Story Avatar the Last Airbender: Path of Fire Revised (completed 8/15)

Title: Azula Trilogy, Part 2: Path of Fire (revised edition)
Author: MasterGhandalf
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Characters: Azula, Zuko, Ty Lee, Ursa, Iroh, Long Feng, OCs
Genre: Action/Adventure, Drama, Epic
Timeframe: Approx. one month after Heart of Fire.
Summary: Desperate to rebuild her life, Azula searches for her mother, Ursa, accompanied by an old friend. Her search will not be easy, for many dangerous opponents - a scheming old enemy, a renegade earthbender warlord, and a vengeful, shadowy assassin among them - seek to ensure that Ursa is never found, and that the Fire Princess is put in an early grave.



Prologue: Shadows

The man sat hunched in the corner of his prison cell, face obscured by unkempt hair that had once been glossy black but was now beginning to run grey. Once the man's body had been powerfully built and he had a well-earned reputation as one of the greatest warriors in the world. Now he was pitifully out of shape, leading his guards to remark on one occasion that surely here was the only man in the world to gain weight on prison food. Once he had been the most powerful bender alive. Now his element had been denied to him by some strange, unknown power called forth by the boy Avatar.

Once he had been Fire Lord Ozai, called the Phoenix King, poised to conquer the known world and rule it as a god-emperor. Now he was broken, powerless, a prisoner of the son he despised. Ozai retained just enough dark humor to appreciate the full irony of his situation- apart from continually baiting Zuko with the whereabouts of the boy's mother (how should he know? He’d told the woman to get out- he never said to where), it was the only enjoyment he was able to find in his captivity.

While still Fire Lord, he had heard from the Governor of New Ozai that the captive King Bumi actually enjoyed his imprisonment, seeing it as an opportunity to exercise his nimble mind without distractions. Ozai himself just took it as yet another proof that the ancient earthbender was completely insane.

A guard came to bring Ozai his dinner as the sun slipped past the horizon. The prison food was bland mush, but the deposed Fire Lord ate it greedily anyway, if only to deny Zuko the satisfaction of seeing him go hungry. When he was through the guard took the bowl and left again, returning to his post near the entrance. No guards were posted directly outside of Ozai's cell- as far as the prison staff was concerned, a firebender with no firebending was a joke, rather than a threat. Ozai, for his part, was inclined to agree with them, and cursed the Avatar again for his predicament.

Night had fallen now, and the only light in the cell was a thin sliver of pale moonlight. Then it too vanished behind a cloud, and Ozai realized that he was no longer alone.

A figure stood in the corner of the cell, wrapped in a cloak that seemed to shift from black to dark purple to midnight blue. Shadows trailed from the figure, making it difficult to pick out from the darkness without effort. A hood covered most of the figure's face, but from the shape of what was visible, Ozai guessed that his visitor was a woman.

"Who are you and how did you get in here?" he snarled at the shadows. "Can't a man suffer in peace?"

"You don't need to suffer at all, Great King," the visitor said in a soft, melodious- and distinctly feminine- voice. "I am here to offer you salvation."

"Can you turn back time and restore my powers?" Ozai asked. "Or perhaps give me new powers to match the Avatar without the crutch of the Comet? If not, then there's nothing you can offer that I am interested in buying."

The woman stepped forward and lowered her hood. Ozai stared at her, amazed. She was beautiful, true, but also young- barely older than his daughter, in fact. And yet there was something about her that disturbed him – perhaps it was her skin, which was white as a sheet of paper, white as bone – white as death, a part of his mind whispered. Or perhaps it was her eyes that sparked the Phoenix King’s unease, for rather than the gold, blue, and green eyes common among the people of the four nations, they were a deep violet. "There are forces at work in this world, Ozai," she said. "This state of peace cannot endure, and soon the Avatar himself shall fall. I offer you the chance to lead that effort, to usher in a new age upon this world. Do you accept?"

"I am not interested in prattling mysticism!" Ozai snarled. "You are here to torment me by offering me what I most desire and you can't produce. Now get out! I may not have bending any longer, but I think I could still break a fragile little thing like you with my hands alone."

"Fragile?" the girl murmured, a strange smile on her lips. "So you have made your choice. A pity- I came here to find a conqueror and found a broken down wretch wallowing in self-pity. I guess I must look elsewhere for the champion I seek." Her strange eyes focused on the deposed Fire Lord. "And yet, perhaps not such a pity at all. For you are not the one I hate above all others, but I have long desired to have you at my mercy, and now I have my excuse. I suppose you're going to tell the guards all about me now. They probably won't believe you- after all, who could get into this cell without opening the door or window?- but then again, they just might. And I’m afraid I can't have that."

In an instant a long-bladed knife was in her hand. Ozai barely had time to register his danger before this strange visitor lunged forward and he felt the sharp point open his throat. Then… nothing.

///

When the guards found Ozai's body hours later, they were truly mystified. The Phoenix King had clearly been killed by a knife, but he hadn't had such a weapon himself, and it was no longer in the cell. That meant it must have been an outside attacker, but the bars on the windows and doors were still in place, and the Warden himself had the only key.

Still in a state of bafflement, the guards sent a messenger to the palace to inform Fire Lord Zuko of what had transpired and sent the body off to the Fire Sages to prepare for cremation, leaving nothing behind in the cell but shadows.

///

The second volume of the Azula Trilogy starts with a bang. Yes, I killed off Ozai in the prologue. Why? Because honestly, I don’t find Ozai himself at all interesting – the most compelling thing about him is the effect (almost always negative) he has on people around him, and in a prison cell he’s not going to have much opportunity for that (the comics had him still scheming from captivity, but while show Ozai could be clever when he wanted to, I’d never really gotten the impression he was that cunning). Certainly, I don’t think Zuko was going to let Azula within a hundred yards of their father, limiting his usefulness for my purposes. So instead of dealing with Ozai himself, exploring his legacy struck me as the more profitable course of action.

We also meet a new major character here. Unlike Heart of Fire, which was mostly Azun’s show, Path of Fire has three major antagonists, two OCs and one canon character. Our mysterious visitor in the prologue is one of these, and I have to admit she’s one of my favorite OCs – but at this stage she’s supposed to be mysterious, so we’ll have to wait before I can talk about her any more.

In any case, next update is the first chapter, where we’ll be seeing Ozai’s funeral, and catching up with Azula herself…

-MasterGhandalf

 

Chapter 1: Funeral for a Tyrant

Zuko had attended the funeral of a Fire Lord once before.

When Fire Lord Azulon died, the entire Fire Nation had mourned him. The grim, canny old ruler hadn't been loved like his charismatic father Sozin, but he was widely respected for his intelligence and power. The crowds had turned out in vast numbers, like a huge sea of white, to mourn their fallen leader and pledge loyalty to his chosen successor- Zuko's father, Ozai.

Now Ozai himself lay upon the funeral bier, and the crowds were nowhere to be seen. Azulon had not been loved, but by the end of his life his son had been hated; while on the throne, the Phoenix King had taken advantage of the Fire Nation’s vast propaganda machine to present himself as a towering, godlike figure, but after he had been deposed Zuko had used that same resource to make certain that every citizen knew of Ozai’s ruthlessness and atrocities. Once word of his mad plan to burn all life from the entire Earth Kingdom continent became known, few but the most extreme of the war’s diehard supporters found themselves willing to shed tears for him.

In life Ozai had been a towering figure of dreadful power and infinite cruelty- a man made soulless by unchecked ambition, who was capable of any crime if he might profit from it. The scar that covered one side of Zuko's face tingled slightly at the memory of Ozai's most personally affecting act, but it was far from the only pain the former Fire Lord had caused. Now he seemed pathetic and shrunken, and far older than he had ever looked while alive. The Fire Sages had cleaned the body and dressed it in fine robes, but even their handiwork couldn't hide the wound that had killed him- a clean slash across the throat, which the royal physician assured Zuko could only have been cause by a knife of incredible sharpness.

The murder itself still stumped Zuko. There were plenty of people who wanted Ozai dead, but the Fire Lord knew of no one who could pass through walls and locked doors without leaving a trace, and so far neither the army’s investigator’s or his hired bounty hunters had been able to shed much light on the mystery.

For now, though, such questions had to wait. Zuko stood on the steps of the Fire Nation palace in white mourning robes, at his side his betrothed, the Lady Mai. Off on one side, flanked by guards, was Zuko's younger sister, Princess Azula, a strange look on her normally impassive face. Azula had been the one person who could truly have been said to love Ozai, twisted as her relationship with him had been. Recently she had seemed to throw off some of his influence and had been instrumental in the defeat of the rebel general Azun, but the Phoenix King's shadow still loomed large in her mind. Her grief was genuine- perhaps the only genuine grief anyone felt for the man, a fact that Zuko found darkly ironic, considering that Azula was generally the last person one looked to for genuine human emotion.

Apart from the High Fire Sage, they were the only mourners present. Zuko himself would not have been there if it hadn't been for the knowledge that Ozai would have expected him to toss his body into the sea and forget about it (and would have likely done exactly that had their positions been reversed), and while Zuko no longer felt a need to prove himself to his father, he did need to show that he was a better man than Ozai had ever been. Uncle probably would have come too, but Zuko didn't want to have to drag the old man out of his well-earned retirement to travel halfway around the world just to say farewell to the younger brother who'd hated him.

The High Fire Sage stepped forward and raised his hands over the body. "Ozai," he intoned, "Fire Lord of our nation for seven years. You were our ruler during the conquest of Ba Sing Se, and were the first to use airships as weapons of war. You were the husband of Ursa. You were the father of Zuko and Azula. We lay you to rest." The Fire Sage raised his hands and sent twin blasts of golden flame towards the body. In an instant Ozai was consumed. The Fire Sage bowed and stepped back, his work now done.

Zuko felt a light touch on his arm and turned to see Mai. "You've done enough, Zuko," she said. "He didn't even deserve this much."

"You're right," Zuko said to her. "But he was still my father, despite everything. I did my duty as his son for the last time. In an hour there won't be anything left of him but ash." Without another word Zuko turned and began to walk back towards the palace, Mai at his side. Ozai was gone now- he would never harm anyone again. He was best left as no more than a bad memory.

///

Azula noticed her brother and former friend leaving out of the corner of her eye, but her full attention was on the flames that chewed on her father's body.

Azula loved Ozai. She was firmly convinced that he was the most powerful firebender and greatest king who had ever lived, and that he had fully deserved to have the entire world laid out at his feet. All she had done during the war- tracking Zuko, conquering Ba Sing Se, striking the Avatar down in the height of his power- had been for him.

Azula hated Ozai. He had manipulated her for her entire life, made her into little more than a younger, female version of himself, and then, when she was no longer useful, abandoned her. Azula had done similar things to others in her life, and perhaps that was why this hit home so painfully- it reminded her that underneath her royal glamour and prodigy's skill, she was just as weak, just as vulnerable, as anyone else.

And it could easily be said that he was responsible for her current condition. His ruthless manipulation of her emotions throughout her childhood had sown the seeds of madness- his abandonment of her before the Comet had triggered its ultimate appearance. A month ago, Azula had regained control- barely- by betraying her lifelong belief that power was the ultimate goal and helping Zuko defeat Azun. Now that she was in the Palace again, surrounded by guards day and night and unable to take any meaningful action, she could feel the madness growing once more. Only shear effort of will had prevented it from returning in full force.

Good-bye, Father, Azula said silently to the pyre. I will always love you- and I will hate you until my dying breath. Does that satisfy you? With a final sigh she turned away from the flames and motioned to her guards.

"I am returning to my chambers now," she said and immediately began walking in that direction. The guards quickly fell into step behind her. In that position they looked like honored bodyguards, but Azula knew what they were- her jailers. Zuzu still didn't trust her. Azula didn't suppose she blamed him. She wasn't entirely sure she trusted herself.

Finally the little procession arrived at Azula's rooms. The guards- both men- took their places beside the door but did not enter. The deposed princess gave them both mocking smiles as she passed between them and entered her bedchamber, shutting the door behind her.

A sudden blow to the side of her face sent Azula staggering. Catching herself against her bedpost, she turned to face her attacker, preparing to conjure her trademark blue fire and incinerate the fool who had dared to lay hands on her person before they could draw another breath.

Then she saw the intruder's face, and all such thoughts were driven from her mind.

Her father towered over her, resplendent in the robes of the Phoenix King. He was clearly alive and his eyes burned with absolute rage- an expression Azula had only seen once before, on the day Zuko was scarred and banished.

"Traitor!" Ozai roared, landing another blow in his petrified daughter, sending her crashing to the floor. Azula looked up at him, eyes wide and brimming with unaccustomed tears.

"Father… why?" she croaked.

"You know why," he snarled. "You have betrayed me, Azula. I trusted you, loved you- you were my heir, by the spirits! I thought I'd taught you well to see the world as it truly is- to despise weakness and seek power, even as I did. We could have ruled the world together, but when you had the chance you threw it away! You're no better than Zuko. I should have known that children from such a weak mother would both turn out to be worthless."

Logic overrode Azula's fear and shame. "This isn't real!" she spat. "You died- I saw them burn your body. You can't use me anymore!"

Ozai laughed. "Really? You thought a knife in the dark would be enough to kill me? I live on inside you, my dear daughter. I will always be with you. You cannot escape me, even when you cling to your mother's promises of love and the Avatar's power."

Azula stood on shaking legs. "Get out. You taught me to always be in control, all the while controlling my life completely. I've learned better than to listen to you. I make my own path now- not yours, not Mother's, and not Zuko's."

"Really?" Ozai grabbed his daughter by her arm and pulled her close. "I would have made you great, Azula, but you stubborn children simply won't listen. But know this- I will haunt you forever. You will never be free of me until you embrace who you are again. You want to avoid madness, girl? Embrace everything I taught you once again, or I will tear you apart. I promise that- and no one can save you."

He raised his free hand then and formed a ball of flame within it, and it seemed to grow until the whole room was ablaze. Azula’s eyes widened in horror and she tried to flee, but her legs wouldn't move, and the flames consumed her. Agony coursed along every inch of her body, and she screamed and screamed and….

She was lying on the floor, curled up in a ball, still in her mourning clothes. Someone was shaking her, and she looked up tentatively to see one of her guards standing over her, a concerned look on his face.

"Don't you know better than to enter my room without asking?" Azula spat, but her heart wasn't in it.

"I'm sorry, Prin- Azula. We heard you scream, and thought you might be in trouble."

Azula shot him a withering glance. "You thought wrong. Now get out, or else you'll be the one screaming." The guard bowed- a bow of respect, not the subservience due to royalty- and removed himself from the chamber.

Azula stood slowly and stretched, trying to work out the ghost of pain that still shot through her body while her mind spun. Her hands ran along her limbs, felt her torso, her face – there were no burns from the fire, no bruises from her father’s hands. As she’d expected, the entire episode had taken place within her mind. The former princess shuddered inboluntarily. She hadn't had a hallucination in a while- not since the one of her mother, just before she decided to help defeat Azun. That wasn't a good sign- it meant she was starting to lose control again. She remembered the mad beast she had become when fighting Zuko for the throne and shuddered inwardly. Never again, she vowed silently. Whatever it takes.

But it was starting to look like the inevitable madness was her only option.

///

Ozai’s funeral was a direct follow-up to the events of the prologue, of course. I changed some of the wording for this version – mostly to establish that the populace came to hate Ozai after his reign rather than during it, when he had the full force of Fire Nation propaganda plus the traditions of his office on his side – but in essence I left it much the same.

Azula’s encounter with Ozai’s hallucination is intended to be shocking; “Ozai” is certainly more violent and cruel here than he was to his daughter in life, just like the Ursa hallucination is more saintly than the genuine article. Some of my early readers questioned this bit, wondering that Azula seemed to perceive herself as a victim of her father’s violence rather than just his manipulation, but the Ozai hallucination, like the Ursa hallucination, is best understood as a part of Azula’s own mind – the part that still believes in power, ruthlessness, and cruelty. So yes, that means that Azula essentially just got beat up by herself, though I added a bit in this version specifying that she sustained no physical injuries during the encounter to make it clear it really was a hallucination and not a spirit of some sort.

-MasterGhandalf

 

Chapter 2: Prophecy

A storm was brewing in the skies above the Fire Nation Capital. Rain had not yet begun to fall, but the sky was dark with clouds shot through with lightning and trees were swaying in the high winds. Most of the Capital's residents huddled in their houses, waiting for the fury to come.

A figure hurried across the palace grounds, wrapped in a floor-length red robe. The figure paused and looked over its shoulder, as though making sure it was not being followed, and then turned and began to make its way across the courtyard once again, Leaving the residential portion of the palace behind, the figure hurried up the steps of the Fire Sages' temple.

The temple door opened slowly and a man in the robes of a Sage poked his head out. "Who's there?" he called. "We're not open for visitors at this hour."

The figure reached up and cast back her hood, revealing the coldly beautiful features of Princess Azula. "You will let me inside, Sage," she said. "I need to speak with your master."

"Of- of course, my lady," the Sage said with a slight bow. "Follow me." He turned and began to walk back into the temple, Azula following closely at his heels. They passed through the long, empty corridors and came at last to an ornate oaken door. The Fire Sage stepped forward and knocked softly.

"Enter," a voice said from within. The Sage opened the door and Azula stepped inside. The High Fire Sage sat at his desk and looked at the princess with wry amusement. "Princess Azula," he said. "I was led to believe that your brother ordered you to be guarded at all times."

"That is correct," Azula admitted, "but I wasn't interested in being followed here, so I gave them the slip."

"And what would be so important that you would risk the Fire Lord's anger just to come here and speak with me?"

Azula stared at her hands for some time. "It's getting worse," she finally said.

"You are referring to the madness that took you on the day of the Comet?" the old man asked in a tone that indicated neither anger nor approval.

"Yes," she whispered. "I'm a firebender, and this place is built over the heart of fire's power in this world. Maybe if I stay the night here and meditate it will help me."

"Forgive me," the High Fire Sage said, "but I was never under the impression that you put much worth by spiritual matters. I am curious as to why you would begin doing so now?"

A sudden light flashed in Azula's eyes and the Sage involuntarily pulled back. "It is not your place to question me!" she snarled and hit the desk, sending blue sparks shooting across it. Then Azula caught herself and pulled back, mentally chiding herself for the temporary loss of control.

"To be entirely honest, I still don't put much value by them," she finally said in a calmer voice. "But it's one thing I haven't tried yet, and I don't suppose it could hurt me. It's not belief, High Sage- it's a last resort."

