99 A.G
Aang had seen a couple of abandoned villages in the trip already, but there was something particularly sad about arriving somewhere that still looked like people should be living there, only there was no one there to welcome them.
The remains of several houses stretched along what had once been the main road, with collapsed roofs and broken walls surrounding empty spaces where gardens and small farms must have been.
Weeds had grown between the stones and along the paths, while some of the buildings had deteriorated enough it looked dangerous to go inside. Aang felt a pang in his chest at the sight.
Appa landed outside the remains of the settlement, and everyone began preparing to stay for the evening. They had been traveling most of the day and there was enough shelter left among the ruins to protect them from the wind, although Aang found himself uncomfortable with the idea of sleeping inside one of the abandoned homes.
He walked through the village instead while the others unloaded their supplies. A broken cart rested beside one of the houses, half buried beneath dirt and vegetation. Farther down the road, he found the remains of what looked like a market stall, along with old pieces of pottery scattered nearby.
None of it told him how long the village had been empty, although it had clearly not been more than a couple of years, most things remained intact. Aang tried imagining what it had looked like before.
There would have been people walking along the road, children playing between the houses and farmers returning from the surrounding fields. Someone had probably complained about prices at the market while somebody else tried selling vegetables or tools, and families would have sat together inside the houses that were now slowly deteriorating.
Knowing that all of those people were gone made him uneasy. He did not really want to ask what had happened to them. After everything he had learned since waking from the iceberg, there were too many possible answers, and most of them involved the war somehow.
Sometimes Aang wished he could pass through places like this as they were before the war was even a thing, and it was a constant reminder of what he had failed to stop by running away from his responsibilities.
By the time he returned to the others, Katara had started preparing their food while Haru helped gather anything nearby that could be burned. Raizo sat close to Appa, looking over the remains of the village.
Sokka eventually stopped what he was doing and glanced around at the destroyed buildings.
"What do you think happened here?"
Aang looked toward Raizo when the older man reacted to the question. The expression on his face made it clear that, unlike the rest of them, he already knew the answer. Aang suddenly felt less certain that he wanted to hear it.
"Well, it is actually not a bad story in this case." Raizo said. "Once the Fire Nation took over, the village was moved 35 kilometers to the east, further inland."
"Why did they move it?" Aang asked.
"The mountain you see behind it is a volcano, and it is active although it hasn't erupted yet." Raizo said.
"What!? You brought us close to a volcano?! Are you crazy?" Sokka screamed at him.
"You have a flying bison, trust me, if it erupts, we can move with plenty of time before anyone gets hurt." Raizo assured them.
"Oh yeah right, I feel much safer already." Sokka said. "How do you know what happened anyway?"
"Well, I live relatively close by, we get news regularly from the region. Also…everything north and west of here was my little sister's first campaign. I followed everything close by just in case."
Everyone was quiet for a few moments, Aang suspected that each for their own reasons.
"Did they force the people living here to leave everything behind?" Katara asked.
"Yes, although the Fire Nation did compensate them for it and the village is growing larger last I heard. They didn't even complain having moved, thanks to the help of a fortune teller that everyone calls Aunt Wu. She had already made a big name for herself, once she agreed everyone followed her." Raizo said.
"Fortune teller?" Aang asked, while Sokka scoffed, ranting about it being just for show.
"Yes, I actually visited her once, she told me I should follow the advice of my close ones and that I would find my lost happiness, and she was right. If I hadn't heard my sister's advice I'm sure my life would have been a lot different." Raizo explained.
"Are you kidding? But… you are…not… you are so big and scary and you believe in it as well? That is girl stuff!" Sokka said indignantly, winning a punch in the shoulder by Katara. "Ow!"
"Ignore my brother." Katara said simply.
"Could we… visit this village?" Aang asked.
"Yeah, I think I would also like to visit." Katara said, clearly interested.
"Oh come on, that would be just a waste of time, right Haru?"
"I don't know, Sokka, if people can speak with spirits, I don't see why someone wouldn't be able to speak with one that can see our fates." Haru reasoned.
"I hate that you make sense." Sokka said after a pause.
"I don't think there would be a problem visiting the village, after you get some rest." Raizo said, amused.
Everyone agreed, even Sokka reluctantly, to go visit Aunt Wu in the morning. Aang was glad that at least the ruins were not a direct cause of the war, but at the same time he was conflicted.
