Avatar - Ties that Bind
It was difficult to tell whether Qin's reaction to the news of Iroh was less or more melodramatic than his reaction to Zuko.
"General Iroh?!" he demanded, standing abruptly. His hands splayed over the papers on the table. "He's here!?"
"Ex-general," Azula corrected evenly.
"Yes, of course." Qin stared at her. "Why did you not report this sooner? And he's been under the guard of earthbenders all this time!"
Azula was tempted to quirk an eyebrow at the fact that he could ask that immediately after his own slip, but decided it was undignified in the situation. "You are aware that the bounty on my uncle has been out for months now," she stated.
"Yes, but--I don't-"
"In that time, the closest he came to being caught was when I came to collect him--and even then, he got through our soldiers and escaped." Azula folded her hands behind her back, quietly irritated that when they stood on an even floor she had to look up to stare him in the eyes. "This pattern has repeated several times. I can only assume that, despite the Fire Lord's decree, when faced with Iroh the soldiers simply cannot overcome their ingrained loyalty to the royal family and respect for the Dragon of the West."
She hardened her expression slightly. "Given this, I decided that the best method to return him is to involve as few soldiers as possible. I did not bring him up until now because there were more important matters to be attended to--and, as you'll recall," she added, correctly judging from his expression what he had been about to say, "it was my uncle who first broke through the outer wall of Ba Sing Se. The earthbenders who are guarding him remember that well."
Qin finally pulled his hands away from the table, realizing what his body language looked like. It was with clear effort that he resumed a dignified posture, however.
"In light of that conclusion," he began, "I can understand your methods. But still, Princess Azula, our spies have noted that the castle guards have begun behaving more restlessly throughout the day and this evening. I think it wisest if his guard is changed to a Fire Nation one, now."
"Certainly," Azula agreed. "I leave it to your discretion on who is best fit to handle him under these circumstances, War Minister Qin."
"Make sure that they're also soldiers you can afford to lose temporarily," she added, shifting her shoulders back a little more and tilting her chin. "I will be escorting my uncle back to the Fire Nation, along with my brother and my companions. I want a ship to be prepared as soon as possible--the faster he is delivered to justice, the sooner I can return."
Qin gave her a startled look. "You intend to leave? So soon?"
"I think it's best if former members of the royal family are returned by a remaining one," Azula said lowly. "At the least, it will reduce the difficulties already mentioned. And everything I learned in my infiltration, I've already given to you."
Qin was still for several moments, considering her. Finally, however, he nodded. "I understand. I'll have word sent to the docked navy tonight."
"Immediately."
Qin nodded again. "Yes, Princess."
Azula heard him call for one of the guards outside the door to come in as she left.
It was late enough that she went immediately to Mai and Ty Lee's suite. She found that Mai was still up and sharpening her knives, and woke Ty Lee as well.
"Is that enough?" she asked, after describing the two Dai Li agents who'd been in the dungeon.
"We'll have to get close to pick them out of the groups," Mai replied.
"No," Azula answered. "They'll be coming out of the dungeon soon. Iroh's guard is being replaced with our soldiers."
"Okay," Ty Lee said. "That's a lot easier. What do you want us to do?"
"Get rid of them," Azula ordered. "They overheard something between Zuko and myself that I can't allow to spread," she added, glancing briefly at Mai. "For both our sakes. Don't attract attention."
Mai started to say something, but then stopped herself. Instead, she just stood. Ty Lee followed suite.
Once they were in an area of the palace that was temporarily deserted, Mai gestured for Ty Lee to follow her behind one of the pillars.
"Yeah?" Ty Lee asked, even as she checked that no one had seen them.
"We can't start a revolt yet," Mai whispered. "You go disable those two, and then bring them back here. I'm going to make sure we have a clear path to the caverns Azula and Zuko talked about."
Ty Lee nodded once, and then checked behind them again. Mai examined the opposite direction, absently tapping her wrist against her hip. The knives made a soft clinking motion.
". . . I can't wait to go back to the circus," Ty Lee said quietly. "I miss the normality."
Mai made a half-amused noise in the back of her throat. "Normality."
"You could come too sometime! Knife-throwing's always popular, as long as you don't hit them."
"No," Mai replied, and this time all the amusement was gone. "That's not an option."