"I see," the old man said. "Come with me." He stood and motioned for Azula to follow him. They passed through more empty corridors, going ever in and down, until at last they came to a vast chamber that Azula guessed had to be underground. The walls were black stone decorated with golden images of dragons, heroes, and above all the sun, but it wasn't the decorations that truly seized one's attention. In the center of the floor was a great crack, and from it arose a smokeless yellow flame that was more than twice Azula's height.

"This place is a border," the Sage said. "It is where the Fire Nation of this world intersects with a mighty source of fire in the Spirit World. There are places like it in all four nations, though the only other one I know of is the Spirit Oasis at the North Pole, where the waterbenders commune with the moon and ocean spirits."

"I've heard of the Oasis," Azula said. "That is where Admiral Zhao attempted to destroy the Moon Spirit to strip the waterbenders of their power."

"And all he accomplished was the death of a thousand good men," the Sage said. "Curse his name! If you believe that communing with the power of fire can help you, Princess, I know of no better place in the entire world."

Azula nodded to the old man and sat cross legged in front of the great fire, clearing her mind of distractions and focusing on it to the exclusion of all else, as she would an sufficiently powerful flame. It pulsed slightly in response to her touch, and Azula allowed herself a slight smile. Working with fire always seemed to help her keep her mind balanced, though this didn't seem to be having any special effect. Still, she was almost glad she'd come here.

Then the flame roared up to lick the ceiling, and the room was filled with a sudden blast of heat and force. The High Sage stumbled backwards, shielding his eyes, but Azula remained still, entranced, staring into the fire’s depths, losing herself…

She stood in a palace made of fire; the floor was a sheet of smoldering obsidian, the great pillars and the roof of solid flame, and directly before her a throne of magma beside whose terrible majesty her father and grandfather would have seemed no more than schoolboys humbled before their headmaster. But no, the vision shifted, she hovered in the crater of a volcano and now, where the man had sat, there coiled a dragon upon a great stone ledge, his scales all the colors of fire, and yet none.

The dragon inclined his head and bent one great eye towards her, and as she stared into the infinite depths a world seemed to open before her. She saw the Fire Nation Capital, the palace, the temple in which some part of her knew that her body still resided, and then she was flying up into the sky and across the sea, past Ba Sing Se and into the wilderness.

There in a clearing in a trackless forest she collapsed to the ground, agony shooting up her arms. She stared down at them, and it seemed to her that she was becoming fire, that surely her body would be consumed and there would be nothing left of who she had been, nothing but smoke and ash…

And then a cool hand touched her cheek, and she looked to see an older woman standing before her, one she knew well and had tried to convince herself for so long that she hated. “Azula,” Mother said softly, and there was pity in her voice, but at her touch pain was eased…

And then Mother was gone, and Azula stood alone in a vast emptiness, listening to the cold, soft laughter that echoed around her. Spinning, seeking desparately to find the source, she saw a young woman standing before her, pale as death and clothed in the night, and behind her was a deeper shadow, a darkness that Azula knew, though she had never seen it before.

The shadow girl laughed again and stepped forward, and there was a knife in her hand and she lunged, and Azula’s eyes widened in pain as the girl’s blade was buried in her heart…

And then she was once again in the hidden chamber below the temple, and stumbled back, panting, into the High Sage’s arms. The old man regarded her with concern.

“That was no hallucination like I’ve ever had,” Azula said slowly, struggling to regain her composure. “That… that was…”

“Real?” the Sage asked. “Yes, I believe it was. I did not see what you saw, but I saw the dragon, and I believe I know who that dragon is, or represents. The waterbenders say the Moon is a spirit; so too do we hold, does the Sun.”

Azula managed a wry grin. “And does this happen often around here?”

There was a long silence. "Only once in memory has the fire spoken to us before tonight," the High Fire Sage finally said, "and that was the day before Sozin began the War, warning him that he walked the path towards ruin. He did not heed it, but the Sages remembered."

"Are you certain that the spirit of the Sun?" Azula asked. "Azun believed a spirit supported his cause; I may have spoken with it myself, if that was not a dream."

"And you want to know if this could be a trick," the Sage finished for her. "I do not believe so. The legends say that this flame's source lies deep in the Spirit World, in what some of our writings call the Palace of the Sun, though I myself do not think spirits have need of such things as palaces. If the thing you fear is powerful enough to corrupt that, then I would think our entire nation would already be under its heel, and it would have had no need of the fallen general.” He paused again. “And if it is not so bold of me to ask, what did the flames reveal to you? I have a… professional interest in these matters, you might say.”

Azula stepped back from him slowly. "That I need to see my brother," she said.

Outside, it began to rain.

///

A shadow perched on the roof of the Fire Sages' temple, and at its heart was a young woman who watched the princess and the High Sage hurry towards the main body of the palace with a snarl on her lips. One hand fondled the hilt of her dagger- the same dagger that took the father's life- and the shadow considered the pleasure of using it on the daughter as well.

But the time was not yet. She knew it in her soul that Azula must live, for now at least, but that this would change in time. She had suffered, but she still had hope, had life, something that had been crushed in the shadow long ago; only when Azula knew utter despair would the time be right to end her life. And besides, there were greater matters afoot, and the tyrant’s daughter yet served the shadow’s purposes. Soon the day would come when the princess was no longer useful to the cause, and then she would die with the shadow's blade in her heart.

How the shadow hated the princess and her brother, arrogant spoiled fools who cared nothing for the consequences of their actions. The new Fire Lord was somewhat better- at least he tried to make amends, feeble and meaningless his attempts might be- but did he honestly think that anything he did could make up for the blood spilled during a century of warfare? How could he know or care the damage his people had inflicted upon this world! Azula had at least some knowledge, for she was far too perceptive for it to be otherwise, but she cared only about herself and hadn't made any attempt that the shadow had seen to heal the injuries she had caused.

Of course the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes were no better. The latter walled themselves away from the world in their great city of ice, pretending that they could ignore it all, and the former – well, the earthbenders’ corruption was obvious, and they too would feel her vengeance in time. All the nations were led by fools or tyrants and cared nothing for the people who served them- and now the Avatar was their performing monkey. Someone had to act to bring judgment upon them all for their crimes and incompetence. The shadow had known that Ozai would have been a valuable addition to the cause, for with prodding he could have been made to destroy himself and lay waste to all that his forebears had made in the process, but she had still rejoiced when he had refused and she had been given an excuse to kill him.

But her vengeance was not complete- far from it! Though she sat here now on the temple roof as rain poured down upon her, she didn't care. A little dampness was small enough price to pay- and she would pay any price still to bring down the surviving nations, no matter how severe.

Soon, whispered the quiet voice that sometimes spoke in the darkness of her mind.

"Yes," the shadow repeated aloud. "Soon."

///

Though she had spent her life in the company of warriors, benders, and acrobats of all types, Ty Lee remained the only person she knew who could meditate while doing a handstand.

Other people thought this strange, much as they thought that Ty Lee's exuberance, often unconventional comments, and insistence that she could see spiritual auras reflecting a person's mood were strange. The acrobat-turned-Kyoshi Warrior had long ago stopped being bothered by it. Born to a family that already had six interchangeable daughters, Ty Lee took any acknowledgement of her individuality as a complement, regardless of how it was intended. And unlike Azula, she'd never seen the point in holding a grudge. Making new friends was much more fun all around than making new enemies.

Becoming tired of handstanding, Ty Lee lightly flipped over and now stood balanced lightly on one foot. From below she heard sounds of amazement- all of the Kyoshi Warriors were acrobatic to greater or lesser degree, but few were up to performing fluid gymnastics while perched on the dojo's steep roof. Ty Lee, for her part, thought that practicing on the ground was boring. The risk of falling made successfully balancing all that more rewarding.

Suddenly a jolt shot through her body. Ty Lee's eyes widened in shock and her limbs stiffened, and she found herself falling towards the ground. Then she hit, and all was dark.

The acrobat opened her eyes slowly and saw one of the other Warriors standing over her, a concerned look on the other girl's face. "Are you all right?" she asked. "I've never seen you fall before."

Ty Lee had always felt something of an attunement to the Spirit World- she truly could see auras around people when she tried, though Azula and Mai (and most of the Kyoshi Warriors, for that matter), barely concealed their skepticism. Today she was certain she'd felt something from the spirits- but what it was she couldn't say.

Still, Ty Lee's fundamental nature wasn't one that could be kept down for long. "I'm fine," she said, lightly hopping to her feet. "What's for dinner?"

///

This chapter was one that got fairly substantially rewritten, particularly the section dealing with Azula’s vision. In the previous version, Agni the Sun Spirit directly manifested and told her to seek out her mother; on reflection, that felt a little too pat, so I changed it around to Azula getting a rather cryptic oracular vision instead. Agni himself I left in place, since this deals with the esoteric practices of the Fire Sages rather than the day-to-day beliefs of the Fire Nation people; if there’s anywhere he fits, it’s there.

We also see a bit more of our regicidal friend from the prologue, though we still don’t know her name (trust me, that’s coming in a few chapters). Exactly what’s up with her is intended to still be mysterious, though we get a few hints; unlike Azun, whose backstory wasn’t all that exciting, hers is shaping up to be much more important. Speaking of characters, this chapter also reintroduces Ty Lee. Of Azula’s two “friends”, Mai was heavily featured in Heart but Ty Lee was nowhere to be seen; I intended to rectify that with Path.

-MasterGhandalf

 

Chapter 3: Azula's Quest

Zuko paced back and forth in front of his throne, then finally sighed and turned to Azula and the High Fire Sage. The two of them had just finished relating the story of Azula’s vision, and what the former princess believed she must now do. "You're absolutely certain that what you saw was real?" The Fire Lord asked.

"Certainty is, perhaps, impossible in this world, Majesty," the High Sage replied. "But my order does not take visions such as that which your sister received lightly, and the dragon that I myself saw was no dream. I believe that Azula received a true visitation tonight, for good or ill."

"Besides, Zuzu," Azula put in, smiling slightly at seeing her brother flinch at the taunting nickname, "If I was lying, do you honestly think I couldn't have come up with a better story to convince you to let me out?"

Zuko seemed to consider this, and then nodded. "You're right," he said. "It doesn't really seem like your kind of lie, and I trust the Fire Sages at least."

"But not me," Azula said with a wry smirk. "Really, Zuko, I am hurt. I would have thought that helping to take down an entire rebellion would have at least let you trust your little sister a bit."

Zuko looked at her incredulously. "And that's supposed to make up for tormenting me my entire life before that? Not to mention helping Father do all of the terrible things he did during the war."

Azula frowned, considered. "You do have a point," she admitted.

"Can you two stop snarking at each other and get to the point?" a rather irritated voice put in from near one of the walls where Mai was leaning, eyes half closed. "Some of us like to sleep, you know."

“The point is this,” Azula said. “First, our mother disappeared years ago – the night that our grandfather, Fire Lord Azulon, died, in fact. Second, father admitted he banished her but never said where, assuming he even knew, and if the rumors I’ve heard over the years were correct, this was because she had something to do with Grandfather’s death. Third, no reliable source has seen her since. Fourth,” here she paused, “fourth, I saw Mother earlier tonight, in a vision the most esteemed Fire Sage believes to have been true. Fifth, and finally, I’m not one to believe blindly in superstition, but the message seems clear to me – others may have searched for Mother and not found her, but not family. You have to stay here and keep the Fire Nation in line, but I have recently found myself with no duties and a surplus of time. I will find our mother, and I will bring her home.”

Zuko’s eyes widened in surprise, and he glanced sidelong at his betrothed before turning back to Azula. "That was not what I was expecting to hear from you tonight, but it still doesn’t add up. I know you, Azula. If you were just planning on running off to chase Mom you wouldn't have come here first; you’d have snuck out and been on your way already, probably with a half-dozen guards you’d tricked into following you. What do you want?"

"Well, one thing I don't want is your army chasing me all over the world," Azula said, "so I thought it would be best to tip you off. But while we're on that topic, you might be aware that the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation are on different continents. I'll be needing a spare ship and crew."

"What?" Zuko almost exploded. "I'm still not even sure I'm going to let you out of my sight- much less search for Mom- and you honestly think I'm going to be handing over national resources to you? Military resources? If I needed proof you were still craze, that would be it.."

Azula snarled and stepped towards Zuko, fire building around her clenched fists. How dare he talk to her like that, the little… but then the High Fire Sage hurried between the royal siblings, palms outstretched in a blocking position. "Listen to me, both of you!" he said. "Destiny is in play here. I do not claim to understand what tonight’s vision portends, but the last time one occurred and was ignored, a hundred years of war followed! It is clear to me that if the princess believes she must undertake this search, she needs help, and this may be the only way to do that."

Azula shuddered and stepped back, struggling to pull her irrational anger into line. Zuko too seemed to relax somewhat, though he kept a wary eye on his sister. There was a small flash from Mai's corner, and Azula suspected that a knife had just vanished back up her one-time friend's sleeve.

"Besides, Zuko," the princess said, her voice dripping with sarcasm, "Father let you have a ship when he banished you- surely the noble hero can do better than the evil tyrant?"

"That ship was Uncle's," Zuko said. "Without him I would have had to search the whole world for the Avatar on foot."

"You still haven't answered my question," Azula said. "Can I have a ship or not?"

Zuko regarded his sister thoughtfully, then nodded. "All right- here's what I'm offering. You can have a ship with no weapons, crewed by elite firebenders handpicked by General Akai for their loyalty to the throne – not to you. He still hasn't forgiven you for what you did to his men- I think he can be trusted to pick people you can't manipulate."

"You don't need to worry about that, Zuko," Azula said. "Believe it or not, I am being sincere this time."

"And if you are you don't have anything to worry about. Besides, that's not what worries me." Zuko looked at her straight on. "I'm worried about what might happen if you lose control."

Well then, Zuzu, Azula thought, it seems we finally agree on something.

///

It was a small, stripped down warship, similar in design to the one that Zuko himself had used during his banishment. This make was fast but one of the weakest the vast Fire Navy produced- it probably didn't even have a name, Azula thought wryly. Still, it would serve her purposes well enough.

It was several days after Zuko's initial agreement that he was able to find the ship. Now the Fire Lord and his general stood on the docks with the captain and crew of the vessel, giving them last-minute instructions. Azula herself stood back, wearing simple warrior's clothing similar to that which she had worn during the War while hunting for her brother and the Avatar.

Captain Shin was a severe-looking older man in officers' armor, and his expression gave a clear look at his opinion of this assignment. Azula had been popular among the military during the war, certainly moreso than her father, but after word of her mental breakdown had spread the Fire Nation as a whole had begun to fear her. Azula didn't normally mind being feared- it eased command considerably, in her opinion- but it helped to be respected along with the fear. Now she was simply hated, a fact that the former princess found unsettling on some level she didn't fully understand.

For a moment she considered turning back. Traveling around the world on a ship full of people who might well like to see her dead was a rather daunting prospect, now that she thought about it. Looking at the Captain's scowling face, she could well imagine him calculating how to kill her and make it look like an accident- there must be many ways to do that when one was ship's master- and she knew that Akai's soldiers could well decide to avenge the comrades she had killed after recovering her firebending power at any time. Going on this quest, Azula would be surrounded by enemies.

"No," she whispered. This wasn't right- that kind of paranoia was her madness talking. There was little love between the royal fire siblings, but Zuko at least didn't want Azula dead and she doubted that these men would defy their Fire Lord. The more she thought about it, the more she became convinced that finding her mother was the only way to find- and thereby heal- herself, and so even if there was danger Azula was willing to risk it. She had promised herself that she would never descend into a state of animalistic madness again, and like all of her family when the princess had her mind set on a goal there was nothing that could keep her from reaching for it.

Azula slipped away from the shore and stepped into the shadow of a larger ship to compose herself. It wouldn't do, after all, for her new traveling companions to see her in her troubled state. Out of sight, the princess closed her eyes and breathed deeply- and was suddenly struck was a powerful blow to the chest, knocking her backwards breathlessly.

Azula quickly opened her eyes and dropped into a fighting crouch, looking squarely at her attacker. She could tell little of their features due to the dark cloak- was it black, blue or violet? Her eyes couldn't tell- and the fact that the shadows seemed to cling to this person as though they were alive.

"What do you want with me?" Azula demanded, preparing herself to release a bolt of lightning at a moment's notice.

"To talk," the figure said in a melodious, feminine voice. She reached up with slender hands and lowered her hood, revealing a face that seemed only a year or two older than Azula's, its most striking features its chalk-white skin and those strange violet eyes.

"Talk?" the princess demanded. "You could have done that without hitting me."

"True," the shadow-wrapped girl said with a shrug. "But things are more fun this way."

Azula snorted. "I'm afraid I have to disagree. You want to talk, then talk. If I like what you have to say, I might actually let you walk away without blasting you."

"I know what you are, Princess," the shadow said. "You may have convinced your brother and the Avatar that you're sorry for what you've done and that you're trying to change, but I know that it is a lie. You are what you have always been, Princess Azula- the spawn of a tyrant, delighting only in the oppression of your people."

"I hear that speech about once a week," Azula said, shrugging. "Are you going anywhere new with this, or shall I fill in the rest myself?"

The shadow smiled. "The time isn't right, but you and I will have a reckoning. But first I will let you walk the earth so that you will learn in your heart that you destroy everything you touch. You will lose everything you are and have, as I once did, and will come to know yourself and your Nation for what you are- vile and monstrous to the core. Then, when I see in your eyes that you understand, I will kill you, just as I killed your father."

Azula acted without conscious thought. Her hands swept through the familiar motions and a bolt of lightning shot towards the shadow-girl, too fast to doge- and surely she didn't have the power to redirect it! The shadow's hand came up so fast it seemed to blur, and when the lightning struck it seemed to bend and passed harmlessly to the side.

"What are you?" Azula whispered, shaken.

"Vengeance," the shadow said with a bow. "Good-bye for now, Princess. I'll be watching you." Before Azula could move the girl slipped into the shadows and was gone.

The princess stood there unmoving for some time, attempting to process what she had seen. Her father's killer, now stalking herself, and possessed of some strange power that could deflect even lightningbending. It was not a pleasant thought.

She heard someone shouting her name, so she hurried back towards her own ship. Zuko was the one who had been calling so she hurried over to him, though she wouldn't humiliate herself by bowing to him. "You were shouting?" she asked.