'What would have happened if the Fire Nation didn't occupy the village? Would they have perished under the volcano?'
----0000----
Zuko's ship was moving north as fast as its engines allowed, cutting through the waters beyond the Mo Se Sea while the crew pushed the old vessel harder than they normally had over the last couple of years.
His uncle still had contacts scattered throughout the Earth Kingdom territory that the Fire Nation occupied, people willing to pass along information even after everything that had happened between them.
One of those reports had finally given Zuko something useful, confirming that the Water Tribe siblings and the Avatar had been seen in Daxia Harbor before departing again. It did not take much effort to guess where they were going.
They had been traveling north for some time, and if the Avatar was still trying to master the elements, the Northern Water Tribe was the obvious destination. Instead of continuing to chase every rumor along the coast, Zuko had ordered the ship to turn directly north and place itself along the most likely route toward the North Pole.
By the accounts they had obtained it was clear that the Avatar was in no hurry to get there, for they had rerouted a couple of times and stayed sometimes several days at the same place. He felt that he could get ahead of them if he got on with it.
He remained near the front of the ship while the cold wind moved across the deck, occasionally touching the area beneath his armor where his chest still itched. The wounds from the Agni Kai had healed well enough that he could move normally again.
The skin remained sensitive and uncomfortable beneath his clothing, but at least the physical pain had finally gone away and he was able to spar and practice firebending again.
Every time his fingers touched the scar, he would remember that day, standing across from Lin and failing to notice how badly he was outmatched. He would remember the warnings he had ignored, the confidence he had carried into the duel and how quickly all of it had disappeared once the fight actually began.
Looking back, it seemed painfully obvious that he never had much of a chance. Lin had years of experience over him, fought in actual battles and had already defeated people far more dangerous than Zuko.
Zuko had refused to listen, even when his own uncle had warned him that it was a terrible idea. He had been training him for years now, he knew better and he should have listened. Now he had another scar because of it.
At least this one could be hidden beneath his armor, which still did little to help whenever members of the crew looked at him. Zuko had started noticing the pity almost immediately after the duel, which infuriated the prince.
Nobody openly mentioned what had happened, and they still followed his orders without complaint, but he could see the difference whenever their eyes remained on him for too long and he hated it with passion.
Their anger or indifference would have been easier to tolerate than pity. If they thought he had been foolish, he could shout back or prove them wrong later, but there was nothing he could do when they simply looked at him like they felt sorry for him.
His uncle had been right about something else as well, and Zuko disliked admitting that even more. He did not have many friends and this fight had finally left him without known allies he could go to.
Most of the people around him were sailors who served because they had been assigned to his ship. His uncle had stayed beside him because they were family, despite being treated badly more times than Zuko wanted to remember.
Even the few people who had been willing to help him were only doing so out of respect his uncle had in the military. It was not because of him, their banished prince. Lin had been the only one different, he had never felt her respect come associated with his uncle's.
Whatever their relationship had become over the years, she had once tried to help him, and Zuko had repaid that by being childish, letting his temper get the better of him. At this point, he didn't even know what he wanted to prove, and her disrespect could have easily been ignored.
She had rescued his crew member and he should have been happy with that, continued his hunt of the Avatar and let it go. Instead, he had destroyed one of the few relationships he might actually have been able to rely on. He wondered if that decision would eventually come back to hurt him.
The ship continued north while Zuko watched the water ahead, trying not to think about the whole situation again, but avoiding those thoughts only made them return more often. His throat tightened and for a few seconds he felt the familiar want to cry and scream at the world.
It was something he had learned to suppress and he forced it down the same way he always did, tightening his jaw and swallowing that feeling down until he was left staring at the horizon in anger.
Anger at how unfair his life was, anger with the world that kept fighting against his wishes, anger at how little he was able to achieve to try and regain his honor. But in the end, it was anger at himself.
His breathing became heavier while his hands tightened against the railing, and the heat in his chest began rising until even the cold wind stopped bothering him. Being angry at himself felt better than feeling ashamed of himself, even if he knew it did nothing to fix what had happened.
A crewman approached from behind while Zuko was still trying to regain control of himself.
"Prince Zuko, I came to report that…"
Zuko turned toward him slowly and their eyes met for only a moment before the sailor noticed his expression and immediately straightened.
