow," the guard said, very flatly.

"Then we'd be glad to accept," Katara said.

*

She understood why the guard's tone had been so dry when they reached the Bei Fong home - "estate" had definitely been a better choice of description than "humble home".

It lay a fair distance from the bustling main streets of Gaoling, in a pleasant, grassy space beside a small river; the wall around it was tall for somebody's house, taller than anything they'd seen in the noble district of Hansing, and the gate was pretty immense.

It also happened to be topped with a beautifully carved flying boar, clouds curling away to the sides as though blown there by its wings.

"We are in the right place," Aang said, hushed even though no one else could hear him. "Look at that, it's just like the one that girl in the swamp had with her."

Katara glanced at the guards and decided it might be best not to say anything aloud; but she elbowed Yue, who was nearest, and glanced pointedly up at the boar, and Yue's eyes widened gratifyingly.

The Bei Fong estate had multiple buildings - Katara would have guessed that it were a village if she hadn't been told otherwise. "Your hosts are sadly unable to attend you immediately," the guard said, leading them toward one of the multiple guest houses, "but they hope you will join them for supper this evening." He gave Katara's hair and shirt a dubious look. "You may wish to use the time to - freshen up, Avatar."

"Wow, thanks," Sokka said, as soon as the door had slid shut behind them. "What a totally gracious guy."

"It is a very fine house," Yue said diplomatically. "Very generous. And it would not precisely be a burden to be clean."

"I know I still smell like swamp," Suki said frankly. "Which I'm guessing isn't a perfume that's going to go over well at the Bei Fong family's supper table."

"No," Katara agreed, "probably not."

***

Ostrich horses were somewhat less rideable in the forest; Zuko had been the one to discover it, to his considerable chagrin, and now he and Uncle were walking, leading their steeds behind them, and there was a lingering red mark on Zuko's forehead.

Stupid trees.

At least Uncle had learned his lesson and stopped trying to make tea from everything with leaves. Song's mother had given him a little packet of hers, but he was using it sparingly, trying to make it last.

Zuko snorted at the ridiculousness of it, leading his ostrich horse around a tree, and then paused; Uncle was ahead of him, and had chosen to descend into what looked like an old streambed. The slope was a little steep, but - Zuko eyed it. It probably wouldn't be so bad.

And it wasn't, until the ground suddenly slid out from under him about halfway down. His only consolation was that he could hear Uncle shout in surprise at the same moment he began to fall. At least it wasn't just him this time.

He didn't realize that it was a trap until it was almost over; the dirt seemed to be done shifting, his ostrich horse had kicked in panic but only managed to hit him in the shoulder, and he was halfway to his feet when the ground suddenly burst into motion again.

This time, though, it was not any average shifting of earth: crude walls of stone broke upward from the ground around them, neatly closing him, Uncle, and two frightened ostrich horses into a little square of rock. There was not enough space inside for the kind of running leap Zuko would need to even try to jump the walls - and besides, whoever had just Earthbent all this up around them was undoubtedly still there.

Would nothing ever go as he wished? How could even his exile-within-an-exile be so riddled with misfortune? Zuko resisted the urge to punch the wall beside him, and instead tilted his head back, waiting; and, sure enough, a few moments later a girl landed lightly on the edge of their little stone cage.

"Sorry about that," she said, without preamble, "but you know how it is - we have to be careful."

"We?" Uncle Iroh said, but the girl only shook her head.

"Me first," she said. "I'm the one who's got you in a box. Who are you?"

"My name is Mushi," Uncle said readily, "and this is my young nephew, Li."

If they kept this up much longer, Zuko thought, they were both going to forget their real names.

"We are humble travelers," Uncle continued, "from the northwest."

Something in the girl's face softened a little, and her stance abruptly relaxed. "Fleeing the front," she inferred, which was not all that far from the truth - they were, but not for the reason she was probably thinking. She eyed their clothes, which supported the story quite well: they had not acquired the grime and wear of travel sparingly. "Where are you going?"

"East," Uncle said, "around the mountains. My nephew is very strong, but I am an old man, and a mountain pass would not be kind to me."

The girl smiled, and then leapt back off the wall and out of view; and a moment later, the walls slid back into the ground with a rumble. "Well," she said, "if you'd like some food and a chance to rest your ostrich horses, come with me."

"Wait," Zuko said sharply. "Our turn, now. Who are you?"

"Oh, yeah. Fair enough," the girl said, and bowed, the motion just exaggerated enough to be a little mocking. "I'm Tashi."

***

"Darling, are you awake?"

Toph sighed. Mama's timing had always been pretty terrible, but sometimes Toph was seriously in awe. She had been sitting in here for hours, quiet and still like she wasn't bored out of her head, and there hadn't been a sound; but now, the second she had a leg over the windowsill, Mama came knocking.

She pulled her foot back over the sill and smoothed her gown until her fingers could find no wrinkles, and then turned around. "Yes, of course, Mama," she said.

Mama opened the door and came in - wood wasn't as good as dirt, not by half, and Mama's footsteps were light as a lady's ought to be, but Toph could still tell. "You are such a good girl," Mama said kindly, and a hand came down on Toph's hair, gentle. She meant it, too; but she'd take it back in a second if she knew.

"I try, Mama," Toph said, and Mama laughed daintily.

"Oh, Toph," she said, and touched Toph's shoulder. "I came to tell you: we have guests today, my dear."

"Guests?" Toph said.

"Yes," and Mama's voice betrayed a sudden excitement. "The Avatar herself! She has come to Gaoling to find a teacher - and of course we could not let her stay in the city." Mama nearly suppressed a shudder, but not quite; her fingers twitched on Toph's shoulder. "No, it would not do. We have invited her to stay here instead, and we will have supper in the larger hall tonight, in her honor."

"It's going to be so wonderful," Toph said in her cheeriest voice; but she could barely hear herself over the sound of her own heartbeat in her ears. The Avatar - the Avatar, who was here to take her pick of anyone she wanted, so she could learn all the Earthbending there was to learn.

Toph was going to have serious trouble not punching this girl in the face.

"I hope so," Mama said, and brushed the backs of her fingers along Toph's cheek. "Enyu will be up soon help you pick out one of your better dresses, and you must be on your best behavior at supper, all right?"

"Yes, Mama," Toph said. It wasn't nearly as hard as Mama thought it was - Toph couldn't see, fine, but she could still feel the embroidery, and no two of her dresses were quite the same. But Enyu was nice and funny, and she never did anything for Toph if she knew Toph could do it herself.

"Thank you," Mama said, and kissed the top of Toph's head. "I love you, sweetheart."

"I love you, too, Mama," Toph said, because despite everything Mama didn't understand, it was still the truth.

***

Yue had had a point: it was nice to be clean. They hadn't been anywhere with baths - baths with warm water, at that - in far too long.

But once she was dry and dressed, the whole thing started to make Katara kind of nervous. Yue had been right about the other half, too: it was a very fine house, and it was only a spare guest house. Surely the Bei Fong home itself was even finer, and all the clothes Katara had were everyday things - everyday things that had been stuffed in her pack for months, at that.

Aang had wandered outside while the rest of them were busy, poking through the gardens or something; but when she went to the door and hissed his name as loud as she dared, he came zipping over the paths. "You're the Avatar," he said, when she picked at her shirt and made a face. "I think they'll probably forgive you if you splash your soup a little."

The haughty guard came back to lead them to the main building, when it was time; and he didn't precisely smile at them, but he looked noticeably less disapproving, which Katara chose to take as a good sign.

A servant led them from the front door through a dizzying array of hallways and seated them at the table, in a large hall with a fine stone floor. No doubt the rest of the room was lovely; but Katara didn't remember a single thing about it later, because when she looked across the table, the girl who was sitting there was the girl from the swamp.

It was undoubtedly the same girl. Her hair was the same, and so was her dress - which looked like a much more reasonable choice in a noble family's house than it had in the middle of a swamp.

It took Sokka's elbow in Katara's ribs for her to realize the introductions had already started. "Sorry, I - I'm Katara," she blurted, and then winced.

The Bei Fongs didn't seem to mind, though. "A Southern Tribe name?" the woman - Poppy, Katara thought - said. "It's very pretty."

"Um, thank you," Katara said.

She didn't want to be any more impolite if she could help it, so she waited until the pleasantries were over and the meal was halfway finished before she broached the subject of Earthbending teachers. "If you don't mind, I'm hoping to find a master-"

"-Earthbender, yes," Poppy said, and smiled when Katara stared at her. "Word travels quickly in the city. We have found no better teacher in Gaoling than Master Yu."

Sokka, halfway through a chunk of rice, began to cough, and Suki whacked him helpfully on the back a couple times; Katara barely managed not to grimace. "Is that so," she said, as noncommittally as possible.

"Oh, yes," said Lao Bei Fong, nodding. "He is a very respectable man - well-mannered and refined. His methods are quite civilized; he concentrates heavily on the classical forms."

"He teaches our Toph," Poppy added, reaching over to lay a hand over the wrist of the girl from the swamp. "Only the basics, of course, she is blind, but he handles her difficulty marvelously. We were so nervous at first, thinking she might get hurt, but he's done very well with her."

"She - oh," Katara said. She hadn't realized it until that exact moment - Toph's eyes were unusually light, she'd seen that, but Toph had served herself, and she aimed her chopsticks unerringly.

"Hasn't he, dear?" Poppy said.

"Oh, yes, he's the best teacher ever," Toph said. It sounded very sincere, and Poppy smiled and patted Toph's hand; but Katara kept looking after Poppy had turned back to her bowl, and she could see the way Toph's mouth quirked at one corner. Not quite the right expression to match the cheerful enthusiasm that had been in her voice.

Maybe there was something behind all Master Yu's endless bragging - or maybe there wasn't. If she could just talk to Toph by herself when her parents weren't around, she'd probably be able to find out, though. And maybe Toph would know who she ought to find instead; maybe that was why the swamp had shown her to Katara.

"Wonderful," Katara said. "Thank you so much for your help."

*

Supper truly was excellent, and Katara was careful to thank the Bei Fongs properly - until Aang suddenly said, "Hey - she's gone!"

"It was wonderful," Katara said to Poppy Bei Fong, "really," and then stood and took a quick look around.

He was right: Toph had slipped out somehow, and Katara had no idea which way she'd gone.

Yue, beside her, was giving her sort of a funny look, so she made herself say thank you a few more times for good measure, and waited until they were back outside to explain.

"I thought you were giving her a funny look at the beginning," Sokka said. "So she's your swamp vision, huh?"

"It was definitely her," Katara said. "I'm still not sure why, but I think maybe - maybe she's supposed to help me find my Earthbending teacher. I just need to talk to her."

"Well, you're going to have to find her first," Suki said.

"Send the dead guy," Sokka suggested. "He could find out where her room is-"

"... Are we in so much of a hurry that we need to break into her room at night?" Yue said.

Katara didn't think they were, and she was about to say as much when Aang, drifting a few feet above them, suddenly slowed and said, "Wait - there's somebody over there."

So she said, "Hang on a second; everybody be quiet," instead, and they waited in the shadows barely ten paces from the guest house while he drifted up to peer over the nearest row of trees.

"It's her," he said almost immediately, head halfway through a tree branch.

"Toph?" Katara whispered. "What's she doing?"

"Wait, the girl? Where?" Sokka said.

"I don't know," Aang said, "she's heading toward the wall. Maybe to the gardens? Maybe you could talk to her there."

But when they hurried through the neatly-kept trees and around the corner of another building, they had to stop, because Toph hadn't turned toward the bridge that led to the estate gardens. She was wearing different clothes, now, nothing like the pale gown she'd had on at supper, and she was barefoot; and when she was barely a step from the wall, she made a sharp sideways movement with her hand.

The stones of the wall cracked aside like a door opening, smoother and more graceful than anything the Earthbenders at Lingsao had done, and Toph stepped through without even breaking her stride. A moment later, it closed again behind her, and there was no sign she'd been there at all except the flattened grass her feet had left behind.

"Did that look like 'only the basics' to you?" Sokka said. "Because that's not what I'd have called it."

*

Katara didn't want to go out through the gate, not when the only reason why was to follow Toph somewhere she evidently wasn't supposed to be going; but she couldn't exactly open the wall, either. Fortunately, there was a convenient statue beside an even more convenient tree in the gardens, and they managed to climb over and drop off the other side of the wall with a minimum of injury. Except for Suki, of course, who simply did a flip off the top and landed easily on her feet.

Aang sped ahead, as unimpeded by physical obstacles as always - and it was a good thing, too, because otherwise they might have lost Toph entirely. It quickly became obvious that she was heading back into the city, out of the noble district and into the lower quarters where there were lanterns lit all night long. The route she took was winding, but Aang never lost track of her.

The arena they came to was not exactly refined - nothing like the Bei Fongs' fine quiet estate and gardens. The lower districts were loud even at night, the buildings small and packed tightly together; but they were also home to the Earthbending competitions they'd seen flyers for in the streets earlier. The arena was clearly meant to hold one such tournament. It had been hollowed out of the earth, rather than built up from it, and there was a low wall around it with a gate for an entrance.

The burly fellow at the gate demanded a coin from each of them before he would let them pass, and they came in just as someone landed a blow; the crowd crammed into the arena let out a deafening cheer. There were seats, in a sense - wide benches cut out of the rock - and nearly all of them were full.

"Do you see her anywhere?" Katara shouted over the noise, as the woman in the ring sent another chunk of rock flying at her opponent. Katara didn't know for sure, but somehow she doubted the competitors were making much use of Master Yu's "classical forms".

Suki and Yue both shook their heads, though they were still scanning the width of the arena; but Sokka, staring at the ring, nodded.

Katara frowned at him, and then followed his gaze. Toph wasn't in the ring - but she was next to it, standing quietly in the small space nearby where the competitors waited to be called up, a good foot shorter than anyone else in there.

Yue and Suki followed their glances. "She's fighting," Yue said, and smiled.

*

She was so small, hardly older than Aang, but the crowd had clearly seen her before, and she got as many cheers just for walking out into the competition ring as the man before her had gotten for winning his round.

"How often do you think she does this?" Suki said.

Katara shook her head in reply, because she had no idea; but it had to be pretty often.

Toph was facing off against a man who had to be at least twice her size, but she didn't seem nervous at all - not that Katara could see her face from here, but she looked comfortable in her stance, not tense or tightly strung. The man was yelling, a gloat or a boast; Toph shouted something right back, though Katara couldn't hear it over the sound of the crowd, and then the man at the side of the ring signaled with a jab of his hand.

The big man moved first, but Toph didn't seem to be trying to beat him there - he turned and clenched his fist to raise a giant hunk of rock up behind him, and Toph didn't move at all. She just stood there, waiting, with her bare feet flat against the stone platform and her head cocked.

"Man, he is going to squish her," Sokka said.

The man lifted the rock over his head, shoulders bunching with the effort, and slammed a foot to the ground to brace himself for the throw - and only then did Toph move, sliding a hand and a foot forward and across in an almost flippant little turn.

Stone shifted, and just as the man's balance was tipping, one of his feet went suddenly sideways; he stumbled, and the rock he had been lifting tumbled from his hands and crashed to the ring.

It was a perfect opening, and Toph was ready for it: she punched out sharply, arm and shoulder and back all perfectly aligned, and the chunk of rock slammed back into the big man, hard enough to shove him backward out of the ring marked on the stone.

"... Or not," Sokka said.

"She's it," Aang said, rapt, and Katara managed to tear her eyes away from the ring long enough to look at him. "She's the one - don't you remember what Bumi said? Neutral jing."

"Waiting for the moment," Katara murmured. "Listening to the earth." Of course - she had waited, and how had she known where to aim so that the man's foot would go awry? She had heard him slam it down, felt it through the stone floor. She had listened to the earth.

Toph wasn't going to help Katara find the right person. She was the right person.

***

"But why are we following her?" Li hissed at his uncle, like he thought he was being subtle.

"Look," Tashi said, glancing over her shoulder, "the village is right up here. Literally over the hill. Just come that far, and you'll see it."

Li glared at her, and she glared right back. She meant it less than she might have another time, but the prison ship was gone and her mother was back; everything was so much better than it had been even half a year ago.

Still, this boy was incredibly annoying.

But his uncle set a hand on his shoulder; he shrugged it off, but he kept walking, if grudgingly. Tashi didn't think she had ever seen anyone walk grudgingly before, but Li was definitely managing it.

They came to the little rise at the edge of the forest, and Tashi pointed down at the village. "There, see," she said. "I haven't led you to your deaths, not even a little."

"And we appreciate it very much," Mushi said gravely.

"There could still be an ambush waiting in the street down there," Li muttered.

Tashi rolled her eyes.

It wasn't difficult to get them settled; in the time since the Earthbenders from the prison ship had been retrieved, they'd fashioned a fortress of a village hall in the main market square. They weren't going to lose this place to the Fire Nation ever again. People gathered there often in the evenings, to eat together and tell stories and that sort of thing, and there had been refugees from the north before who had spent the night there.

They tied the ostrich horses up outside, and once he had food in his hands, Li relaxed. The smallest possible amount, perhaps; but enough that Tashi caught the edge of something that might have been a smile once or twice. Haru told excellent stories, and Nayu's mother made soup so good you'd have to be made of stone to leave even a drop in your bowl.

When he'd loosened up enough to lean back against the wall, Tashi decided it was time to get them some mats - they had to be tired, after all that walking.

She fetched a pair from the store they kept, and set them down next to Li; and she was straightening back up when he caught her wrist. "Why are you doing this for us?" he said.

It sounded almost accusing, the way he said it, like he was expecting her to say that there were poisoned needles in the mats or something. "Because you need it done for you," she said, "and you can't do it for yourselves."

"We don't need your help," he said, clearly offended, "we could've-"

"I'd be impressed if you could make soup like that," Tashi said, "but that wasn't really what I meant. I meant a place to stay - a place to rest, where you know other people are around to help you." She hesitated. "I know what it's like not to have that," she added, "and I hated it." It had made her harsh and sharp-edged, not having Mother or Father or Shanmi, not having anyone but Nayu and the other kids who had been just as scared as Tashi. She dreamed about it sometimes - that the Avatar had never come to help them, and she had never seen Mother or Father again. She knew Nayu did, too, by the look in her eyes sometimes in the morning. "So take the mats," she said.

Li looked at her for a long moment, unfriendly, and then sighed; but he took them.

***

Sokka didn't think Katara had exactly been planning to confront Toph so soon, especially not when they'd followed her without her knowing and she could evidently crush them like bugs. She hadn't just beaten the one guy; she'd also beaten all six of the competitors who had come after him, and walked away as champion, with the night's prize money.

But there weren't any trees on this side of the wall, and bending a whole bunch of water from the river into giant frozen stairs or whatever wouldn't exactly be subtle. So when Toph bent the wall open, he could sort of understand why Katara dashed forward and said, "Wait!"

Toph turned and went into a stance, but didn't bend anything at them - that waiting and listening thing again, Sokka assumed.

"Just - wait a second," Katara said, hands raised defensively.