"Where were you?" Zuko said. "Your ship's ready."

"I was just getting my thoughts together," Azula replied. She considered mentioning the assassin, then decided against it. The strange girl was her problem, not Zuzu's- she would handle it without his help. The princess turned away from her brother after a moment and began to march up the ramp into the ship.

A hand on her shoulder gave her pause. Azula turned and faced Zuko again. "What?" she asked. "You're not going to launch into some over-emotional farewell, are you? Wouldn't that be a bad joke."

"Listen," Zuko said, not meeting her eyes. "I know a bit about what you're about to do- traveling the world after Father banished me was probably the most important time in my life, even if I didn't think so at the time. Without that I wouldn't have become the person I am today. So what I'm trying to say is- good luck."

For a moment Azula stood still, unsure of what to say. Then her eyes hardened again. "I was born lucky, remember?" she said. "I think I'll get by." She hurried aboard the ship, followed by her crew, leaving the Fire Lord standing alone on the docks. Azula stood by the rail as the ship pulled away and headed east, watching the capital slowly shrink into the distance.

///

Zuko watched his sister's ship sink slowly over the horizon, then turned and began to walk back towards the palace. The ministers would be appalled, of course, that he hadn't taken a litter, but Zuko had decided from the moment he took the throne that the ministers were not going to have a say in whether or not he could walk in public when he wanted to.

The Fire Lord felt a silent presence at his side and looked up to see Mai gliding along beside him. "Well?" she asked. "How did it go?"

"Fine, I guess," Zuko said. "Maybe I'm going crazy too, but I almost want her to come back healed. I guess that seeing her like she was after the Agni Ki- chained up, helpless, insane- I just couldn't hate her anymore. I still don't trust her, but I can't hate her either."

"Maybe you're right," Mai said, "but even if she does come back sane and healed, will it make her less dangerous, or more?"

Zuko shook his head. "I wish I knew."

///

Azula lay on her bed in her cabin on the ship, looking up at the wall hangings depicting symbolism of the monarchy. Apart from the hangings and a few clothes she hadn't brought any of her personal possessions along- they'd just get in the way.

Her mind kept returning to her strange attacker. The other girl had promised that they would meet again- next time Azula planned on being prepared. She knew that her lightning had been ineffective- perhaps all bending would be as well. But Azula knew that there were ways to fight that didn't involve manipulating the elements.

Looking up at the ceiling, Azula smiled slightly. Before reaching Earth Kingdom shores, it looked like she needed to call on an old friend.

///

And so we come to the central plot of Path of Fire – Azula’s search for her mother. A few of my early reviewers wondered why Zuko didn’t come along, since he was quite a bit closer to Ursa than Azula ever was. The big reason I went ahead and had Azula herself spell out in this revision – Zuko’s a monarch, and he can’t just up and leave his country to go travelling the world on a quest without a defined end, particularly since he doesn’t really have anyone trustworthy enough to serve as regent (Mai would probably go with him, and I doubt Iroh would do it). Second, Zuko has already had agents looking for Ursa since he took the throne, and none of them found anything conclusive; he really doesn’t think Azula will be any luckier in that regard, though he hopes the journey will help settle her mental state. Finally, do you really think “cooped up on a small ship with Azula” is something Zuko would willingly subject himself to?

Azula also has her first meeting with our mystery girl this chapter, mostly so the latter can have an excuse to taunt her (and her reason she gives for why she’s stalking the Fire Princess is only part of the truth). This character (who does have a name that will be revealed in a few chapters, I promise) was designed to be, in some respects, to Azula what Azula herself was to the Gaang in book two – a powerful, ruthless, skillful opponent who always seems to be several steps ahead and who is too tricky and dangerous for a straight fight to effectively defeat (and she’s a darkness-themed character opposed to a fire-themed character, to boot!). Of course, Azula always has a plan, and her enemy’s ability to counteract bending put her in mind of another “friend” who she hasn’t seen in some time…

But that’s a story for next time.

-MasterGhandalf

 

Chapter 4: Sins of the Mother

The small ship left Fire Nation waters and turned towards the southeast, steaming towards the destination that Azula had instructed the captain to make for. The night was cool and clear, and the princess herself stood apart from the crew near the prow, staring off into the distance as though looking for something that no one else could see. She heard footsteps ringing off of the metal deck behind her, and turned slowly to face Captain Shin.

"What do you want?" she demanded.

"We are bound for Kyoshi Island as per your instructions," he said, "but you haven't told us who or what you expect to find there. I believe that we are entitled to that information."

Azula clutched the iron rail tightly. "You dare question me?" she snarled.

The captain was unperturbed, staring straight at Azula with a gaze that never wavered. "I feel obliged to remind you that while you may still technically hold the title of princess, you no longer hold any direct authority over us. Your brother instructed me to follow your directions within reason, and if I am to do that I need to know your own reasoning."

Azula scowled and considered arguing, then decided that it was pointless. Much as she hated to admit it, she needed Shin and his ship to accomplish her goal, and if she continued overlooking him he was liable to simply turn around and take her back to the Fire Nation, where her madness would surely consume her. And that remained the one fate that the proud princess would not tolerate.

"I'm looking for a friend," Azula finally said. "Ty Lee is one of the most dangerous non-benders I've ever met, and I was told that after the War ended she joined the Kyoshi Warriors. She would be very useful to have along."

Shin snorted. "Huh. Wouldn't have thought you would ever be one to come out and admit you needed help."

"I don't need help!" Azula snapped. "Ty Lee's presence would just make things easier, is all."

"Really." The captain's tone indicated he believed no such thing, but Azula couldn't muster the strength to keep arguing with him. Deep down, she didn't believe it herself. Turning away from Shin to signify that their conversation was at an end, Azula leaned over the railing again and watched the sea pass by. After several moments she realized that the captain was still there.

"The sea is beautiful, isn't it?" he asked softly. "There aren't a lot of people in the Fire Nation who could appreciate that. Even most of the Navy saw it as an enemy to be conquered. But I always thought that it was the most powerful, majestic thing I'd ever seen. It's ironic that during the war we, the children of fire, were able to conquer the other nations not because of our numbers or bending, but because we had the best ships."

"Of course we have the best ships," Azula said. "We're an island, though a big one. We needed to conquer the seas before we could even interact with the other nations, much less go to war with them. There's nothing special or ironic about it."

"Conquest and domination." Shin shook his head. "That's how it always is with your kind."

Azula looked at him. "You hate me, don't you?" she asked softly.

He shook his head. "No. I don't hate you personally- I hardly know you. I hate what you represent- a tyranny generations old, forcing the people of our nation to lay down their lives in a pointless war. We did the fighting and the dying, and it was your family and supporters who were the only ones who benefitted. That's what I hate, princess- the attitude that we're all just here for the amusement and service of a handful of arrogant dictators."

"I risked my own life to take Ba Sing Se!" Azula snarled indignantly. "I faced the Avatar himself a half-dozen times at least! Call me a ruthless, cruel beast if you want, but you can't deny that I fought for my Nation and my father."

"And that's the only reason I ever respected you more than your father, who did nothing but sit in his palace and brutalize his own son." Shin turned to walk away. "Respect is something you have to earn, princess. I may not hate you, but I have no love for you either. Part of me hopes you'll prove me wrong before all this is through, but the rest thinks it's not very likely." With that he reached the ladder leading down into the belly of the ship and descended from Azula's sight.

The princess sighed and leaned up against the metal railing. She'd never inspired love from those who served her, but she had always succeeded in inspiring respect mingled with fear. Now she wondered how much of that had been because her men knew that royalty could have them punished or killed on a whim, rather than because of her own force of personality. It wasn't a pleasant thought.

"You seem troubled, Azula," a calm, pleasant voice said from nearby. Azula turned and saw her mother standing beside her, leaning with her elbows on the railing and looking out over the water as her daughter had done a short time ago. "Tell me what's wrong, and let me help you."

Azula snorted. "Help me? You're the problem- you're not even real, and here I am talking to you. In my experience, things like this aren't generally put under the label of 'sanity'."

Ursa looked sadly at her daughter. "Do you really believe that? Talk to me, Azula. Let me help you."

"It's getting worse," Azula said softly. "Flares of temper I can't control, these visions- I'm losing control."

"And that's what bothers you, isn't it?" Ursa asked. "You were always so proud of your control- control of yourself, control of the people around you, control of the fire. Now you're losing that control, and you can't stand it."

"That's why I'm trying to find you, you know- because I had a vision out of the fire that told me it was the only way." Azula barked a short, bitter laugh. “And that sounds crazy too, said aloud. Maybe I’m still back in that asylum after all, drooling into porridge and imagining this entire journey.”

"But that's not all, is it? There's something else you're afraid of."

Azula was still for a moment, then nodded. "Just before I left the Fire Nation, I met a girl who said she was the one who killed Father, and that she was going to kill me too. I shot lightning at her, and somehow she… bent it… around herself. I'd never seen anything like it before."

"And you're afraid of that," Ursa finished, "because it's something you don't understand, and you can't fight what you don't understand."

"Yes," Azula said. "That's why I need Ty Lee- she knows how to fight bending without bending. If there’s anyone who can help me stop this person, it’s her."

"And you want to force her to risk her life for you before you even have a chance to ask her?" Ursa asked.

Azula snorted. "She was with me for years, Mother. I don't think she'd say no."

"Did you forget that the last time you met she attacked you to keep you from killing Mai? Maybe she's decided she doesn't want to follow you around and be your 'friend' any longer and is happy where she is? Did you ever think about what she wanted?"

"When I explain the situation to her, she'll come with me. I know it. And why should I listen to you anyway? You're not my mother- you're just a figment of my imagination."

Ursa smiled sadly. "If I only exist inside your head, then wouldn't that mean that everything I've said to you is something you actually believe, deep down?"

Azula closed her eyes tightly. "Leave me alone," she hissed.

When the princess opened her eyes again, her mother was gone.

///

The Earth Kingdom was a territory more vast than that of the other three nations combined. Ruled from the great city of Ba Sing Se, it encompassed an entire continent and dozens of cultures. During the great War, it was the only power able to face the Fire Nation on its own terms before falling to treachery from within.

Still, even in times of peace a nation so vast could never be easily governed from one location. The Earth King's seat was in Ba Sing Se and all the kingdom acknowledged him as its rightful ruler, but subject kings, Bumi of Omashu the most notable among them, held virtual autonomy within their own cities. And in the farthest reaches of the continent there were smaller fiefdoms that paid obeisance to the Earth Kingdom in name only, if at all.

In one such place- a settlement that was too small to be properly termed a city, yet far larger than any village- there rose a great shelf of rock, and atop it sat a fortress of grey stone that crumbled with age. Built by forgotten architects in a time when warlords squabbled over the land that would one day become a great nation, it had long ago fallen into ruin and been disregarded as a relic of a dark age. Several generations ago, however, the fortress had been taken over by a line of tyrants who would have hardly been out of place in the barbaric time of the fortress's construction.

The Lady Ursa, once wife of Fire Lord Ozai and mother of his two children, sat in a chamber near the top of the castle, hands crossed in her lap. The sun had just sunk below the horizon, and she knew that before long her captor would come to her. He was nothing, she had found, if not predictable.

He called himself Jian Chin, though Ursa knew it was not his birth name but an honorific he had created for himself as a means of claiming kinship with a famous conqueror who had ruled the Earth Kingdom centuries ago. Ursa knew the legend of Chin the Great as well as any, and had pointed out to the man on more than one occasion that taking the name of someone who had been defeated by the Avatar in a humiliating fashion was hardly a way to greatness, but as usual he ignored her. Her husband Ozai had been a monster, albeit an intelligent and successful one. Jian Chin was little more than a brute.

Ursa had come to his domain many years ago, banished from the Fire Nation by her husband after she had killed his father, Fire Lord Azulon, even though murdering the old man had been Ozai's idea in the first place. Ozai had attempted to wrest the throne from his brother Iroh on account of the death of the older prince's son, Lu Ten, and Azulon had, in a rage, commanded that Ozai kill his own son as punishment. Ursa had been horrified, but all Ozai saw was an opportunity. And so in one fell swoop he conceived of a plan that would rid him of his father, brother, and wife in a single night.

Fleeing from her homeland, Ursa had passed through the Earth Kingdom, looking for a village where she could live in anonymity, and yet be close enough to news that she could watch over her family from afar. Unfortunately she had encountered during her journeys a gang of thugs who recognized her as Fire Nation nobility. They waited until nightfall and then seized her, carrying her away to their master, Jian Chin.

The warlord had long dreamed of rising up at the head of an army and laying the four nations low before him, but had never found the courage to actually attempt such a thing. Still, he surrounded himself with trappings that emphasized power and glory, as if hoping that somehow it would reflect upon himself. Jian Chin was pleased when his men brought Ursa to him, feeling that if he claimed the hand of the Fire Lord's exiled wife for himself it would greatly increase his standing and power. Ursa refused him- she no longer wished to be a tool for evil men.

Jian Chin was furious. He imprisoned her in a tower atop his palace and refused to let her leave, though he was still convinced he could make her love him, given time. The only thing that kept him from forcing her to marry him was his own ego- he felt a need for her to come to him of her own will, and couldn't imagine that any woman could deny him for long. Ursa, at last count, had been denying him for close to seven years now, but still the warlord persisted in his nightly visits. At first she had feared Jian Chin- now she merely found him pitiful.

As if on cue Ursa heard the keys rattling in the lock on her door. After a moment it swung open and the warlord himself entered, looking for all the world like some mad hybrid of platypus-bear and peacock. Jian Chin was a huge man, his hair and beard thick and black, his body possessed of an earthbender's hard muscles. A gaudy golden crown balanced on his head (it had clearly been intended for a man or woman with a much smaller head) and his green robes were festooned with medals and decorations.

"Why do you persist in this, Jian Chin?" Ursa asked wearily. "You must have realized long ago that I will never love you. Release me, I beg of you- my imprisonment does not serve either of us."

Jian Chin removed his crown and knelt. "My Lady," he said in his rough voice, "you know that I can offer you glory beyond your imagining. One day soon my warriors and I shall ride forth from this place and sweep towards Ba Sing Se, and then the Earth Kingdom shall be mine. I offer you the chance for glory by my side. Why do you deny it?"

"Because it is false," Ursa said. "You will never leave this place. For years I have heard you speak of how you will conquer the Earth Kingdom, but you have never made even the slightest attempt to prepare for it. And even if you were crowned Earth King tonight I would not marry you. I had my fill of glory in the Fire Nation, and I am weary of the ambitions of evil me."

Jian Chin scowled. "So be it," he said. He motioned for his guards and they entered the room, bearing trays of food and cups of hot tea. "For you, My Lady," the warlord said, "in the hopes that you might see the light. Farewell, for now. We will speak again tomorrow." Jian Chin turned and stalked from the room, his guards trailing behind him.

When they were gone, Ursa made no move to touch the food. Speaking with Jian Chin always robbed her of her appetite, and the meal would still be there later. True it would be cold, but while Ursa wasn't a particularly talented firebender, she was skilled enough to heat a cup of tea.

Meeting with Jian Chin always put her in mind of her husband, and the night when she had been forced to flee the Fire Nation. She did not regret killing Azulon- his had not been the first life she’d taken, and he deserved it more than most. The old Fire Lord had been a cruel tyrant, though not to the extent of his son- but at the same time guilt filled her soul. For by killing Azulon, Ursa had ensured that the cruel Ozai would take command of the most powerful military in the world, rather than his wiser brother. As a result, all of the blood that her husband had shed during his tyrannical reign could be laid at her feet as well. Yet how could she not have acted? How could any mother have refused the course of action that would save her son? It had been an unwinnable choice that Ozai had laid before her.

And guilt still gnawed at her, for that deed and others she had committed before. Given time and luck, Ursa knew that she could devise a plan to escape her captor’s clutches, and yet she could never bring herself to begin making the attempt. Some part of her believed that her plight was just, the proper response to the horrors she had helped set in motion, and the rest of her could not easily cast it aside.

Sighing, Ursa picked up her teacup and walked to her window, drinking slowly as she watched the last light of day fade from the sky.

///

Well, there’s a lot going on in this chapter. Captain Shin’s little rant to Azula is something he’d probably been keeping buried for years – an essentially decent man stuck trying to rise in a system controlled by an evil monarch and corrupt officers, he’d certainly built up a fair bit of resentment for the people running his nation and the general situation they’d steered it into. That said, his line about not hating Azula personally is genuine – he’s heard both good and bad things about her, and is willing to wait and reserve judgment until he actually sees her in action.

The Ursa hallucination returns, fittingly for a chapter that also introduces the actual Ursa. I determined that the Ursa and Ozai hallucinations would never appear together, as I wanted to avoid the cliché “good angel, bad angel” setup; rather, Azula will typically get a hallucination opposite to whatever she’s feeling or thinking at the time. In other words, if she’s feeling particularly repentant or merciful, she’ll likely get Ozai chewing her out for being week; be arrogant and ruthless (like here, where she’s arguing with Shin and planning to drag Ty Lee along whether she wants to come or not), and she’ll get Ursa trying to talk her into being a better person.

We also see the real Ursa for the first time in this chapter. My Ursa is rather substantially different from the version presented in the Search* (though the original version of the Trilogy predated The Search by almost four years), and we get our first taste of that here. First off, she’s actually noble-born (still thinking of herself as “Lady” Ursa – this made sense to me considering she’s descended from Roku, who though he lived simply later in life was clearly high-born enough to hang around with the crown prince when they were both kids), and she’s a firebender, though not nearly as impressive as the rest of the family, rather than a non-bender. She’s also got some real darkness in her past, though we’re just getting the tip of it here, just like every other Fire Nation royal. Part of my inspiration for characterizing Ursa came from the idea that Zuko and Azula were both mixes of their parents’ traits – Zuko got his father’s pride and temper and his mother’s conscience, and Azula got her father’s arrogance and ambition, but what from her mother? That question is something we’ve just barely started exploring here.

Jian Chin is the second of this fic’s three main villains (I intended his name to mean “Child of Chin” and later learned it could also be read as “Sword of Chin”; either way works). He’s meant to be kind of pathetic, with ego and ambition far outstripping his actual competence, but the potential to be a very dangerous man is still in him, waiting for the right circumstances to bring it out – if nothing else, he’s a ferociously powerful (though not terribly skilled) earthbender. His stubborn insistence on wooing Ursa is something that I think characterizes him as a reflection of the darker side of earth as an element – earthbending requires you to be patient and stubborn, but Jian Chin here has dug his feet in and refuses to budge or change tactics even as it becomes painfully obvious things aren’t working out for him. His territory, by the way, is meant to be located on the peninsula the world map shows on the eastern Earth Kingdom coast, somewhere that was never really explored in the show.

