Chapter 18: Perhaps
Perhaps ye’ll trust,
Perhaps ye’ll cruise,
Perhaps ye’ll dust,
Perhaps ye’ll lose.
Aang stretched himself out in the sun like a happy lemur. Court was finally over for the day, and to be honest, he felt they’d done pretty well. There had been a few recalcitrant nobles, but nothing so big that he couldn’t handle. He was beginning to wonder if Iroh had been exaggerating. Perhaps Ba Sing Se wasn’t so bad after all. Sure, they had come here to prevent a fairly bloody mission. But now that that had calmed down and the cooperative re-building scheme had been entered into, things could only get better...
THWACK!
Aang had a brief moment to register a blinding sphere of pain before he was thrown off his perch and sent spiralling to the ground. And then the next thing he knew his instincts had kicked in, and a gust of wind softened his landing. Still, he hadn’t quite been quick enough, and he sucked in a pained gasp of air as he collided with the stone.
“Toph!” he wheezed. “What do you think you’re doing?!”
The little earthbender strode over to him, poised as tall as her frame allowed her and twice as indomitable. “Teaching you a lesson!” she snapped. She crossed her arms as she stood over him. “What were you doing out here? You didn’t even hear me coming!”
Aang blinked the last few stars from his eyes and scowled. “Well you could have said something.”
She brushed it aside. “Or you could have paid attention! Honestly, you need to get back onto your twinkly toes oh Mighty Avatar. We’re not going to accomplish anything if you keep goofing around.”
Now that got his attention. Aang stumbled to his feet, annoyance turning to near anger. “Monkey feathers!” he swore. “What’s your problem, Toph? Have you got something against relaxing once in a while? Court ended only half an hour ago. It’s been a long day, don’t I deserve a rest?”
To his ears, her voice sounded cruel. “There’s a difference between resting and just not being there at all. Don’t think I didn’t notice, Twinkletoes. You weren’t in Court today. You were someplace else.”
Her words jolted the inner stubbornness within him, and Aang’s chin jutted forwards. “So? It’s not like I missed much, anyway. Just more nobles and their stupid problems. All we do is get it into their heads that there’s peace now. As soon as they realise that, it’ll be fine.”
It was amazing how such a little body could radiate so much anger, because if Aang was inching closer towards it, Toph was already there. “No it won’t be fine, Twinkletoes. You’re blinder than I am if you can’t see that. Were you listening to the petitioners at all today?”
Despite himself, Aang could feel the resentment surface in his voice. “Of course I was. And what I’m telling you is that it doesn’t matter. The war’s over. I’ve... we’ve saved the world. Everything’s going well. The problems in Ba Sing Se are just a bunch of nobles with too much time on their hands.”
Something cold glittered in her eyes at that, and for a moment Aang’s apprehension overcame his anger. The resentment simmered out of his voice to be replaced by placation. “Really Toph, it’ll be okay. Everything’s solved now, we just need to wait for things to work out.”
Too late, he noticed her compressed lips and the strain in her glossy eyes. “Sure it is,” she said. “In that case, how do you explain Zuko almost getting offed by an assassin two days ago?”
Outwardly, Aang gaped. Inwardly, his mind ran back to a world of mists and a muddy pool of seeing, and he remembered the white face, the wires and the knives. “But he’s okay, right?”
Toph made a rather unladylike sound, then stomped a few steps closer and prodded him in the chest. “That isn’t the point, Twinkletoes! The point is that someone wants Zuko dead, which would probably spark off the war again. Not to mention, if someone wants Zuko dead, then that same someone would probably want you dead, and you just let me get within five feet of you and brain you with a boulder without even blinking an eyelid!”
Dimly, Aang finally recognised what hid underneath the anger of her voice. Fear. But the semi-unconscious part of him latched onto the shape it took and its ramifications. Suddenly, it was as if her words had thrown him back in time, back to visions of hate and blood, to the reality of fire and earth they’d faced only two days ago, and before long what he’d seen in the spirit world had blurred with what he’d seen in the physical.