"You - you're the Avatar," Toph said; and she still sounded wary, but she didn't look ready to crack the ground open under them anymore.

"Yes, I am," Katara said. "And you're a master Earthbender."

"Wow, say it a little louder, will you?" Toph said. "Are you just stupid, or are you actually trying to get me in trouble?"

"In trouble?" Sokka said. "What, because you're an even better Earthbender than your parents think you are?"

"Uh, there's a reason I don't just dance out the front gates in my dinner gowns," Toph said. "And wait a minute, you followed me?"

"... Yes?" Katara said.

Toph crossed her arms and made a face. "I can't believe you followed me-"

"Well, you should," Sokka said, "because we did."

"And I'm guessing you think there's a good reason why I shouldn't squish you right now and go back to bed," Toph said.

Katara looked at Sokka - yeah, right, like he knew what to say - and then shrugged helplessly. "I need your help."

Toph raised an eyebrow. "You're not listening," she said, "it was supposed to be a good reason."

"... Because it would make a mess?" Sokka suggested.

Toph snorted. "Look," she said, "I'm not going to do it, whatever it is. Unless you mean you want help getting back through the wall, in which case you should probably do it before I change my mind and shut it on you."

"Fair enough," Sokka said, and hurried through the gap.

When they were all inside, Toph closed the hole behind them with a sharp jerk of her hands, and then she turned around, cocking her head expectantly.

"Please," Katara said. "I need someone to teach me Earthbending. Someone good, someone who's really a master. We've already been to see Master Yu - we've already been to see half the city, and I'm pretty sure none of them are going to be able to help me."

Which was true, but Toph didn't seem swayed; she just shook her head. "All right," she said, "I get it: you're looking for a teacher, and, yeah, I'm totally awesome. But my parents are never going to let me do it - not if they don't know what I can do, and not if they know I've been lying to them for like two years. Which I think covers all the options there are."

"I know what it is like to be taught only what others think you are capable of learning," Yue said, "and what it is like to deceive them because you know how much they want to be right."

"Yeah, yeah, blah blah, you feel my pain," Toph said. "If you're here, then your parents aren't a thing like my parents. They freak out if I so much as get a splinter." She snorted. "They can't know. I'm definitely not telling them, and I'm definitely going to crush you if you do it. Best of luck finding somebody else, okay?"

Katara was biting her lip, and Yue had looked away; even Suki seemed uncertain. "Are you kidding me?" Sokka said, because apparently no one else was going to. "You know Master Yu isn't going to cut it - obviously he's not good enough for you, or you wouldn't be sneaking down to fight in the lower districts all the time. But instead of helping the Avatar save the entire world, you're just going to go back to bed and wake up in the morning and pretend to be - quiet and demure and - and satisfied, when you're not any of those things at all? That's your plan for, what, the entire rest of your life?"

"I'm quiet sometimes," Toph protested, a little sulkily, and then sighed. "I'm sorry, okay? I really am. But I can't."

"Wait," Katara said, but Toph was already moving - they had ended up next to the little stone bridge that arched into the gardens, and Toph leapt up onto the post at the end of the railing.

"Not happening," she said over her shoulder, and then ran along the rail; a spur of earth lifted her up at the edge of the garden, and she was through the window and had closed the shutters behind her before Katara had even crossed the bridge.

***

Katara felt sour and uncertain the next morning; her dreams had been tangled and rambling, like they didn't know what to do either. She had been so sure - it had to be Toph, it just had to. But they couldn't make her come if she wouldn't agree. Katara had been spoiled by Suki and Yue, she thought ruefully; Suki had come without any arguing at all, and Yue had been willing to teach her right from the start, even if Pakku hadn't wanted her to.

But if Toph wouldn't do it, she wouldn't do it, and Katara had a feeling that nothing she could say would be convincing enough to change that.

She sighed, leaning heavily on the step behind her. She'd woken early, and the idea of more sleep hadn't been appealing. She could see the sunrise from the front steps of the guest house, but even that wasn't improving her mood as much as it usually did. Aang was hovering quietly around the roof; he gave her an uncertain look every few seconds, but he didn't seem to want to be the first to speak.

And he wasn't, in the end: it was Yue, who had come to the door sometime after Katara had turned her back to it. Katara didn't even realize she was there until she spoke. "We'll find a way."

"Oh - I didn't mean to wake you-"

Yue smiled. "You didn't," she said. "I left my shutters open, and the sunrise is very bright."

She crossed the porch with light steps, and sat down a stair above Katara, touching her shoulder gently. "We'll find a way," she repeated. "No matter what we have to do - find someone else here, or travel to the other side of the Earth Kingdoms."

Katara rubbed her hands across her face, trying not to sigh again. "I feel so terrible," she said at last, "making you all - making you go so far for me, when I don't even know what I'm doing half the time. Maybe I'm not supposed to be here at all, when I haven't finished with Waterbending."

Aang drifted a little lower, pink and violet clouds behind him contrasting with the sober blue lines of his face. "I - I know I'm not very good at this-" he began, hesitant.

"No!" Katara said instantly. "No, Aang, it's not your fault at all. I just - there's so much left to do, and there's so little time, and I keep going to the wrong places or - or saying the wrong things-"

"Why do you keep doing that?" Yue said.

"... What?"

"Why do you keep saying 'I'?" Yue elaborated. "Granted, you are the only Avatar currently alive in the world - begging your pardon, Avatar Aang," she added, inclining her head respectfully to the air in front of her. "But that doesn't mean you act alone. I did not come with you because I could not refuse an Avatar's request, or because I wished the world to know I was your teacher; I came because I wanted to help you. We aren't waddling along behind you like baby penguin seals, Katara. There is a difference between making the wrong choice, or the stupid choice, and having no way to know which choice is right; one of those, no one in the world can handle perfectly, and the other, well. I think you must trust us to object if we see a need." Yue's mouth quirked. "Unless you think we are too cowed by your powers of glowing to manage it."

Katara snorted. "I worry about a lot of things," she said, "but I can't say that's one of them."

Yue grinned. "But it is true that you are not finished with Waterbending," she said, clapping her hands together briskly. "There will always be more to learn; but perhaps the balance of the elemental cycle can be preserved by a reasonable effort. And look, there is a pool right beside the house."

They took a break when a pair of servants brought trays of rice porridge for breakfast, but Katara barely tasted it; despite Yue's reassurances, she still wasn't looking forward to another day of wandering Gaoling's Earthbending schools looking for something she was pretty sure she'd already found. The comet was still coming, though, and she couldn't afford to wait to see whether Toph might change her mind.

But they had only just finished scraping their bowls clean when the haughty guard knocked on the door.

"Yes?" Katara said.

"The Bei Fongs invite you to attend an exhibition this morning, honored Avatar." He bowed. "A display of Earthbending skill by their daughter - trained, as you know, by Master Yu. They would be very grateful for your presence."

Katara felt a hand on her shoulder, and turned; it was Suki, looking at her sympathetically. "It couldn't hurt," she said. "Maybe you'll get a chance to talk to her again - or maybe Master Yu will turn out to be a better choice than we thought."

"All right," Katara said, and turned back to the guard. "Where will it be?"

*

The gardens, was the answer, and the haughty guard led them back and over the bridge, to a little shaded space beneath a stand of poplar trees. There were curving stone benches there; Lao and Poppy Bei Fong were already seated, smiling indulgently, and Toph was standing in front of them, back in one of her gowns, with Master Yu to the side.

"Ah, Avatar," Lao said, and stood so that he could bow fully. "So good of you to come on such short notice. Please, sit."

Master Yu was smiling at her, and the expression was confiding, like they shared a secret; Katara abruptly remembered what Yue had told him to get them out of his school, and tried not to grimace. Clearly he thought this exhibition was only going to make her more eager to be his student.

Which was completely untrue: it did almost exactly the opposite. Toph was excellent at the moves, of course, but her motions were purely functional - every single thing she did looked like something she'd practiced a thousand times and was bored to tears with, and Katara had no idea how her parents couldn't tell.

Then again, Katara thought, they had apparently never seen Toph flippant and smug in an arena while benders twice her size limped away groaning, so they didn't have much basis for comparison.

Toph finished a sequence, a fist-sized stone shifting in patterns around her feet, and her parents clapped effusively. "Excellent, Toph," Master Yu said. "Shall we try fifth sequence? We've been working very hard these past few weeks," he told her parents, "and I think she might just be ready."

He turned back to Toph, but she hadn't moved; she was standing there, lips pursed thoughtfully, head tilted.

"Toph?" Poppy said, after a moment. "Toph, dear, if you aren't sure you can do it-"

Toph turned her head, until she was facing approximately Sokka's direction. "You know what?" she said. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but you're right."

"... I am?" Sokka said.

"You are," Toph said. "This is totally stupid. Mama, I'm sure I can do it - I could do it in my sleep, and I probably have, because Master Yu is so boring I'm surprised he hasn't caught me yawning yet."

"Toph," Poppy said, aghast.

"Master Yu, I hope you will forgive my daughter," Lao said, "she is clearly overtired-"

"I am not," Toph said. "I'm not overtired, I don't need forgiving, and Master Yu hasn't taught me anything in years. I've learned more from the arenas in the lower city than I ever have from him."

"The arenas?" Lao said faintly. "The arenas-"

"Toph," Poppy said, "Toph, whatever do you mean? Surely you haven't been going to the lower city alone?"

"Yeah," Toph said, "I have, because only an idiot would try to jump me. Mama, I'm better than you think I am - I'm good, I'm great. The Avatar's not here for Master Yu; she's here for me, because she asked me to teach her last night and I said no."

Katara wanted to say something, but she had no idea what, and it probably wouldn't have made it out; the sheer force of her sudden hope had made her throat go tight.

And Poppy Bei Fong wouldn't have listened anyway. She was staring at her daughter, nearly as pale as her pearl-shaded robes, and something almost like hurt was stealing over her face. "Toph," she said again, helplessly, and shook her head. "Why - why would you do this to us? We've only ever wanted to take care of you - we knew when you were born, when they told us you were blind, we accepted the responsibility-"

"And that was so very kind of you, Mama," Toph said, bitter, "so noble; it must have been so hard to take up that awful burden-"

"Don't speak to your mother that way," Lao said sharply. "You need help and protection. You always will."

"We only want you to be safe, Toph," Poppy said, and Katara noticed uncomfortably that her eyes were wet. "We're only keeping you safe. We love you."

"You don't even know who I am," Toph said.

Lao stood up, chin tilted imperiously, and looked down at his daughter. "We know who you absolutely are not," he said loudly. "You are not an arena champion, not after today; and you are not the Avatar's teacher. If you ever Earthbend again, it will be under Master Yu's supervision, and it will be months from now - if not years - when you have regained our trust. You will not leave these grounds again."

Toph blew out a breath, slowly. "No, Baba," she said, and now she sounded more tired than angry. "That's not going to happen. I'm going now."

***

Zuko adjusted his ostrich horse's saddle again, just to be sure. They were not quite ready to go yet - Uncle was always so slow in the mornings, even when he had not wandered away from his packing to buy more tea - but he was too restless to simply sit and think.

It had been pleasant, to sleep in the hall last night, but surely Tashi was wrong. Surely the sense of comfort he had felt had come from his awareness that the people around them had all been thoroughly duped by Uncle's feeble lies - that would give anyone a feeling of satisfaction. Or perhaps a combination: their presence had contented him because he knew they would protect the pathetic Earth Kingdom refugee they thought he was.

Yes, that was reasonable. That was logical. That was not weakness.

He cinched the saddle a little tighter, and his ostrich horse squawked in protest. "Sorry," he muttered, and loosened it again. He needed to stop thinking about these things so hard.

"Hey!" someone shouted across the street, and he looked up to see Haru, sprinting toward the fortress-hall. "Fire Nation, on mongoose dragons!"

Haru was yelling to Nayu, obviously; she was down the street a little way with Uncle. But mongoose dragons - Azula had always favored mongoose dragons for their speed.

Zuko felt suddenly as though he had swallowed a chunk of ice, but morbid curiosity drew him along in Nayu's wake. If Azula really was here now, and managed to kill everyone, it wouldn't matter where he was standing - he'd be just as dead anywhere.

The second he turned the corner and came up alongside the fortress-hall, he knew it really was her, even though he only saw her for a moment - because a giant rock blocked his view almost immediately. Nayu's mother had thrown it; she was at the middle of a line of benders, perhaps fifteen across, and there were several more lines behind them.

Azula dodged it, of course, but she had to yank her mongoose dragon aside sharply to do it. More rocks were already flying toward her, so many that he could barely see the other dragons alongside her.

"Don't worry," Tashi said, and he turned - she had come up behind him on her way to help, and had paused.

"Worry?" he said. He wasn't worried - what a stupid thing to say.

But she didn't understand. "It's okay," she said, and touched his shoulder. "We do this a lot - we weren't prepared the first time, but we've learned-" She paused. "We've been taught better."

There was a spray of blue flame, and a scorched stone rolled past them, redirected by the blast of fire. But Tashi didn't look afraid. She grinned at Zuko, half a smile and half a baring of teeth, and pushed back with her hands; and the boulder shuddered to a halt beside her like a well-trained pet.

"Just give us a few minutes," Tashi said, and then punched the boulder up off the ground, into the air ahead of her, and ran for the square.

***

This was somewhat more trouble than they'd expected, Mai thought, ducking under a stone before it could crack her skull and hurling three small knives at the bender who had thrown it. It was noisy, with the thudding of rock and the crackling of fire, but Mai knew what the satisfying thunk of a hit landing sounded like. Plus there was the scream of pain after. She probably hadn't killed him - there were too many things moving around in the air for her knives to stay perfectly on target - but she'd bet he wouldn't be bending any more things at her head.

She took the opportunity to glance along their line - such as it was. There were only four of them, after all, and Ty Lee didn't really stay in formation so much as do flips above it.

Samnang could Firebend a little, but he had never been very good at it - that was half the reason Azula had taken him into their little group in the first place, even though he was nothing but a teacher's son. She had never been able to lord her bending over Mai and Ty Lee, not properly, because they couldn't bend at all; but she had always been able come out of her bending lessons confident that she knew yet another move Samnang had never heard of. But right now, Mai thought, he probably regretted that. A glaive was less than useless when you couldn't get close enough to your enemy to use it.

But Azula was bending enough for two, great blooms of blue flame that sent boulders tumbling away from her. She was angry, Mai could see the scowl on her face from here - but sooner or later, she'd realize that even the four of them couldn't beat fifty Earthbenders with a grudge.

Until then, though, they had to hang on. Ty Lee vaulted over a rock, and Mai slung a few darts at the Earthbender she was cartwheeling toward. One missed, but two of them caught the woman's arm, and she grimaced and grabbed for her elbow, leaving a perfect opening for Ty Lee to tap her hip and send her tumbling to the ground.

"Azula," Samnang shouted, and Mai turned: he was looking to the side, where a group of Earthbenders had raised a wall. There was another on the other side; and if they let the Earth villagers get behind them, they were going to get boxed in.

Azula saw it, too, and her forehead creased with annoyance. She might have been angry, but she wasn't stupid, and she knew what that meant. "Back to the woods," she said tightly, and swept out a whip of blue fire, deflecting the nearest volley of rocks.

Ty Lee had to make a couple leaps to get back to her mongoose dragon, but Mai was only about two steps from hers, and she swung onto the saddle and sent three more darts flying in the same move. Rage worked for Azula, but Mai had never found it useful. Her philosophy was simple. Don't get angry; just throw more knives.

The Earthbenders weren't exactly charitable, but they didn't seem terribly bloodthirsty either, and it wasn't hard to withdraw back to the trees; Mai got a minor slice from a flying shard of rock, and a boulder nearly crushed her mongoose dragon's tail, but they made it in the end.

It would take time to go around the village - no doubt they'd keep a close watch on the nearby hills, and they'd probably attack anybody on a mongoose dragon. So Mai was braced for Azula to be in something of a mood when they made it back to their camp; but when Azula swung down off her mongoose dragon's back, she was smiling.

"We'll find them, Azula, I know we will," Ty Lee said, tone reassuring.

"Of course we will," Azula said, and favored Ty Lee with a grin. "They will not elude us forever."

They had bought a messenger hawk along with the mongoose dragons, in case they should need to send word for some reason; the bird was well-trained, waiting quietly on the perch it was hobbled to, and Azula strode over and freed it, lifting it to one well-armored shoulder.

"And when we find them," she continued, yanking a scroll and a brush from her pack, "we will be prepared."

"We don't know where they're going," Mai pointed out.

Azula paused halfway through the message to glance over her shoulder. "I think I have a fairly good idea," she said, smug. "They have come south this far, but they appear to be turning to the east - and if you seek to evade the reach of the Fire Lord, even in the Earth Kingdoms you will have limited choices." She shook her head a little, sighing. "Uncle is becoming predictable in his old age."

Mai eyed her. A reference to the Dragon of the West, and a place in the eastern Kingdoms where the Fire Lord's influence had never spread - that meant only one thing. Azula had told them so little - it was her habit, Mai knew, to reserve all information until it could do her good, and it was sensible, but it meant that Mai still wasn't entirely sure what they were doing. Tracking General Iroh and Zuko, certainly; hoping to return them to the Fire Nation, definitely; but for what purpose, Azula had not explained.

Still, Mai somehow doubted that she had begun with the intention of invading Ba Sing Se.

"Princess," Samnang said cautiously, "what exactly do you intend?"

"One stone, two birds," Azula said, grinning, and rolled up the scroll. "I will not fail."

Mai nearly smiled. People said a great many things about Azula, some more true than others; but above all else, Mai thought, she was certainly never boring.

***

Toph bowed stiffly to her parents, and strode away across the grass, barefoot; she reached the edge of the garden, about where she had last night, and called another column of rock to lift herself up to her window. The moment the shutters closed behind her, Suki stood up and yanked at Sokka's shoulder. The Bei Fongs were still in shock, now, watching their daughter march away, but it probably wouldn't last long, and they did seem to employ an awful lot of guards.

Sokka glanced up at her face, and then visibly caught on, and elbowed Katara.

"I - um, I apologize," Katara said, impossibly awkward in breaking the silence Toph had left behind; and she bowed like that would make up for it.

Well, Suki thought, it was Katara. Of course she was going to try.

Lao Bei Fong was staring at his daughter's window, expression slowly darkening; but Poppy, still seated, had been gazing helplessly at the open ground beneath the poplars, and her eyes drifted to Katara like she had forgotten Katara was even there. "Of - of course," she said, dazed.

Lao straightened his shoulders. "She won't do it," he said. "She can't."

Suki glanced at him. Toph made up her own mind, Suki had seen that after five minutes; you could argue with her, you could lay things out for her any way you liked, but she picked what she was going to listen to, and she decided whether she was going to act on it, and there was nothing you could do about that. Surely he wasn't so foolish as to think she hadn't meant it, or that she would be too afraid.

Perhaps he just couldn't bear to admit otherwise.

"I'm sorry," Katara said again, helplessly. There was something awful about it, Lao standing there hard-faced and staring and Poppy bewildered on the bench beside him; it was a guilty relief to turn and hurry away.