"Actually, it can wait, sir."
The man hurried away before Zuko could respond, and he was left where he was, staring after him while his embarrassment only became worse. He turned back toward the sea and pulled his hands away from the railing before he damaged it, forcing himself to focus on the one thing he could still do something about.
The Avatar was heading north, and Zuko intended to capture him before he had the chance to become even more powerful.
----0000----
The group was now camping outside the newly built Makapu Village, waiting for Aang who had gone for a walk that he clearly needed to do alone. The young Avatar had returned looking conflicted over what the fortune teller had told him.
Raizo was happy to be reading the letter in his hands. Zy had sent another update with his raven eagle, telling him how their son had been doing and filling the rest of the page with small stories about the last few days.
Apparently the boy had started trying to stand whenever he found something low enough to grab, and had already discovered that dropping objects repeatedly was an excellent way to grab his mother's attention.
Raizo smiled imagining the whole scene, missing his wife and child dearly. Being away from them was becoming harder the longer the trip continued, but the letters helped. Zy always made sure to include something about their son.
Even if it was only a complaint about him refusing to sleep or making a mess during meals, Raizo found himself enjoying every detail no matter how unimportant it probably seemed to anyone else.
He was folding the paper carefully when the oldest of the Water Tribe siblings suddenly shouted from across the camp.
"Aha! I knew it!"
Raizo looked up and found the boy pointing at him accusingly. Sokka hurried over before Raizo could ask what he was talking about, while Haru followed close behind with suspicion on his face and ready to try and either attack him or restrain him, something oddly amusing for him.
"I caught you red-handed." Sokka said. "You've been sending messages."
Raizo glanced toward the raven eagle perched nearby, then back toward him. "Of course, why wouldn't I?"
"You have been sending information about us to your sister! You are a spy after all!"
"No, I haven't sent a letter to her yet."
Sokka hesitated for half a second before continuing anyway. "Well, to someone in the Fire Nation I'm sure. Basically the same thing! How do we know you're not giving away our location?"
Haru stepped closer as well, clearly prepared to earthbend if things went badly and Raizo could not help laughing, which only helped to annoy Sokka even more.
"What's so funny?"
"You are." Raizo said, still amused. "If I wanted my sister to know where you were, I wouldn't need to send her letters."
Sokka narrowed his eyes. "Why not?"
Raizo gestured toward Appa resting nearby. "Because you travel around on a giant flying bison. You are not exactly difficult to identify from a distance, and I'm sure her intelligence network can update her even faster than I can."
Sokka opened his mouth, paused, then glanced toward Appa as though he had somehow betrayed him.
"What is an intelligence network?" Haru asked.
"Never mind that." Raizo held the folded letter out. "You can read it if it makes you feel better. I doubt you will find anything useful, but I don't particularly care."
Sokka took it cautiously and inspected both sides before unfolding it. His eyes moved across the first few lines, and whatever suspicion he had quickly changed into disappointment.
"Oh, come on."
Raizo raised an eyebrow. "Something wrong?"
"This is just corny romantic stuff."
"It is a letter from my wife."
"Yes, I figured that out when she started talking about..ugh…how much she misses you and how she wishes you were there and how cute your son is. Ugh, so typical."
Raizo laughed again while Sokka handed the letter back with a face that suggested he regretted ever asking to see it.
"You could have warned me."
"I did tell you there was nothing important for you in it."
Haru relaxed slightly once the letter was returned, although he still watched Raizo carefully. Raizo tucked it safely away inside his clothing before looking between the three teenagers. Katara had also come closer during the commotion, and the fact that all of them had reacted so quickly told him that they were at least learning to stay alert around him.
It was the right instinct to have, and if Lin had asked him to keep them alive and outside the clutches of the Fire Nation for now, he didn't mind them distrusting him.
"You were right to question it." Raizo said. "You should be suspicious if someone traveling with you starts receiving messages from people you don't know."
Sokka looked pleased with himself again.
"But if you actually thought I was betraying you, surrounding me like this would have been a terrible idea."
That made his annoyed face return to Sokka's face.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Raizo smiled. "It means none of you would last a minute against me." He said, fully expecting them to challenge him.
Haru frowned, while Katara crossed her arms. Sokka reacted exactly as Raizo expected.
"Oh really?"
"Heh, definitely."