Ty Lee glanced over her shoulder at that, and took in Mai's aura. Then she bit her lip and looked forward again.
"All clear," she said.
"Same here."
They spilt off into opposite directions.
~
Late that night, Azula was running through firebending katas in her room, practicing the stances without actually bending, when Ty Lee stopped by to report that the two Dai Li agents were taken care of.
"And then we hid them in those old caverns, where you fought the Avatar," she finished. Azula was unsurprised to learn that it had been Mai's idea.
"Where's Mai?" she asked.
"Um," Ty Lee replied, and then reached back and tugged on her braid. Azula frowned and looked at her directly. "I had to disable them so we could move them, and she said it was like hitting rats on a ship. So she after she cleaned the knives, she went to practice."
"Ah," Azula replied, turning back into her stance. "Fine."
Ty Lee recognized the dismissal and left.
Azula's katas were slightly more tense after Ty Lee was gone, lacking the proper fluidity; but the problem wasn't Mai, really. Her movements had been flawed even before Ty Lee's news.
No matter how often she practiced the lightning kata, she couldn't feel the separation of the energies. Iroh's words--one measly sentence, more than he ever should have been able to say in the first place--had unbalanced her, and knowing that only made her more frustrated. All the effort she'd wasted--!
Azula deeply disliked gambling.
All the same, she told herself, as she set her feet once more, it didn't matter what Iroh had said. It didn't erase the reality of the scar on Zuko's face; it didn't make what she had said about their father less true. She had gotten that part through, at least. So long as she kept her brother focused on Ozai as the current future, the conflict between them could remain the distant one.
And yet, she couldn't afford to put it aside for too long. She had to decide what was to be done with Zuko soon, so that she could implement it whenever it became necessary--even if that was years from now.
Azula did not intend to let Zuko realize that, if their father was forced to choose between a failure and a threat, then Ozai's sense of self-preservation would ultimately choose the former.
Their father loved the Fire Nation second, after all. The power and strength of the position of Fire Lord came first.
The motions were less tense this time, closer to the required fluidity; but the split between the energies was still out of her reach. She knew they were there, but they wouldn't respond.
Azula exhaled through her teeth as she glared at the wall, imagining what the old women would say if they could see her now.
And then she stopped thinking about it, because it only added to the weight that kept the lightning away. Azula continued to glare at the wall for another moment, and then turned aside and made her way toward the bed.
He had not won, not with mere words. The frustration of being beneath Qin again, the weariness of all her work toward keeping Ba Sing Se for a few precious days, the lack of proper sleep and food for the last months--it had all compounded. All she needed was rest and a decent meal, and then all her uncle's futile methods of keeping Zuko convinced that he stood a chance would be meaningless, because she would block each one.
Azula set her boots by the side of the bed, and then dropped back onto the mattress and closed her eyes angrily.
~
That night, Zuko slept badly.
He opened his eyes abruptly, staring up into the dimness of the room he'd taken in the palace and feeling a moment of disorientation. He still wasn't used to it. The stone was different from that of the Fire Nation's palace, and the ceiling was much higher than the ship's or any of the places he and Iroh had lived in afterward.
Zhou's face, and the look on it as he'd wrenched his hand back, were burned as an afterimage onto the darkness of the room. The glowing of the Avatar's water-monster was dark in its reverse color and faded first; Zhou's expression lingered. Zuko squeezed his eyes shut and then, when that failed, ground the heels of his hands against the lids until dots of light blurred the man out.
He shoved the blankets away a moment later, and strode over to the window. The curtain had been pulled shut, but he tugged it aside and breathed in deep. The air was cool; it felt sharp and sour in his throat.
Zuko felt the fire almost before he noticed the light. There was someone in the pavilion to the right. He could see torchlight flickering through the pillars.
He didn't see anyone moving, though, and the flames were as stationary as fire ever could be. It wouldn't have been Azula, anyway; her room was to the left, and she only practiced openly during the day. He didn't hear the sound of earthbending, either, but the guards would have stopped anyone who dared to train so close to this section of the palace. It was probably one of Azula's friends. And given the lack of shadows, it was probably someone standing still. Mai, maybe.
It was strange that she was practicing so late, and outside. Her skills were the only ones that didn't demand a certain amount of open space.