*

Their things hadn't been more than half unpacked, since they hadn't had to cook for themselves; so it didn't take long to get everything back in its place. Katara had Aang stay just outside the door and watch for Toph, but she hadn't shown by the time they were finished, so Katara and Aang snuck off to see where she might be.

When they were gone, Sokka sighed, loud and breathy, and kicked a little at the ground.

"What?" Suki said.

"I can't believe we're going to end up with another girl," Sokka said, throwing up his hands. "I can't handle this kind of isolation! Why is it always girls?"

"You were three to one before," Suki said dubiously. "Is four to one really that much worse?"

"I was two to one to sister," Sokka said, "Katara doesn't count."

Suki patted him on the shoulder. "You aren't entirely alone."

"Yeah, right," Sokka said, rolling his eyes.

Suki shrugged. "You aren't - there's Aang. Technically, he makes two."

"He doesn't count either, he's dead!"

"Are you always this loud?" Toph said, hurrying up the path; Katara, Suki saw, was beside her, and presumably Aang was drifting around somewhere.

"Often," Suki said, before Sokka could reply. "But not always," she added, when Sokka glared at her.

"Okay, well, try to keep a lid on it," Toph said. "My parents aren't going to let this go; we have to get out of here before they get the guards moving."

"But the gate-" Sokka began.

Toph's expression went flat, and she pursed her lips; she planted her feet, lined up her hands, and heaved to the side, and the wall right behind the guest house slid open with a rumble.

"... Or we could go that way," Sokka said.

Back to Top

---

Chapter Seven: The Desert

Despite being handed an opportunity to test Mizan, to push her and prod her and see how quickly or slowly she might snap, the pirates were relatively polite; even Tan Khai, the angry woman who liked Mizan the least, listened to her, if grudgingly.

The first order of business, of course, was to determine how her Firebenders would be divided - and, in turn, whose sailors would be put under her command to make up for the lack. She willingly described her soldiers' strengths and weaknesses, and even Tan Khai was attentive.

"You know them better than I," Tan Khai said, when Mizan asked her why. "And there is no other choice - your words are better than nothing, Fire Nation, even if they are only hot air."

"You expend the effort to be clever with me," Mizan observed, trying not to laugh. "How gracious."

Tan Khai eyed her. "I have not cut your throat," she said. "That is graciousness."

"And what about her?" said Bui, who was the captain who had brought her in; he was looking at Isani, who had stood throughout the discussion, silently looming at Mizan's shoulder.

"If I am to sail with you," Mizan said, "I'll need to keep at least one - or how will I reply to the signals you'll have my soldiers sending?" She shook her head. "She stays with me."

It was simpler than she had been expecting, for her sailors to be replaced with pirates; she anticipated considerable grumbling, and perhaps protests that none could be spared. But a Firebender to each ship meant a single sailor from it, so no one ship had to suffer a whole crew being split apart. She thought it likely that she was acquiring a collection of the least valued - but her own crew had been made up of such when they had first been exiled, and she had managed well enough.

The rest was more difficult.

"A supply route?" Bui said doubtfully. "You are certain?"

Mizan tried not to grind her teeth. At least, not audibly. "We were exiles, not fools. We have sailed the seas near Port Tsao several times over; we have seen the ships ourselves."

Chen Ma Yun, a woman with a thin, dour face, sneered down at Mizan's chart. "Supply ships. Valorous," she said.

"Sensible," Mizan replied. "I am the only Fire Nation vessel you have; if you try to tell me you do not take heavy losses when you attack their war fleets, I will not believe you." She glanced around the table pointedly; the silence remained unbroken. "Devastating an army's supply line may be less emotionally satisfying, but it is far more feasible, and I suspect it will do more damage than your boats have ever done to a battleship."

"Are you always so disdainful of new allies?" Tan Khai said.

"I do not disdain you; I disdain your ships." Mizan let herself sneer, just a little. "Are pirates always so easily offended?"

"You have called them flat-bellied and lubberly yourself, a time or two," said Jaoshing, from further down the table; he was an older man, and had mostly stayed quiet, but now he was looking at Tan Khai with his eyebrows raised, visibly amused.

Tan Khai huffed out a breath and leaned back in her chair. "When they are mine," she said, "I am allowed."

The small joke eased the whole table; it felt like a breath, held in far too long, had been released.

"The supply route you insist is there," Jaoshing said. "How precise can you be?"

***

The docks on the coast near Omashu had been somewhat haphazardly put together - Earthbenders, Yin thought, probably could have put together something better with stone, but flame couldn't be used to build all by itself. Although it was easy for Firebenders to weld thoroughly, so they probably weren't quite as rickety as they looked.

Still, she found herself holding her breath a little when the first battalion of soldiers stepped from the flagship's hold to the dock. But no splashing followed the clang of boots on metal, and Yin let herself exhale.

"Sir?"

Yin turned. Not Kishen - nor even Chan Dan. Nusha, this time, a plump pale woman from the north.

She still wasn't quite used to the regular company of her squadron commanders. The fleet's organization had been exceptionally lax on their return from the north, with easily half the officers dead or injured, and Yin had usually had her orders issued to the rest of the ships with fire signals anyone on deck could see. She had conferred with no one but Kishen for so long.

But now that they'd been formally reinforced, she was surrounded by a bevy of captains and division commanders and who knew what else. Kishen was one of the division commanders now, promoted by the officials in Phnan Chnang - it was probably in poor taste to keep him closer than her squadron commanders, but they were still bound together by the secret of the Avatar's escape from Jindao, and she had come to trust his advice besides.

All her endeavors to avoid Zhao's legacy, she thought wryly, and she was already more prone to favoritism than he had ever been. At least he had been equally disdainful of everyone.

"Yes, Commander?" Yin said.

Nusha bowed. "Sir, the lieutenant general in charge of the area troops requests a meeting. His messenger indicates that he has orders to pass along from General Jingzan. He's waiting on deck."

General Jingzan - she was the regional commander. She must have been told that Yin was coming, and passed her orders along so they would be waiting when Yin arrived.

"Very well," Yin said, and then hesitated. She could get formal about it, but that meant loading up the scarily impressive admiral's tent and dragging along a dozen soldiers to set it up. The lieutenant general must have sent his messenger off the moment their ships had been spotted on the horizon, if the fellow had made it here already, which implied something of a hurry. "Fifteen minutes," she told Nusha, "and I'll be ready to ride back with him."

Nusha looked at her, steady and considering. "The man has no ostrich horse," she said. "He ran."

Yin blinked. That must have been an uncomfortable trip. She glanced through the window at the side of the bridge; she could only see him from the elbows up, but it looked like he was wearing nearly full armor. Just how beleaguered were they, if they couldn't spare an ostrich horse, or travel through the foothills without wearing armor?

"Give him one of the relief mounts, then," she said, "and tell him: fifteen minutes." She glanced out the window again. "And have somebody bring him some water."

"As you say, Admiral," Nusha said, and bowed again.

***

They had to get out of Gaoling as quickly as possible, and with Toph along, they had been able to head right into the mountains - not that they couldn't have without her, but it would have been much harder. They had avoided the most straightforward routes, and Toph had been invaluable, clearing fallen rocks out of the way, or lifting them up outcroppings so they wouldn't have to stop and find a way around.

Katara hated her.

Earthbending was the only thing Toph would do for anybody but herself. In every other way - in ways Katara would never even have thought of before this - she was so unhelpful it made Katara want to scream. Katara had tried to be thoughtful; she'd figured she would give Toph the easiest tasks when it came time to set up camp, since Toph had probably never done anything like it before. But Toph had categorically refused to lift a finger to help out, all the way up one side of the mountains and down the other. She could make a tent for herself with two jabs of her hands, and everybody else could fend for themselves. It was so ridiculous Katara could barely even argue with it properly - it was like trying to scold somebody for putting their shoes on their face, for punching you to say hello instead of bowing. Where did you even start?

But she was going to find a way soon - that or her head would explode. Suki had convinced her to let it go while they were in the mountains; they were in a hurry, and Toph was doing a lot for them even if she wouldn't boil water or lay out mats. But they were in the foothills now, the last descent before they hit the great beige blur that marked the Si Wong Desert on the map; the hurry and the obstacles were both mostly past, and Katara's patience was just about gone entirely.

It had been so easy, before - maybe too easy, in retrospect. Suki had slotted into place like Katara and Sokka had known her all their lives, and Yue was so polite and forgiving that even if she'd hated them, she would have made it work. Toph was nothing like that at all. Katara had caught herself thinking at least twice that she'd have been willing to double back, to scale the outcroppings with hands and feet, to climb around the remains of rockslides, if only she hadn't had to do it with Toph.

"Hey, whoa, you look like you're about to punch something."

Katara glanced at Sokka, and then realized she had gritted her teeth; her jaw was aching. Aang, drifting easily ahead of her even though his back was to the path, was looking at her sort of doubtfully.

She made herself relax. "Sorry," she said, deliberate in the cheerfulness of her tone. "Just thinking."

Suki looked at her, and then ahead at Toph, and so did Yue; but Toph thumped on ahead of them, utterly oblivious.

And that, that was another thing - she was so loud, she walked like a komodo rhino in a bad temper. Sure, fine, not everybody had learned to walk surrounded by snow and ice, where a heavy step meant a hard fall or an abrupt soaking; but she was practically shaking the ground, like she was trying to pound in nails with her feet-

"O-kay," Sokka said loudly, "I think it's time for a break." They were on the beginnings of an actual road now, shimmering with heat ahead of them where it bent close to the Si Wong, and Sokka squinted ahead at a sign by the nearest cross-path. "Misty Palms Oasis, anyone?"

"Seriously?" Toph said.

Was she kidding? Maybe they hadn't been walking that long, but it was already hot, and it was only going to get worse - Toph couldn't see the maps, but they'd told her there was a desert ahead of them, after the little strip of grasslands by the mountains. She knew, even if she was acting like she didn't. Like she was so much better than they were, just because she could walk longer-

"I believe I could use a drink," Yue said, diplomatic. "We will be quick."

Toph shrugged one shoulder. "Okay, fine," she said.

The nerve - like it was up to her! Katara had to actually bite her lip to keep from saying it, and took a step instead. A break. That would be good. Toph could go one way, and Katara could go the other way, and they could just not be around each other for a while.

***

Misty Palms Oasis, as it turned out, wasn't very misty, or very palmy - or even very oasisy. Sokka figured it probably had been at some point; but now it was mostly sand, a lot of grumpy-looking people, and some dusty buildings that looked like they wanted to get out of the heat just as much as he did.

But apparently there was still a spring left somewhere, because one of the dusty buildings sold cool drinks, with tables to sit at, and handfuls of wilting and depressed fruit in little bowls as a side.

"... Thank you," Sokka said to the storekeeper, when he had his cup and bowl in hand; but he couldn't help staring into them doubtfully. That wasn't even a plum anymore - that was a prune pretending. Badly.

"At least we can be pretty sure they haven't rotted," Suki said to him brightly, lifting a wizened peach out of her own bowl with a flourish.

"No," Sokka agreed, "that would take moisture."

But the drinks were pretty cold, somehow; and Katara and Yue took turns freezing them over with a slim film of ice to keep them that way. "Excellent," Yue kept saying when Katara pulled off the smooth little tug of fingers, and Katara was laughing and smiling and not grinding her teeth at all, which was a nice change.

Sokka saw what was going to happen a second before it did - not fast enough to do anything, but fast enough to be grimacing already, even before Toph said, "Hey!" loudly.

"What is it now?" Katara said, and her good mood was gone like - well, like the moisture from Sokka's prune.

Toph had been the last of them in line, which should have meant she'd get her drink next. But there was a man at the counter, a pretty short guy with kind of knobbly elbows; and judging by the way Toph was standing a foot back and rubbing her shoulder, he'd used one of them to knock her out of the line.

"I think that actually wasn't her fault," Sokka said, a second before Toph skidded a foot forward across the dirt floor - and the earth under the man's feet rumbled sideways, shoving him off-balance and away from the counter. "... Well, that part sort of was, but-"

Katara wasn't listening, he saw; she'd already clenched up her jaw again, and she let out a sharp breath through her nose.

But Yue was already up and halfway across the room, a smile firmly pasted on her face. "Apologies, sir," she said, "you must not have noticed my friend-"

"I'm not that short!" Toph said.

"-standing in line here," Yue finished.

"I don't know what you're talking about," the guy said grumpily, wincing as he picked himself up. "I was here first."

Yue hesitated for a second; she was used to people who were trying to be just as polite as she was, Sokka thought, not people who'd lie outright. But the storekeeper, behind the counter, straightened up with a cup in her hand. "If you were," she said, "you forgot to order; girl's drink is up first."

She set the cup down with a clack and slid it across the counter; and Toph caught it in one hand and turned away. She still looked sort of angry, but she only stomped a little on the way over to their table.

Yue nodded to the storekeeper, and then paused: Toph had stumbled back a step and a half, and she'd hit some guy sitting at the counter before she'd recovered her balance. He'd turned around to see what had struck him, and now he was staring down at a wet spreading patch on his shirt - where he'd spilled his drink, Sokka realized.

"I apologize," Yue said, but the guy looked up with a wide smile on his face.

"No, no, not at all," he said. "It actually feels quite good! I would spill the rest on my head, except I would also like to drink it."

"We would be happy to pay for a refill," Yue said, grinning, "which you can spill on your head at your leisure."

The man laughed. "Unnecessary," he said, and then blinked, and looked more closely at her hair. "Those medallions - forgive me. Are you by any chance from the Northern Water Tribe?"

"Yes, I-"

"If I could beg a favor," the man said, "might I sit with you?"

***

His name was Zei; he was a professor all the way from Ba Sing Se, and he nearly fell off his chair when he learned that Katara and Sokka were both from the Southern Water Tribe.

"Amazing!" he said, when he had recovered his balance. "Simply amazing - we all heard of it when the fleet came north, of course, but I was never able to speak to anyone who was actually part of it, they were off to the front almost right away. I am the head of the anthropology department, you see - the university library has almost no literature whatsoever on the Southern Water Tribe, it is simply dreadful."

"The university?" Katara said. He talked like there was only one in the world.

Suki, across the table, was giving her a funny look, so she raised an eyebrow. "Sorry," Suki said, "I just - even at home, that was always the big news in the market, who'd be leaving for the exams to try to earn a spot."

"Oh, yes," Professor Zei said, nodding, "it is quite competitive. Probably it ought to be Ba Chang University, it was founded to serve the entire kingdom; but then Ba Chang and Ba Sing Se are nearly the same thing anyway. There would be no kingdom without the great city."

"And the Water Tribes are - your area of study?" Sokka said. He was sort of making a face; and it was kind of a weird idea, that someone could find their lives unusual enough to study, Katara thought. Before, that is, back home; now they really were weird.

"No, no, my expertise lies elsewhere," Professor Zei said. "But Professor Taoyi would be quite upset with me if he found out I had run into you and had not asked you anything at all. No - I am currently engaged in a reconstructive study of the Air Nomads."

Katara sucked in a breath, and turned to look for Aang automatically; she covered the motion with a stretch, but it probably came off pretty awkwardly. Aang had been hovering over the table, sliding his head through the rock to watch people outside - but he tumbled back at Professor Zei's words, like even spirits could lose their balance, and turned around, eyes wide.

But Professor Zei didn't notice anything. "Fascinating, truly fascinating - of course, there is very little left, so much was lost in Sozin's purges. There are traces, though, in the works that remain; references to authors and books no one can find anymore. And, of course, there is the library of Wan Shi Tong."

He said it like he expected it to mean something, but all Katara could do was look at him blankly. Sokka, too, seemed clueless; but Yue looked like the name was familiar, and Suki was staring at Professor Zei in outright surprise.

"You found it?" she said.

Professor Zei grinned, faintly smug. "Oh, yes," he said. "The lost library itself!" He glanced at Katara, and then at Sokka. "Surely you must have heard the stories. How the great library of Tuo-Ma-Tian was saved - the spirit's fox servants came in droves, stealing dozens of manuscripts despite the nuns' best efforts, and a week later the wildfires came? Wan Shi Tong's library is the greatest repository of knowledge in the world, books and writings saved from a dozen disasters - half of it is probably editions of which there are no other copies." He sighed dreamily. "The poetry of Nhan Duc, the epistles of Jingyao, Areum Hee-sik's calendar of the great eclipses for the war ministers of Seon-"

"Wait, what?" Sokka said. "Why would anybody want that?"

"It was fascinating," Professor Zei protested, "though of course it is not my area. Dark days for the Fire Nation, quite literally - of course, unification had not yet occurred in Hee-sik's time, I should more properly say the illustrious southern kingdoms of Bahratshana and Chempang-"

"An eclipse," Yue said, very calm and slow; but Katara could see her hands, she was gripping the edge of the table so hard that her fingers were trembling. "You mean to say that an eclipse of the sun-"

Katara stared at her. Of course, of course - had no one thought of it since Hee-sik? She knew what Yue was remembering, because she remembered it herself: that awful dim light in the sky, Yue limp with pain against the grass before Katara had darted around her to reach the spirit pool. That hadn't been an eclipse, not really; but the moon's light and power had both been blocked by Zhao's attack on the spirit, and in those moments everyone's Waterbending had failed them. And the comet - Roku had hinted at it, but she had known already, it was in the stories. The comet had made Firebenders powerful, and would again; why shouldn't an eclipse make them weaker?

But it wouldn't matter, Katara reminded herself, if there wasn't going to be another before the end of this summer. "How far did it go," she said, "that calendar?"

"Certainly not three thousand years into the future," Professor Zei said cheerfully. "No, I would expect you would need the university's observatory for that. A wonderful facility - you will not even need to do the calculations yourself, they have an armillary sphere the size of a room. The library had a duplicate of that, too - simply marvelous."

Sokka was gaping at him, and so was Suki; Yue was staring, though she hadn't let her mouth fall open; and Toph-

Actually, Toph was sitting there sipping her drink happily and gnawing on a plum. Figured, Katara thought darkly.

But for once it was easy to let the irritation slide away. They hadn't had anywhere in particular to go, except away from Toph's parents, and now that they were on the other side of the mountains, all they needed was somewhere for Toph to teach her Earthbending. Surely it would be easy enough to find a place to practice in Ba Sing Se.

Professor Zei glanced at them uncertainly, one by one. "... Would you perhaps like to accompany me on my return to the university?"

"Yeah, I think maybe we would," Sokka said.

*

The most direct route to Ba Sing Se cut through the Si Wong - not into the deep desert, but along the side. They probably wouldn't have risked it if they'd been by themselves; but Professor Zei had spent years searching for the library of Wan Shi Tong, and he had put together very detailed maps of the desert.

"We will have to pass through the dunes for part of the way," Professor Zei told them, eyeing one of his charts. "Most of the path crosses gravel flats and open ground; but the Si Wong is famed for its dunes for good reason. There are so many, there is no way to avoid them completely."

Sokka shrugged. "It's just a lot of sand," he said. "How bad could it be?"