-MasterGhandalf

*A google search for “The Two Ursas” will turn up a bit of meta that I didn’t write, but which showcases some of the issues I have with The Search’s Ursa and how she differs from what was indicated about her history, social class, and relationship with Ozai in the show.

 

Chapter 5: On Kyoshi Island

The sound of a metal gauntlet rapping lightly against a steel door sounded in the small cabin, and Azula's eyes snapped open.

"What is it?" she demanded, sitting up.

"We have reached Kyoshi Island, princess," the soldier on the other side of the door said. "We'll be anchoring in the harbor shortly."

"Tell Captain Shin I will join him on deck presently." As the soldier's footsteps receded, Azula rose from her bed and quickly dressed in her travel clothes. The princess was used to having servants help her in such mundane tasks, but she'd always made certain that unlike some noblewomen, she could do them herself if the need arose. After slipping her flame hairpin into place and taking a final quick look at her reflection, she hurried out onto the deck.

The sun was just rising over the horizon as the ship anchored itself in the natural harbor nearest to the main village of Kyoshi Island. Captain Shin stood on the bridge directing operations, and Azula came to stand next to him.

"You'll be able to go ashore shortly, princess," the captain said without looking at her. "I recommend that you find your friend as quickly as you can so that we can leave. There's some sort of giant eel in the water around this island, and though we managed to scare it off with firebending, there's no guarantee it doesn't have friends."

Azula doubted that- in her experience, large and powerful beings were not generally inclined to share territory with potential rivals. Still, she agreed wholeheartedly that dangerous monsters were not pleasant company, and vowed to complete her business here quickly.

The ship slowly turned its metal bulk towards shore and the pointed prow was lowered to the beach, forming a ramp. Azula strode down onto the beach, accompanied by Captain Shin and two of his firebenders and they began to march inland.

A statue of Avatar Kyoshi, perched on the top of a wooden pole, was the first part of the village that Azula saw. The former Avatar was depicted dressed in a green robe, holding her battle-fans in a familiar pose. Having encountered the Kyoshi Warriors before (and briefly impersonated one, for that matter) Azula could most certainly see the resemblance between the female fighters and their source of inspiration. To the princess's eyes, though, the statue held itself with an elegant poise that outclassed any of the current Warriors- this was an opponent Azula found herself quietly glad she'd never had to face.

They walked into the heart of the village and the people stopped and stared, some of them retreating into their homes. Azula had heard that Zuzu and his men had largely wrecked the place during his search for the Avatar- clearly, these people were still leery of firebenders. One man appeared to be so flustered that he collapsed to the ground foaming at the mouth, and Azula had to repress a smirk. Even at the worst of her madness, she never drooled on herself.

A bearded, dignified older man stepped out of the crowd and strode towards the firebenders. "You're not wanted here," he said. "The war is over."

Azula stepped forward and raised her hands. "We're not here to fight," she said. "I just want to talk to the Kyoshi Warriors. Where are they?"

The old man scowled. "Why do you want to know?"

"One of them is an old friend. I want to talk to her. Is that a crime on this island?"

The village leader sighed. "Very well." He pointed deeper into the island. "They have a dojo in that direction. They'll be training there now."

Azula turned and began to walk in the indicated direction, not sparing the old man a second glance. Behind her, Captain Shin scowled and walked over to the leader, thanking him for his help in a quiet voice. Then the captain and his men followed after the princess.

The Kyoshi Warriors' dojo was not hard to find- it stood at the end of the path, right at the edge of a small forest. Azula paused as she approached, remembering her last encounter with these girls and formulating something to say that would allow her to avoid an attack long enough to talk to Ty Lee.

That choice was taken from her when a girl wearing the distinctive dress-armor of the Warriors stepped outside and began to walk towards the village, apparently needing to fetch something from the locals. She noticed the firebenders almost immediately and stopped, stunned- then her eyes widened with recognition as they fixed on Azula.

"Suki!" the warrior shouted, drawing her sword and war fan and holding both weapons at the ready. In an instant the other warriors were hurrying outside, all of them looking ready for a fight and glaring daggers at the princess. Ty Lee was nowhere to be seen.

Suki, the Kyoshi Warriors' leader, stepped forward. "You," she said, glaring at Azula. "I heard from Aang and Katara that you'd been released, but I never thought you'd come here. Looking for a rematch?"

Azula was seized with a burning desire to take Suki up on her offer and leave the non-bender warrior a smoldering husk on the ground. She'd learn then not to talk to a princess of Sozin's blood in that manner then. The Kyoshi warriors were good, true, but Azula knew from experience that she was better. A nagging voice in the back of her mind told her that she'd had Mai and Ty Lee with her last time and she was no match for them all by herself, and that this wasn't what she was here for anyway, but she ignored it.

The princess's fists clenched and flames sprang into life around them. Suki stepped back slightly, and Azula smiled. "You should have learned your lesson last time, peasant," she hissed. "Apparently you need to learn it again."

"We'll see about that," Suki snapped back. Both girls dropped into crouches, flames and weapons at the ready- and then Captain Shin stepped between them, hands outstretched.

"This is meaningless!" he said in a tone that brooked no argument. "You did not come here to fight, princess, and you should remember that." He looked over at Suki. "And I think you should at least listen to what she has to say. She did not come here to harm you."

Azula felt her anger fade as suddenly as it had arrived, and she stumbled back and leaned against a nearby tree, feeling drained. Suki watched her carefully, and then, apparently decided it wasn't a trick, she lowered her own weapons. The other warriors relaxed somewhat, but remained tense. "All right," Suki said. "I'll be civil if she will."

The princess shook herself and stepped forward again, now every inch the controlled royal warrior. "My brother has allowed me to leave the Fire Nation on a mission," Azula said. "Our mother, Ursa, was banished to the Earth Kingdom by our father. It is my intention to find her and return her to the Fire Nation. I came here to ask Ty Lee to join me."

Suki's eyes widened in surprise and she shook her head. "I can't believe you," she said. "You actually expect us to trust you? To help you? Most of us spent the better part of a year in prison because of you! And after the way you treated her and Mai, do you really think Ty Lee wants to leave and go with you? Because I don’t."

"I don't need your help," Azula snapped. "I just need to talk to Ty Lee herself – she can make up her own mind."

"All right," a voice said from near the back of the Kyoshi Warriors. They parted as a figure with a bouncing step and perpetual perky grin came out from behind them. "Here I am! Oh, hi Azula." Ty Lee paused and looked around at the other warriors, and then at the firebenders. "Was everybody fighting out here or something?"

"Where were you?" Azula asked incredulously.

"I was out back, practicing acrobatics. They have the best trees for climbing and jumping around here, you know." Ty Lee shrugged. "Then I heard the commotion and came over here to check it out, and I heard my name, so here I am! Did you want to talk to me?"

The last time the two had met face to face, Azula had been lying paralyzed on the ground after Ty Lee used her chi-blocking ability to keep her from killing- or possibly, Azula had to admit, being killed by- Mai. In spite of that, the acrobat was still talking to her old 'friend' in what would be, in most people, an unnaturally upbeat and friendly tone. Still, there was something more guarded in Ty Lee's eyes than there had been before. She might not be holding a grudge against Azula, but it was clear she no longer trusted her.

"She wants you to help find her mother," Suki said. "I guess she does care about something."

"Don't be mean," Ty Lee said. "Azula cares about lots of things- er, very deep down." The acrobat turned to look at the princess, and her expression was sad. "But I can't go with you, Azula. Suki and the Kyoshi Warriors are my friends too, and right now I still have a lot to learn from them- and most of them haven't picked up how to block chi too well, either. But I do hope you find your mom. She was nice."

At Ty Lee's words Azula shivered. She remembered a dark cloak and merciless violet eyes, and a hand that could deflect lightning as easily as air. "Ty Lee," she said, "If you come with me, I'll let you come back to Kyoshi Island when everything is done. But there are things about this that I haven't told anyone, and- I need your help." The last was a whisper.

Suki looked stunned, and Ty Lee uncharacteristically thoughtful. "Let me talk to Suki," she said.

///

Suki allowed Ty Lee to pull her aside behind the dojo. "You're not actually considering this, are you?" she asked. "I mean, I'm all for second chances- I teamed up with Zuko to escape the Boiling Rock even though he nearly burned the village down, and even Sokka was a bit of a jerk the first time I met him. But Azula? There's just something creepy about her. You of all people should know that!"

"Yeah, she can be pretty creepy," Ty Lee admitted, suppressing a giggle as she remembered a young nobleman on Ember Island who'd gotten more than he bargained for when flirting with the warrior princess. "But I've known her for years, Suki, and what she said to me there isn't why I'm thinking about changing my mind. It was what she looked like. She was scared, Suki- and Azula's not afraid of anything."

"Your point?"

"If something's so bad that Azula's afraid of it," Ty Lee said, "then she's in trouble, and she needs help. She's my friend, Suki- I can't just turn my back on her, even after everything she's done."

"Friend?" Suki asked. "You were her tool, from everything I've heard you say. You told me yourself that she bullied you into helping her chase Zuko by setting a bunch of wild animals loose. Why do you want to go back to that?"

Ty Lee suddenly turned a half a cartwheel and was now standing on her hands- Suki had noticed this distracting tendency to do acrobatics while talking before and didn't let it faze her. "She may not have taken friendship seriously, but I do. And her mom never hurt anybody, so if she's in trouble she needs help too." The acrobat leaped back to her feet and gave Suki a hug that was almost painful- Ty Lee was stronger than she looked and managed to throw all of it into displays of affection. "You've been a good friend too, Suki. I'll be back- I promise."

///

Azula looked up and saw Ty Lee and Suki coming towards her. "Well?" she asked.

Ty Lee beamed. "I'm coming."

///

The shadow crouched near the prow of the ship, hidden to all but the most attentive eyes. It had been child's play for her to sneak on board, and easier still to keep the crew from discovering her. People, she had found in the last year, could be shockingly unobservant.

Her violet eyes focused on the shoreline. The princess was returning with her warriors and a perky girl who must be the one called Ty Lee. Looking at the acrobat's jaunty walk and perpetual grin, the shadow was forcibly reminded of another girl who had once taken delight in all things she saw in the world around her, before it all fell apart…

Cursing, the shadow pulled herself out of her memories as the princess mounted the ship's ramp. Azula was observant- the shadow had to give her credit. She couldn't run the risk of being noticed now, so she pulled swiftly away from the prow and crept down into the bowels of the vessel.

The plan was working, so far. Azula was desperate enough to admit she needed help, but Ty Lee would not save her. For years the Fire Nation and its princess had lorded over the weak, reveling in the terror they inspired- but no longer. Now the tables were turned, and Azula would be the one feeling fear. She would come to know that her royal birth meant nothing, that all her power and ingenuity could not save her- and then, when she was completely broken, she would die.

It wasn't the sum total of the shadow's revenge- far from it. There were many wheels to be set in motion yet. But, with perhaps one exception, it would surely prove to be the most enjoyable.

///

Ty Lee is probably the most important character connected to Azula who plays no role in Heart of Fire, and so I knew I wanted to rectify that in Path. The two of them have a complex, often contradictory relationship in the show – one that Azula is willing to mercilessly exploit – but things have definitely changed in the interim, even if it’s not immediately obvious. Of all the people who knew Azula, I decided that Ty Lee would be one of the few to forgive her without reservation, if only because holding a grudge isn’t really something she’s capable of – honestly, Ty Lee likes everybody (Mai, by contrast, is probably never going to fully forgive her). Furthermore, she doesn’t really get what makes Azula tick. She knows there’s a darkness there, sure, but it it’s something she’s rather out of her depth at understanding. She used to be equal parts fond of and scared of Azula, but after hearing about her breakdown, she doesn’t fear Azula any more – she pities her instead. I don’t think Azula has fully appreciated yet how that will change their dynamic.

On a smaller note, I figured that Azula would be capable of arranging her own hair (seriously, she was always immaculate when travelling across the Earth Kingdom with only Mai and Ty Lee for company, and I don’t see either of them as royal hairstylists). Of course, she made a real mess trying to do her hair after banishing everyone in the finale, but by that point she was barely in a fit state to do anything, and I don’t think it reflects on the capabilities of an on-her-game Azula.

-MasterGhandalf

 

Chapter 6: A New Heading

Azula sat in the belly of her small ship as it sailed away from Kyoshi Island, staring across the table at Ty Lee and wondering at the strange turns that life took. More than a year ago the two of them- and Mai- had disguised themselves as Kyoshi Warriors to infiltrate Ba Sing Se and leave it open for the Fire Lord's armies and succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They captured not only the city but the traitor General Iroh, brought Zuko back into the fold, and neutralized the Avatar completely for weeks, returning home in triumph. Now Zuko was Fire Lord and it was Azula who was disgraced, while Ty Lee had become a Kyoshi Warrior in truth. Had this been someone else's life, the princess would have found the irony highly amusing.

Ty Lee was wearing Earth Kingdom green, rather than her customary red and pink (though this particular shade of green was far brighter and more upbeat than any Azula had ever seen someone born in the Earth Kingdom wear), and she had washed off the distinctive facepaint that the Kyoshi Warriors wore to honor the famous Avatar. She'd already stowed her luggage- consisting of a few changes of clothes, a fan, a shield, and a sword- in her cabin before joining Azula in the hold. The princess had been rather surprised to see the weapons and commented on them.

"I know," Ty Lee said, shaking her head. "I told Suki I didn't need them, but she said that those are what Avatar Kyoshi used and I needed to be familiar with them." She brightened. "Hey, isn't it a rule or something that royalty have to know swordfighting? You can help me practice!"

"Maybe." Azula did know how to use a sword, but unlike her brother she'd never taken the time to become truly skilled with it, preferring to focus on her far more powerful, versatile, and useful firebending. At any rate, the proud princess had no intention of demonstrating a skill she wasn't among the best at.

Ty Lee stared at Azula for a moment, a scowl flitting across her expressive face. "You shouldn't be so down, you know," she said. "It's bad for you. Come on- the war is over, the sun is shining, and we're off on a big, fun adventure! Cheer up!"

"The war is over because we lost, we can't see the sun from inside the ship, and I have to go on this 'adventure' to keep myself from going crazy again." Azula chuckled bitterly. "Forgive me for not enjoying myself."

"Now you sound like Mai," Ty Lee observed. "Hey, don't glare at me like that! I was just saying that all that doom and gloom sounded like something Mai would say."

Azula was about to respond when the door to the hold opened and Captain Shin stepped inside, a roll of paper under one arm. He seated himself by the table and laid the paper out flat, revealing a map of the Earth Kingdom. "As you're most likely aware," he said, "we're currently leaving Kyoshi waters and heading back towards the Earth Kingdom proper. Princess, this is your expedition, and I would greatly appreciate it if you would enlighten me as to exactly where we're going next."

Azula stared at the map for several minutes without speaking. "Based on my vision in the temple my mother is probably somewhere in the eastern Earth Kingdom, but beyond that the spirits didn't supply me with the details. That isn't nearly specific enough for what we need."

Ty Lee's eyes widened. "The spirits told you where to find your mom? Couldn't you just make a fire, burn some offerings and ask them again?"

Azula rolled her eyes. "The spirits are a different order of being from us, Ty Lee. I have no idea why they saw fit to grant me a vision, but I’m reasonably certain it wasn’t from the goodness of their hearts. I doubt they’ll come when I call like a tame riding lizard, and if they want me to know more, they’ll tell me in their own time. Personally, I’m not holding my breath."

"Maybe they want you to figure this out yourself." Ty Lee looked at Azula intently. "Do you know of any way to find help?"

"The only person in the Fire Nation who knew where Mother went was Father, and with him dead I don't know of anyone else who could be useful."

Ty Lee thought for a moment, then brightened. "What about your uncle? He knows lots of stuff! And Suki says he's part of some kind of pai sho club with lots of other smart people. I bet they can help!"

"Uncle Iroh!" Azula snorted. Of all her family, her uncle was the one she understood the least, and so had a tendency to overlook him unless she knew he was involved. Father was supremely ambitious and Zuzu had his honor fixation, but Iroh never seemed motivated by anything except of love of tea and pai sho- which was utterly at odds with his reputation as one of the greatest generals in the history of the Fire Nation, and a firebender to rival his brother to boot. Azula never could understand her uncle, and she had little love for what she couldn't understand.

"Even if I thought he would be able to help me- or that he would even want to help me- I have no idea where he is." Azula turned back to the map, declaring this line of conversation closed.

Ty Lee, however, didn't seem to get the message. "I know where he is," she said. "He's got a tea shop in Ba Sing Se."

"You're not serious." Azula slowly rotated her head to stare at Ty Lee, an expression of incredulous disbelief written across her face. She knew that Iroh had started a tea shop while on the run, but the notion that any royalty would sink to such a position permanently was utterly incomprehensible. Then again, the princess thought, if there was ever any royal who would do something that bizarre, it would be Uncle Iroh.

"I am serious!" Ty Lee said indignantly. "The Kyoshi Warriors were in Ba Sing Se for a festival a few months ago and we went there, and your uncle makes really good tea. He serves it himself, too, and makes really funny jokes."

Azula found herself torn. On the one hand she had never been remotely close to her uncle and it was becoming increasingly obvious that the old man had absolutely no respect for the royal line from which he came. On the other hand, he had been one of the few people in the palace to continue holding her mother's respect, and despite her opinion of him Azula had to admit that Iroh had an uncanny talent for knowing exactly what was needed when. More to the point, it was the only lead she had.

"Very well," the princess said. "We sail for Ba Sing Se." She stood. "Now then, I need air and sun." Without another word she turned and departed from the room, shutting the door behind her.

///

Ty Lee stood to follow Azula when she felt a hand on her arm. Turning, she saw Captain Shin, who had remained silent for most of the discussion.

"Would you mind staying for a moment?" the captain said.

"Sure." Ty Lee sat back down in the chair and pulled her legs up into it. "What d'you want to talk about?"

"The princess," Shin said. "You know her much better than I ever will, most likely, and I'd just like to try and understand her better. She isn't an easy person to talk to."

Ty Lee giggled. "I know that."

Shin leaned forward. "I know that you and Lady Mai travelled with Azula during the war, before the… complications that happened later on. Was she the same then as she is now?"