Aang felt the responsibility hover in the air around him, and then it dropped back onto his shoulders like a millstone. Hurt, he squeezed his eyes shut. It hadn’t been long. Only a few days since he’d fought Ozai. And since then, he’d had to struggle through so many things. Ba Sing Se, Katara, the Fire Nation revolt... he remembered soaring over the city, still feeling the need to right the balance in himself, to consolidate the shifting surety, power and direction in him. An image flashed into his mind of a brown-skinned old man in the lotus position, and the astringent taste of onion and banana juice flooded his mouth. He inhaled a little unsteadily. So many things he needed to do...
He was so tired.
And Toph must have felt it in his stance. For a moment, the earthbender drooped, and he could see the matching rings of fatigue accentuate under her eyes and a flicker of doubt cross her face. And then he was caught up in the most bone crushing hug he’d ever received.
Aang blinked. This couldn’t be right. His earthbending teacher was in his arms. His friend, his rock, his runaway who never displayed her affections like this was resting her chin against his shoulder, her hands locked tightly together around his shoulderblades. But before he could even comprehend it, he suddenly felt strength surge anew through him and he hugged her back.
And then they heard a throat clear.
Toph was pushing him roughly away before he could react, her feet flying around in a swift turn as she spun to face the person who’d interrupted them. As the air whooshed out of his lungs, Aang felt rather absurdly smug that someone had crept up on her, even if it was minus the end surprise of a flying boulder. He raised his head a little slower to see who had joined them.
“Miss Toph, Avatar Aang.”
“Iroh,” the monk nodded, noting the tightly rolled scroll the General clasped in his hand and deducing it as the source of Toph’s news. He suddenly felt tired again. “Any other bad news?”
Iroh’s face was unreadable. “I assume Miss Toph has told you of the situation?”
Aang nodded again, and Iroh sighed. “Then you’ll understand why I wish to return to the Fire Nation and my nephew as soon as possible.”
The words seemed to float past his ears, unreal and unfounded. “Of course I do,” Aang said weakly, suddenly wishing he could grip his staff for support. He hadn’t thought that it’d be this soon. The presence of the Dragon of the West had been so... comforting. So safe. So secure. Somehow, knowing that Iroh was around had been a large part of his descent into complacency, and now that that was changing...
“You’re right,” he looked away. “Zuko... Zuko will need you.”
Aang felt the warm brush of an assessing gaze across his face, and then it shifted, leaving him cold. “And you, Miss Toph? Are you all right?”
Toph was pale. “I’m fine,” she said resolutely, twisting her ankles slightly to settle down into her horse stance. At both of their looks, she scowled and lifted her chin up. “I’m fine, I tell you. It’s just... Sparky better not give us another scare like that again. I mean, I still haven’t gotten payback for that time he burned my feet! He’s not allowed to go anywhere until I think up some proper grovelling.”
Iroh smiled, but it was clear that he too had been shaken. “Is that so? Well then, I shall endeavour to keep my nephew out of trouble to the best of my abilities. A debt to a lady must always be repaid.”
The promise in his voice was enough to stir Aang into action. “But what about us?” the Avatar’s brow furrowed. “With Bumi gone as well, I mean...” He swallowed. “It’s just the two of us.”
Iroh was shaking his head before Aang was finished. “The remaining members of the White Lotus are still here, Aang. They will be able to help guide you.”
Aang felt a rising panic clutch at his chest. “But the city doesn’t even let them in!”
Even as he said it, he knew that this was the wrong way to cope. The confirmation of that was written on Iroh’s face - the Dragon of the West’s expression wasn’t quite a frown, but it wasn’t quite neutral either. Aang floundered in his own thoughts for a moment, trying to make sense of everything, and then all of a sudden a solution appeared.
“Iroh? What if... what if you just delayed your trip back a little?”