"You think you could beat all three of us in under a minute?" Sokka asked
"I know I could."
Raizo had been traveling with them long enough to recognize the look appearing on Sokka's face. The boy took challenges personally too quickly, he knew how to rile their type and he was not disappointed this time either.
"Fine. Prove it."
Raizo looked toward Haru and Katara. "You two joining him?"
Haru nodded after a moment, while Katara gave Raizo a suspicious look before agreeing as well. Raizo stood and stretched his shoulders, enjoying the opportunity to be active and fight. The journey had been peaceful enough that he was beginning to get bored, and the three of them could benefit from learning how badly an experienced fighter could outclass them.
"I won't use firebending." he told them. "Martial arts only, and if any of you are still fighting after one minute, you win."
Sokka grinned and drew his weapon, a blunt club. "You're going to regret it."
"I doubt it."
They moved slightly away from the camp to give themselves enough room. Raizo waited while Haru planted his feet, Katara prepared her pouch of water and Sokka moved slightly ahead of them.
Their positioning was not terrible, Raizo gave them that much, but if they didn't coordinate between each other they would hinder themselves instead of helping, but he still hoped it would be interesting.
Raizo took the small round machine in his left pocket, and looked at another of Lin's inventions, something handy that would allow him to count the seconds passed with ease, called a pocket watch.
The moment they started, the young earthbender attacked first and gave away exactly what he was doing, throwing a rock straight at him, which Raizo stepped around it, dodging it. Then he caught Sokka's wrist when he rushed in from the side, something he announced by shouting for some reason, and Raizo used his momentum to send him tumbling past.
Katara's water came next, forcing Raizo to duck before closing the distance too quickly for her to form another attack. He swept her legs and guided her down rather than letting her hit the ground hard, then turned just in time to avoid another section of earth rising beneath him.
Sokka again charged at him, but he quickly dodged his club then punched him in his stomach bringing him down, as he gasped for air.
The earthbender was the last one, and he adapted faster than Raizo expected, changing his stance once he realized large attacks were too easy to read. He forced Raizo to move twice before committing to another strike, which was better than most inexperienced earthbenders would have managed.
It still was not enough, and Raizo stepped inside his reach, redirected his arm and put him on the ground beside the others. He looked toward them and chuckled as he saw them stunned.
"Time?" Sokka whistled.
Raizo looked at Lin's invention again.
"Twenty-seven seconds."
Sokka groaned from where he had landed. "You have got to be kidding me. Wait, what is that?"
Raizo chuckled and offered him a hand up, then showed him the small machine. "This is a pocket watch, I have no clue how it works, my little sister invented it. I just from time to time turn this small part, and it will keep it going for a while. This arrow here moves to count seconds and this one minute. The smallest one counts the hours."
"Wow, but how does it know the time?" Sokka asked, apparently their challenge forgotten momentarily.
"You will have to ask Lin about that." Raizo chuckled. "Now, about our little challenge…" he said, bringing annoyed expressions to their faces once more.
They had lost badly, but none of them had been completely hopeless. The earthbender knew how to fight, the young girl reacted quickly but she clearly was not as comfortable in her element, and Sokka had better instincts than he initially thought.
"You three have potential." Raizo said once they were standing again. "You just have no idea how obvious most of your attacks are, and you are not coordinating among yourselves."
Sokka rubbed his shoulder. "You're saying that after defeating us in under a minute?"
"I said you had potential, not that you were good." He replied, amused.
Sokka kept complaining, and Raizo found himself smiling again. Maybe keeping them alive until they reached the North Pole would be more entertaining than he expected.
----0000----
Almost two weeks had passed since the Lower Ring opened its gates, and the rebellion had continued spreading farther into Ba Sing Se exactly as Lin had hoped. The Middle Ring was beginning to fall apart under the same pressure, with Dai Li agents losing control of entire districts while civilians and defecting soldiers pushed deeper toward the Upper Ring.
Lin could have waited for the uprising to reach the palace naturally, but she was beginning to lose patience. Every additional day gave Long Feng more time to prepare, move important prisoners, destroy documents or arrange some way to escape once the Upper Ring became impossible to hold.
Lin did not intend to spend another month fighting street by street when she had gliders, and soldiers trained to parad-rop anywhere. Her intelligence assets inside the city were now strong enough to organize a strike on the palace itself.