"Oh, the sand is not so bad," Professor Zei agreed. "You grow used to the strain on your legs after a time. It is the sandstorms that make the dunes dangerous, more than anything." He rolled the charts up cheerfully, like he hadn't just said something incredibly ominous.

"... But you've done this before?" Katara said.

Professor Zei beamed. "Many times! And I have only come close to death twice, if you do not count the time with the camel spider."

"We're doomed," Toph said, and finished off her drink with a flourish. For once, Katara couldn't totally disagree.

Aang hovered at her shoulder, strikingly quiet, and she knew why; but she wanted to wait until they were out in the desert to ask Professor Zei about his research. Suki had told her what had happened, that time she'd been shot and dragged off to the Fire Nation fort, and a high wind suddenly rising inside a building seemed like a bad idea - outside, she could at least pass it off as a random breeze. And they hadn't had the dead guy talk with Toph yet.

So they walked out into the Si Wong until Misty Palms was a little heat-blurred smudge behind them, and then she let herself edge up next to Professor Zei, and spoke. "I hope you don't mind - you said you specialized in Air Nomad history?"

Professor Zei smiled broadly. "Oh, yes," he said. "Fascinating, truly fascinating - it would be a dangerous profession in the Fire Nation, but fortunately Ba Sing Se University encourages the search for truth."

"Truth?"

"Surely you've heard the things that are said of the Air Nomads," Professor Zei said, and Katara remembered involuntarily: the sages in the Avatar temple, repeating their lessons on the dangers of the Air Nomads and looking at her apologetically after. "Unfortunately, few primary sources remain. To be sure, you can still find secondhand tales in the mountains; but the Fire Nation burned so much in the early years of the war, before the Queen of Seven Kingdoms beat them back. That is why I set out for the library of Wan Shi Tong." He sighed, biting his lip, and for the first time since they had met him the smile dropped from his face. "The Fire Nation beat me to it, to some degree - many documents on the history of their nation had been destroyed before I came. But they were not thorough, and the library of the spirit is very, very large."

"And what did you find?" Katara said, more than usually aware of the faint blue shine of Aang in the edge of her vision.

"More than I could possibly tell you," Professor Zei said, and this time he sounded pleased when he sighed. "Truly, the riches of the library are beyond reckoning. The annals of Tsantsen Po, every volume; genealogies of the Tshub-Nga clan going back a thousand years; even the personal diaries of Bhrikya. I have long doubted the Fire Nation's claims that Avatar Aang - the Avatar who followed Roku, that is to say-"

"Yes," Katara said, "I've - been told his name."

"Of course," Professor Zei said. "Well, at any rate, Fire Nation historians are very fond of citing each other's assertions that he had raised a great army of Airbenders and meant to wreak terrible destruction. But Dzu Liing was a contemporary of that Avatar, a monk at the same temple where Aang was raised, and his writing had been saved in the library. He makes no mention whatever of any army. And that man recorded every time a fly landed on his windowsill." Professor Zei paused, wiping sweat from his forehead with one hand, and when he smiled at her again, the expression was tight and closed up. "They saw the ships coming, you know. He wrote of it in the last few days, how the comet shone down even through the coal-smoke. 'The elders' council says we must not fight them,'" he quoted, "'that if they have come to us for war we must not give it to them. The Avatar has vanished, but his purpose is with us, and there is no balance in hate.' A difficult passage to copy; but I did not like to leave it in the desert where so few eyes would ever read it."

"No," Katara agreed; it came out crumpled, squeezed through a tight throat. Aang drifted up and away silently, until he was only a dim light against the flat hot sky, and Katara didn't try to stop him.

***

Yue only meant to draw Katara aside to tell her how they might draw water up through the sand - not that Yue had ever done it before, but she had some ideas. But when she caught up and touched Katara's wrist, Katara looked at her with something like relief, like she was glad to be brought out of her own head.

"So," Sokka said behind them, "are we taking a break soon, or should I just save some time and die of heat exhaustion right now?"

Professor Zei glanced at the sun, and then at the horizon. "This is not a bad place to stop," he allowed. "The ridge provides a little shade."

Which was true: they were not far from a small sloping ridge, and it lay at such an angle as to provide a narrow line of shelter from the sun.

"I didn't realize coming with you guys was going to be so much fun," Toph said, wiping sweat from her forehead.

Yue was still touching Katara's wrist, and when Katara's hand moved she was only a moment behind, quick enough to catch Katara's arm before the blow could fall. Toph couldn't see it, of course, but she ducked reflexively away from the rush of air, dropping down to touch a hand to the ground - to feel more clearly, Yue thought.

"Hey! What is your problem-"

"Excuse me," Yue said, still gripping Katara's arm. Katara talked so much, but now, now she was quiet; Yue was beside her, but she could see from here that Katara's eyes were wet. "We will see if we can collect some additional water. It will make things simpler if we do not have to ration so carefully."

"All right," Sokka said slowly, and Yue turned and pulled Katara toward the ridge.

When they had rounded it, she stopped pulling, and Katara sank down and put her head on her knees. "I know you do not like her," Yue began.

"I hate her," Katara said, muffled, and then lifted her head, scrubbing a little at her eyes. "But it wasn't her, right then. Not really. I was - it was something else." She sniffed, shook her head, took a deep breath. "It won't happen again."

It didn't seem like the moment to press; so Yue let it be. "The water," she said, and knelt down next to Katara to touch the dry hot ground.

Katara put her hand to it, too, and then made a face. "You really think we can get anything?" she said.

"There was water at Misty Palms," Yue said, "and it must have come from somewhere. Far down, probably; but we might be able to get something." She hesitated. "She's the reason I thought of it, you know - the way she can feel the earth."

Katara grimaced. "Well, now I don't want to do it anymore," she said, and she was only half laughing.

"Katara," Yue said, gently chiding.

"I know, I know," Katara said, and sighed. "She annoys me so much! She never listens, she never does anything unless she wants to - she's so stubborn-"

Yue coughed twice, studiously.

"Oh, shut up," Katara said.

Yue wasn't sure whether she could feel the water or she just hoped very badly that she could; but they concentrated and raised their hands together, arcs and loops to draw the water up, and when they paused and looked the ground at their feet was damp.

"We did it," Katara said, beaming, and for a second Yue could almost forget she was the Avatar, and see only a girl who was proud of herself.

They drew the water they'd called up into cups; all of Professor Zei's waterskins were already full, but this would at least keep them from having to use it as quickly, even if there was no water further in.

"You're done," Yue said, as Katara filled the last cup.

Katara eyed her. "No, there's still an inch or two," she said, nodding at the cup in her hand.

Yue laughed, and shook her head. "No, I mean with Waterbending," she said. "You know everything I know - we made that up, together, and pulled water out of the desert." She would have spread her hands if she hadn't been clutching full cups. "If I'm any judge, you are as much a master as I am."

Katara had gone still, cup in hand and a dollop of water waiting patiently by her fingers. "You'll still - you'll stay with us, won't you?" she said, and then tried a laugh, voice cracking only a little. "I mean, somebody has to keep me from punching her."

Yue lifted a finger and nudged the water into Katara's cup, smiling. "It would be my honor to serve the Avatar," she said.

"No, I mean - for real. Not for that. Not that that's not real, but - just me." Katara flushed a little. Though, Yue thought, to be fair, the sun was very hot.

Yue grinned. "It would be my honor," she said again, more gently. "But we should go back - we've been quite a while, you know. I expect Sokka is thirsty."

***

Zuko had been relieved to leave Lingsao behind them, but that was before he'd realized Uncle was leading them right toward Sennang.

"Are you insane?" he hissed, when he realized which road they were on, passing the third signpost in as many miles with the queen's seal painted on it. "No, I know, senile - your age has finally caught up with you-"

"Relax, my nephew," Uncle Iroh said unhelpfully, and smiled up at the sky. "All will be well. It is a lovely city, you know."

"A lovely city full of people who would be happy to kill us," Zuko said, and then paused. "You've - have you been to Sennang before?"

"A very long time ago," Uncle said, and glanced at him. "It was occupied, then; and there are few things as unlovely as occupied cities. But something of its beauty remained, even then. I also escaped through it once, after it had been rebuilt."

Beauty - Zuko scowled. A useless measurement, too subjective, Father had said so many times; it could be used to entrance or manipulate the foolish, but intimidation, impressiveness, were far less variable. Besides, Uncle thought beetles were beautiful. Uncle's taste could not be trusted.

The walls of Sennang did not have the scope of the walls of Ba Sing Se, but they were still very tall; the mountains were north and west of them, the road curving through the foothills, and the walls were there and hidden and then there again as they drew closer. The road filled - at first they had been alone, but by the time the walls were close enough that even the foothills could not block their view, they had had to dismount, and they were shuffling along in the middle of a crowd with their ostrich horses following behind. Normally, the road would have been split, space for those heading toward the city and those heading away; but there was no one traveling west from Sennang.

Uncle might have been senile, but Zuko still expected a moderate effort at self-preservation, and he waited for the moment when Uncle would touch his elbow, lead him off among the trees and describe a plan that Zuko could then spend an hour mentally tearing apart. But that moment failed to come, and failed to come, and failed to come.

"Uncle," Zuko said. "Uncle, are you planning to walk right up to the gate?"

"I am," Uncle said placidly, and then laughed - laughed - at the look on Zuko's face. "I told you, nephew: be at ease." He took something from his waistband - a coin? - and flipped it once in the air before curling his fingers around it. "We will be quite safe, I promise you."

Promises - promises, like beauty, were nothing, useless, dependent on too many factors that could not be adequately controlled. Azula, Zuko thought, would never be foolish enough to rely on them; and Zuko ought to know better.

Which did not explain why he let it go with nothing more than a roll of his eyes, and kept walking down the road.

***

Sokka leapt for the cup of water in Katara's hand like it was going to save his life, and Suki had to swallow a giggle. "You are the best thing ever," he said to Katara, quite sincerely; and then he gave Suki a glance she couldn't quite interpret, and downed the whole cup in one giant gulp.

Suki turned to find Yue, because it was probably best that she be the one to give Toph her water, instead of Katara; but Yue was already moving, meeting Suki's eyes with a little nod.

Suki hadn't been close enough to hear what Professor Zei had been saying, before he and Katara had fallen silent and begun to walk with their shoulders tight as knots. But the look on Katara's face, that sudden fierce unhappiness that had had her raising her fist - that was the look Katara got when people were dead and she hated someone for it. Usually herself. That was the look that meant there were going to be some conversations where one of the important participants was invisible.

She was looking at Katara, a moment away from opening her mouth even though she had no idea what she was going to say; and then Toph jerked in the corner of her eye.

"I'm sorry," Yue said immediately, "I didn't mean to-"

"Nah," Toph said. "Wasn't you - it's this stupid sand." She kicked at it with one foot - bare, as always, to help her feel. "The flats back there were fine, but the sand makes everything weird. Fuzzy. It's harder for me to tell where the edges of things are." She reached out, less confidently than usual, for the cup; Yue touched a finger to the back of her hand to help guide her along. "I can do it!" Toph insisted, but Suki was watching, and she didn't yank her hand away.

"I'm afraid it will only get sandier from here," Professor Zei said apologetically. "At least temporarily - we are approaching the dunes, we will not hit more solid ground until tomorrow at the earliest."

"Great," Toph said sourly.

"You can't bend sand?" Suki said.

"It is possible," Professor Zei said. "The people of the desert are called Sandbenders for that very reason-"

"But it's weird," Toph said. "It's not like rocks. You can't get a good grip on sand." She made a face. "When you Earthbend, you have to stand your ground."

"Kind of literally," Sokka said, and then lifted his hands defensively when Toph snorted. "Hey, I get it, sand doesn't really stand its ground."

"It is not, however, something to underestimate," Professor Zei said, and when Suki glanced at him, he was looking off into the distance, at a wide brownish smudge on the horizon.

"What's that?" Katara said.

"A sandstorm, I believe," Professor Zei said. "It will come more quickly than you might think; we should stay by the ridge until it either strikes or passes."

***

Maybe Toph didn't like sand, but she could bend it, at least a little; and Katara watched her hands reluctantly as she plunged her fingers into the sand and twisted. She'd been putting it off the whole way through the mountains, telling herself she shouldn't even start with Toph when she hadn't finished Waterbending. But Yue had ruined that particular excuse, Katara thought grumpily.

"Instant sandstone!" Sokka said. "Totally awesome."

Toph punched the new stone up into a little lean-to against the side of the ridge, and then they waited. Katara was still hoping it might slide by them, mostly because being stuck in a small space with Toph was not something she was looking forward to, but it was barrelling right toward them. It almost reminded Katara of home, in the last few minutes before it hit them; she could close her eyes and block out the heat, and pretend the stinging against her skin was sleet instead of sand.

None of it hurt Aang, of course, but a moment after they piled in and Toph closed up the last wall behind them, he drifted through the side. He still looked pensive, but he wasn't brooding by himself several hundred feet up, and when Katara offered him a tiny smile, he returned it.

"Hope you're happy," Toph muttered as she shuffled by, and Katara clenched her fists and tried not to want to punch her again.

"This is not the same thing as helping us set up camp!" she said. "You're completely impossible."

Toph snorted. "Look, I carry my own weight," she said, and she had repeated the same thing so often as they were crossing the mountains that Katara could practically feel her ears shriveling, hearing it again. "I don't need anything from you - I don't know why you have so much trouble with that."

"I don't need you to need things from me," Katara said, "I need things from you!"

"... Sorry, can you say that one more time?" Sokka said.

Professor Zei was leaning against the further wall, watching them uncertainly like he wasn't sure whether he was allowed to say anything - not his area of expertise, Katara thought sourly. Suki looked like she was about to say something, but Yue touched her elbow, and she kept quiet.

And Toph - Toph had a deeply skeptical expression, arms crossed over her chest. "I don't need help," she said sharply, "I can handle myself."

Katara stared at her. "It's like you aren't even listening to me. We split up chores to help each other - I'm asking you to help all of us."

She was about to spit out something else angry, but then Aang drifted in front of her, Toph's annoyed expression visible through his face. "Wait," he said quietly. "Wait, Katara, remember her parents."

Katara looked at him, and forced herself to take a deep breath. He was right, she'd let herself forget half the reason Toph had come with them in the first place. You need help, Toph's father had said, you always will, and Katara had seen her face when he said it. "I'm not trying to help you," she said again, "I'm trying to get you to help me."

Toph was still tilting her head warily. "You don't want to help me," she repeated.

"To be honest, I still sort of want to punch you in the head," Katara said.

Toph narrowed her eyes, and then, abruptly, started to giggle. "That's not very nice," she said. "And here I thought you were the sugar queen."

"Normally I'm very nice," Katara said. "It's just that I don't like you," but when she sat back against the sandstone wall, she could feel herself smiling. Just a little.

***

Despite Uncle's promise and the bizarre influence it had over him, Zuko found himself swallowing hard when they reached the gates of Sennang. Surely even Uncle's brazen peculiarity could not get them through this.

But Uncle beamed kindly at the heavily-armored Earth Kingdom soldier at the gate, and then flashed the man his palm; and the soldier bowed and led them inside himself.

It reminded Zuko of something, when he was done staring in shock - Uncle, something in his hand, someone letting them in somewhere they never should have been able to get-

"The barn," he said abruptly, pausing halfway up the set of steps they were climbing.

Uncle turned to him with both eyebrows raised. "What was that, nephew?"

The soldier had stopped, too, waiting for them on the - the next landing of the palace stairs, Zuko realized belatedly, because that was where they were. No wonder Uncle had allowed their ostrich horses to be led away.

What was it that Uncle carried, that would have him both let into a barn and brought to an Earth Kingdom palace?

Zuko shook his head and began climbing again, and only when the soldier had turned and begun to move again did he look at Uncle. "That thing, that little - coin you have."

"Ah, yes," Uncle said, nodding, and then glanced up the stairs, toward the broad palace doors waiting at the top. "A little patience, Zuko, and you will see."

Sometimes he really hated Uncle Iroh.

They were not led into the main hall, nowhere Zuko would expect petitioners or guests to be taken; the soldier took them down a side corridor instead, to a nondescript little room where they were probably going to be murdered, and left them there with another deep bow.

"Uncle-"

"Patience," Uncle said. "It will be easier to understand when the queen is here."

Zuko didn't even try to keep his jaw from dropping. "The queen? Uncle-"

"All in good time, my nephew," Uncle said, and smiled.

***

The storm wasn't all that long - not compared to the winter storms that could go on for days at home. But it moved a lot of sand; when the howl of the wind had died down and Toph cracked the side of their little shelter open, sand spilled in.

"Hey, whoa," Sokka said. "Wasn't there air there before?"

"Sandstorms can displace tremendous amounts of soil," Professor Zei said knowingly. "In the Si Wong, they have been known to deposit many feet of sand at a time."

Suki raised her eyebrows and glanced at the crack: sand was still pouring in steadily. "So," she said, conversational, "how buried do you suppose we are?"

Toph put a hand to the ceiling, such as it was, and tipped her head thoughtfully. "A foot or two, I'd say." She smirked, and turned her head in Katara's direction. "So this is another one of those times where you want my help?"

Katara sniffed. "Only if you feel like it," she said, but at last she felt no urge to ball up her hands when she said it.

There wasn't enough space for Toph to stand up, so she simply knelt in the middle and thrust her arms up sharply. The whole top of their shelter flew off, stone flung into the air by the movements of Toph's hands, and sand slid over the tops of the walls and swamped them immediately. But Toph was right: they hadn't been buried all that far. It wasn't exactly easy to clamber out of waist-high sand, but nobody suffocated.

The desert looked almost completely different, when they finally got out. The ridge was still there, but it was a lot shorter; they hadn't left the flats behind all that long ago, but now there was sand as far as Katara could see.

They'd clutched their packs, kept them close by their feet, but Sokka had lost track of his; Katara turned to ask Toph whether she could maybe stand to help with that, too, but when she looked, Toph was facing the deeper desert, frowning.

"Do you guys hear that?" she said.

"Hear what?" Katara said, and then, inevitably, heard it herself the second the words were out. A weird sound, a low heavy thrumming, like somebody tapping their fingers over the surface of a drum.

"That's not, like, another sandstorm, right?" Sokka said.

"Oh, no," Professor Zei said. "No, I expect that's a swarm of scorpion wasps."

"Excuse me?" Sokka said. "Scorpion wasps?"

"Massive," Professor Zei said. "Beautiful creatures, though of course I have not studied them extensively. They often follow in the wake of sandstorms, looking for injured creatures to - well." He cleared his throat.

"Did I pick the worst week ever to travel with you guys," Toph said, "or is this a normal level of life-threatening danger?"

"We're having something of an upswing right now," Suki admitted.

"He's seen them before," Aang said to Katara. "He knows what they're like, he must have run into them on his own - what did he do then?"

Katara obediently grabbed Professor Zei's elbow. "How do you normally avoid them?" she said. They were visible now, a cloud of something in the air a little to the east, and the hum was growing louder, loud enough that she had to raise her voice.