A definite shadow connected at the corner of Iroh’s lips, and Aang hastened to explain. “It’s just... the reason I’m feeling so unsure is that, well, I guess I have some unfinished business left here. You see, even though the war’s over, Toph’s been reminding me and I’ve been feeling it myself that I still have stuff to learn. And I think to deal with Ba Sing Se properly I need to learn it.”
There was a silence, and then Iroh’s look turned appraising again. “And how does this affect my return to the Fire Nation, Aang?”
“Well... you see... I think I need to go see this guy again. Guru Pathik. He lives at the Eastern Air Temple. Not too far away!”
Iroh seemed deep in thought. “I see. So you want me to manage Ba Sing Se while you’re gone.”
It was a statement, not a question, and Aang’s hopes began to slump. “Please?” he asked weakly. “I think... I think it might help.”
Against his will, the General felt something in him stir. Aang’s liquid gray eyes were round and hopeful, and he was so young, so very, very young. Unbidden, the image of another boy swum into Iroh’s mind, and he remembered how grown up Zuko had seemed the last time they’d met, how the weeks they’d spent apart had somehow managed to etch years and strength and true honour onto his nephew’s face. Perhaps...
The sun glanced off the outer walls of Ba Sing Se, penetrating the gardens and lighting up motes of dust in the air. Beneath their feet, the earth was firm with the knowledge of summer, and the scent of dying flowers rose up to mingle with the fragrance of freshly cut grass. Iroh looked across the lawn and saw the tiers of stone surrounding them.
“Three days,” the general finally said, folding his arms into his sleeves. “You have three days.”
8 8 8
The makeshift campsite was quiet. Mai stirred fitfully in the grass, her hands clutching the blanket beneath her. Katara had kindly offered it, saying she’d be fine sleeping without. And Mai had taken it, because she’d known it wasn’t a lie. It was summer now in the Fire Nation, and the stars lay like a thick blanket of silver against a warm midnight sky. Logically, neither of them needed any covering.
Despite this, Mai clung to the wool beneath her like a lifeline. She already knew she wasn’t going to get much sleep tonight. Besides the fact that she’d been out for almost an entire day already, too many questions and worries were flying around in her mind, and she didn’t want to push them away. They were too insistent, too important to her continued survival and the continued survival of the people she... cared about.
For the twentieth time, the ebony-haired Fire Nation girl started folding herself up, preparing to rise to her feet and stumble to the black shape of the tent, before dropping back into quiescence with a sigh. The shelter was still, the waterbender obviously asleep. What was she going to do? Shake her awake and demand answers?
Mai turned onto her back and stared up at the sky. It lay open and impossibly far-reaching in front of her, much like the anxieties running through her mind. She snorted, and bit back a twinge of what could not possibly be guilt or apprehension. She definitely wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight. She might as well get company.
Lifting herself up fully this time, the noblewoman ignored her protesting muscles and dragged herself to her feet. After a few shaky steps, she reached her destination... only to find the tent was empty.
Dumbfounded, Mai scooted back into a crouching position. She hadn’t heard the waterbender leave, and she was sure that she hadn’t managed to fall asleep. She didn’t remember waking up, after all.
Unless... unless Katara was off doing more mysterious things dressed up as the Painted Lady. Mai narrowed her eyes. Earlier, she had not questioned exactly where the waterbender had gone, but the injury she’d brought back with her spoke quite clearly that it hadn’t been to pick fire lilies. Suddenly, the political and social implications of her mission reasserted itself fully in her mind once more, complete with the image of the earth swallowing up their basilisks superimposed over the picture of the refugees.
Mai’s eyes narrowed further. It couldn’t be a coincidence. It couldn’t. But then, if Katara was involved, just what did that mean...?
“Couldn’t sleep?”
Mai spun around and regretted it, landing ungracefully on her posterior as Katara appeared from the riverside. Moonlight sparkled off the drops of water on her skin, lighting up the smile on her face with a gentle glow. Clad only in her white wrappings, Mai though she looked like some river nymph of old.