Zuko let the curtain fall back into place before it could be noticed. He turned around again, ready to just rub his hand hard over his eyes and try to go back to sleep; but then the bed caught his eye.
He stared at it for nearly a minute, before exhaling harshly through his teeth.
He was half grateful that it was still that old dream he was having, rather than a new one about Un--. . . rather than a new one. But mostly he was angry that he was still having that dream. Zhou had chosen his own fate. It was stupid to die for pride.
Spite, he corrected himself almost before he'd finished the thought. To die for spite. A man needs pride, or else . . . what else is- There is nothing else.
He tried not to think of what his uncle would reply.
Zuko wrenched the covers back a moment later and threw himself into the bed, tugging the blanket up around his shoulders afterward. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to think about the lights in the pavilion, or the long corridor that led to Iroh's cell, or the unnatural color of the Avatar's water creature.
They never had found Zhou's body, Azula had said.
Maybe the Avatar really was better dead. By anyone's hands.
He would be an infant in the . . . Water Tribe, now, if he hadn't somehow survived. In the North Pole, most likely. It would take years for him to be distinguished again, but it was nearly summer. Night would only last for a few hours up there by the solstice. Infants didn't fight capture.
Those thoughts only made the sourness worse, and he had to swallow heavily to keep it down.
Uncle saw what he did, and he still sided with him, Zuko reminded himself. It didn't help the taste in the back of his throat.
No more than knowing that Zhou had chosen to die had made his hand feel any less cold.
~
When Mai finally made her way back to the suite she shared with Ty Lee, she found the other teenager asleep in one of the chairs in the main room. She woke up when Mai closed the door. Though Mai noticed, she didn't speak to her. Instead, she made her way towards the door to her room, shrugging off her outer robe.
She'd only gotten one sleeve off before Ty Lee wrapped her arms around her shoulders from behind.
Mai closed her eyes for a long moment. "Don't tell me you stayed up to hug me."
"It'll start helping soon," Ty Lee replied. "Hugs always help."
Mai's aura hadn't changed when she tried to pull away a moment later. "I'm fine."
"Let go," she snapped a second later, and Ty Lee finally complied.
Mai shrugged out of the rest of her robe, and then turned and gave the other girl an irritated look. "Just because we got into the city so easily doesn't mean everything was going to be that simple. Wars-"
"-aren't won through diplomacy," Ty Lee finished with a pout. "I didn't sleep through that many classes." She stomped over to the chair and sat down abruptly, propping her chin up with her fists and giving Mai an equally annoyed look. "I was just trying to help."
Mai gave her a long stare, and then turned towards her door again with an exhale. "When did Azula say we need to be up tomorrow?" she asked, folding the robe sloppily.
"She didn't, actually," Ty Lee replied, letting her chin drop a little further down her fists until it was propped on the heels of her hands. "She was really mad when I went to talk to her. Whatever they overheard, it must have been bad."
Mai stared at the doorway, robe draped over her arm.
In the end, though, she didn't say anything, and just walked through it and closed the door behind her. Ty Lee made a half-hearted face at it after that, before standing and stretching for a few moments. Then she headed to her own room.
~
Breakfast was in the long room just off of the throne hall, which was standard procedure because it was the room Qin had taken over for the study of all the documents and maps. A smaller table had been moved in and set to the side so that they could eat without risking damage to any papers.
What wasn't common was both the general who was standing beside Qin, and the fact that, when Zuko entered, they saw he'd slicked his hair back.
Azula noticed the slightest tension in his shoulders when he saw the general, didn't bother cursing Iroh another time, and addressed Qin. "Has word returned from the navy yet?"
"Yes," he replied. "A ship has been designated and is being reinforced as we speak; it will be ready whenever you desire, Princess Azula." He then gestured to the man beside him. "This is General Jian. I chose him as the most capable of handling this delicate situation."
The man bowed. Azula gave him a considering look, but was already mildly impressed by the fact that he neither commented about nor reacted to Zuko's appearance. "And what is your plan?"
He straightened again before speaking. "The best option, I believe, is to keep his name as obscured as possible. I intend to put him under the guard of a group of soldiers who would not have the rank or age to recognize his face, with their leader being one of my soldiers whom I can trust to be impartial. It would be best if we could procure some Earth Kingdom clothing for him beforehand."