"I usually conceal myself beneath the sand," Professor Zei said. "Of course, there are so many of us now - we may not have time."

"Oh, excellent," Sokka said, "that's just perfect - clearly being buried under three feet of sand was actually the less dangerous situation to be in-"

Toph wiggled her toes, sand shifting under her feet. "And there's something else coming," she said. "I can't tell what it is, it's all blurry around the edges."

"Probably a horde of venomous camel spiders," Sokka said, throwing up his hands. "Maybe they'll kill the scorpion wasps for us, and we can just sneak away!"

Katara glanced at Yue, who looked back at her uncertainly. There was still water somewhere under the ground, but it had taken so long to pull up even enough to fill their little cups - they weren't going to be able to get enough to do much damage. At least Yue had her pike.

"Okay," Katara said, and touched Toph's shoulder. "You're going to have to help me again. How much Earthbending can you teach me in thirty seconds?"

***

"Not much," Toph said, but she thought about it anyway. She couldn't feel the wasps themselves, exactly, because they weren't touching the ground; but the buzz of their wings was making the sand shake, the fizz of it helpfully obscuring whatever was coming at them over the sand.

They were in trouble, they were, and she wasn't exactly happy about it; but she couldn't help thinking that it was something, and something was better than the absolute nothing that had happened to her at home. It was like being in the tournament ring again, except there was hot sand under her instead of smooth stone.

Also, there hadn't been any scorpion wasps in the tournament ring.

She bit her lip. Okay, so Katara was really annoying - but she'd said out loud that she needed Toph's help, and she hadn't acted like it bothered her to ask. Or it had, but only because of who she'd been asking, not what she'd been asking. And Toph had helped her, so it was only fair to ask right back. It wasn't like her parents, the way they'd made her feel so indebted to them, like she'd only ever take and never give - this was an even trade.

"They're in the air," she said, turning her face toward the spot where she knew Katara was standing. "I mean, I can hear them, but it sounds like there are a lot, and I'm not sure I'll be able to tell where they are - not the way I'll need to."

"Well," Katara said, and she was smiling, Toph could hear it in her voice. "Need some help?"

By the time the first scorpion wasp came zooming down at them, Katara's hands were sweaty around Toph's elbows. Toph yanked on the sand - stupid sand, she hated sand - as well as she could, and when Toph said, "Okay," Katara pulled her arms up and she hurled the sand outward.

A hit - she could tell, the closest thrum dropped away and something hit the sand not too far from her feet. Apparently, the Si Wong grew big scorpion wasps, because that thing was nearly the same size as Katara.

Sokka yelled somewhere behind them, and Toph could hear the sound of a sword slashing around. She yanked more sand from the ground around them as Yue's pike whistled by, and then Katara said, "Now!" and Toph punched the sand out again. Suki - that had to be Suki swinging a pack by the straps, and Toph couldn't help grinning a little when she heard it smack heavily into another wasp.

"Goodness," Professor Zei said, "what an extraordinary day this is turning out to be," and Toph didn't understand why he'd said it until she was reaching for another round of sand, stretching out with her bending - whatever had been coming at them on the ground, it was here.

***

Today was the first day Buyan had gone out with a sailer, and she had told herself again and again not to be stupid. Most scouting trips never saw anything, and that was good - that was best, that was because the Khatuo cared well for their territory. A boring day in the sailers was something to be proud of.

But her heart had still jumped into her throat when they'd seen the odd spray of sand to the southwest, and she had left her position to climb into the prow. She'd been the one to report to Alim that wasps were swarming around whatever had thrown that sand in the air, and when they drew around the little ridge and Shingqur drew the sailer to a halt, she was the first to put boots on the sand.

Scorpion wasps were fierce when they were all together, so she pulled a cone of sand up into the sky and hurled it through the middle of the swarm. Several of the wasps were tumbled upward, others down toward the sand, and by the time she let the little cyclone disperse, the swarm had been divided temporarily.

"Go!" Alim said, and the rest of the scouting team threw themselves over the sailer's sides and hurried forward.

Travelers - not entirely unusual, but this didn't look like a trading caravan hoping for a shortcut to Ba Sing Se. Buyan couldn't see anything that looked like it might be valuable; their packs were just about large enough for basic supplies, and judging by the way one of the girls was swinging hers around, they didn't have anything particularly precious in them.

Peculiar; but a guest was a guest, and guests were good fortune, at least if they were willing to give appropriate gifts of food. And there were not many, in this group. They would not overwhelm a shared bowl.

Buyan was the closest, and she reached them first, catching the man in the middle by the arm. "Come on," she said, "come on - we can get you away quickly, the wasps won't come after us."

"Of course - that is-" He glanced over his shoulder at one of the girls in blue, the one with dark hair.

The boy in blue was already sprinting toward Buyan. "No wasps? I am so there," he said, panting, as he sped past her toward the sailer.

*

The Khatuo had many places of shelter; they were the fourth of the nine tribes. Not the highest, but high enough to claim some of the largest cave-riddled outcroppings, and one with a year-round spring.

They were there now, resting before they traveled out into the deep desert again - the perfect place to receive guests.

The sailer nearly flew over the sand - Buyan had nothing to compare it to, she had never sailed on water, but she couldn't imagine it would be any better than the desert wind and the shush of sand against a hull. Their guests were huddled amidships; the girl in green looked like she was thinking about being sick, but the rest of them were looking around curiously, and the man was muttering to himself under his breath.

Buyan snagged one of the ropes as the sailer drew up near the stone, and swung herself over the side with a whoop, letting herself tumble to the ground.

"You're going to break your arm again if you don't stop doing that," Turhun said, leaping down to land beside her, and she considered pulling her headcloth aside just so she could stick her tongue out at him.

"Worth it," she declared.

They had taken longer than they should have to return from scouting, and Tomur was waiting in the first cave, with Arzigul beside him.

"We have brought you guests," Alim told them, bowing.

"Oh?" Tomur said. "Have they a meal to share?"

He was talking to Alim, but his eyes rested inquiringly on the man; yet when someone moved, it was the dark-haired girl in blue. "Oh - um, rice?" she said, sliding her pack from her shoulders. "I mean, there's - there might be some sand in it-"

Tomur laughed. "We will bend it out," he said. "As long as you offer the food in a spirit of goodwill, we will cook it for you and share it with you, and forgive a little sand."

"Hey, you got us away from those wasp things," the boy said. "I'm goodwill up to my eyeballs over here."

***

The Sandbenders kept their word - and once they were inside the caves, they unwrapped their faces, which made them way less creepy-looking. For a second there, when they'd come leaping out of nowhere and swept the wasps away, Sokka had thought they were in for a repeat of the swamp. But these guys were way nicer.

Although, to be fair, probably a lot fewer battalions of soldiers had come poking around in the Si Wong.

Anyway, they cooked a bunch of Katara's rice in a really big pot, and then they put it in a really big bowl, along with some meat and spices and funny layered bread.

"Youtazi," said the girl who sat down next to Sokka, pinching a piece of meat between her fingers and lifting it straight from the bowl to her mouth. "Try it, it's good."

It was good, and so was the meat, even though Sokka was pretty sure it was from camel spiders; and as far as he could tell, the rice was sand-free.

"So," said the tall woman, Arzigul, when the big bowl was half-empty. "If you are not traders, why are you traveling the desert?"

"It's the quickest route to Ba Sing Se," Suki said, "when you aren't being swarmed by scorpion wasps."

"And you need to get to Ba Sing Se quickly," Arzigul said.

This time, it was Yue who answered. "There's something we hope to find there," she said, "and it's better found sooner than later."

"Much better?" said the leader, Tomur.

"Much," Yue said, and didn't elaborate.

Tomur and Arzigul glanced at each other; Arzigul's headcloth hid her expression when she turned her head, but Tomur looked intrigued. "Is it so great a secret," he said, "that you would share rice and not your reasoning?"

Katara shifted awkwardly beside Yue, and cleared her throat. "We don't know yet," she said, "but if we find it, well. We're going to need to tell the king of Ba Sing Se, at least," and they hadn't even talked about it yet, but she was totally right. If there really was going to be an eclipse, they'd need to tell somebody who could tell the rest of the Earth Kingdoms, and there was nobody better to do that than the king of the biggest one.

"The king of Ba Sing Se?" Tomur said. "And why do you think he'll listen to you?"

Katara sighed. "Because I'm the Avatar," she said, and Sokka almost laughed. He liked the Avatar talk nearly as much as the dead guy talk.

***

If Zuko's pacing was annoying Uncle, it was impossible to tell; but it made Zuko feel better to imagine that it was.

He reached the corner again and turned on his heel. Uncle was just sitting on the floor, legs folded, like they hadn't been stuck in this stupid little room for - an hour? Half an hour? It was impossible to tell.

"Ah, there," Uncle said suddenly, and when Zuko looked he was smiling, watching the gap under the door. "Someone is coming."

He'd barely finished the sentence before the door creaked open.

The woman on the other side was robed in green; her hair was done up with jade combs and gold pins and who knew what else, and there were locks of iron-grey in amidst the black. The queen, Zuko thought, and was frozen for a moment - Father would have done something, struck her or spat in her face because she was the enemy, but they were in the middle of her palace in the middle of her city. However honorable, it seemed inescapably unwise.

Uncle did neither. He drew himself to his feet and then bowed low, low as he never had to Father, and smiled. "Your majesty," he said.

"Really, Iroh?" the queen of Lannang said. "I did not think it had been long enough for you to forget my name." She lifted one hand, held it out, and lying flat in her palm was a Pai Sho tile. A white lotus piece, carved out of marble.

Uncle held his own hand out beside it, the white lotus tile in his palm exactly the same size and shape even though his was old and wooden and rubbed smooth. "Miansun," he said. "It is good to see you."

"Uncle," Zuko said, "I'm starting to think I'm the one who has gone mad. What are you doing?"

"Greeting an old friend," Uncle said, which was less than unhelpful; and Queen Miansun smiled.

"Perhaps we should sit," she said, and with two sharp small motions of her hands she raised two benches out of the stone floor, as easy as breathing.

"We're criminals from the Fire Nation who are shut in a small room with an Earthbender queen," Zuko said. "Why aren't we dead yet?"

"Criminals?" Queen Miansun said. "You've had an exciting time of it since I saw you last, Iroh." She swept around the end of one bench and seated herself, graceful and attentive. "Tell me."

Uncle Iroh glanced back at Zuko, calm, with that infuriating look of forbearance he so often wore. "She isn't going to kill you, nephew," he said. "Sit."

If she were going to kill them, Zuko thought, she could probably do it whether he sat down or not.

He sat.

"The tale would be very long," Iroh said to the queen, "and under other circumstances, I would be happy to stay the week it would take to tell it well. But I am afraid we do not have the time."

"You require shelter?" Queen Miansun said, and Zuko couldn't help but stare at her. She was as mad as Uncle, if she was so willing to harbor fugitives from a nation that already had reason to destroy her. Why would she call attention to herself so? Surely it was simply luck that Father had not killed her already.

"I think that would be unwise," Uncle Iroh said, "though I am grateful beyond telling for the thought. The Fire Nation is already at your doorstep, and I would not bring more trouble than I can help upon a generous friend."

The queen smiled. "But you have need of something," she said, "or you would not have come to me." She looked oddly pleased by the prospect, but surely she knew they had nothing to offer in exchange, no reward or bribe for her. What could she possibly gain by this?

"We hope to continue onward and eastward, to safety in Ba Sing Se." Uncle Iroh spread his hands wide. "There alone we may escape the Fire Nation's grasp."

"And it is a crowded road to Ba Sing Se, these days," the queen filled in, nodding. "Refugees from the south ten years ago, from the east now - always the same story." She paused, considering, painted face carefully expressionless. "But I should think envoys of the queen of Lannang would encounter little trouble."

Zuko blinked. Was she truly proposing to hand over official papers with her seal, to get one stranger and one man she had evidently met before to Ba Sing Se, with only their word and whatever the white lotus tile meant to assure her that they would cause no trouble? It did not seem possible, and yet Uncle was smiling.

"Thank you, Miansun," Uncle said, and the queen stood and touched his shoulder gently.

"It is a little thing," she said. "I wish I could do more."

"I have never been one to disdain the little things," Uncle said, and Zuko couldn't help but roll his eyes.

"No," the queen agreed, and then paused halfway around the bench. "It will take some time to get the papers ready, Iroh - would you like me to have some tea brought?"

***

"The Avatar," Tomur said, sitting back. "Hard to believe - and yet for exactly that reason it would be foolish to make the claim if you were not. Surely you could compose a likelier-sounding lie."

"Oh, we totally could," Sokka said helpfully.

"Well," Arzigul said. "Maintaining balance in the world is at least as generous a gift as a full pot of rice; we would be poor hosts if we failed to reciprocate." She touched Tomur's elbow. "We have had a good year, my dear. We could spare a sailer."

"A sailer," Tomur said, "and one to sail it, I think. Someone who's scouted a few times, Buyan," for the girl sitting next to Sokka had already stood up hopefully.

"I have," said a boy a little further around the circle, and stood up, too. "I could take them."

"To the edge of the desert in the north, and back," Arzigul said.

"To the edge of the desert in the north and back," the boy confirmed. "It won't be that long a sail from here."

Katara couldn't hold back a grin - that would cut down the time it would take to reach Ba Sing Se, there was no way it couldn't. And they needed every day they could get, if they were going to try to find an eclipse that fell before the comet's return.

"I'll be careful," the boy continued.

"Yeah," Buyan said. "Don't break your arm or anything."

The boy made a face at her, and then turned to them and bowed. "I'm Turhun," he said. "I'll sail you to the north, and from there you can find the road to Ba Sing Se."

Katara stood up, ready to thank him - and then Professor Zei popped up from his seat. "Amazing!" he said. "The Avatar herself - and a Sandbender. There are barely any records on the Sandbenders at the university, it's really quite disgraceful."

"Though, of course," Sokka muttered, "they are not my area of expertise," and Suki, beside him, snorted into her hand.

***

The lieutenant general was not in the command tent when Yin arrived, but she didn't want to pull anyone aside to go look for him - everyone near by seemed to already have a task of their own, except the messenger who had come along beside her, and she wasn't about to send him running around the camp to look for the man.

So she waited inside the flap, Kiri hitched up and already eating outside, and occupied herself with observation.

She wasn't about to go through his things; but there was no harm in looking at what had been left out where anyone might see it. And, to be honest, there was not much to see. Judging by the tent, the lieutenant general was not a man of extravagant tastes - there was minimal decoration, and most of the space was occupied by a table that was covered with maps and battle plans, little marking-pieces for battalions scattered across the surface. Yin glanced at them, tried to interpret them from the wrong side of the table: the Fire Nation battalions seemed to be spread quite thin, and as small as the green markers were, there were so many of them-

"Apologies," said the man behind her, and he let the tent flap fall shut again behind him. "I did not intend to keep you waiting - poor recompense, when you came so quickly. I am Lieutenant General Kizao."

"No matter," Yin said, waving a hand. Even if she wanted to cause the man difficulties, he clearly had plenty of his own at the moment. "It gave me time to catch my breath. You have orders from General Jingzan?"

"By way of Jingzan, yes," Kizao said, "but originally from the crown princess herself. Jingzan received a messenger hawk with the royal seal."

Yin couldn't help raising her eyebrows. Orders from the royal family were relatively rare, and therefore important when they were given out - no wonder he had sent a messenger so quickly. "For me?" she said.

"For you," Kizao confirmed. "Not personally, of course - but to the nearest fleet commander we would be able to contact, and we knew someone would be coming with reinforcements. Just in time, too," he admitted. "We still have New Ozai, but the rebellion here is - formidable."

Possibly too strong for us, Yin interpreted.

"But that is no longer your concern, now that you have arrived," Kizao said, and crossed to the far side of the table. "I have the scroll itself," he continued, lifting one from the edge of the table and holding it out, "but the contents were described to General Jingzan. You are to depart for Chameleon Bay, in the far east - not to take the coast, only to transport, so confine yourself to the western waters."

Not to take the coast - then they meant her to transport something else, soldiers or equipment. Well, she could not complain; if she'd been sent to a battle, Yin thought wryly, she had no idea which side she would end up firing at, the way she'd been thinking lately.

"Thank you, Lieutenant General," she said formally, and took the scroll - it felt oddly light against her fingers, for something so important. "It is my honor to serve our nation."

"And mine," Kizao said, and bowed.

---

Chapter Eight: The Serpent's Pass

"Water is the best thing ever," Sokka said, and promptly plunged his head in the stream.

Katara couldn't exactly disagree, although she wasn't about to stick her head in it. It hadn't been that long a trip across the desert, not with Turhun and the sandsailer to carry them. Her fragile truce with Toph had even been preserved, although that was probably partly because Toph had been distracted - she'd fought with Turhun, the first day, and then they'd spent the rest of the journey throwing sand at each other under the guise of "comparing techniques".

But it had been chilly at night and roasting during the day, and once they'd passed into the deeper dunes Katara had been weirdly uncomfortable in a whole new way. It was like those dreams where you tried to yell but no sound came out; except it wasn't that she couldn't feel water anymore, it was that there was no water to feel, outside of their packs. She couldn't even swing a pike around like Yue to take her mind off of it.

But Turhun had left them at the edge of the sands, waving goodbye and turning the sailer around with long sweeps of his arms; and now they had hit grass again, and they couldn't be far from the twin Yellow Seas.

So she didn't plunge her head in the brook. But she did reach out and pull a little water up, curling it into a sphere, pulling it toward her and then pushing it away before she let it drop back with a splash. It felt good.

She looked up to find Yue smiling at her, water hovering under the other girl's hand. "I missed it, too," Yue said.

"Yeah, yeah, all right," Toph said, "yay water." She took their old map from Katara's hand and unrolled it. "We've got a little ways to go before we get to the Yellow Sea and the ferries; you've got a lot of Earthbending to learn, and now you've finally got some proper earth to learn it on."

Katara pursed her lips, and tried not to sigh. She could do this without hitting Toph in the face, she could. She was the Avatar.

"I'll help you set up camp tonight if you pay attention, sugar queen," Toph said, smirking.

Suki, who had been adjusting her pack, slung it back on and reached out to pat Katara on the shoulder.

"All right," Katara said, and took a deep breath. "Where do we start?"

***

Sokka was still keeping an eye out, but the showers of gravel had mostly stopped after the ferry station had appeared in the distance. Katara had stopped yelling, too; now Toph was the loud one, and Katara was occasionally hissing back under her breath.

"This is going to be a long trip to Ba Sing Se," Suki murmured beside him, hefting her pack a little higher on her shoulder.

"Maybe the ferries will have sails," Sokka offered. "We could set them behind one and let them yell at each other, we'd be there in no time."

"And they were doing so well, too," Suki said, sighing.

Sokka raised his eyebrows. "Because there was a swarm of scorpion wasps. Do you want another swarm of scorpion wasps?"

Suki glanced over her shoulder, and then ducked; a rock bounced up through the space where her head had been and skittered away over the path. "Maybe a small one," she said, straightening up again, and then laughed aloud at the look on his face.