“No,” she admitted slowly. “I... I was looking for you.”
Instantly, Katara was moving forwards and Mai had to resist the urge to scramble back. “You were looking for me?” the waterbender demanded. “Is everything all right? Are you all right?”
Something in Mai’s face stopped her before the threshold of the tent. Hesitating, Katara dropped her hands and bit her lip against the intensity of it. The shadows draped themselves across the noblewoman’s face now, casting her golden eyes in darkness, and before the waterbender could react, the question between them spoke.
“What are you doing here?”
The words came out as abruptly as cracking ice. Mai hesitated, torn between regret and defiance as the silence stretched between them. What was she thinking, questioning her like that? This wasn’t Zuko or Shen Li, this wasn’t someone she knew. Then again, this wasn’t a court lady either. Mai swallowed, still conflicted, and then lifted her chin. Whatever. She couldn’t take it back now. All she could do was wait...
And then Katara slowly expelled a long sigh and lowered herself down onto the grass, sitting cross-legged as she faced the girl in her tent.
“Good question,” the waterbender said quietly. And then she sighed again, a long, drawn out exhalation as if she’d been holding her breath for the past year, and got herself comfortable.
“Well, you see... after everything that happened on the day of the Comet, I guess I was a bit confused. The whole past year I’ve been wrapped up in Aang’s destiny, and now that I was free of it, I guess I just...”
Mai cut in. “I didn’t ask for your life story. I asked what you were doing here.”
Surprise, and then hurt blossomed in Katara’s eyes. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you meant that...”
“Just tell me what you’re doing here.”
It was as if she couldn’t stop herself. The hard, businesslike words rose sharp and cutting through the air, and Mai felt them pass as naturally past her lips as breath. But still, when Katara’s expression turned suspicious, Mai wondered whether her discomfort stemmed from caring about her words or from caring about their effect on her companion.
“I’m helping people. How about you? The last I heard of you, you were at the Boiling Rock.” Katara folded her arms. “That doesn’t explain how I found you half-dead in this river.”
Mai couldn’t help but allow a rare smile to quirk the corner of her lips. Suddenly, she felt at ease again, for perhaps the first time since she’d awoken. Suspicion was something she could handle.
“I asked first,” Mai pointed out, dry mirth collecting in the shadow of her smile. “I’m afraid ‘I’m helping people’ doesn’t give me nearly enough information.”
Katara didn’t appear to notice the miracle she was witnessing. “What’s it to you?”
The challenge passed between them like an electric spark, and Mai lost the smile as quickly as it had come. Silently, knowingly, the girls entered into a battle of wills against themselves and each other. The look in the other’s eyes made Mai frown. Perhaps she was overdoing it. Perhaps... perhaps she was wrong. After all, if there was anything she knew about Katara, the girl was loyal. She’d heard as much from everyone else. And since Zuko had so clearly joined and been accepted by the Avatar’s group, perhaps...
It was not a succumbing or a surrender, it was a calculated change in tactic.
“How long have you been gone for?”
It worked. Katara blinked and pulled back, surprise overcoming her stubbornness. “Uh, around five days. Why?”
Mai’s look became assessing. “You’ve missed a lot,” she told the waterbender bluntly. “Zuko freed Ty Lee and I from prison to attend his coronation. Someone tried to kill him there, and there’ve been reports...”
“Wait. Stop. Someone tried to kill Zuko?”
Even if Mai hadn’t already noted Katara’s propensity to wear her heart on her sleeve, the intensity she was faced with now said it all. Katara’s beautiful blue eyes narrowed to slits, and there was a flush of anger on her dusky skin. The girl’s lithe form seemed to grow, lines of protective strength sculpting themselves along her muscles. Mai noted the change with interest.
“Yes. Shen Li and I stopped him.”
Katara let out a staggered breath. “I see,” she said. “I... sorry. Continue.”