"That's already been taken care of," Azula replied. "My uncle attempted to blend into the civilian life here. He was captured in both Earth Kingdom clothing and with this area's distinctive hairstyle."
Jian nodded, expression remaining the same, and Azula's attitude suddenly shifted from impressed to suspicious. She would need to get information on Jian's campaigns and career as soon as possible, including any and all contact he'd had with Iroh.
"Also," the man added, before pausing.
Azula tilted her chin slightly, a silent order for him to continue. She noticed out of the corner of the eye that the palace servants had begun to enter and lay out the table. Zuko was still standing a fair distance behind her, but Mai was leaning against the wall. Ty Lee was trying to peek at the dishes as they were brought in.
"I sent an additional notice to the ship, to see whether there would be enough-" Jian paused then, glancing once at the servants moving in the background, before looking back to her, "-of the plant stored onboard to keep him safely contained during the trip."
He was speaking of datura, she realized. It was a plant that could be found easily enough throughout the Fire Nation, a common poison and hallucinogen. Because of its availability, all members of the royal family began building up a resistance to it, and other poisons, as soon as they proved they weren't going to die in infancy. Azula gestured for him to continue.
Jian nodded again. "However, one of the surgeons warned me that, given the former general's trip to the spirit world, it might not be as effective."
Azula stopped and considered that.
The purpose of non-fatal doses of datura was to create hallucinations that made it difficult to separate reality from fantasy; but according to the sparse records of the few who had actually made the journey to the spirit world and come back, that was much like what life itself resembled upon returning. And all records stated that non-fatal doses had consistently failed to have any affect on Avatars.
"We'll see," she replied. "Prepare for both possibilities."
"Understood, Princess Azula. Is there anything more you wish of me?"
"No," she said. "Go arrange for the guard."
Jian bowed to her again and left.
During the middle of her discussion with Qin over the risks of the activated brainwashed earthbenders, Azula suddenly noticed that Mai was using the back of her spoon to surreptitiously eye Zuko. The familiarity of it was startling--she'd used to do the same thing when they were children, only with her knives instead of silverware--and Azula actually had to check herself to keep from laughing out loud.
She made a note of the action and told Qin to repeat himself.
According to the Dai Li, the re-educated remained on their vacations until otherwise ordered; but Qin looked dubious and Azula couldn't blame him. While they still had the advantage of splits between the brainwashed and their families and friends, the fact that it had happened on such a large scale would have raised suspicions. Once the drudgery of the census was over and people had the opportunity to gather in private groups again, it would undoubtedly come up. Compound that with the fact that the brainwashed were, by and large, people who had originally been troublemakers before becoming upright citizens of Ba Sing Se, and she had to assume that at least a few people would begin to put things together.
Azula wasn't concerned with the inevitability, only with making sure that it was sufficiently delayed, so she asked Long Feng to bring back the scroll containing the information on the teenage mercenary who'd broken free.
She left Qin to deliver orders to his subordinates to go through all the files once again, looking for any hint of someone else who'd managed to undo their brainwashing without the Avatar's help, and made her way across the room to where Zuko was standing by the table.
He'd actually started to help the servants clear the dishes for a few seconds, before apparently realizing what he'd been doing. Qin had hidden whatever his expression was behind his napkin; everyone else had discreetly ignored Zuko, though Mai had looked slightly, briefly amused. Now he was doing much the same thing he'd been doing since the Fire Nation's army had entered the city yesterday: standing silently, making sure his presence was obvious without being overly obtrusive, and listening.
Everything would be so much easier once she got him on the boat and into open water. She could maintain everything until then. She was the crown princess to the throne of the Fire Nation, and had been since the first report of Zuko's death. She would have to maintain an empire one day. This was a simple task in comparison.
After another moment, Azula eyed Zuko's bangs. The oil had dried and they were coming loose, starting to hang in front of his eyes.
"You'll need a haircut before we board the ship," she said, raising an eyebrow. "This won't do, for a returning prince."
"I'm letting it grow long," Zuko replied, looking slightly away over her shoulder.
"Ah," Azula murmured. "Honorable, but . . . perhaps not the best gesture right now."