"I'll pass," he said, just in case she hadn't gotten that.

They weren't that far away, anyway, and surely getting on the ferry would distract Katara. How did they even do it, anyway? Did people just pile on? Honestly, the whole concept of a ferry was a little weird. Did no one around here have their own canoe?

And the ferry station itself was kind of imposing. Most official Earth Kingdom buildings were ridiculously tall, but the ferry station was nearly a mountain, more literally than usual. Sokka had no idea whether they'd built it or they'd just hollowed out a hill that had already been there, but either way, it was pretty ridiculous. But Toph had sworn up and down that the little mountain was the right place; and they were close enough now that the weird fuzzy line of green around the bottom had resolved itself into uniformed Earth Kingdom soldiers, so she'd probably been right.

Although they were kind of short, Sokka thought. Not all of them, granted; but General Fong and the city authorities in Gaoling had both favored pretty massive guys. Apparently the Ba Chang ferries didn't care quite as much about appearances.

"Stop," shouted one of the shorter ones when they drew close enough, and even Katara and Toph quit talking. The Earth Kingdom soldier lifted a hand, and eyed them.

"Weapons?" said another soldier.

"Well, yeah," Sokka said. "But, I mean, not more of them than anybody else, probably."

"I don't know," the first soldier said thoughtfully. "They look like troublemakers to me."

Sokka blinked, startled. Was it Katara? Could they tell she was the Avatar somehow, even though she hadn't done anything?

But Suki, beside him, narrowed her eyes; and then she strode forward three steps and put her hand to the first soldier's face.

"Uh, Suki," Sokka began, but she wasn't punching anybody in the head - she was only lifting the soldier's helmet, drawing it up and away to reveal a vaguely familiar girl's smiling face.

"Mikari!" Suki cried, and threw the helmet to the ground so she could hug the girl with both arms.

***

They knew her, obviously, though she didn't look familiar to Yue - Yue glanced sideways, toward Toph, and she must have shifted her weight enough to move the dirt at her feet, because Toph turned her face to Yue and shrugged.

The girl was someone the Avatar and her friends had met together, then, on their long trip north before they had known Yue - when it had just been the three of them, traveling half the world together. Yue bit her lip for a second; despite her best efforts, she couldn't help thinking of Princess Azula, smiling knowingly at her beneath dank green trees. But she'd taught Katara everything she knew, and Katara had asked her to stay anyway - surely she could be certain by now that the thing in the swamp really hadn't been telling the future.

"Okay, okay," Toph said, "enough with the hugfest. What's the deal?"

"Right, right, sorry," Suki said, and disentangled herself cheerfully from a third girl. Her first cry had been rather loud, and now there were a good dozen girls crowded around them, pulling off their helmets and grinning. "They're Warriors of Kyoshi - from home, from my island. What are you even doing here?"

"We were called to service," said the girl Suki had called Mikari, shrugging one armored shoulder. "Not us specifically, that is - there are so many refugees coming in from the west these days, the roads and the ferries are overrun, and the usual guards were far too few. There are so many people waiting, there's practically a city in there." She motioned over her shoulder to the great sloping hill behind her.

"And they just had you come up here to fill in?" Katara said. She sounded doubtful, and Yue understood why: the Earth Kingdoms were certainly allies, but that didn't mean they lent armies to one another on a regular basis.

But Mikari grinned. "We have no king or queen," she said. "We serve the people, in honor of Kyoshi. I hear the king of Shiyokima was less than pleased, to have half his palace guards gone; but the head of the order over there convinced him that it would be wise to allow those of us who wished it to assist our friends to the north."

"That must have been a fun conversation," Sokka said, and Suki laughed.

"But we ought to be asking you the same question," another girl said, propping her helmet against her hip. "The last time we saw you, you were speeding north in a canoe with the Avatar." She looked them over, eyes lingering on Yue's white hair, Toph's green clothes, Professor Zei's curious expression.

"We've picked up a few people," Suki said. "I can't tell you everything, not now - we need to get to Ba Sing Se as soon as we can."

Mikari and the other girl exchanged glances. "That could be difficult," Mikari said.

"Oh, no, not difficulty," Sokka said dramatically, throwing his hands in the air. "Whatever will we do?"

But Suki didn't laugh this time. She was looking at Mikari's face, and after a moment she began to frown. "How difficult?" she said.

"We'll let you inside," Mikari said, "and you'll see for yourself."

***

Zuko hated everything about this place. It was dank, obviously, being caged under thick stone that only opened in the direction of the water, and chilly after the sunshine outside; and, worst of all, it was horrendously crowded.

It was wretched to be forced to rub elbows with hundreds of unwashed Earth Kingdom peasants, and to add frost over snow, it meant Uncle wasn't going to explain anything until they were out of here.

As Uncle had promised, the queen of Lannang had indeed let them go unharmed. She'd given them a scroll with her royal seal on it, too, in return for no tangible gain whatsoever that Zuko could see. To fail to understand what happened around you was to ask for pain and misfortune, Zuko knew; but the second they'd left the city gates, Uncle had turned to him and touched a finger to his mouth warningly.

"I know you have many questions, my nephew," he had said, "but now is not the time," and he had tipped his head meaningfully to the crowds of people streaming around them.

And Zuko had accepted it, at least temporarily: if Uncle was going to tell him he had some kind of dark hold over an Earth Kingdom queen, or was involved in a secret conspiracy - for Father? - that spanned continents, a road full of Earth Kingdom citizens was not the place to do it.

So he'd kept his mouth shut all the way to the North Yellow Sea, and it had gained him nothing.

"Patience," Uncle Iroh said, and Zuko looked up. They were perhaps three people down the line from the woman dispensing ferry tickets, but Uncle wasn't watching her argue with the weeping peasant in front; Uncle was watching him. "The time will come."

Zuko said nothing, and did his best not to grind his teeth.

There was a space of a few feet that stayed clear, as if by magic, around the woman and her ticket counter, but beyond that the bustle and press was incredible; by the time he and Uncle were next in line, Zuko had been elbowed upwards of ten times, and three separate people had stumbled into him. So when something short and a little pudgy struck him on the shin, it seemed like nothing, until Zuko looked down.

It was a boy, some peasant's child who should never have been set down in the first place. He had rebounded off Zuko's knee perhaps half a step, and was more occupied with rubbing his dirty nose than with the person he'd so thoughtlessly run into.

He was still too close - half a step wasn't far for a child that small, after all - and Zuko leaned down to catch him by the collar of his shirt and redirect him at precisely the same moment that the woman with the tickets dismissed the man ahead of Uncle with a wave.

"Papers?" she said sharply, as Zuko hooked a finger in the child's shirt.

Uncle confessed that they had none, and she nearly dismissed them outright before he produced Queen Miansun's seal; but Zuko missed the rest. The boy was apparently incapable of comprehending directional cues: Zuko tugged him sideways to face the crowd and pushed, but he only turned around again the moment Zuko let him go.

"Jin!" someone shouted, not all that far away, and then the crowd split briefly, just as Zuko, exasperated, caught the child by the wrist.

"Four tickets, then?" the ticket woman said.

Zuko blinked and looked up. The crowd had split because a girl had elbowed it apart - a girl who was now staring at him uncertainly, her hand wrapped around the grubby child's other arm.

"Eight, I think," Uncle said, very calmly, and Zuko turned his head to ask him what he meant and came face-to-face with a vaguely familiar woman.

Of course - he should have recognized the boy right away. It was that child, the one who'd thought Zuko was too stupid to use a broom, and the woman who'd made them sleep on her floor, and - wait. Eight?

"Uncle," Zuko said, but he was already too late. Uncle had put his hand on the familiar woman's shoulder - he wasn't standing close enough for it to be genuinely improper, but it wasn't exactly making them look like strangers.

"Eight," Uncle repeated, and the ticket woman peered over the counter at him and then brought her stamp down like a hammer, eight times.

***

The boy was looking away, staring openmouthed at the old man; Qingying took the opportunity to yank Jin away and lift him up. She hadn't meant for him to get away, she had only taken her eyes off him for a moment. But that was how it always happened. He had been so good this morning, had sat still for so long waiting for Aunt to come back - she should have been expecting him to take off.

He didn't seem hurt, at least; he grinned at her, gaptoothed, and she hefted him a little higher and rubbed the dirt off his nose with the edge of her sleeve.

She'd have to apologize to Aunt, of course. Bad enough that Aunt had had to move in to take care of them after - after everything. Then their parents' house had burned to the ground, everything gone except what they'd grabbed before they'd gone out the door; Lan had cried nearly the whole way here, and Qingying had tried so hard, but Aunt had still woken twice in the night and had to help soothe her.

And now this. Lucky, that Jin had happened to run into the man from dinner at just the right moment, or they'd surely have proven beyond a doubt they were too great a burden for one kindly aunt to handle alone.

Lan was only a step behind her, and Zhiyang was already clutching her sleeve, his fingers narrowly missing the blot Qingying had just rubbed off of Jin's nose. Yanhong, always so bold, had rushed up to the man from dinner and clasped his hand, blinking solemnly up at the ticket woman.

"Eight," the ticket woman said briskly, unaffected by Yanhong's enormous eyes; and the man from dinner took the stamped tickets from her with a bow and a smile.

"Have you lost your mind?" the boy hissed, when they were far enough from the ticket woman to avoid drawing her attention.

"Please, nephew," the man said, "we have company now." He turned to Aunt and bowed, still holding Yanhong's hand. "You must forgive Li; we have traveled very far, and it wears on him."

Li - yes, of course, Qingying remembered now. Li, and his uncle was Mushi. They had left before the fire, but they must have gone around the mountains instead of through - little wonder, if neither of them was an Earthbender. Aunt had been lucky, to find a caravan for their family to travel with that had crossed the Great Pass with bending; otherwise, it probably would have taken them half again as long to get here.

Aunt bowed in return. "You have done us a very great favor, though I do not expect that you remember us all," she said, with a small smile. "I am Wan Liu; I suspect that you may at least recall little Jin, and the one whose hand you have there is Yanhong."

"Hello, my dear," Mushi said soberly, bending to look Yanhong in the eye.

"Hi," Yanhong said readily. "Can I touch your beard?"

Mushi laughed. "Of course," he said, "though I hope you will refrain from pulling."

"I'll try," Yanhong said, frank. "It's so much longer than Baba's-"

"Yanhong," Qingying said, and ducked down to grab her sister's wrist in her free hand.

"Well, it is," Yanhong said; but she quieted after, and let Mushi's hand go.

Mushi looked at Qingying for a moment - not angrily, or even chastisingly, but something about it made her want to turn away, to hide her face and let herself cry like Lan.

"We cannot thank you enough," Aunt said, like nothing had happened; and Mushi smiled.

"It was a little thing," he said. "Fortune has favored us-"

Li snorted.

"-and there are so many in need," Mushi continued placidly. "After the fine meal you gave us, I am grateful we have the opportunity to assist you in return. I am only sorry we cannot do more."

It was strange - he said it to them, but he sounded like he meant it for everyone, like he was sorry he couldn't pull another scroll from his pocket and get a hundred more people on the boat. Like it wasn't already a gift beyond measuring, that the six of them could have tickets when some people had been stuck on the western bank for months.

"Come," Aunt said to him, "to the docks. I believe the ferry will be loading soon."

***

"You weren't kidding," Suki said, and Katara bet it would have come out hushed if it weren't for the noise.

They were pressed almost to the wall, inside - Mikari had gotten two Earthbender guards to open the rock for them, with a technique that looked perfectly viable to Katara but had made Toph snort dismissively through her nose. The ferry landing was absolutely packed with people, and there was so much stamping and shouting and shoving that Toph was grimacing from the vibrations.

"Tickets are just about impossible to get, if you don't have papers," Mikari said, and she looked almost angry for a second. "There are people who were here the day we came who haven't gotten one yet. There's only half as many ferries running as usual, with the Fire Nation in the South Sea, and the Serpent's Pass is hardly safe even at night. We escort people across, when we can, but-" Her mouth flattened unhappily. "There's barely enough of us to guard this place already. Someone was killed in their sleep last week for their ticket, waiting for the morning boat."

"For a ticket?" Sokka repeated, incredulous.

"It's quite a long way around the Yellow Seas, without the ferries or the Pass," Professor Zei said knowingly. "Whether you go north or south. The Tai San leaves the South Yellow Sea through a series of waterfalls - the 'white silk curtains', as Qing Ta once referred to them in her Song for Plums Along a River. The first ford is at least a hundred miles to the south. And to the north, why, a traveler would have to reverse nearly to the borders of Jansung, and cross five separate rivers just to reach the eastern plain. The ferries must be by far the safer option-"

"Except when they aren't," Sokka said.

"Well, it wasn't the ferry," Toph said. "It was the murderer with the knife or whatever."

"Hold on, hold on," Katara said, holding up her hands until they both went quiet; and then she pointed at Mikari. "The Serpent's Pass? What is that?"

Mikari blinked and glanced at Suki, and then shook her head ruefully. "It's so strange to have you back," she said, "I keep forgetting you were ever gone at all. Of course you don't know."

"Don't suppose you've studied it," Sokka muttered, glancing at Professor Zei.

He hadn't meant it as a real question, Katara could tell; but of course Professor Zei took it for one, and cleared his throat.

"Not as such," he said, sheepish. "But I am sure your friend is right: I imagine it is a route fraught with danger, if the Fire Nation is indeed patrolling the South Yellow Sea. I suspect they must look on Earth Kingdom citizens attempting a crossing as, well. Something along the lines of target practice, most likely. The Serpent's Pass runs between the - to be entirely accurate, the halves of what was once a single sea. Legend has it that it was constructed by a hundred of King Jang Yao's finest Earthbenders, to provide an easier path for trade caravans from the west."

Target practice. Katara resisted the urge to put her face in her hands. As though what they really needed right now was more people to attack them.

"Actually, as long as there aren't any scorpion wasps," Sokka said, "it sounds pretty okay."

But Mikari was shaking her head. "We can't take you - there aren't enough of us to spare an escort today-"

"I think we can handle it," Toph said, crossing her arms.

Mikari eyed them. "Even if you do go that way, you shouldn't start out until nightfall. The Fire Nation still patrols at night, but there's less chance that they'll notice you if you leave after dark."

Katara bit her lip, and something in her stomach clenched sharply. They were so close - they'd crossed the mountains and the desert, and Ba Sing Se and its king were only a sea away. They couldn't afford to stand around waiting for the sun to set. "Then we'll have to try to get tickets."

"Knifed if we do, fried if we don't," Toph murmured, almost singsong, and for a moment Katara wanted to punch her - did she seriously think Katara didn't realize she was leading them all into danger?

Mikari was looking at her sympathetically. "It won't be easy," she said. "I know you're the Avatar, I remember. But unless you're planning to bring this place down on our heads as a demonstration, I'm not sure they'll believe you."

"They have to," Katara said. "We need to get to Ba Sing Se."

Yue was looking at her sharply, which was how she knew it had come out a little too harsh; but she couldn't bring herself to apologize for it. Despite everyone's reassurances on the way to Gaoling, and the good luck that had let them find Toph, she still couldn't picture herself the confident master of four elements by no later than the end of summer. But an eclipse - an eclipse would drain the Fire Nation's power away, if only for a little while. An eclipse meant maybe they wouldn't need a fully-realized Avatar to bring down the Fire Lord. And every day that slipped away from them lowered the chance that they'd find an eclipse that would come at the right time.

Mikari's uniform bought them a little space, and she led them through the crowd until she could point out the ticket stall over the sea of heads. "Best of luck," she said, dipping her head to Katara; but her expression wasn't optimistic.

A good hour later, when they finally reached the head of the ticket line, Katara could see why.

"Papers," the scowling ticket woman said.

Katara glanced at Sokka, who stared back with wide eyes and then shrugged helplessly.

"Papers?" Katara said. Mikari had said something about papers, but surely they only needed to prove they could pay for the tickets. "I don't-"

"Family identification," Professor Zei murmured. "Some of the Earth Kingdoms have come to rely on them quite heavily during the war, to make it more difficult for the Fire Nation to infiltrate. But, of course, the system that has developed does not favor those citizens who cannot afford to be added to the official register, and likely would not be able to read any papers they did receive. Or those, like you, who have had no reason or opportunity to obtain them."

"I don't suppose you know anybody who could whip some up?" Sokka said.

The ticket woman cleared her throat. "Application for official papers is certainly possible," she said, "though of course it will take time for the paperwork to go through, and there are fees. We will need proof of identity, a family seal-"

Katara glanced at Sokka. A family seal? Did they even have a family seal? And proof of identity - were they supposed to go back to the south and drag Mother all the way up here? Not that they'd take Mother's word for it, Katara thought sourly, since Mother wouldn't have proof of identity either.

Sokka made a face, and turned to Professor Zei. "Did you have to do this to get yours?" he demanded.

Professor Zei looked abashed. "Well, I had the dean of the university to vouch for me," he said, and drew a folded paper from his outer robe - a speckling of sand fell from the creases. "Papers are required of University employees."

"My parents got mine when I was about a day old," Toph said cheerfully. "They don't make you show them at home, most of the time, but nobody goes anywhere without them." She pulled her face into a caricature of arrogance, eyelashes fluttering, and said, "Imagine the scandal - caught in the streets without papers!"

The ticket woman cleared her throat sternly. "One set each," she enunciated. "No papers, no ticket."

"Each?" Katara said. "But couldn't you-"

"-make an exception?" the ticket woman droned. "Are you the king of anything?"

"Well, no," Katara said.

"The queen of anything?"

"Random spiritual visitations?" Sokka suggested.

"Anything official," the ticket woman clarified, without even cracking a smile.

"No," Katara admitted, and then shifted uncomfortably. If there were ever a time to say it, she told herself, it was absolutely now. "But I am the Avatar."

The ticket woman raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Do you have any idea how often I hear that one?" she said, and then, "Don't answer, it was rhetorical. No papers, no ticket - no exceptions, unless you can show a royal seal."

"But we have to get to Ba Sing Se-" Suki began.

"I hear that one even more often," the ticket woman said, and she looked down at them unflinchingly from behind the stall. "Your grandmother's dying; your children are sick; getting on that ferry is a matter of life or death." She shook her head. "No papers, no ticket."

***

Obviously she couldn't see it, but Toph could still totally tell that Katara was looking at her - when Katara had things she was feeling judgey about, her staring got weight.

Toph did have her papers on her - the finest rice paper, Mama wouldn't have settled for less, and she'd probably cringe if she knew Toph had stuffed them in her pack and let them wrinkle. Toph could get a ticket, no problem, and that had to be why Katara was giving her the judgey eyes.

Sure, Katara was annoying, but that didn't mean Toph was going to leave her on the western bank and sail off to Ba Sing Se with the dorky professor. Seriously.

"Well, I guess that's it, then," Toph said loudly, and turned away from the ticket stall. It was ridiculous, how crowded it was in here - it was almost as bad as the sand, vibrations from every direction blurring everything into fuzz. But everybody was knocking into each other anyway, so Toph figured it didn't matter if she whacked a few people on her way past. "Don't suppose you could ferry us over yourself, sugar queen."