Filing away the waterbender’s reaction for later analysis, Mai continued with her story, leaving the more personal parts out until she finished with the earthbender attack that had tossed her into the river. Katara digested it all with remarkable poise, nodding as she pieced everything together.
“Those refugees must be from the same villages I’ve been attempting to save... but why? Why are Fire Nation soldiers attacking their own country? It makes no sense.”
Mai thinned her lips in disagreement. “It makes plenty of sense. To many, Zuko is not a popular leader. What better way to unseat a Fire Lord than to make his own people revolt?”
“Aargh!” Katara spun around and stomped back to the river, stopping inches away from it with her fists clenched as she tried to contain her anger. “This is so stupid. I mean, what was the point of even ending the war if people just try to start if up again?”
The noblewoman frowned. “That’s not the way some people see it. Some people think that the only rightful way to end the war was in triumph.”
“Well those people are insane!”
Mai felt the implication sizzle itself across her skin, and flushed. Katara didn’t notice. “Can’t they see it’s better like this? How can anyone justify sending thousands of people to die for some sick vision of triumph? I mean, the four nations were meant to live in balance. Messing with that is just the most moronic thing that I have ever...”
Suddenly, Katara stopped mid-tirade, cocking her head to the side as if she were listening to something. And then she crouched sideways down to the water, dipping her fingers in slowly as if she were caressing its face. An assessing expression crept onto her brow, as if she were concentrating on some living voice within the river. And she frowned.
Mai recognised the look from the day before. “Another attack?”
Katara’s lips thinned. “Yes,” she said abruptly, standing up and moving back towards the bag where she kept her clothes. “I have to go.”
For some reason, it was the purpose with which she said it which drained the atmosphere of the last of the tension that had bound them together for so long. Instead, the void was replaced with a new tension, the acknowledgement of a shared goal, and it was that which made the fire in Mai stir and speak.
“Let me come with you,” she said.
Katara froze. For a moment, Mai could see their history in her eyes, the blue depths rippling into a mirror of the past. She saw blades flying through the air, saw herself following, saw frustration and defeat follow. She saw a conjured prison, saw the faces of family, saw the face of Zuko. And then the pool of memory shimmered into opacity, and she saw herself as she was now; weakened, determined, alone.
Katara took a second to weigh it all up and then nodded. “We need to hurry.”
Mai nodded back and pushed herself to her feet. Outside she stayed emotionless. Inside she was re-evaluating everything she had ever accepted.
Well... perhaps she was not alone.
8 8 8
Three men sat around a blocky stone table. One armoured, one cloaked, one robed.
“Any time you want it, Chief,” the armoured one said sardonically. “Three men. Fresh load of poison from our friend in Ba Sing Se. The little prince won’t know what hit him.”
The cloaked man smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant one. “I can arrange it so he’ll be standing away. No interference; they can get him in the back this time like he deserves.”
Fire crackled in the stone hearth, and the robed man interlinked his fingers. “No,” he decided firmly. “The Avatar’s fate is not negotiable, but I think the circumstances in the Fire Nation have called for a... change of plans.”
The cloaked one started rebelliously. “Change? What kind of change allows both our plan and the traitor to live?”
The robed man said nothing. “The clever kind,” the armoured man snorted, eyes assessing the other’s peaceful expression. “What are you thinking, Chief?”
Taken on invitation, the robed man responded easily. “Ah, well, I haven’t quite ironed out the details yet. But when I have, rest assured that I will tell you.”
The cloaked man snorted in disbelief. “You’re a fool to trust a traitor. Whatever it is, it’ll never work.”
The robed man lifted his shoulders in a dignified shrug. “Perhaps. If it fails, we can always revert to the poison. Either way, we shall prevail.”
The armoured man grinned at that - a sharp, wolf-lion grin that showed his canines and his teeth. “To triumph, then.”
The cloaked man grunted and raised his own glass. “To the war.”
The robed man smiled. “To us, my friends. To Sozin’s Guard.”