"Kind of," Ty Lee said. "I mean, she's always been ruthless and not an easy person to get along with, but she was always in control before, if you know what I mean. Now she's lost control and that scares her. I think that's why she's taking her temper out on everyone."

"Why did you stay with her, then? I have orders to help her do what she has to and bring her home in one piece, but you're not part of the military. You're nobility, aren't you?"

Ty Lee snorted. "Yeah, but that wasn't very fun. I always wanted to join the circus, and then I met the Kyoshi Warriors and decided I wanted to be one of them. But, well, Azula's a hard person to say no to- and I think she needs friends, even if she won't admit it."

"Why would you think that?" Shin seemed genuinely mystified.

"Well, she likes to cut herself off from people because she thinks it makes her stronger, whatever that means. But when she does that she gets even colder and even more ruthless- you know, she only went crazy after she thought Mai and me turned on her? Mai just wanted to save Zuko, and I didn't want my two best friends killing each other, but she didn't get why that was important to us. Having friends around reminds her that she's, you know, an actual human being." Ty Lee closed her eyes and hung her head. "Sometimes I think she's so sad, and she doesn't even know it."

Captain Shin stood. "Thank you for telling me that, Ty Lee. I do appreciate it."

"I'll talk to you anytime!" Ty Lee leaped to her feet and wrapped the startled captain in an embrace. "I love making new friends!" And with that, beaming, the acrobat bounded from the room.

///

Azula paced back and forth on the deck, her scowl causing the crew to give her a wide berth. She hated having to rely on her uncle- and at someone else's suggestion, no less!- but there was no escaping that this was her only option.

"Is it?" a cold voice said from nearby. Azula didn't need to look to see that her father now kept pace with her, his face expressionless. "You are forgetting who you are, my daughter- that is the source of your troubles. Remember what I taught you- people are weak. You can only rely on yourself, because everyone else will fail you or betray you."

Azula spun to face him. "I tried that once and ended up a mindless beast chained in front of my own palace. I won't let that happen again. I will find my own way- not yours."

Ozai smiled. "But Azula, everything you are you owe to me. I made you, dear daughter, and you will never be free of me while you still draw breath."

Azula snarled and her fist snapped up, shooting a blast of blue fire at her father's smirking image- only to have it shoot harmlessly over the deck as the hallucination faded, leaving only mocking laughter hanging in the air. Azula stood there on the deck, panting heavily, and when she looked up she saw Ty Lee staring at her.

"Azula," the other girl asked, "what's wrong?"

"Nothing," the princess snapped, turning away from the acrobat and stalking towards her cabin. "Leave me alone."

///

A short chapter, and one without a whole lot going on beyond Azula figuring out where she stands with Ty Lee now and deciding to go and see Iroh. For the most part, this is all pretty straightforward, though we do see a little bit of what I mentioned last time about how Azula and Ty Lee’s dynamic has begun to change. We also see the Ozai hallucination again – not for the last time! For the most part, though, this chapter was a bridge to the next one.

-MasterGhandalf

 

Chapter 7: The Dragon of the West

Azula remained in her cabin for most of the journey to Ba Sing Se, emerging only to eat and practice her firebending. Ty Lee (and Captain Shin, somewhat more rarely) made numerous attempts to force the princess out into the open, to no avail. Azula wasn't interested in talking- she found it humiliating having to go to her fat, silly old uncle for help and wasn't interested in being forced to talk about it.

"You know, Azula," Ty Lee's voice came from the other side of the door, "it's not gonna kill you to come out of there. I mean, you said yourself that you really needed me along for this, but you haven't said ten words to me since we decided to go to Ba Sing Se!"

"Go away, Ty Lee," Azula said for what felt like the tenth time in as many minutes.

"I know you don't want to talk Azula," the acrobat said, "but sometimes talking out your problems helped. Remember the beach on Ember Island? We all felt so much better after that."

Azula's lips involuntarily twitched into a smile. "I remember that. Then we went and burned down Chan's house."

"Well, he was a jerk. I do wonder what his dad did when he found out. Do admirals have to pay for new houses themselves or does the military do it? Or do they each pay a little bit? I always wondered."

"Somehow I don't think it was Father," Azula said. "He didn't have any patience for officers who couldn't even keep their own affairs in order. I imagine that Chan wasn't one of the 'most important teenagers in the Fire Nation' for very long after that."

Ty Lee giggled, then fell silent. "We had a lot of fun, you know- well, I don't know if Mai did. She was always so gloomy all the time. Or maybe Mai's only having fun when she's gloomy. Does that even work?"

"Do you have a point?"

"Well, I mean what we did during the war was fun and all, but it wasn't really all that fun for everyone. We were trying to help your dad take over the world, and a lot of people would've got hurt if he did that. But this time we're trying to find someone who's in trouble, and that's a good thing, right?"

Azula sighed. "I'm not doing this because it’s ‘good’ in some abstract way, Ty Lee. I need to save my mother to save my own sanity. I needed your help. But I think you know me better than to think I'm trying to be some kind of heroine."

Ty Le giggled again. "I know you don't mean to, Azula. I didn't mean to wind up friends with the Kyoshi Warriors in prison, but sometimes things just happen. You just have to go with them."

Going with things as they happened had never been one of Azula's strong areas. "I get the idea, Ty Lee," she said. "Go away. I'm trying to sleep."

"Oh." Ty Lee sounded genuinely sorry. "Good night!" Azula lay down in her bed, turned over, and pulled the pillow over her head.

///

The ship sailed north around the coastline of the Earth Kingdom, bound for Ba Sing Se. The capital was located near the coastline of a large inlet, and during the war Fire Nation ships had succeeded in sailing close enough to deposit troops and weapons- most infamously a giant drill commanded by the now-imprisoned War Minister Qin and Azula herself- and Captain Shin foresaw no problem in reaching the area in a time of peace. There was the matter of the great Serpent that inhabited the waters, but like the Unagi of Kyoshi Island, it had learned its lesson about attacking firebenders.

As she ship sailed into Ba Sing Se waters, Azula and Ty Lee stood on the deck and watched the shoreline approaching. The acrobat leaned up against the railing, her eyes wide and straining to catch of glimpse of the great walls of Ba Sing Se- though she had seen them before, the sight of one of the great architectural marvels of the modern world never failed to be breathtaking. Azula hung back, letting memory fill her mind. On the barren plain beyond the shoreline they had fought a great battle with the Avatar and his friends as they attempted to stop the drill- and later she and her friends infiltrated the city in the guise of the Kyoshi Warriors.

That memory never failed to bring a smile to the princess's face. In Ba Sing Se she had met her match, and brought him low- not the Avatar or the fool Earth King, but a calm, calculating man named Long Feng who had held the city under his absolute control for years. Azula had always prided herself on being smarter and stronger than everyone else around her, but the way in which she had played the scheming minister and ultimately forced him and his Dai Li into her service remained one of her finest hours. It was easy being the best when everyone else was inferior- besting a truly worthy adversary proved her skill beyond doubt, and that her royal bloodline was greater than any number of cunning commoners.

Azula was snapped from her reverie as the ship pulled in to dock. The princess sighed and pulled and pulled the hood of the cloak she was wearing up and over her face.

"What's that for?" Ty Lee asked. "You could just wear Earth Kingdom clothes like I am. Then we'd match!"

"First, I'm not in disguise this time, so I'm wearing Fire Nation colors. Unlike last time, I have no need to pretend to be other than what I am. Second, the people of this city may remember my face, seeing as I conquered them once. I don't want to attract attention."

Ty Lee looked at the princess oddly. "So you're not in disguise because you don't want them to recognize you? That doesn't really make any sense, but if you say so…"

Captain Shin stepped up to the two girls. "I'll be allowing the men to go ashore here, seeing as they've been trapped in this ship for weeks now. When should I tell them to expect you back?"

Azula scowled. "I won't be taking long here, believe me. I should be back before nightfall."

Shin nodded. "Very well. Good luck, princess, Ty Lee."

The ship's gangplank was lowered to the shore, and Azula and Ty Lee descended to the dock. The acrobat's eyes focused on one thing and then another around them, but Azula put a hand on her arm and kept her on course. The last thing the princess wanted was to lose her companion before they even made it past the first wall.

An earthbender-powered train waited on tracks nearby to take newcomers beyond the walls and into the city proper. Two guards stood nearby, one eating some sort of fruit and the other simply seeming bored. Azula supposed that since the war ended their job had largely become little more than glorified greeters, and true enough as the two girls walked passed they welcomed them to the city but did nothing to impede their process. The younger of the two guards favored Ty Lee with a smile and she winked in return, but Azula grabbed her arm tighter and dragged her friend onto the train.

///

The shadow crept from the ship after the princess and her friend were gone and slipped onto the docks like a cold fog. Some of the milling workers could tell that she was there as she glided past them, but most simply put it down to a cold breeze and went on with their work. The shadow might not have been a bender, but she possessed powers that no other being- and least no other being of this world- could claim; when she didn't want to be seen, finding her was nearly impossible.

The earthbender train was just pulling out of station when she leapt on to it and climbed to the top, settling herself into a relatively comfortable position. She remembered this city well, as she regarded its great walls with distaste. A place of refuge turned to one of horror, inhabited by people who might be less warlike and aggressive than the Fire Nation, but were every bit as arrogant and complacent. Someday, the shadow swore, she would live to see this place destroyed – but for now, that happy day would have to wait, for here dwelt one who must live to suffer her vengeance every bit as much as the arrogant princess in the train beneath her. First, though, he would be made useful to her. The shadow remembered a calm, cruel voice and heavy lidded, emotionless eyes and smiled, picturing the man she sought and Azula facing each other once again. The princess thought she had defeated him, but he had only withdrawn to fight another day.

Soon the shadow would find him within the city, and then their one-time situation would be reversed. Once, this man had used her, made her his tool; a cold grin flitted across her face as she imagined doing the same to him.

///

The Jasmine Dragon- much as she looked down on her uncle, Azula had to admit the name was appropriate- was located in the upper ring of Ba Sing Se, where it would cater to the wealthy, powerful, and all those with a taste in tea and the resources to afford it. As the train came to a halt past the inner wall, the princess and Ty Lee disembarked, the acrobat preparing to lead the way.

Azula's gaze was drawn to the Earth King's palace towering over every other building in the inner ring. It lacked the angular majesty of the Fire Lord's home, but made up for it in sheer size and presence. The palace was the size of some small cities, but in Ba Sing Se it was simply the beating heart. This city made the princess feel small and almost insignificant, and that was not pleasant to someone who had been raised on the knowledge that the world existed for her pleasure. Yet another reason to conclude her business here quickly and leave.

At last they came to the tea shop owned and operated by Iroh, former prince and general of the Fire Nation and Dragon of the West. A smiling girl of about their own age, dressed in green robes decorated with stylized dragons on the chest and sleeves, met them at the door.

"Good afternoon," she said with a bow. "Welcome to the Jasmine Dragon."

Ty Lee elbowed Azula. "I'll handle this," she said. "You scare people." The Kyoshi Warrior stepped forward and beamed. "I'm Ty Lee. We need a table, please."

The girl bowed again. "Follow me." She led them into the shop and Azula looked around for her uncle, but the distinctive old man was nowhere to be seen- not an easy task for someone of his girth. Probably in the back sampling his product, Azula thought.

The girl motioned at a table. "A server will be with you shortly," she said. "Enjoy your tea!" She turned to leave, but Azula grabbed her arm.

"What are you doing?" the girl hissed. "Are you trying to make a scene or something?"

Azula used her free hand to pull back her hood just enough that the other girl could see her glinting golden eyes. "Tell your boss," she said in a low voice, "that his niece is here to see him." The girl's green eyes widened and she nodded wordlessly, then hurried off into the back. Azula sat down and smirked.

Ty Lee frowned at her. "What was that for?" she asked. "You didn't need to scare her like that. We're already inside- I'm sure your uncle would've come by here eventually."

"I made sure of it," Azula said. "Besides, it's not like I'm ever going to see her again. Why should I bother with being polite?"

The two sat in silence for what felt an eternity, and then a shadow fell across the table. Azula looked up and saw an old man standing there dressed in a green robe and apron, his once-muscular form gone somewhat to fat. He wasn't scowling like she'd expected, and didn't seem angry at all, but neither was there the merry glint in his eyes that had led her as a child to dismiss him as someone unfit for his royal station. Instead he seemed almost… sad.

"Azula," Uncle Iroh said. "I have been expecting you."

///

Hanging out with Suki for the past year and change has been good for Ty Lee; still bubbly and eccentric, she’s picked up some greater self-confidence and is more willing to assert herself, even taking charge when Azula is also present. Early on, she’s pretty deliberately trying to pull Azula out of her shell (hence why she’s focusing on good memories rather than bad ones) but once again, even with added confidence I don’t think she really understands the depth of the darkness that still lingers in Azula’s soul.

It seems our shadowy friend has a history with Ba Sing Se as well. It’s still awhile off before we’ll get her backstory, but there are some hints to it here. She certainly wasn’t always what she is now! But while her history may be far off yet, we’ll finally learn her name next chapter.

Azula thinks more highly on Long Feng in her reflection here than she did in person. That’s deliberate on my part; in “Crossroads of Destiny” she was aiming to knock him down a peg; here she’s trying to (re)build herself up, and the more impressive she remembers him as being, the more impressive she can feel for beating him. Her refusal to wear Earth Kingdom colors also speaks to her somewhat fragile mental state. She doesn’t want to be noticed, but at the same time she deliberately dresses in such a way as to reassert her national identity when walking into her one-time enemy’s capital.

And next chapter, Azula has a talk with Iroh, and the shadow has a rather more sinister conversation…

-MasterGhandalf

 

Chapter 8: An Unremarkable Man

The midday sun rode high above Ba Sing Se, and much of the city (though not all- the Impenetrable City never truly slept) slowed to a crawl and people from all walks of life sat down to their meals. One such man nodded to himself in satisfaction as he felt his shop door lock click shut, and he turned slowly to make his way home.

The man was middle-aged, of average height, his eyes the green common in the Earth Kingdom. His head was completely bald (he led most of his acquaintances to believe it was natural, though in truth it was shaved) and he wore a thin mustache, but otherwise there was nothing particularly noteworthy about him. Even those who had met him before would have had a hard time picking him out of a crowd. In another life, this blandness had served well for one who wished to rule a kingdom without ever sitting on the throne- if everyone devoted their attention towards the monarch, they failed to take note of the quiet figure in his shadow, leaving him free to work unnoticed. Now he was able to move through the city unnoticed, for though he was the most wanted criminal in all of Ba Sing Se, few indeed were those people on the street who could match his name to his face.

Of course, it helped when one still had a number of law-enforcement officials under one's influence. The Earth King had done his best to clean up his government, but in any political system there would always be corruption- and where there was corruption, the unremarkable man and his like would thrive.

The man came to his house- one of many similar places in the middle ring of the city, and in fact one of several that he directly or indirectly owned. He let himself in and was preparing to step into his kitchen and fix a light lunch when he heard the slight rustle of cloth behind him.

"I know you're there," he said softly. "Come out where I can see you."

The shadows in a corner seemed to shimmer, and a person- a woman or girl from the shape of the mouth and chin, all that was visible beneath her hood- emerged, wrapped in a dark cloak. She stepped in front of the man and smiled without mirth. The man was reminded forcibly of another young woman he once knew, and who was indirectly responsible for his present situation.

"Here I am," she said. "We have business to discuss."

"If you want to discuss business, come by my shop. It will be open again in an hour, and I assure you I can sell you the finest tools of calligraphy in the middle ring."

"I'm not here for paper or brushes," the girl said. "It is you I want. I have a proposition I believe you will be interested in hearing."

"Who are you?" the man asked. "I prefer not to make deals with people unless I know who they are and how they think."

The girl cast back her hood, and the man started slightly at her pallor and strange eyes. "Oh, we've met before, though I'm not surprised you don't remember me. Your kind never gives people like me a second thought." Her merciless eyes narrowed. "But I know you- Long Feng."

///

Azula kept her face perfectly neutral, refusing to let her uncle see her surprise. "Expecting me," she repeated. "That isn't possible. I only decided to come here after leaving the Fire Nation, and no one on the ship has a messenger hawk."

"Zuko sent a message to me telling me about your journey," Iroh said. "I had a feeling that you might find your way here eventually." The old man looked at her surprisingly shrewdly. "Will you come into the back with me? I do not think this is a conversation you want to have in front of everybody."

"Yes, of course." Azula stood. "Lead us to your back room."

The princess and Ty Lee followed Iroh into a small room in the rear of the shop that resembled the main room, except smaller and more private. Considering that the Jasmine Dragon was in the upper ring, Azula imagined that government officials came here fairly regularly, and like having a place to drink their tea and talk away from prying eyes.

A table stood in the middle of the room, and on it was a tea-pot and three cups. Ty Lee's eyes lit up when she saw it there, and the acrobat hurried over and poured herself a cup. After taking a sip she smiled contentedly, then wrapped the surprised Iroh in a tight embrace.

"It's even better than it was the last time I was here!"

"Thank you! It is good to see you again too, Ty Lee. It is always a pleasure to see someone who appreciates the good things in life." The old man extracted himself from the girl's arms, and all three sat down around the table. Iroh turned back to Azula, his expression becoming serious again. "I heard about what happened to Ozai," he said. "I am sorry."

Azula snorted. "No you're not. The two of you hated each other, and you didn't even show for his funeral."

Iroh chuckled. "I believe that Zuko had something to do with that. It seems he didn't want to drag me halfway around the world just for my brother, so I didn't get a message about the funeral until after it was already over."

"Really? I wouldn't have thought he'd be that devious."

Ty Lee looked up from her tea. "That's really not all that devious, Azula."

"I know. That's my point – it’s sarcasm." The princess looked back at Iroh. "Anyway, that doesn't change what I said at all- you hated my father, so your sympathy rings hollow."

Iroh closed his eyes. "I did not hate Ozai. I hated what he did to people- both his subjects and his own family- and that was why I was his enemy. But he was still my brother." Iroh looked up, his eyes now glinting with familiar humor. "I visited him once in prison, you know. I even suggested that I might be able to convince Zuko to give him parole and let him come and work in my tea shop. For some reason he wasn't very interested."

Ty Lee snorted into her tea, and even Azula had to hold back a chuckle at that mental image. "I can imagine," she said softly.