"I wouldn't need to," Katara said, in a tone Toph chose to think of as abashedly defensive, "if you could raise us a bridge out of the rock."

"Um, even if you could hold it together the whole way across," Sokka said, "I'd really rather not ride on ice, if that's okay." His wince was so exaggerated Toph could feel it even over the fuzz of a thousand people moving. "Just thinking about it is giving me frostbite again."

Toph cleared her throat loudly.

"You didn't get frostbite the first time," Katara said.

"It won't give us frostbite this time, either," Suki said, "if it won't work."

Toph sighed, and cleared her throat again. Seeing probably came in handy, but sometimes it made people really bad at using their ears. "Um, hello? Somebody already did raise us a bridge out of the rock, remember?" She turned in approximately Katara's direction, and raised her eyebrows. "I get it, you don't want to wait; but we're not getting tickets, and even if we did we'd still have to wait for a ferry." She shrugged. "I hate boats anyway. Let's walk."

Sokka shifted his feet and bumped Katara sideways - with his elbow, Toph was guessing. "No scorpion wasps," he said invitingly. "I mean, sure, 'Serpent's Pass' isn't the most, um, pleasant name, and I'm not looking forward to getting fireballs shot at me. Like, more of them than have already been shot at me. But there'll be water all over the place for you and Yue, and Toph can throw rocks right back at them, if it comes to that."

Mikari didn't seem all that surprised to see them when they worked their way back over to the wall; Toph heard her let out a breath, resigned. She'd been hoping they would get what they wanted, Toph guessed, but she hadn't really thought it would happen. Toph couldn't exactly blame her for her pessimism.

"You'll be taking the Serpent's Pass," she said, "won't you?"

"Yeah," Sokka said, "it's kind of looking that way."

"I don't - I don't want to burden you, Avatar," Mikari said, and Toph could feel the dirt tremble under Katara's feet like she had swallowed a laugh.

"Yeah, sure, we'll take somebody with us," Toph said, before anybody could ask any stupid questions. It was so obvious: they were crossing the Pass and Mikari couldn't, and she felt bad about it. She'd come up here to help people - and she probably was, except maybe for that one guy who'd gotten knifed, but sometimes everything you could do still didn't feel like enough. Actually, Mikari was kind of like Katara. Except way less annoying about it.

Everybody was quiet for a second, a shuffle on the ground like they'd turned to look at her, and Toph crossed her arms and let out an intentionally gusty sigh.

"It's totally what she was going to ask, and we're already going to do it - why wouldn't we take a few more people along?"

She hesitated after she said it for a second; she wasn't trying to set off Katara's guilt issues or whatever, and if Katara got some funny idea in her head and tried to take like two hundred people with them, Toph was going to have to put her foot down. But Katara was perfectly still against the ground - staring at Toph, Toph assumed, and immediately made a face. What, was she surprised? Like she'd been ready to give Toph the judgey eyes again - like she'd thought she would have to talk her into it? Toph was going to do her best to avoid dying for anybody, but that didn't mean she was that selfish.

Toph sniffed and turned back to about where Mikari was standing. "You got somebody particular in mind?"

***

Mikari did, as it turned out; she looked around, like she wanted to be sure no one was paying much attention, and then she led them along the wall of the ferry station, until they'd rounded most of the curve and had come near the water.

Looking out, Katara could see something in the distance - one of the ferries, no doubt, coming back empty from the east to fill itself with ticketholders and make another trip across the North Yellow Sea. She tried to picture the map, and to remember what Professor Zei had said: the ferry station had to be on the coast of the North Yellow Sea, and that unevenness across the water to the south must be the Serpent's Pass. Maybe this station had had a twin to the south, or perhaps the ferries had once had Earthbenders to part the Serpent's Pass and then close it up again behind them. Before the war, that is - if the kingdom of Ba Chang had Earthbenders to spare for ferry trips now, Katara would be surprised to hear it. Having some assigned to open the station for people at all was probably taxing their forces as it was.

"My friends," Mikari said ahead of her, and bowed, and Katara turned to look.

There were two people in front of Mikari - only two. The man looked younger than Professor Zei but older than Sokka, and he bowed in return, deeply and politely. The woman didn't even rise, but Katara could see why: her belly was rounded outward distinctly. Katara had seen her youngest cousins born, she'd even helped Gran-Gran with Aunt Mitika, so she knew enough to guess this woman was maybe six months along. Aunt Mitika was built like a bull tiger seal, wide and muscled; even at six months she'd barely showed, and had still gone hunting. This woman was much thinner, which fleeing across the Earth Kingdoms probably hadn't helped, and much more obvious.

"Forgive me for my rudeness," she said, and smiled at them faintly. "I would rise, but I am not my steadiest today."

Mikari touched the woman's shoulder gently, and smiled back - she hadn't just been being polite, Katara realized, she really did consider them friends. "Then you should save your strength for tonight," Mikari said. "I've found someone to take you across."

Both of them looked at her with sudden sharpness, renewed attention; she must have talked to them often, and rarely been able to give them any good news. "Across the Pass?" the woman said. "Truly?"

"They are - benders," Mikari said, obviously temporizing - talking about the Avatar with so many people around would definitely be a mistake, and Katara had to admit that it wasn't quite a lie anyway. She could certainly bend. "They'll be able to keep you safe."

"Whoa, hey," Sokka said, before Mikari could say anything else. "Not that I wouldn't enjoy walking across a sea and being attacked by the Fire Nation with some total strangers, but can we, you know, trade names first? Life stories, maybe - like, the short version?"

"Of course," the woman said. "Please forgive us. I am Hok Suan; this is Eng Pin." She glanced up at Mikari, so briefly Katara almost missed it, and then tilted her chin up, just a little. "He is my husband."

They'd done what Sokka'd asked, or started to, and it was only fair to return the favor - but Katara had barely opened her mouth before Toph snorted.

"Liar," she said.

"Toph!"

"She is!" Toph said. "She's sitting down, she's touching the ground from her hands to her ankles - it's not like it's hard to tell." She sighed loudly. "What, you can't see it?"

Katara glanced at Hok Suan. She could see something, at least. Hok Suan had gone still on the stone, legs curled under her tensely. She had tucked one hand through Eng Pin's, near her shoulder, and her knuckles were tight as knots; and the other hand was over her belly, defensive. And she was staring at Katara, blank-faced, waiting to see what she would say.

"Well, sort of," Sokka said, "since she's not really looking at you like you're wrong - but I don't understand-"

"I told you," Toph said, "she's touching the ground. There's two heartbeats; but one of them's a lot - bigger than the other one. Lying makes people nervous, and nervous people's hearts pound."

"No wonder you couldn't get papers," Suki said to Hok Suan, gentle and commiserating.

"But they're having a child," Katara said blankly. "Doesn't that count? I mean, isn't that the same thing?"

The silence that followed was eloquent.

"Apparently not," Sokka murmured.

Professor Zei cleared his throat. "If I may," he said. "The fabled journals of Pei Zhang Jin are a highly esteemed portion of the university library's collection, and an excellent record of her journey to the far south - the first ever undertaken by anyone from the Earth Kingdoms-"

"Blah blah blah booky stuff," Toph said. "What are you talking about, Katara?"

Katara looked at Sokka, who shrugged back, and then, helplessly, at Aang. He was floating, blue and puzzled, by the wall next to Mikari, and he shrugged, too. "I lived at a temple with thousands of monks," he said. "I didn't really worry about that stuff much."

"We had feasts, sometimes," Yue said slowly. "When somebody had accepted a necklace, and people had decided to - stay together, and have children."

"That's it?" Toph said. "But how'd they pick? I mean, didn't they have to - get a matchmaker, and give gifts, and pick a lucky day, and have a procession, and do a ceremony, and put on red-"

"No!" Katara said. "How would you even have time for that? Why would you need to - everybody knows. I mean-" She faltered. Of course everybody knew, at home - even before the warriors had gone, there had been, what? A hundred people? A hundred and fifty? She thought of the city Gran-Gran said had been there once; of Kanjusuk, and Jindao, and all those districts and walls Dai Kun had led them through in Hansing to take them to his mother's house. How did people even meet each other, in places that large? Nobody would know anyone.

"... I'm moving to the South Pole when this is over," Toph said.

"It matters here," Hok Suan said quietly. Katara looked at her; she had relaxed, listening to them talk, and so had Eng Pin, but the hand she had curled around his was still holding on so very tightly. "It's important. Your friend is right - both of your friends. We are not married, we - could not; we cannot get papers that match, and a woman like this-" She touched her curving stomach gently with her free hand. "I cannot get papers alone, with no husband to vouch for me and no relatives."

"No relatives?" Katara said. That was almost as weird.

Hok Suan tilted her chin up again - defiance, that was what lent it that sharpness that Katara hadn't recognized the first time. "None who would claim me now," she said.

"Well," Toph said, and clapped her hands together. "I guess you really are coming with us."

"You're the one who said she was a liar!" Sokka said.

Toph shrugged. "She was - because she thought we wouldn't take them. I mean, if you want to make her right, go ahead." She put her hands on her hips and raised her eyebrows, waiting.

Katara couldn't help it; she laughed. "Watch out," she said, "or I'm going to start thinking you're nice."

***

It was so strange, to stand at the Serpent's Pass at last, with her feet on the stone and water to either side. Hok Suan had spent so many days staring over the sea at the ragged silhouette of it, imagining what it would be like; she had almost stopped believing it would ever happen. Sometimes it had seemed like they would be trapped in the ferry station forever - like someone would come in another hundred years when the war was long over, and find them still waiting.

The sun had already set, and the moon had been and gone by midday; it would not rise again for hours, and would cast little light when it did. They were as safe as they could hope to be, even with the lighted decks of Fire Nation warships shining to the south. They would never have a better chance.

Eng Pin touched her elbow gently, and she looked at him and realized only then that she hadn't moved.

They had been lucky already. It was the work of the Hundred-Year War, that anyone would cross a well-traveled piece of the Earth Kingdoms without dying and call it luck - and be right to do it. They had been lucky to find each other in the first place, lucky to get away, lucky to live; they had been lucky to find Mikari. And now she had found them a group of benders - benders, who somehow had no tickets either and were willing to cross the Pass.

"Everybody's got everything, right?" said Sokka, grinning - young, they were all young, but then Hok Suan wasn't so very much older. And wars made everyone old.

Eng Pin's fingers curled around her arm, warm and sure, and she fumbled her other hand over to squeeze his wrist. She'd already left so much behind, nothing in her pack now but whatever had been closest to hand when they'd run; but even if they dumped that on the western shore and she never saw it again, they would find a way. She had what she needed, whether there was a pack on her back or not.

If Eng Pin could hear what she was thinking, he'd roll his eyes and make a face at her for being so sentimental. Hok Suan grinned.

"I think we're ready," she said, and the boy's sister smiled at her.

"So let's get a move on," said the Earthbender girl. "Aren't we trying not to get set on fire, here?"

***

The irritating woman hadn't been wrong about the ferry, or at least not entirely: it hadn't been at the dock when they'd finally worked their way over, but everyone else with a ticket had been.

"Is it always like this?" Uncle said, when the sun sank and there was still no ferry. The dock had filled in behind them; already one man had run out of space and tumbled into the water, and had had to be fetched out by Earth Kingdom soldiers.

Wan Liu looked at him gravely. "No matter the number of tickets they dispense or do not dispense," she said, "the ferries cannot be made larger than they are. Two hundred seats, I hear, and they only allow so many to sleep on the deck - the crew must have room to operate."

She was clinging tightly to her grubby children - or nieces, nephews, whatever they were - but she almost didn't need to; they were pressed close together by the crowd, and Zuko doubted any of them could have gotten more than a foot away even if they'd been trying to. Which they weren't. The older girl was hanging onto the woman's hand just as hard, and onto the boy with the other; the little girl who was so bizarrely entranced with Uncle's beard had let Uncle pick her up and then fallen asleep on his shoulder; and Zuko had given up trying to get the presumptuous little boy to let go of Zuko's trousers. Thanks to Uncle, they were stuck with these people for at least the length of a ferry ride, and annoying as it was, the boy would be far more frustrating to deal with if he were crying.

At least the cloth was already travel-worn; Jin's stupid dirty hands wouldn't make it any worse.

If Uncle had had his way, no doubt they would have stepped to the side and let every beggar in the Earth Kingdoms get on first. But by the time the ferry came, a fat wooden Earth Kingdom barge that anyone with sense should have been ashamed to sail, they were packed so tightly they could do nothing but edge forward in pace with the rest of the crowd. The soldiers with the ferry were strict, and let only a few on at a time - the lessons of experience, Wan Liu told them, after the first few tramplings.

Whatever the limit was, they fell within it, and were safely aboard long before the ferry horn began to blow. But Uncle could not be thwarted in all things; he vanished briefly once they had shuffled on, and returned with a ridiculous smile upon his face. "Come, my nephew," he said, "to the deck! Do not worry," and this he directed to Wan Liu. "We have traded a berth for decking, my nephew and I, but you and the children still have spaces."

"But can't we sleep outside?" said the little girl.

"Stars!" said Jin, stupidly, and clung to Zuko's leg.

Wan Liu laughed, as though this idiocy were charming instead of baffling. "Little Jin does have a point," she said to Uncle, "the sky is clear. My old bones are not fond of rain, but if there are clouds tomorrow perhaps we will find another place."

They had somehow managed to find the only family in the Earth Kingdom just as crazy as Uncle. Surely, Zuko thought, there could not be more than one.

It was not hard to find someone willing to trade space on the deck for berths below, of course, and there was barely time to argue before Uncle was settling against the ferry's side with a sigh, as the boat-horn blew one last time. Water began to churn below them, splashing audibly, and the little girl who was still clutching Uncle's neck yawned, wakened a little by the noise.

"Hush, dear, it is only the sea," Uncle said, very gently, and the girl let him lower her to the deck and turned her face into his chest.

Jin was looking up at Zuko from somewhere around his knees; Zuko let his mouth flatten the way it wanted to, and raised his eyebrows. He had sunk low, so very low, but not so far that he would serve as a peasant child's pillow.

It was possible Jin was somewhat less stupid than he looked: he let Zuko's trousers go at last, and wobbled off to where Wan Liu had seated herself, on Uncle's other side.

They were on a boat, sleeping outdoors even though it was at last not their only option, headed into the very heart of the Earth Kingdoms. Zuko sighed. At least there was nowhere to start a fire - Uncle could not make tea.

***

Katara was expecting to get tired, but the further they walked, the further she wanted to walk. It felt like any moment they might see the walls of Ba Sing Se in the distance, and then the weight would all be off her shoulders - Professor Zei would take them to the observatory, they'd find an eclipse, and they'd take word of it right to the king. The king - the king of Ba Sing Se, the king of Ba Chang; it was the largest kingdom on the continent. Surely he'd be pleased to hear the news, he would gather his generals and make a plan for his armies and hardly need her help at all.

It wasn't precisely easy, walking the Serpent's Pass. It had been a long time since anyone had bothered to keep the trade road in repair, and the Fire Nation taking the South Sea probably hadn't helped; the path was crumbling in places, stone scorched and splintered on the south side by Fire Nation catapults.

But they managed even in the dark, especially with Toph's help. Katara almost wished she'd stop proving she was so useful; it was hard to resent her properly.

They hadn't exactly gotten very far with Earthbending that morning - Katara probably should have realized it would end in them throwing rocks at each other. They'd managed to work together in the face of a swarm of killer scorpion wasps, and they maybe didn't hate each other; that didn't mean they were friends. Yue had been skilled, but also patient, forgiving, willing to stand there and go through a sequence again and again, explain over and over. Katara had had no idea how much she'd relied on that until she'd tried out a hesitant punch and Toph had snorted and called her an idiot. Really, nobody could blame her for kicking a rock at Toph's shoe! And it had all gone downhill from there.

Well, maybe somebody could blame her. Katara thought of Roku's face, stern and sober in the warm sunlight on that not-quite-real mountaintop, and grimaced a little. He'd probably be with Aang on this one: transcend.

But they'd cross the Pass - they'd cross the Pass and get to Ba Sing Se, and the king would know what to do. She'd have plenty of time to work with Toph then, no matter how irritating she was. She'd learn to Earthbend, and they'd defeat the Fire Nation, and everything would be fine.

They just had to get to Ba Sing Se.

"So, uh, it's looking a little - dawn-y, up there."

Katara glanced up: Sokka was looking ahead, toward Ba Sing Se and the east. The sky had been a little lighter in that direction all night, from the lanterns of the city; but it was even lighter now, and growing steadily more so.

"Little bit," Suki agreed.

"The outcropping," Hok Suan said.

It took Katara a moment to figure out what she meant, because when she looked back she mostly felt guilty - Hok Suan had kept up perfectly, but she was starting to lean a little more heavily on Eng Pin, and she looked exhausted.

But she was also tilting her chin toward the east, where there was a rise in the rock on the Pass's southern side - enough to hide them from any Fire Nation ships that might pass by as they patrolled. "We should be safe there," she said, "until it is evening again."

Katara bit her lip. They'd gotten so far, there couldn't be that much left to go, and she kind of wanted to kick things when she thought about wasting a whole day just sitting behind a rock, waiting for it to get dark. She glanced sideways at Aang, who was drifting a couple paces past where the Pass dropped off into the ocean: he was looking at Hok Suan. And he was right to, Katara told herself firmly. If she'd been alone, she might not have stopped - but she wasn't. She rubbed a hand across her face. If she was going to be selfish and annoying all the time, she might as well just change her name to Toph already.

The outcropping wasn't all that far, but it grew still lighter as they walked, and the east was going red and gold with sunrise when Professor Zei, at the front, slowed suddenly. Katara had been watching her feet and trying not to let herself think resentful thoughts, but at the change in pace, she looked up again.

"That will make this slightly more difficult," Yue said.

They'd already squeezed by half a dozen places where the Pass had obviously been hit, the path growing narrow where stone had broken off and fallen into the sea; but here, there was no path left at all. The Pass hadn't crumbled entirely, of course. But there was a ragged, rocky drop, and a sharp rise opposite before everything smoothed out again.

"It's not - so bad," Sokka said, and then paused. "I mean, uh-"

"If you are not pregnant," Hok Suan said calmly. "Forgive me; I doubt I'll be able to climb it."

"Psh," Toph said, and lifted one foot, only to slam it down against the ground. She had her head tilted to the side, her mouth quirked; she was feeling how the stone moved, Katara realized, using her Earthbending and the vibrations from her foot to sort out where the edge was. "It's not that wide. I got it." She sniffed and rolled her shoulders. "If you can't do it yourself, sugar queen, you can at least watch. Maybe you'll learn something that way."

Katara pressed her lips tight so she wouldn't shout, and tried not to grind her teeth too much.

If you ignored the obnoxious bits, after all, Toph was probably right; so she did watch, intently. Everybody did, which was why the first fireball took them completely by surprise.