The idea was to drop her troops onto the palace grounds before the Dai Li had time to react, seize the royal complex and cut off whatever remained of the government in one move. The problem was making sure Long Feng could not disappear through some forgotten tunnel while they were attacking.
That was why Lin was now inside one of their safe houses in the Middle Ring instead of directing operations from outside the walls. Establishing that specific location had required some care. The Kyoshi Warriors were still very suspicious of her, but they had made sure not to attract their attention.
She didn't even need to be that careful, as the sheer number of refugees and displaced families made it easy for her to keep secrets from them, but she didn't want them as enemies when they were helpful.
Their last prisoner had been brought inside during the night. The Dai Li agent was strapped tightly to a wooden chair in the center of the room, his hands restrained behind him and his ankles secured separately so that earthbending would be impossible.
Sweat covered his face despite the cool room, and his attention kept moving toward the two other prisoners sitting several feet away. His wife had been bound to another chair, while their son sat beside her.
The boy could not have been older than ten and had needed to be gagged after his crying became loud enough that Lin got annoyed quickly. She now stood in front of the agent with her hands behind her back.
"You people are not supposed to have families, are you?" She asked, looking briefly toward his wife and son. "That seems like a very sensible rule for an organization that makes enemies for a living."
The agent glared at her without answering. Lin smiled faintly and continued walking around him. "You ignored it anyway, which normally would not concern me, except now I get to use that mistake against you."
His wife immediately began begging, insisting that whatever her husband had done had nothing to do with their son. She barely managed to finish before Lin stepped toward her and struck her across the face with the back of her hand.
The blow knocked her head sideways and split her lip, leaving blood running down toward her chin. The child went rigid at the sound before beginning to cry harder behind the gag, while the Dai Li agent fought against the restraints hard enough to make the chair scrape across the floor.
"You monster!" he shouted. "She has nothing to do with this! Neither does my son!"
"That is entirely the point." Lin replied calmly.
The man cursed at her and continued struggling.
"You are a demon! Monster! I promise that if I ever escape this chair, I will strangle you to death!" He spat.
Lin allowed him to continue until he ran out of breath, while the officers standing near the walls remained silent.
"Are you finished?" she asked. The agent breathed heavily but stopped shouting.
"Good. I need information about Long Feng. I want every route leading into and out of the palace, especially tunnels or hidden passages that could allow him to escape once we move against him. You are going to give me everything you know."
"I don't know anything about the palace tunnels."
Lin watched him closely then looked at him disappointed.
"You are a terrible liar."
"I'm telling you the truth!"
Lin moved toward his wife again. The woman tried pulling her feet away when she approached, but the restraints prevented her from moving far enough. Lin placed the heel of her prosthetic foot over one of hers and gradually increased the pressure until something gave beneath it.
The woman screamed, her entire body pulling against the chair while the boy beside her began struggling desperately against his restraints.
"Stop! Stop!" the agent shouted. "You fucking monster, stop!"
Lin removed her foot and turned back toward him.
"I said I don't know!" he screamed. "I don't know where Long Feng goes, I don't know what passages he uses!"
Lin studied his face while he spoke. Fear had replaced most of the anger now, but she still did not believe him. This particular Dai Li agent had been seen moving into the Upper Ring, and even if this man did not know every tunnel beneath the palace, there was almost certainly something he could give them.
She crouched slightly so that they were closer to eye level.
"You are misunderstanding your situation. I do not need you to know everything, I need you to tell me everything you do know. Entrances, the amount of agents you believe there are, rooms Long Feng uses, people he trusts, places he disappears to during emergencies, anything that helps me prevent him from leaving that palace."
The agent looked toward his wife again. She was crying quietly now, while their son had buried his face against her arm as much as his restraints allowed.
Lin followed his gaze.
"I will pull every nail in your wife's hands and toes until you tell me everything I want to know. If I still feel that you are withholding information I will do the same with your son." she explained. "The shock might kill him, so I suggest you start singing now."
His jaw tightened as he looked back at her, and for several seconds Lin thought he was going to refuse again and that she would have to do something unsavory again.
"There is a passage underneath the western administrative wing." he said hoarsely. "It connects to an old service tunnel beneath the palace gardens, then to an underground dungeon and mines."
"Keep talking."
----0000----
Very pretty and cute art by Aurora. I love them!