Iroh took another sip of tea, and then looked Azula straight in the eyes. "But I don't think you came here to talk about your father. It is your other parent who concerns you now."

"Yes." Azula closed her eyes. "I need to find my mother, Uncle. I have reason to believe that she's somewhere in the Earth Kingdom, but beyond that I don't know, and I'm not interested in wasting my life going over this continent with a fine-toothed comb. I was told that you are someone who might have more precise information."

"Hmmm." Iroh stroked his beard slowly. "You know, of course, that I was not in the Fire Nation when your mother was banished- I was still returning from the siege of Ba Sing Se. When I reached home, I found that my father was dead and my brother was on the throne, his wife nowhere to be seen. I confronted Ozai alone that night, and demanded to know what he had done. I may not have hated him, but I was never blind to what he was capable of. I was afraid that he had killed both Ursa and Azulon.

"He told me the true story of what happened. I think it amused him to show how he had triumphed over me and stolen my throne. I told him I did not care about the throne- I just wanted to know what happened to the people he used to get there. Ozai gestured to the east and said that he'd banished Ursa from the Fire Nation, but he did not specify where."

"So you don't know any more than I do," Azula said.

"I never said that!" Iroh exclaimed. "Allow me to finish. Even in exile Ursa was family, and I knew she would be travelling through lands hostile to the Fire Nation. So I decided to have some old friends keep an eye out for her."

Ty Lee elbowed Azula. "That must be that pai sho club I told you about."

Iroh chuckled. "The Order of the White Lotus is more than a pai sho club. It is a society of wise masters from all four nations, dedicated to sharing and preserving culture and knowledge. There are members across the Earth Kingdom, and they were able to keep track of your mother and keep her safe until she passed beyond their knowledge."

"What do you mean?" Azula asked.

"The members of the Order of the White Lotus are all wise or powerful, but they are only human. And many of them are kings or generals with great responsibilities. Ursa was travelling east, hoping to get as far away from the Fire Nation as possible, and she left the Earth Kingdom proper and entered a lawless region ruled by petty bandit kings." He stood and walked over to a shelf, removing a map of the Earth Kingdom and rolling it out. "Here is where we lost track of her," he said, pointing at the beginning of a peninsula in the east.

"That is where she is now?" Azula asked.

"You must admit, your mother is a striking woman, and clearly of Fire Nation heritage. If someone matching her description was travelling the main Earth Kingdom, people would talk and someone in the Order of the White Lotus would hear." Iroh nodded. "If your mother is still alive, that is where she must be."

Azula looked up at him, eyes blazing. "She's alive," she hissed. "I know it. And she is imprisoned."

"There are many bandit lords in that area who would do something like that if they thought they could profit from it," Iroh said. "If one of them has your mother, then she needs your help."

"Very well." Azula stood and turned to leave. "Thank you, Uncle. Ty Lee, come with me."

"But Azula," Ty Lee said, "you didn't even drink any of your tea! Are we leaving already?"

"Yes." The princess's hand was on the door handle when she felt someone touch her shoulder gently. Turning, she saw her uncle.

"Ty Lee, would you mind going on ahead?" Iroh asked. "I would like to talk to my niece in private."

"Sure. It was great to see you again, General Iroh, and thanks a lot for the tea!" With a bounce in her step Ty Lee left the small room. When she was gone, Azula turned to Iroh.

"What do you want, Uncle?" she asked. “As I recall, our encounters in the recent past did not end well for you. I wouldn’t think you’d want to talk any longer once our business was done any more than I do.”

"I know why you are doing this, Azula," he said softly. "I have walked with the spirits before myself, and I can feel the echo of their touch about you. This quest is about more than just finding your mother. You are going to have to find yourself as well."

"Don't pretend you understand me, Uncle," Azula snapped, "or that you care for me. I'm not a little lost child like my brother or any of the others you've given your 'wise' advice to over the years. I know who I am, and what I want."

"Do you?" Iroh asked. "Or do you know who your father wanted you to be? Arrogance, hatred, cruel ambition- Ozai taught you all of those things, and they led you both down the path to ruin. Now you have a chance to rebuild yourself, and you need to forget the person your father forced you to become, and find out for the first time who you are."

"You know nothing!" Azula hissed.

"Don't I?" Iroh asked. "When I was a young man, I was taught that the Fire Nation was the greatest civilization in the world, and that it was our destiny to rule the other bending nations. I believed in that, and I became Fire Lord Azulon's greatest general, the Dragon of the West. I like to think that I was a kinder leader than my father or brother, but I still conquered vast territories for the Fire Nation. Then I came up against Ba Sing Se, and I knew that it was my destiny to take it."

The old man's eyes closed, and Azula saw tears trickling from their edges. "And then I received word that my son Lu Ten had been killed in battle- a battle he was fighting on my orders. As I held his body I knew that it was my fault, and that the glory of the war was a lie. I learned my lesson, but it destroyed one I loved and it nearly destroyed me too. It is not too late for you, Azula. You can still turn back before you suffer. I know that we have never been close, and I have the scars to prove it,” her he smiled sadly, “but still, I do not wish for that to happen. I think our family has endured enough self-inflicted pain."

Azula stumbled back from her uncle, unsure of what to say in the face of a display that she had been taught to see as the most shameful weakness, coming from a man who she knew was perhaps the greatest firebender alive. The princess was reminded yet again that she did not understand Iroh, but in the face of his words a part of her wondered now whether she should have tried.

The old general dried his eyes and turned back to Azula. "Go now," he said. "May the spirits walk with you. I hope that you find your way before it is too late. We have all suffered too much already."

Azula turned and hurried from the room, leaving Iroh behind alone. Ty Lee waited in the main room of the tea shop, hurrying to Azula's side when she saw her. "What did he say?" she asked. "It must have been pretty important if he wanted to talk to you about it alone."

"I don't want to talk" the princess said. "We're going back to the ship."

///

"My name is Lee," the man who had once been called Long Feng said calmly. "I'm certain you have the wrong man."

Violet eyes flashed. "You are Long Feng, once Grand Secretariat of Ba Sing Se and head of the Dai Li. You are one of the most skilled earthbenders in the world, and a politician clever enough to rule this city from behind the throne for years. Now you disguise yourself as a simple merchant to avoid imprisonment. But I know you well."

Long Feng studied her shadowed features intently, unable to place them. That was a rarity- the former minister had an excellent memory for faces and seldom forgot one. Still, the girl knew who he really was, and that made her dangerous regardless of her identity.

"Assuming I am who you say I am," he said, "what could you possibly have to offer that would interest me- unless, of course, you were sent here by Kuei to admit he has been misbehaving and is in need of my help?"

The shadow-girl laughed softly. "I'm afraid not. I merely offer information. The architect of your ultimate downfall is within your grasp- Princess Azula is in Ba Sing Se even now."

Long Feng shrugged. "What of it? Revenge is a fool's game- it distracts your energies from more worthwhile and productive pursuits. I have spent the last year inserting agents back into Ba Sing Se's power structure- do you think I would compromise that for a chance to kill only one of the people responsible for my present condition?"

"Perhaps I have a different plan in mind. Have you heard by any chance of the Lady Ursa?"

Long Feng nodded. "Fire Lord Ozai's wife. He banished her from the Fire Nation years ago, and she wandered the Earth Kingdom for some time before vanishing. Most of my sources believed her dead. What of her?"

"She is alive," the girl hissed. "Azula seeks her. If you play this situation right, you could profit from it greatly."

Long Feng thought he had an idea of where this was going, but kept his expression neutral. "Enlighten me," he said.

"Fire Lord Zuko loves his mother dearly. Whoever brings her home would have his choice of rewards. Money, land- or perhaps a position in his government." Violet eyes narrowed. "You are too well-known here now to ever fully regain your influence, but the Fire Nation government was almost totally dismantled after the War, because so many of the ministers collaborated willingly with Fire Lord Ozai and his last, mad plan. Zuko needs the support of experienced men. Surely the two of you could find common ground."

"Indeed," Long Feng mused. "Azula will lead me directly to her mother- and when she has done so, the Fire Princess can be removed and I can claim my leverage. She will not be so formidable now that I am wise to her tricks. A neat scheme, all told, with minimal effort required on my part." He looked darkly at his visitor. "In fact, I wonder how exactly you plan to benefit from it."

The girl's eyes burned with hate. "Seeing Azula fail within sight of her goal will be reward enough. The princess must learn what it is to suffer and die without hope."

"I see." Long Feng thought he understood this strange visitor more closely now- she was clever, but her motivation was hatred, and that made her a dangerous loose boulder. He would tolerate her presence so long as she proved useful, but he knew better than to trust her. Sooner or later, she would have to be disposed of as well.

"Do you have a name?" he asked. "I prefer to know who I am dealing with."

Pulling her hood back up so her face was cast into shadow, the girl smiled. "You may call me Wei Ming."

Long Feng extended his hand and the girl took it. "Then, Wei Ming," he said as they shook, "I believe this is the start of a most auspicious partnership."

///

An important chapter indeed! We meet our third and final major antagonist in this chapter, and his name is a familiar one indeed – Long Feng himself. His ultimate fate was left unstated in the show, but for the purposes of this fic I decided that Azula would have kept him alive and captive, so she could pick his brain about the running of Ba Sing Se at her leisure. When Ba Sing Se was liberated by the White Lotus, he managed to escape and promptly vanished, and has been scheming to regain power ever since. His having shaved his head completely, rather than being merely balding, was a bit of a shout-out to a certain other Clancy Brown-voiced evil mastermind. His choice of alias is another shout out – as a certain master swordsman said, there’s a million Lees.

Azula has a chat with Iroh, something she never really had in canon. As I mentioned in the commentary for Heart of Fire, Iroh once said that Azula was crazy and needed to go down – but now that she has gone down, he’s willing to wait and see what she’s learned from it. He certainly doesn’t care for Azula the way he does Zuko, but at heart Iroh is a wise and compassionate soul, and more to the point, he feels in some ways that he’s been where she is now – having had his world torn out from under him, realized that he was in the wrong, and struggling to remake himself as a better person. Of course, Azula isn’t quite to the point where she really gets what Iroh is trying to tell her.

Iroh has a vague idea of where Ursa is. Why hasn’t he tried to find her himself? Well, everyone who would have gotten close enough to identify her in the last several years either got killed or bought off by Jian Chin, so all he’s had to go on is third-and-fourth hand rumors; really, he previously thought it was very likely she was dead but was simply unwilling to crush Zuko’s hopes. Now, however, he has a distinct feeling that destiny is in play and is curious about what Azula might turn up. This is the last we’ll be seeing of Iroh in this fic, but he’ll have a much more important role in the third one.

And our shadow has a name, at last. “Wei Ming” means “twilight” according to a Chinese translator I used; it’s not her birth name, but it’s the alias she’s been using for the past year and a half or so, and we’ll be treating it as her name from here out. She has her own plans for Azula and Long Feng that aren’t exactly what she shared with her new “ally”, but then again, Long Feng learned his lesson about trusting mysterious, deadly girls of dubious morals and questionable sanity in “Crossroads of Destiny”. He’s not going to roll over for either Azula or Wei Ming this time.

-MasterGhandalf

 

Chapter 9: The Chase Begins

"Azula, slow down!" Ty Lee panted. The princess was stalking down the streets of Ba Sing Se as fast as she could without losing her dignity, cloak blowing in the wind. The acrobat found herself having to rush to keep up. "What's the hurry?"

"I know where my mother probably is now," Azula replied. "I want to get back to the ship as fast as possible so that I can continue with my search." And put as much distance between me and uncle as possible, she added silently. You're wrong, old man. I know who I am and what I want. You'll see!

Absorbed in her thoughts, Azula kept to her course without deviating, pushing commoners out of her way as they neared the crowded station. Ty Lee followed a step behind, apologizing profusely and occasionally shooting a worried glance at her friend. Finally the two girls arrived at the tracks, and after a brief wait were able to board a train bound for the docks.

They sat down on two seats away from the rest of the passengers, and Ty Lee turned to Azula. "Are you sure you're okay?" she asked. "You don't look so good. It's probably because you didn't have any of your Uncle's tea- I've heard that he says it's the remedy for everything."

"He does," Azula replied. "I don't agree. Tea is just a drink like any other- there's nothing special about it. And I'm fine, so stop worrying about me."

"If you say so," Ty Lee said, but she looked unconvinced. With a sudden jolt the train began to move, and Azula turned to look out the window at the city she had once conquered- and stopped, staring. A figure stood in the shadows behind one of the stations pillars, and at first the princess thought it was her shadowy nemesis- then another look proved her wrong. This figure's robes were dark green, not some strange black-violet, and its features were concealed not by a hood but by a wide brimmed hat.

Memory flashed through her mind- seeing figures like that the first time she arrived in Ba Sing Se disguised as the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors, learning of their significance from the Earth King himself… meeting Long Feng in his cell and together hatching a scheme that brought the Earth Kingdom to its knees… subverting his followers to her cause, proving once and for all that the will and charisma of true royalty trumped the patient plotting of a commoner any day… two of the robed figures fighting by her side on the Day of Black Sun, when firebending lost its power…

And in the end sending them away, for they had betrayed their old master and would most certainly do the same to her, given time…

"Azula!" she heard Ty Lee's voice as if from a great distance and shook herself out of the past. "What's wrong?" the acrobat asked, looking concerned. "You kind of went away there, except you didn't really go anywhere, and it was a little scary."

The princess seized Ty Lee by the arm. "The Dai Li," she said. "After the War ended, what happened to the Dai Li?"

"Well, I don't know a whole lot," the acrobat admitted, "but what I heard was that the Earth King pretty much gutted them. He couldn't just get rid of them- something about how they'd made themselves too important to running the city- but he was able to take away most of their power. They're just a bunch of administrators now- what's left of them." She winced. "You're hurting me."

Azula didn't apologize, but she did release Ty Lee's arm. "I saw one of them," she said softly. "He was standing on the platform watching this train."

"He was probably just waiting for another train to come and take him home," Ty Lee said. "They're not allowed to spy on people or kidnap them anymore. It's no big deal that you saw one."

Somehow Azula doubted that any of the Dai Li agents she had known would have concerned themselves with rules that they thought inconvenienced their true mission- maintaining order in Ba Sing Se at all costs. The Earth King was an idealistic fool if he thought otherwise- but then, Azula had met the man, and in her opinion "idealistic fool" summed him up quite well. Still, there was probably a perfectly rational explanation for the agent's presence- probably he just wanted to make sure that the crazy Fire Nation princess left his city as soon as possible. Yes, that had to be it.

But there was still one nagging worry. "And Long Feng?" Azula asked. "What happened to him?"

Ty Lee shrugged. "Nobody knows. They say he just disappeared."

Which meant that one of the most potentially dangerous people in the world was still on the loose. Well, Azula had never lacked for enemies. If Long Feng was smart, he'd stay far away, but if he decided he wanted to mess with her, he would soon learn exactly what a bending prodigy of the Fire Royal House was capable of.

///

The sun was beginning to sink towards the horizon as Azula and Ty Lee arrived back at the ship. In the evening light the harbor water seemed to be painted gold, and the acrobat stopped by the railing to stare at it, but Azula approached Captain Shin where he stood in the middle of the deck, staring off into the distance.

"Did you find out anything of value, princess?" he asked.

"I did," she replied. "Have one of your men fetch a map." Shin nodded and motioned one of the sailors over, relaying Azula's order. He hurried below deck and returned moments later with a rolled-up sheet, which was revealed to be a world map as he held it open and handed it to the captain.

"We're here," Azula said, pointing to the shoreline near Ba Sing Se. "According to my uncle, the place where we are most likely to find Mother is here." Her finger slid along the map, coming to rest on the eastern peninsula her uncle had shown her.

"Are you certain that is what General Iroh said?" Shin asked, looking surprised. "That's a bad region, princess- cut off from the Earth King here, or Bumi in Omashu, supposed to be ruled by outlaws and lowlifes."

"I'm sure it is," Azula said. "Uncle Iroh said much the same thing. But that is where my mother is, so that is where we're going. As soon as all of the crew have returned, we're leaving."

Shin help up his hand. "You may be a princess," he said, "but you're in disgrace, and this is my ship. That means that I can pull rank if I want, and I'd rather not. We're not going to be able to fight our way through the sort of scum you'll get out there with just yourself, your friend, the crew, and a half-dozen firebenders. Fire Lord Zuko wants your mother back every bit as much as you do- we'll return to the capital and pick up more ships and more men, maybe even your brother himself. Then we can handle whatever is out there."

"No," Azula snarled, twin balls of blue flame forming around her clenched fists. "'This is my quest, not Zuko's! Mine! I conquered the Earth Kingdom by myself, because I was able to outsmart and outmaneuver everyone else. I can do the same to a handful of bandit lords. We are going there, not the Capital."

She could see the fear in Shin's eyes, but he stood his ground anyway. "And if I refuse?"

Azula smiled tightly. "Then maybe it is time for a new captain here. What say you- Agni Kai?"

"If you insist." Shin dropped into a fighting stance. "Shall we do it now, or wait for the crew?"

"Stop it!" a voice shouted from nearby, and Ty Lee threw herself between the two firebenders.

"Get out of the way, girl," Shin said.

"Yes, Ty Lee, move. This doesn't concern you."

"Yes, it does." Ty Lee faced Azula, tears brimming in her eyes. "This is just like at the Boiling Rock all over again- you can't just go around attacking everybody who disagrees with you, or pretty soon there won't be anybody left, and you'll just get worse, not better! I won't let you do that to yourself. If you try this, Azula, I will stop you. You know I can."

The acrobat turned to face Shin. "And you need to understand that she needs to do this by herself. She thinks it's the only chance she's got left. You can't just bring Zuko into it and expect her to let that happen without a fight."

Azula lowered her hands and extinguished her flame, Captain Shin doing the same. "Very well," she said softly. "This is your ship. Do whatever you want with it."

"And it is your quest," the captain said. "We will go to seek your mother. I follow your lead." His eyes sparked for a moment. "Within reason." Then he turned and marched towards the bridge, map in hand.

Azula and Ty Lee stood on the deck without speaking for several minutes. "There aren't a lot of people who'd throw themselves between two angry firebenders like that," the princess finally said.

"I don't like seeing people get hurt," Ty Lee said quietly. "I know you don't care about that, but I do. That's why when we had combat training at the Academy I learned chi blocking instead of knives or swords or firebending- so I can fight without having to kill anyone."