Zuko was quiet for longer than she expected, but the reason why became clear when he spoke.
"I'll consider cutting it," he said, quietly enough that Qin and perhaps even Ty Lee and Mai couldn't hear. "Would you loan me the scissors you used to trim your bangs?"
Azula tensed before she could catch herself.
Underneath the offense, a part of her noted that Zuko had changed since he had left. She'd noticed hints before, but this--a well-timed, and even more important, subtle insult--was a clear warning.
She smiled at him, refusing to give ground. "Certainly."
Long Feng returned with the specific scroll she had asked for as the soldiers were bringing in the chests containing the other files. When Azula held out her hand, he moved to deliver it to her rather than to Qin's desk, where he'd originally been heading.
"The mercenary," he said, as he placed the scroll in her hand. Azula automatically checked that it was the same weight, with the same color and texture of paper, as before. She doubted it would have been forged--Long Feng seemed the type to only make a drastic mistake once and then learn from it--and he didn't know she'd only skimmed it the first time. But Ozai had taught her by example that she should never trust anyone but herself.
"Ah," Qin said, a polite syllable that allowed him to ask what she was doing now without the risk of insubordination.
"I'll read over this," she replied, gesturing to the several chests now standing beside the table. Two of the subordinates were already pulling scrolls out of the first one. "Begin compiling a list of potential flaws. I'll compare them to this one when I finish."
Azula was aware that this was an awkward plan at best, and therefore ordered it in her strongest voice. Qin simply bowed. Long Feng kept his face expressionless and humbly stepped aside when she turned to leave.
After she'd spoken, she gestured for Mai to follow her. She strode out of the room, heard the measured footsteps on the stone hall a few moments later, and led the other teenager back to the suite she shared with Ty Lee.
"What is it?" Mai asked after the door was shut behind them.
"Give me one of your knives," Azula snapped.
Mai raised an eyebrow in lazy surprise, but twisted her wrist and snapped one of the smaller ones out. She flipped it so that she held the blade between two of her fingers, and then tossed it loosely to her.
Azula caught it and stalked over to the mirror, thinking to herself that this was frivolous and she had more important things to do, and that she certainly shouldn't have let Zuko rattle her enough that she'd let herself look less than perfectly capable in front of the war minister of the Fire Nation and the grand secretariat of the conquered city. She had too much work to do to spend time now fixing a flaw that was imperceptible to anyone who hadn't seen its creation. She could already hear her father's disapproving statement.
But those few short strands of hair were a reminder that she hadn't moved fast enough. That she had almost doubted her chances of winning the fight against the Avatar and the waterbender.
Azula tossed the knife back to Mai a minute later, when she was satisfied that her bangs were perfectly even again.
~
She'd barely opened the file and read the piece of paper within it when someone knocked on her door. Azula gritted her teeth and composed herself. "Enter."
It was Zuko, who was looking remarkably more like himself than he had the last week: he was scowling.
"What was the name of that mercenary?" he demanded.
"Excuse me, Zuzu?" she replied.
His fingers tensed restlessly at his sides before he noticed and loosened them. "War Minister Qin called Long Feng back into the room after you left, and he described . . . him." Zuko went still suddenly, silent for a moment, before saying, "I may have known him."
Azula arched an eyebrow.
"You must have some fascinating stories," she commented, but held the scroll out. "That will certainly make the trip home go faster."
Zuko took the scroll and turned it around swiftly, ignoring her statement. He couldn't have read more than the name before his expression darkened.
Azula stepped around the table and then leaned against it. "It's the same person?" she asked, phrasing the question in that way because she didn't want to ask whether Zuko had been right about anything, no matter how unimportant.
". . . Yes," he said after a few more moments, enough time that he must have read the physical description.
She arched her eyebrow again, until he noticed. Zuko clenched his jaw and glared down at the document, but finally explained further. "He was on the same ferry across as U--Iroh and I. He figured out that we were firebenders . . . somehow. He even burst into the shop we were working at, announcing it to everyone. The soldiers defended us when the Dai Li arrived, and they took him away."
Azula blinked once, amazed that they could have been so careless, and then glanced at the scroll in his hands. "That was fortunate."
Zuko glanced over, and then seemed to war with himself for several seconds before asking, "What happened to him?"