Toph had set her feet down hard - see, sugar queen? like a rock, nothing can move you - and squared her shoulders, and then shoved outward sharply with both hands. The stone had followed her, rock splintering outward into a rough bridge; it had crossed the gap cleanly, and slammed into the other side with a crunch. Hok Suan had beamed at her gratefully, taken Eng Pin's hand, and gotten about four paces across, and Yue had set both feet on Toph's bridge - and then, abruptly, everything shook.

Katara stumbled and flinched; it was suddenly bright, too, but the sun was still below the horizon, and the sun rising wouldn't make the Pass tremble like that. Toph had borrowed the bridge-rock from underneath them somewhere, but she couldn't have destabilized everything so quickly, surely?

But as soon as Katara caught her balance and looked up, she had her answer. The south face of Toph's bridge was burning, covered in the sticky flaming pitch the Fire Nation used to coat everything they lobbed from their catapults - and to the south, over the sunrise-pink water, there was the dark bulk of a battleship.

"Oh," Sokka said, "that is so, so bad - so very, very bad, oh-"

There was a light on the deck - another fireball being lit, no doubt, and Hok Suan and Eng Pin had both tumbled down, though thankfully neither of them had been thrown from the bridge. The ankle of Eng Pin's trousers had come alight, from a stray spark or a spatter of pitch, but even as Katara shouted, Yue was pulling a handful of water all the way up from the sea to douse it.

"Get them across!" Katara yelled again, and Suki must have heard, because she grabbed Sokka's arm in one hand and Professor Zei's in the other, and lunged for the bridge.

Yue was helping Hok Suan up; Aang had sped off somewhere, but wherever he was, he was safer than any of them; and Toph was grimacing, hands still outstretched, grinding her heels down into the stone like it was sand. There was another rumbling sound, but the Fire Nation battleship hadn't fired again - it was coming from Toph's bridge. Katara could see the rock splintering, cracking under Yue's foot-

"No you don't," Toph spat, pushing outward as though there were something pressing back against her hands besides air; and the bridge crunched forward another handspan, the sides of the crack pressed firmly back together.

Katara looked at the battleship, hesitating. It was still far away, but even from here she could tell it was huge, far larger than Prince Zuko's ship, and the catapults were heavier. She'd been able to raise a pretty big wave in the Avatar state, and an even bigger one when she'd been the ocean - but she wasn't either right now, and she wouldn't be able to swamp a ship that big by herself. Maybe with Yue's help; but Yue had an arm under Hok Suan's elbow and was trying not to flinch away from the heat of the pitch still burning just beside and beneath her.

There was a sound, a distant boom, and the light that had been flickering on the battleship's deck abruptly grew less tiny. Katara yanked upward, panicked, and the second fireball roared into a wall of seawater that hadn't been half thick enough - but the water came down first, and dragged the fireball with it, so that it only slammed into the side of the Pass instead of hitting anyone on the top.

There was a loud crackling of stone at the impact; Katara fell sideways and scraped both hands, and when she pushed herself up again she could see the bridge had started to buckle sideways. But Toph didn't move - she'd sunk herself down to the ankles, now, and she made a face at the bridge like its weakness was personally offending her. "Pathetic," she yelled at it, and clenched her hands into fists; and it groaned and swayed, but it didn't fall apart.

Yue had grabbed some of the seawater on its way down, and used it to shield Hok Suan and Eng Pin from the splatter of flaming pitch that had followed. The three of them were nearly to the far side, nearly safe - but the water, the impact, or both had shoved Professor Zei off his feet, and Suki and Sokka were on their knees a foot from where the bridge was buckling, trying to haul him back up.

"Pull it together!" Toph snapped.

"What-"

Toph huffed, blowing a little loose hair back out of her face. "I can feel you freaking out from here," she said, "and in case you haven't noticed, this isn't exactly the moment! Flood them, capsize them-"

"I can't! The ship's too big, I'd never-"

"You don't have to," Aang shouted, and Katara cut herself off and whirled around.

He was zooming up from the south, blue face aglow - he hadn't wasted any time panicking, he'd just gone straight for the ship.

"What?" she said belatedly.

"You don't have to," Aang repeated. "It's barely dawn, and you heard Mikari, it's been a while since they've been able to get anybody across the pass. They weren't expecting us, half of them are still asleep - they've only got enough soldiers on duty to run one catapult. It'll be more, in a few minutes, but a few minutes is all we need-"

"Well, great, but I can't freeze a catapult from here!" Katara said.

"Then squish it," Toph said. "I have to hang on to this, and I can't even see where the ship is anyway - it's got to be you."

"This morning I couldn't bend gravel-"

"There's nobody else!" Toph sounded like she would have started tearing her hair out, if she'd had a hand to spare. "We're all going to die - isn't that the kind of thing you find motivating? Come on! You just have to - not move, be a wall." She shook her head. "It shouldn't be that hard for you, you're so good at impersonating one already - you're a wall, and if you're not a good enough one we're all doomed, so be a really good one."

***

Toph could feel it, when Katara settled her feet against the earth - her stance was terrible, but Toph wasn't going to be able to fix it right then, and telling Katara about it would just make her give up. For somebody who was supposed to save the world, she was kind of a delicate flower sometimes.

But she settled her feet, even though her heartbeat was like thunder through the rock around Toph's ankles - she better than settled them, she planted them, and maybe not as firmly as Toph would have, but it probably would have taken Toph at least two tries to knock her over. Judging by even the brief time Toph had been with her, the world spent kind of a lot of time getting in Katara's way - telling her she shouldn't do things, or couldn't. She had to have at least a little stone in her to have gotten this far.

Toph had to pay attention for a second; the stupid rock in front of her was trying to crumble away again, but there were still knees pressing on it, Suki and Sokka pulling on Professor Zei and Eng Pin crossed halfway back to help them. She held it where it was with one hand and shoved the other one left, and the whole bridge followed, steadying.

And then she listened behind her: Katara was taking deep breaths, fortifying, before - before-

What was she even doing? Oh, she'd moved her arm forward, all right - smoothly, maybe even gracefully, and also completely wrongly.

"Augh," Toph cried. "You've got to make it move, you've got to be even harder than it is."

"I'm trying!" Katara said, but she sounded uncertain. She was too desperate, too afraid - reminding her they might all die had only made her start thinking about failure, and that wasn't going to get her anywhere. Toph had to make her think about something else.

Toph curled her own hands tighter, forced the bridge to hold still. "I'm standing right in front of you," she said.

"What? You're-"

"Standing right in front of you," Toph said, "so punch me. You're doing everything wrong, you're terrible at this, I won't even explain why - you're a sugar queen, you're too soft, you can't tell me what to do - it's my turn and I won't wash the dishes - punch me!"

Katara made an inarticulate noise in her throat, lifted one foot and slammed it back into the ground, and punched.

***

Hok Suan couldn't hear what the girls were yelling to each other, over the sound of pitch burning and rock cracking - advice? Encouragement? - but even without ears at all, she would have felt the Pass shudder underneath her, and seen the ground break in front of Katara's foot.

Impossible. It should have been impossible - Yue was a Waterbender, but she hadn't been the one to raise the wave, her hands had been tight around Hok Suan's elbow when the water had first leapt up. It had been Katara, Hok Suan was sure of it; and yet the stone had broken away when she moved her hands, a great bulky boulder of it.

Katara yelled something and drew both fists back to her waist, and then heaved outward, and the boulder followed, flinging itself obediently out over the sea. It had very little of an arc: Katara had Earthbent it almost straight sideways, and it skipped once across the water, like a giant's child had thrown it, and skimmed neatly over the rail of the battleship.

It did not land on the catapult that had been preparing to fire on them again - that would imply falling from above. It slammed into the catapult from the side and crushed it instantly against the command structure that rose up amidships. The pitch had not been lit, but crumpling metal and a skidding boulder had evidently produced enough sparks to do the job, and the deck began to blaze - no doubt the sailors on deck had already been rousing the crew, but a fire would surely prove yet more urgent than the chance to pick off a few refugees crossing the Pass.

Yue was staring as surely as Hok Suan, but she gathered herself and tugged at Hok Suan's arm. "Quickly," she said, "just a few more steps," and together they hurried to safety.

Eng Pin, always so calm, had not let himself become distracted: he had turned back to help, and he had a hand around Professor Zei's elbow and an arm around his back. Together with Suki and Sokka, he pulled, and the professor scrambled up with a tear in his shirt the only obvious sign that he had fallen at all.

Katara was still staring at the battleship, openmouthed - but something made her turn at last, and she darted onto the bridge. When everyone else was just about across, Toph made one last crumpling motion with her hands, and the bridge steadied long enough for her to sprint across.

Sokka blew out a breath. "Let's never-"

"You say that every time, Sokka," Suki said, and shoved gently at his shoulder. "Quip later - run now."

***

There was something of an ache in Wan Liu's back, when she woke; but it was nothing a little walking about wouldn't cure, so she could not precisely begrudge the loss of her bunk. Not sincerely, at least. Besides, it was not a hardship to wake with her nephews curled warmly against her, one to either side, still fast asleep.

The light was dim but distinctly golden - the sun was up, or nearly so, even if she couldn't see it over the gunwale, and the clouds were streaked scarlet and purple. Yanhong was still pressed against Mushi's side, one little hand reaching up to tangle in his beard, and Qingying had tipped over gradually until she rested against his shoulder. Wan Liu smiled. It was good to see Qingying sleeping soundly, her face for once smooth and unworried.

Lan was curled under Qingying's arm, and if she looked less placid than Qingying, at least she was not sobbing in her sleep. Wan Liu let her head settle back against the ferry's hull. It had been so hard for Lan - it had been hard for all of them, but Jin and Yanhong were both a little too young to really understand. Qingying would have insisted she were all right if she had broken both her legs; she was still certain Wan Liu would leave them all by the side of the road any day, and nothing Wan Liu could say had been able to convince her otherwise. And Zhiyang hadn't made a sound since the funerals, hadn't spoken a word to anyone - but even that was easier to bear than Lan's heartbroken sobs.

"Oh, Wan Hao," Wan Liu murmured, very low.

"Your brother?"

Wan Liu turned her head carefully: Mushi's eyes were still shut, but he had turned his head and raised an eyebrow, inquiring.

"Yes," Wan Liu said, instead of a nod he would not see. "I would never abandon the care of his children; but I hope he forgives me for the many errors I commit along the way."

At that, Mushi opened his eyes. He did not precisely smile, but a certain warmth came over his face. "I have only met you twice, but I think I may say with some confidence that you have not done poorly by them."

Wan Liu looked at him curiously. He sounded as though he truly meant it. "You have children?"

Mushi glanced down at Yanhong and the tiny fingers curled into his beard, and brought his far hand up to settle it lightly on her hair, just for a moment. "I did once," he said, and Wan Liu knew better than to ask any more.

But she had been meaning to ask him something else, and now was as good a time as any. "Such small things make a difference," she said. "Your nephew, for example - he seems quite unlike your niece."

She could not have said what reaction she had expected, but she had known it would not be explosive; Mushi, surely, was not the sort of person to lose composure even when faced with the unexpected. And she was right. He simply went very still, and swallowed once before speaking. "I did not want to ask why you had - left," he said, "but now it seems I have the answer."

Wan Liu allowed her head to settle back against the ship again. "Then you do know the girl," she said dryly. "And yet you carry the seal of the queen. I suppose she is not your niece after all - and it does not take so very much imagination to come up with a reason why the Fire Nation should search for emissaries of the queen."

Mushi pressed his lips together and said nothing.

Wan Liu waited a long moment, and then relented. "No one was hurt," she said. "We escaped with our lives and many of the things we loved best; I imagine few on this ferry can say the same. And I cannot wish you had said something - what would you have said? You needed food and sleep, and to seem inconspicuous. I do not blame you."

"You are generous indeed," Mushi said, very quietly.

"These are unkind times," Wan Liu said. "To hope we would not be found and be wrong is a very small crime." She brushed one hand over Jin's cheek, and the other over Zhiyang's. "I will not hold it against you."

"Generous," Mushi repeated. "When we reach the city, I will find a way to repay you."

"And I will find a way to refuse," Wan Liu warned him, and then let herself smile. She could easily have been lying, when she told him she would not hold it against him, and perhaps she should have been - but here they were, refugees together, quite literally in the same boat. Perhaps he hadn't been careful enough; neither had she, blurting out the truth to four strangers on the road. As mistakes went, hoping too strongly and trusting too much were not the worst ones to make.

The sky was turning blue and gold, now, as the sun drew higher; shaded by the side of the boat as she was, Wan Liu could almost pretend the light came from Ba Sing Se. They had left their ghosts behind in the ashes of the house, for better or for worse, and now they would start over. There was no space in her heart for anger.

***

By the time the smoke that had been rising from the battleship's deck had blown away, they were safely behind the large outcropping, and it was amazing what ten minutes could do: Katara found herself feeling quite a bit more patient. Nobody was hurt badly, but Eng Pin's ankle had begun to blister a little, and Professor Zei had not escaped his fall entirely unscathed.

Fortunately, he didn't mind holding still to let her heal him. He watched the blue light that flared under her fingers with wide eyes, and murmured, "Fascinating!"

Hok Suan had only been knocked to her knees, and was only a little bruised; but they had a whole day of waiting ahead of them, so Katara wasn't exactly wanting for free time. Anyway, Gran-Gran had always chosen to be more careful than the situation demanded, not less.

Katara pulled a little water from her bending pouch and drew it up to slide, cool, over the scrapes on Hok Suan's shins and the bruises on her knees. Really, they weren't so bad; but it was good practice. It was strange, to put a hand to her belly and feel the water inside, and for a moment it was almost like Toph and her Earthbending, the way Katara could feel the baby's heart.

She looked up after way too long to find Hok Suan smiling at her benevolently, and belatedly she pulled her hand back. "Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"Be super creepy about your personal space?" Sokka suggested.

Katara flushed. "The baby's fine," she blurted. "She's - um, a girl. If you wanted to know."

Hok Suan beamed at her. "Perfect," she said. "I already know what I will call her."

"What?" Katara said.

"Ho-Peng," Hok Suan said, and drew the characters in the dust beside her hip: 和平 (1). "For peace." She sat back against the stone behind her and smiled at Katara, beatific. "Because I have seen the Avatar, and now I know it will come."

"The - Avatar-"

Hok Suan laughed aloud, and Eng Pin, beside her, shook his head. "You did not think it would go unnoticed, surely?" Eng Pin said.

"You bent the sea up to save us," Hok Suan elaborated, "and the stone to crush the catapult. No one could have done that but the Avatar." She grinned. "No wonder Mikari thought we woul
d be safe with you. I would walk up to the very Gates of Azulon, if I had the Avatar for a bodyguard."

Katara ducked her head, opened her mouth, and closed it again.

"What," Toph said, "that's all it takes to shut you up?"

"You won't-" Katara started, but she couldn't figure out how to finish - tell anyone? Who would they tell? They were going to Ba Sing Se, too, and if everything went according to plan the Earth Kingdom officials there would all know who she was. There was nobody to hide from.

Eng Pin saved her. "Your secret is safe between here and the wall," he said. "If we should happen across a - lost Fire Nation patrol, or a scouting party, we will not give you up. Though I shouldn't think we'd have to worry about it, with you along."

He was probably right; but he was also very kind. "Thank you," Katara said, and pushed herself to her feet. They weren't going anywhere for some time, though perhaps if they saw no ships to the south, they could risk a little walking during the daytime. They'd get where they were going - and it was almost a relief to have the whole thing out in the open, really. The awkward explanation part was over; she wouldn't have to do it twice.

"So," Toph said. "It didn't seem all that urgent at the time, but now that nobody's shooting any fireballs at us, I have to ask. Were you talking to yourself about the catapult back there, or what?"

"Oh," Katara said. "Um."

***

Mizan had laid out her plans with the utmost confidence; she could not have shown a crack in front of Tan Khai, not if she wanted the least say in anything that happened after. But when they spied the first curl of smoke on the horizon, she couldn't help feeling a little spark of relief. It would not have been her best moment, to have dragged them all so far on the strength of her word and found nothing.

They had left Dou Ying early, before first light, and had spread themselves wide, though no ship was so far from the next that a Firebending signal on deck could not be seen clearly. The one gap in Mizan's knowledge was a precise understanding of the schedule that might drive the supply ships; and given no reason to do otherwise, Tan Khai preferred to be early rather than late. On that, at least, Mizan could agree with her.

There was no stealth on the ocean, not on a morning as clear as this one - but then they did not need it. The Fire Nation had great confidence in their grip on the mid-north coast. Most likely the supply ships would have escorts of some sort, but they would be a formality, not full battleships. Of course, the supply ships would also be armed, to be sure. But with most of their space below taken up by cargo, they had nowhere near the defenses of a battleship of the same size.

So the pirates had waited for signs of ships approaching, and soon enough they would begin to close in. It would have to be well-timed - that was half the reason they had spread out. If the Fire Nation commander were like any dozen navy captains Mizan had ever met, he or she would take a chance and try to outrun them rather than be late with needed supplies. And any Fire Nation ship would undoubtedly beat an Earth Kingdom ship that appeared level with them - but not one that lay in wait ahead, even if that one were the slowest barge imaginable.

And there would not be one, there would be a dozen. Not, perhaps, the most elegant of tactics; but no plan of battle was ever executed perfectly, no matter how well-trained the sailors or how organized the captain. Nothing was certain except error, General Iroh would have said. And if Mizan was going to be forced to adjust on the spur of the moment, she would rather adjust a simple maneuver than some complex trap.

"It's almost time to move," Isani said.

Mizan made herself stop staring at the horizon long enough to look over her shoulder. "We don't even know whether it's the right ship," she said.

Isani squinted at the trail of smoke, dubious. "I doubt your average fisherman would put that in the sky," she said. "Orders?"

"None," Mizan said dryly. "We wait."

Isani pursed her lips.

"Just a little longer," Mizan said. "Long enough to be sure." She couldn't reprimand Isani for her impatience, not when Mizan's own heart was pounding. Mizan turned back to the rail, to the warming northern sky and that little trail of smoke. "Just a little longer. And if it truly is the right ship, they won't know what hit them."

---

These characters would be rendered as "hépíng" in pinyin; but, in keeping with the derivation of Hok Suan's and Eng Pin's names, I chose to use POJ instead (minus tone markings) - for which this online Taiwanese Hokkien dictionary was invaluable. Please let me know if I made a mistake! Back.

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Comments

[pleonasm]

I was just thinking about this story the other day, wondering if you'd quit writing it, and then lo and behold I get the update notif in my inbox! Completely and amazingly glorious -- I love the way that Toph and Katara interact, particularly, and the compromises they come to. And the Earth Queen in the White Lotus! It's not just an organization of old men. Really, really lovely. I'm looking forward to more.

[damkianna]

Haha, thank you for hanging on through the delay! /o\ Considering how long you had to wait, I'm very glad you enjoyed it - Toph and Katara are so much fun to write, I love it, and, yes, the queen! I can never resist a chance to add women. :D I'm so pleased you liked it, and I promise to try very hard to get the next chapter out before June! :P