She looked at Azula straight on. "And I didn't like seeing you the way you were there. You could be scary before, when you wanted to be, but that was like you weren't in control at all."

"I know," Azula whispered. "That's why I have to do this. I don't want to end up again like I was on the day the Comet came." She looked out over the waters. "People have called me a monster all my life," she said, "but one thing that I will not be is an animal."

///

The small Fire Nation ship left port and steamed away into the night. In a hidden cove nearby, another ship waited, also Fire Nation make- ironic that it was that nation that would develop the most advanced shipbuilding skills- but it had been many years since it had served the Fire Lord's purposes. On its deck a man lowered a spyglass and smiled.

"She is leaving," Long Feng said. "Now we must follow."

The former Grand Secretariat turned to face the line of robed men who stood on the ship's deck. The Earth King had done a remarkable job of culling his top lieutenants from the secretive organization, but there were still plenty in the lower ranks who remembered Long Feng's rule and sought a return to a time when they were more than pen-pushing administrators. Ten of these were easy to collect and bring out to the ship that the Dai Li had secreted here for whenever the need might arise.

"Gentlemen," Long Feng began, "no doubt you remember the Princess Azula and how she stole you out from under me and brought our city to ruin. Now we are setting out in pursuit of her party, and I need to make absolutely certain that none of you have- conflicting loyalties."

He already knew these men were trustworthy- he wouldn't have brought them along otherwise- but making them say it out loud would cement their loyalty.

"The princess used us and abandoned us," a man near the middle of the line said. "We swore undying loyalty to her and she spurned it. It is a stain upon the honor of the Dai Li that we ever served her. A stain which we shall remove."

"Excellent. To your stations." The Dai Li saluted their master and turned to various tasks about the ship, and soon it was sailing into the waters of the bay, heading in pursuit of Azula's vessel. Long Feng stood at the prow, contemplating his strategy for defeating the princess, when he felt a whisper of wind by his side. "Wei Ming," he said without turning. "It is a pleasure to have you aboard."

"Usually when I come to someone like that they are startled or afraid," she said. "You hardly reacted at all." It was hard to tell whether her tone was admiring or resentful.

"I learned long ago that showing your emotions to all is a road to defeat," Long Feng replied. "Let yourself be ruled by feelings and you will fail in the end. Logic and planning will always win the day."

"They failed you the day Azula stole your city."

Long Feng shook his head. "Only because my opponent outmaneuvered me – but that won’t happen again. She made a skillful move, but in the end the game shall be mine. It is only a matter of time." He looked at her directly for the first time. "You did not tell me that Ty Lee is with the princess."

Wei Ming shrugged. "It seemed unimportant. What difference can one girl who cannot even bend make to the mighty Dai Li?" Though she tried to hide it, it was impossible for Long Feng to miss the scorn that dripped from her tone on the last three words.

"She is a skilled warrior who can disrupt the bending of others, even if she has none of her own. Still, she is nothing I will not be able to handle. I was merely observing that your information was incomplete."

Quick as thought Wei Ming reached into her cloak and drew a pair of gleaming daggers; before he could take a breath they rested against Long Feng's throat. "If she proves a problem for you," she hissed, "I will deal with her."

Long Feng didn't blink. "I'm sure you will," he said. "Now leave me. I have much to plan."

Wei Ming saluted with one of her daggers. "As you wish." She sheathed her daggers and wrapped her cloak around herself, seeming to melt into the evening darkness. When Long Feng was certain she was gone, he allowed himself a wolfish smile.

"And when you have served my purposes, girl," he murmured, "I will deal with you."

///

This is another chapter that I think is fairly self-explanatory. When I first wrote the fic, I’d worried that the Dai Li surviving at all was a bit of a stretch after they’d helped overthrow the Earth King, but I ended up feeling vindicated when they were shown to survive even to Korra’s time. As an OC villain in one of my other fics observed, the Dai Li exist to serve the ruler of Ba Sing Se, and a new ruler means finding a new way to serve. Of course, that way might not be always what said ruler thinks it is, as the fact that Long Feng was able to put so many loyalists together attests.

Azula nearly attacking Shin over a relatively minor disagreement is a testament to the fact that she’s far from completely healed, and could potentially come unraveled again at any time – a fact she’s painfully aware of. Fortunately, Ty Lee fully remembers standing up to Azula at the Boiling Rock, and that gave her the confidence to do it again. The Fire Princess is still Ty Lee’s friend, but her days of being Azula’s doormat are over. In this case, by giving Azula reason to calm down and think things through, that worked out in her favor.

Next time, the quest is on…

-MasterGhandalf

 

Chapter 10: Battle on the Waves

Owing to the shape of the Earth Kingdom's continent, there was no straight way from the Ba Sing Se harbor to the wild borderland where Lady Ursa was most likely to be found. The Fire Nation ship would therefore be forced to sail around the huge landmass on either the north or the south in order to reach its goal. Captain Shin decided, after giving the matter a great deal of thought, that the northern passage would be most likely be somewhat faster, and ordered his crew to steer in that direction.

After a little more than a week, the ship had left Ba Sing Se waters and passed through a narrow strait to re-enter the ocean proper. Azula took to standing on the prow, staring out over the sea at something her eyes alone could see and snarling at anyone who came close to her. Only Ty Lee seemed exempt from this, but even the bubbly acrobat knew better than to push her luck by speaking. She would simply hop up onto the railing and go through her various exercises in silence, and if Azula took any comfort from her presence she didn't show it. Still, she never tried to send Ty Lee away.

Eventually, however, the other girl's outgoing personality found a new outlet. Tempers had been running high after word of the near-showdown between Azula and Captain Shin spread (a process which took less than a day, considering the small size of the crew), and Ty Lee began to worry that some enterprising crewman might have more loyalty than sense and try to pitch the princess overboard. Such an attempt had little chance of succeeding, of course, but the last thing that Azula needed in her current state was incentive to go berserk on everyone.

Ty Lee began floating her idea for a morale-booster among some of the lower-ranking officers, and before long Captain Shin himself sought her out to get the details straight from the original source. He rolled his eyes as she explained, but finally agreed, sending the acrobat cartwheeling off to start getting things together.

That night the crew was gathered together on the deck, with a generous portion of food prepared by the ship's cook laid out for them. Ty Lee stood up in front of them and bowed dramatically, a huge smile on her face, and then began her act. The ship was a very different environment from a circus tent, of course, but from Ty Lee's perspective it just made things more enjoyable. She leapt and bounded across the ship faster than the eye could easily follow, finding balance on the most unlikely surfaces, until finally she landed in the exact spot where she had begun and bowed again. The crew's applause filled the night.

After Ty Lee sat down, members of the crew came forward. Two warriors demonstrated their skill with knives in a fierce mock duel, and another put on a firebending display with a theatricality that showed, to the acrobat's experienced eye, that he could have been a bending performer had his life taken a different path. When he was through, she looked over her shoulder and saw that even serious Captain Shin was smiling- and beyond him was Azula in her customary position by the prow, back to the festivities.

Ty Lee slipped away from the crew and joined the princess. "What is it?" Azula asked quietly.

"Come on, Azula!" Ty Lee said, "We've got food and a lot of the crew are doing entertainment. Come on over. I bet that you could do some firebending that would make that one guy's look tame."

"I've fallen a long way, Ty Lee, but I'm not lowering myself to a source of entertainment for my own soldiers," Azula said. "I still have some dignity."

Ty Lee scowled. "That doesn't mean you can't have fun."

Azula looked out over the dark waters for several minutes. "That's not all," she said. "I think we're in danger."

"What do you mean?"

"I can't explain it," Azula admitted, "but I can't shake the feeling that we're being followed."

"You're still worried about that Dai Li guy," Ty Lee guessed. "Even if he was following us, he's back in Ba Sing Se. The Earth Kingdom doesn't make very good ships, you know. I guess it's because rocks sink or something. Even though they don't actually make their ships out of rocks."

"That doesn't matter," Azula snapped. "There's something out there- I can feel it."

"If you say so," Ty Lee said, sounding unconvinced. "But if you get tired of standing there, we do have a party going on. See you there!" With that she flipped onto her hands and walked back over to the crew, managing to keep her balance the whole way. Azula watched her go, then turned back to the ocean, her eyes trying desperately to penetrate the night's shadows and discover who it was who lurked in them.

///

The sun rode high and hot in the cloudless sky, and Captain Shang lowered his glass and gave a jagged-toothed grin. There was a Fire Nation ship out there, a small and stripped down model from the looks of it. Hardly a challenge for a crew composed of some of the most ferocious and infamous pirates in the northern waters, and if its hold contained valuables of any sort they would be well-compensated for their troubles. Even if it didn't, it would still be good practice- and either way, Shang wasn't expecting much difficulty.

"Helmsman!" he barked, "take a look to the northwest and tell me what you see."

The man who stood by the ship's wheel raised his own spyglass and took a look in the direction his captain indicated. "Looks like a Fire Navy ship, sir," he said, "all alone and ready for plucking."

"Aye," Shang said. "Shall we pay them a little visit, men?" The crew shouted in affirmative and raised their various weapons- united only in that all were sharp and possessed of a highly unpleasant appearance- in the air. The captain allowed himself a vicious grin as his ship pulled out from behind the rocks where it had hidden and set off in pursuit of its quarry.

As the crew scurried off towards their stations and prepared to board, Shang turned to the dark-skinned man who stood silently beside him and had been watching the other pirates with a faintly bored expression. "Now then," he said, "think you can manage to hold 'em in place for our killing stroke?"

"Aye, captain," the man said, smiling and smoothing his sea-blue tunic. "When have I ever let you down?"

///

Azula lay on the bed in her cabin, having been unable to get to sleep at all the previous night as a result of dark dreams that involved her parents, Zuko, Long Feng, and General Azun in ways that she couldn't remember, but always ended in fire and pain. She had almost made up her mind to remain in the cabin and hope to manage some rest at least when the ship came to a sudden halt with a terrible grinding noise.

The princess was on her feet in an instant, hurrying out of her door and bumping straight into Ty Lee. "What's going on?" Azula demanded. "Did we run aground?"

"No," Ty Lee said, looking bewildered. "A wall of ice just shot up out of the sea and trapped us. I was just coming to get you."

"Ice?" Azula asked. "We're still too far south for that much ice- and this is a ship full of firebenders. Why do we need to worry about ice?"

"I don't know!" Ty Lee said. "You know a lot more about fire than I do. I just know that there's a lot of ice out there that wasn't there a few minutes ago."

"Which means," Azula muttered, "that either we're experiencing the strangest weather since the Sun and Ocean spirits dueled to see whose element was stronger- or there's a master waterbender out there."

The princess knew which of those two theories was by far the more likely. Seizing Ty Lee by the wrist, she hurried up onto the deck.

Ty Lee's description of a "wall" of ice turned out to be exaggerated- there was certainly an unusually large ice flow that had wrapped itself around the front of the ship, but it would have been an easy matter for the ship's firebenders to melt it off- were it not for the fact that the ice kept replenishing itself. Captain Shin stood near the working benders, his spyglass up and staring towards the south.

"What is it, Captain?" Azula asked.

Shin lowered his spyglass, his expression grim. "There's a ship out there," he said, "that doesn't match any design I know, and isn't flying the colors of any known nation. It's heading this way."

"Pirates!" Ty Lee said. "That must be who you thought was following us, Azula. It wasn't the Dai Li at all! You know, I always wanted to meet a pirate. They sounded so exciting."

"Oh, they're exciting all right," Shin said sourly. "And on the seas, exciting is never a good thing." He turned to the crew. "Leave off that ice, men!" he shouted. "Prepare for boarders."

The pirate ship was in sight now, and Azula could make out the figures lining its rigging, shouting and waving their weapons. One man who looked almost dignified stood back- obviously the captain, though Azula's naturally suspicious mind wouldn't rule out a decoy- and beside him was a younger man in bright blue, raising and lowering his hands in time with the rising ice. "I see you, waterbender," the princess hissed.

Water and fire were natural opposites in the elemental cycle, and on a personal level Azula nursed a particular enmity for them- Katara, the Avatar's spirits-cursed girlfriend, had thwarted her on at least two major occasions, and the princess wasn't one to forgive easily. She doubted the man on the pirate ship had the same raw power- much as Azula hated to admit it, Katara was a prodigy with water every bit as much as she herself was with fire- but he was almost certainly more experienced, and had much more water at his disposal than the peasant girl ever had during their encounters. This ought to prove very interesting.

"Ty Lee," Azula hissed, "when the ship gets close enough, I want you to get over there and take that waterbender out."

The acrobat stretched. "I'm on it, Azula." She leapt lightly up onto the rail, and as the pirate ship moved to pull alongside the Fire Nation vessel, she jumped across.

A shout of surprise went up from the pirates as Ty Lee landed lightly on their rigging. She shot them all a dazzling smile and immediately began leaping and twisting in a way that would put one of the Air Nomads' winged lemurs to shame, dodging pirate weapons and making for their waterbender. Every so often one of the enemy crew would get in her way- a few quick jabs later and he would be collapsed to the deck, wondering numbly why his arms had stopped working, and Ty Lee continued on her way.

If the waterbender noticed his crewmates' fall, he gave no sign of it, continuing to pull at the ice with a dreamy expression on his face. Ty Lee landed in front of him and prepared to make her chi-blocking jabs, when he suddenly opened his eyes wide and made a slightly different motion with his hands. Water coated the pirate ship's deck, and at the waterbender's command it rose up and wrapped around Ty Lee's legs, encasing her in ice to the knees.

"Hey!" she said. "No fair!"

"Silly girl," the waterbender replied, "word of advice- never fight a waterbender at sea. It won't end well." He jumped back and gave a mighty two-handed pull, and the ice encasing the Fire Nation vessel's prow shot forward, creating a bridge between the two ships.

The pirates hurried across, but firebenders were waiting for them. Shin and his crew hadn't attacked earlier out of fear of hitting Ty Lee, but now they unleashed all their power. The ice-bridge melted and fell into the sea, and many pirates were forced back, shrieking in pain and nursing fresh burns. Still, the pirates greatly outnumbered the Fire Nation crew, and wielding grappling hooks they quickly swarmed aboard.

Azula found herself facing four of the pirates- outnumbered, but hardly outmatched. These men were good for what they were- brawlers and thugs- but they just didn't have the formal training to match against a firebender of the royal house. Several of them were forced back, glaring and cursing, and Azula smiled and let blue flame play along her hands. "That's right," she hissed, "be afraid. You haven't seen anything yet."

Suddenly her hands were pulled tightly against her sides and Azula stumbled back. A pirate had snuck up behind her and wrapped her in a steel chain. With her arms pinned she couldn't direct her bending, and the man had positioned her chains so that they didn't touch bare skin. She couldn't even heat the metal without burning her shirt off, something the proud princess had no intention of doing in present company. Azula cursed herself for a fool- confidence was well and good, but cockiness was a fatal weakness.

The ice-bridge reformed and the pirate captain came across, his waterbender by his side, dragging a now fully icebound Ty Lee. They stopped in the center of the ship's deck and faced the pirate crew, who now held Captain Shin and his firebenders as well, Shin himself sporting a nasty bruise on his forehead.

"Now then," the pirate began, "my name is Captain Shang, and I hope that we can do business in a civilized fashion. You can simply tell me what your cargo is and allow my crew to offload it, and then you can go free to the Fire Nation or wherever. Deal?"

"We don't have any cargo," Shin spat. "And we wouldn't give it to you if we did."

Captain Shang grinned unpleasantly. "Well then, we have a problem." He stalked down the line of prisoners, stopping at Azula and giving what he apparently thought was a charming smirk. "And who might this lovely young lady be?"

Azula tossed her head proudly. "I am Azula, princess of the Fire Nation, and if you order your men to unhand me now, I promise that I'll let you go- mostly intact, if I'm feeling generous."

The pirate captain laughed. "Really, girl, you're in no position to be making demands, even if you are who you say you are, which I doubt." He leaned in close. "Of course, that doesn't mean you can't be… useful to me." His expression now was an undisguised leer.

"You wish," Azula whispered, and then she drew and deep breath and expelled from her throat not air but blue flames, catching the captain straight in the face. Shang stumbled back, beating the flames off frantically until the waterbender called a small wave over the side and doused them.

Captain Shang's face was a burned mess, and he glared at Azula with murder in his eyes. "You'll want me to see to that right away, sir," the waterbender said. "Healing isn't my specialty, but it's still better than nothing."

"You're going to pay for that, girlie," the pirate captain rasped. "Ilook! Get rid of her, now."

The waterbender- Ilook, apparently- stepped forward, that dreamy grin slipping across his face. "With pleasure," he said softly, and the pirates holding Azula stepped back. Before the princess could even attempt to escape, however, Ilook pulled his hands back and a wave crashed over the side of the deck, wrapping itself around Azula and freezing her solid. The waterbending pirate's smiled widened, and he made a pushing motion. Ice, chains, and princess were sent hurtling over the edge.

Azula was trapped by the ice and weighted down by the chains. She could do nothing but curse helplessly as she struck the water and was swallowed by cold darkness. The last thing she heard as seawater closed over her head was Ty Lee's scream and Captain Shang's bitter laughter.

///

How can we have a sea voyage without pirates? Most of these characters aren’t very important in the long run, mostly being there to provide an action scene to spice up the journey a bit, but Ilook is going to have more to do further down the line. More about him next chapter.

Azula is hardly at her top form here, considering all the distractions going on her life, and she pays the price for it (though she does get to burn most of Shang’s face off – the natural consequences of underestimating a firebender), Still, this is the Azula Trilogy, after all, and don’t worry that I’m killing off the title character with a fic-and-a-half to go. The Fire Princess isn’t out of the game yet, and she’s not a good enemy to have…

-MasterGhandalf

 

Chapter 11: Fire and Ice

Long Feng scowled as he lowered his spyglass. "It appears," he said to the Dai Li agent standing on the deck next to him, "that we have a problem."

"What is it, sir?" the Dai Li asked. "Has the princess's ship discovered us?"

"No," Long Feng said. "Though I am certain that Azula is aware of the possibility that she is being followed. Our difficulty now is that her ship is already under attack from another party- a group of pirates, from the look of their ship. It would appear that the princess's crew is losing rather badly."

"I'm sorry, sir," the agent said, "but I don't see the problem. Wouldn't it save us effort simply to allow the pirates to kill Azula for us?"