"According to the attached report," she said, indicating the loose sheet of paper that had been rolled up within the scroll, "he and the two with him allowed the Avatar to escape the Dai Li's internment base, along with his flying bison." Azula picked it up and glanced at the bottom. "They stated that since he was nearly dead already, they disabled the other two and then left all three inside the area when they collapsed it."
Zuko swallowed, hard enough that she could hear it. Azula looked over, and found that one of his hands had dropped to his side and was clenched into a fist.
"What is it?" she asked. "You said yourself he was an enemy."
He didn't answer her until he'd uncurled his fingers.
"Nothing," Zuko replied, rolling the scroll up. "It's nothing."
The fact that he was not only lying but also not even trying to lie believably convinced her that the mercenary and the circumstances of his arrest deserved further investigation. She wanted to leave as soon as possible, but this was clearly too important to brush aside. She'd have to send for Qiang, and have him tell her who had been the ones to arrest the teenager.
Zuko held the scroll back out to her, and then started to turn around when she took it.
"I'll deliver the report to Qin," Azula said, watching the set of his shoulders.
He paused mid-motion, so it was hard to tell if he had tensed briefly or not. "Fine," Zuko told her, and then left.
Azula glanced down at the scroll one last time, and then--when she was sure her brother would have stalked off--left the room to find a Dai Li agent and have them send Qiang to her.
~
Zuko shut the door to his room hard behind him and glared at the windows. The curtains had been pulled, likely by whoever had also made the bed; but instead of seeing the common work of servants within a palace he saw only the intrusion of outsiders into a space that wasn't really his.
He didn't move for several minutes, long enough to hear people walk down the hall twice--once away from Azula's room, and once towards.
Eventually, Zuko pushed away from the door and moved toward the windows and the morning sunshine spilling through them. He rested his hand against his side as he did, even though he couldn't actually feel his knife since it was hidden underneath the armor.
Zuko pulled it free a moment later as he stopped in front of one of the windows, close enough to feel the breeze outside. But he was careful to keep it hidden, both from outside view and from anyone who might come through the door.
Below, the city of Ba Sing Se spread out so far as to be incomprehensible. Zuko had studied all the maps that had been used in the last three days, but even they were useless; he didn't know what sector of the lower ring he'd been living in, and the street hadn't been large enough to have a name. All he knew was the shops and tenements around it, that the grocery with the freshest produce had been down the alley of the basket shop from their apartment, that the local baths had been on the street with the fountain and the lamppost that was broken and had never been fixed the whole time they were there. The restaurant Jin had led him to had been somewhere past that; he'd been too uncomfortable to pay enough attention to trace his way back, and Pao hadn't been paying them enough to be able to eat out much, anyway.
Zuko clenched the knife so tightly that the rim between the sheath and the handle bit into the flesh of his palm.
He didn't loosen his grip for several seconds.
When he did, he tucked the knife back underneath his armor. Then he set both hands on the window sill, leaning out far enough that he could feel the sun. Zuko forced himself to take a deep breath, and then another, and then a third. Remember your basics.
Even if it wasn't . . . even if it wasn't about his honor anymore. The Avatar was a murderer, a thing of nature, not human. His uncle had sided with him, knowing that.
His uncle was the only person who had stood by Zuko, over and over again.
He closed his eyes, breathed in a fourth time, and tilted his face towards the sun. It was almost too warm for the armor, when he wasn't in the shade; the metal absorbed the warmth, held it close even when removed from direct sunlight.
Even drugged in his dark cell, Iroh had been sitting in a position of meditation.
He went to the spirit world, Zuko thought to himself, still breathing as evenly as he could manage. It's a famous story. Maybe . . . maybe something changed there, and that's why the Avatar seems acceptable to him. . . .
Maybe.
But his father wouldn't care.
Zuko opened his eyes, glaring out at the sky and the portion of the sun he could see over the palace's roof until his eyes watered. Then he shoved harshly away from the window, turning his back to it.
He stood still for a while longer, blinking until his eyes no longer stung and his sight had adjusted again. Then he began walking over to the dresser where a small bottle of oil was sitting beside the washbowl. His hair had dried out and come loose in the last two hours; and, as Azula had said, image was still currently everything.
Victory requires sacrifice.