Long Feng scowled again. "You fail to understand why I brought us out here in the first place. Azula is leading us right to her mother, who will be our bargaining chip back into power. Having revenge against her personally is a happy side benefit, nothing more. If we allow the pirates to kill her, we lose the trail- and if we step in to aid her, we alert her to our presence."

"I see, sir," the agent said, nodding in apparent understanding. "What are your orders?"

Long Feng looked out again at the battling ships. Before he could speak, however, he felt the air rustle at his side. Turning, he saw Wei Ming standing between him and the Dai Li agent, who stared in open-mouthed shock for a moment then dropped into a combat stance, stone hands at the ready.

"At ease," the former Grand Secretariat said. "This is Wei Ming. She isn't a threat to us- she's here on my invitation." Long Feng turned to the cloaked girl. "Now then, you will explain to me what you're doing on deck in broad daylight, frightening my crew. The Dai Li are elite warriors, girl- startle one again without me there to save you, and it may well be the last thing you do."

"Oh, I'm well aware of what your agents can do, Long Feng," Wei Ming said, a bitterly ironic twist to her voice. "But that's not the point right now. I only caught the end of your conversation here- tell me what the difficulty with Azula is, now."

"You will not speak to Minister Long Feng in that tone-" the agent began, but Long Feng held up a hand to silence him.

"It appears that Azula's ship is under attack by pirates," he said simply.

"What?" Wei Ming snarled. Seizing the spyglass, she held it up to study the scene herself. "No! Azula is mine!"

"In which case I hope you have a plan for making sure of that," Long Feng said.

Wei Ming bared her teeth in a strikingly feral expression, then grabbed the clasp of her cloak and undid it, pulling the concealing outer garment off. Beneath it she wore a tunic and pants of the same dark, shimmering material, with her pair of knives sheathed at the waist, and between that, her chalk-white skin, violet eyes, and the perpetual shadows that clung to her, she somehow looked even more uncanny uncloaked than concealed.

"Do not lose this," she said sharply, shoving her cloak into the startled Dai Li agent's hands. Then she leaped up onto the ship's prow and with a fluid grace dove into the sea.

"Should we stop her, sir?" the Dai Li asked.

"No," Long Feng said quietly. "Let's see what she can do."

///

She sank into the dark water, dragged downwards by the heavy chains and the will of the waterbender Ilook. Chains and ice bound her hands and feet, not permitting her the movement needed for any kind of advanced bending. It would almost be easier, part of her thought, to simply stop struggling, to let go of the pain and anger and fear that drove her and simply let the seawater end it.

But there was a core of strength inside her that would not die- that indomitable will that characterized every member of the Fire Nation royal house to a greater or lesser degree, the refusal to give up until every possible option had been exhausted. Too there was her royal pride- she knew full well that she would die someday, but it would not be here, not at the hands of a crew of common pirates and their tame waterbender.

Her chains were too tight for advanced bending- but she didn't need anything fancy now- just power. And she'd always had plenty of power to spare, fueled by ambition and pride and the determination to be the best at whatever she put her mind to. She called on that reserve of emotion now, and the water around her hands and feet began to boil.

I am Azula, she thought, daughter of Ozai and Ursa, princess of the Fire Nation and the youngest master firebender in the world. I will not die!

///

Ty Lee's hands and feet were starting to go numb. She'd decided that she didn't like being encased in ice up to her neck very much at all shortly after the pirate waterbender had frozen her- sure, it was a novelty for a few moments, but the fact that she was bitterly cold and couldn't move really took the fun out of it. She could only imagine what Azula was feeling right now, not only iced but chained, and being dragged down to the bottom of the sea…

The Fire Nation crew was being held in the center of the deck, surrounded on all sides by pirate guards, though Captain Shin still seemed defiant. Other pirates had gone below to search the ship, sometimes coming up with food or someone's personal possessions. Ty Lee had to resist the urge to shout at one pirate who was swinging her Kyoshi Warrior sword and fan around with every indication he had no idea whatsoever how to use either. Ty Lee didn't particularly like either of the things herself, but still, they deserved a bit more respect- and that guy looked like he was going to cut himself any minute.

Captain Shang stood off to one side, Ilook the waterbender going over his ruined face with wet, faintly glowing hands. The pirate captain's burns were healing somewhat under Ilook's ministrations, though it looked like he was going to be horribly scarred for the rest of his life. Finally Shang waved the waterbender away and stepped towards his prisoners.

"We've taken enough time here, men," he said. "Load what you've got onto the ship- there's nothing of real value here."

"What about the crew?" Ilook asked. "Are we going to leave them drifting here, or would you prefer a more… permanent solution."

Shang looked down at Shin. "I'll give you firebenders a choice- come sail with me, and I'll let you go. You people make good enough fighters that I can't just pass you up. But don't think I'm doing this out of the kindness of my heart- if you won't join me, then you can join that girl in the depths."

Shin stared at the pirate for several moments, then spat. "Then you choose your own fate," Shang snarled. "Ilook! Throw them overboard."

The waterbender didn't respond- he was staring out at the sea. "Ilook!" Shang repeated, "are you even listening to me?"

Now Ty Lee followed the waterbender's gaze, and she saw that the sea was boiling. The acrobat knew what was about to happen, and she braced herself. She wouldn't want to be in the position Shang and his crew were about to be in at all.

The water boiled more intensely, and then seemed to explode. A figure shot up out of the depths, wreathed in steam and shooting jets of flame from hands and feet. Ty Lee had seen Azula use those jets before, but the concentration to maintain them while chained up underwater must have been enormous. She hovered in midair for a moment and then dropped to the deck, her wet, disheveled hair and curtain of steam giving her the look of some feral spirit. Azula appeared to have managed to have worked her hands free of the chain, and it slipped to the deck and pooled around her feet.

"Azula!" Ty Lee called. "You're alive!"

"Impossible," Captain Shang breathed, but at his side Ilook smiled his dreamy smile.

"This ought to be interesting," the waterbender murmured, and something in his voice struck Ty Lee as profoundly eerie. They said that Azula was insane- the acrobat had heard stories about her rather spectacular breakdown on the day of the Comet- but there seemed to be something about this man that was perhaps less noticeable, but every bit as wrong. Ty Lee shivered, but this time it wasn't from the cold.

"Interesting!" Shang barked at Ilook. "Are you out of your mind! You saw how powerful she is." He turned back to look at Azula, who stood perfectly still on the deck. "Well? What are you waiting for?"

"Captain Shang," Azula said with a faint smile of her own, "it's your move."

///

Wei Ming slipped aboard the pirate vessel at the same time as Azula landed on board the Fire Nation ship amidst steam and fire. Excellent- that meant that the princess would most likely survive this- Wei Ming had no doubt that she could make quick work of the pirates given a fair fight. The shadow’s plans still required Azula alive – for now. The brutes had still tried to steal her prey, however, and for that they were going to be punished.

She slipped quietly along the deck, coming to the entrance to the hold. A pirate stood guard there, apparently not high-ranking enough to get a first shot at any loot. He was young and bored looking, staring off at the other ship with an expression that clearly said he wanted to get in on the action. He never saw the knife that killed him.

Wei Ming opened the door quietly and passed through the crew's quarters and into the pirate ship's cargo hold. Treasure and exotic weaponry lined the walls, but the shadow-girl paid them no mind. Her attention was focused on a pair of unremarkable wooden barrels near the back. Wei Ming padded silently over to them and lifted the lid of one, sniffing the colorless goop inside. She smiled. Trust pirates to have a good supply of blasting jelly on hand. A dangerous thing to have on a ship, but then, people like this always liked to play with volatile toys. Wei Ming had never sailed on a ship, had never met a pirate before today; she couldn’t have said how she knew these things, but knew them she did.

A quick search through the supplies revealed a pair of spark stones for firestarting. Wei Ming hurried back over to the blasting jelly and dumped one of the barrels over, then stuck her hand in it and drew a thin line of it leading towards the hold door. When this was completed, she knelt by the end of her jelly-line and rubbed the spark stones together, igniting a small blaze that began to travel towards the two barrels.

Nodding to herself, satisfied that the pirate ship had only a short time to live, Wei Ming slipped away and hurried from the ship. She had no desire to be caught in the impending explosion.

///

Azula studied Captain Shang and his men, taking in the fear and anger on their faces as they clutched their weapons, torn between their fear of her and their fear of their captain. Only Ilook seemed calm, but he also showed no inclination towards immediate attack. That was fine by Azula- she would take out the ordinary pirates, and then duel the waterbender who'd nearly killed her. Her own crew seemed anxious for the battle to start- presumably sick of being held captive and waiting for a chance to overpower their guards. Ty Lee, of course, looked about as happy as a person frozen up to her neck in ice could be.

Finally one of the pirates roared a battle-cry and lunged for Azula, raising a sword that looked like it could serve equally well as a meat cleaver. The princess neatly sidestepped his charge and seized his wrist, twisting it in such a way that he was forced to drop his sword, moaning in pain. After a blow to the stomach and another to a more sensitive region, he collapsed to the deck in a heap.

"That was pathetic," Azula said. "Please tell me the rest of your men can do better, Shang. I didn't even need to use bending!"

"We took her once, and we can do it again!" the pirate captain shouted. "Come on, men- get her!"

The pirates came at Azula in a rush, but in their haste they forgot their prisoners. Captain Shin gave a tight nod to his men, and as one they leaped to their feet and attacked their captors. The battle turned into a general melee, but this time the firebenders had the element of surprise. Fire flashed across the deck, and pirates crumpled, unconscious or dead, or else dove over the side to douse flames that clung to them.

Blue fire flashed from Azula's feet and fists, striking opponent after opponent. Some of the pirates fell back, unable to continue fighting while the clothing and hair burned, but others were able to dodge or else were simply so tough that they powered on through the pain. A few more well-timed fireblasts took down some of these, and then it was hand-to-hand. Azula twisted, punched, and kicked, disarming her opponents and then sending them painfully to their knees, when someone seized her from behind. A huge pirate lifted her into the air, and pulled out a serrated dagger.

"End of the line, your highness," he snarled, when a blast of red fire struck him in the back of the head. He collapsed, screaming, and as Azula dropped to the deck she twisted to face her rescuer- Captain Shin.

"I had everything under control," she snapped.

"Of course you did," Shin replied. "I just thought you might appreciate a little help."

Azula said nothing, but turned back to the fight. Captain Shang was approaching, a drawn sword in hand.

"You may be a great bender, girl," he said, "but you can't beat me. I've been a pirate for more than thirty years, and I've yet to meet the fighter who could match me sword to sword. Give up now, and I'll kill you quickly. Fight, and I'll make it slow." A horrible smile spread across his burned face, and he brought his sword up to attack.

Azula dropped into a crouch and began pulling her hands through familiar motions, feeling the energy coursing through them. As Shang lunged at her she shot a hand out and lightning flashed. Captain Shang fell dead to the deck, still smoldering.

"You talked too long," she said. "If you'd just fought, I wouldn't have had time to charge up. Oh, well. Your loss." Azula gave the pirate's body a kick. "Could somebody pitch this overboard?"

Two of Shin's men rushed to do so, while those pirates who still fought threw down their weapons. Ilook, though, stood still with that eerie smile on his face, applauding slowly.

"I do believe you are Princess Azula," he said. "That ought to make this a challenge." His grin became wolfish and he raised his hands, seawater surging around them and forming into a pair of sharp-clawed gloves.

"We'll take him for you, princess," Captain Shin said softly. "You don't need to fight any more."

"No," Azula replied, "this is my fight." She stepped towards Ilook and the two benders began to circle each other, hands raised. Ty Lee watched the fight with a worried, anxious expression even while she was being thawed out, but Azula paid her little attention. Her entire will was focused on the waterbender before her.

"You like ice, don't you?" she said, nodding at the frozen claws. It was a weak taunt, but it was about all she knew about the man- if she could get him to talk, he might reveal a weakness.

"I do, actually," Ilook said. "It's cold and sharp and… pure." He laughed quietly. "Oh, I've heard all about you, Azula. The conquest of Ba Sing Se by three teenage girls is the stuff of legends. I’ve heard you like to play with people's minds, discover their weaknesses and undermine their confidence. They say that’s what you did to the man who controlled the Earth King. But that won't work on me. I know exactly what I am- the crazy one, the freak, the kid who practiced his waterbending by freezing small animals to death. I was kicked out of the Northern Water Tribe when old Pakku found out what I was doing with his teachings, and I've been a mercenary ever since. And guess what? I don't care."

"Then I'll just have to beat you the old fashioned way." Azula leaped into the air and brought her feet down as she dropped, shooting a blast of fire straight at Ilook. He dodged and extended one of his hands, the icy talons detaching and shooting at the princess like small, deadly arrows. Another burst of fire and they melted, but the water she herself had dripped onto the ship's deck shot up and wrapped around her feet, freezing her in place the same way Ty Lee had been.

"Poor little firebender," Ilook crooned. "It must get so uncomfortable having a fire burning inside you all the time. Here- let me help you cool off." He raised his hands and blew cold air from his mouth, and Azula felt herself freezing. She was still wet from her dunking in the sea, and now Ilook was turning all of that water into ice. Could he freeze her blood, too, and kill her that way? She didn't know, but she had no intention of finding out.

Azula could still move her hands, so she brought them down and ignited a pair of blazing jets. With incredible force she blasted free of the ice and shot straight towards the waterbender. Ilook's eyes widened in shock as Azula brought her feet up and slammed them straight into his chest, sending him stumbling backwards. Righting himself, he called up a whip of water from the sea, but Azula blasted it into steam almost contemptuously.

"I appear to be outmatched," Ilook grunted. "You're good, princess- I'll give you that. Maybe we can battle again someday, on a field of my choosing. For now, though, good-bye." Without looking behind him, Ilook jumped lightly off the ship. The sea rose up and caught him, and with a final mocking wave he was born away on the waves. Azula fired several fireblasts after him, but he was able to dodge quickly enough that hitting him was impossible. Sighing, she gave up and the waterbender vanished from sight.

Ty Lee, free of the ice, hurried over and wrapped Azula in an embrace. "You're alive!" she said. "I was so worried about you. And the way you took out those pirates- it was incredible!"

"I'm glad to be alive too," Azula said, extracting herself from the acrobat's embrace and going over to stand by Captain Shin, who was overseeing his crew collecting the pirates' weapons. "What are you going to do with them?" In the princess's opinion a summary execution of the whole crew would do quite nicely, but she doubted Shin would agree.

"We're locking them in the brig," he said. "Next time we put in at port, we'll hand them over to Earth Kingdom authorities."

"What about their ship? It seems a waste to leave it here."

At that moment a shadowy figure slipped across the deck of the pirate ship and out of sight over the edge. Azula's eyes widened- surely that was the same shadow-girl she'd confronted on the Capital's docks!- and then the pirate ship was rocked by a loud blast. It was forced away from the Fire Nation ship and the ice-bridge was sent spilling into the ocean, and a huge hole had been blasted in its side. Water rushed in, and the ship began to sink. Moans of despair rose from the captured crew.

Ty Lee stared open-mouthed. "Whoa," she breathed. "What could've done that?"

"Blasting jelly," Shin said with an air of professional knowledge. "The real question is- who set it off? It doesn't go up like that on its own, and I doubt the pirates were foolish enough to arm it before coming over here." Both turned to look at Azula, and she realized that neither of them had seen that figure who she now knew had haunted her steps from the moment she left the Fire Nation.

"I don't know," the princess said, but as with so many things she had said during her life, it was a lie.

///

Azula triumphs! Those pirates really didn’t understand who it was they were dealing with, especially when her near-death experience drove the Fire Princess to give the battle her all. Captain Shang’s death was deliberately anticlimactic; as she did with Aang, Azula took advantage of her foe’s taking their time to land a fatal blow, but nobody is going to be willing to do for Shang what Katara did for Aang. The real test was escaping from the sea; some of my early readers wondered what Azula did there – basically, she used her firebending to release a massive blast of concussive force, shooting the water away from her and managing to break some of the links on the chains. She was then able to jet herself to the surface and shed what was left of the chains when she landed on the ship.

Ilook is a psychopath, of course. I’ve mentioned previously that the Trilogy’s villains are meant as reflections of Azula herself; Ilook has her cruelty and capacity for violence absence her intelligence and self-control. He works as a mercenary to satisfy his desire to do violence and get paid for it at the same time, but really, all he cares about is himself and his own twisted entertainments. As a waterbender, he’s talented, cunning, and ruthless, if a bit reckless and undisciplined; he’s got some nasty tricks up his sleeves, but never got the chance to use them here, as he realized he’d been backed into a situation he couldn’t win. We’ll be seeing him again, though not in this fic – he’ll have a bigger role in the concluding volume, Soul of Fire.

And of course, Azula always lies, in this case about the true identity and nature of the enemy. She doesn’t really know who or what Wei Ming is, but she knows more than anyone else at the moment, and fears revealing that knowledge might cost her the mission. As for Wei Ming herself, she still wants Azula alive, for the moment. But, as should be becoming increasingly apparent, there’s even more to our shadow than what she appears…

-MasterGhandalf

 

Chapter 12: Challenges

The sun slid down towards the horizon, and Ursa turned towards her door, waiting for Jian Chin to come. True to schedule, the door opened, but this time the warlord himself was not present. Two of his soldiers stood there, one of them wearing an elaborately patterned cape. Ursa had seen this particular man before and knew he was one of Jian Chin's officers; they had never spoken, but she knew his name was Xang.

"My Lady," Xang said, "my lord Jian Chin requests your presence on the tower this evening."

"Does he," Ursa murmured. "And if I refuse?"

"Jian Chin will not be refused in this house."

"Very well." Ursa sighed and stood. "Lead me to him."

The two soldiers marched the Fire Nation noblewoman through the crumbling halls of the castle that Jian Chin's ancestors had claimed for their own. Paintings and decorations were hung haphazardly, but they could do little to conceal the fact that the fortress was old and decrepit. Compared to the grand palaces in Ba Sing Se and the Fire Nation capital it was a joke, and made its master look like a fool for believing he could conquer either.

They came out atop the fortress's tower, where Jian Chin was prone to standing and looking towards the west and the lands he dreamed of ruling. Now the warlord sat by a table that had been set with candles and a meal- hardly special compared to what Ursa had once been used to but far superior to the food she'd been eating for the past several years, and she could feel her stomach rumbling involuntarily.

"I hoped that you might enjoy getting out of your room for one night," Jian Chin said, sounding oddly hesitant. It was all Ursa could do to keep from either rolling her eyes, bursting into laughter, or sobbing hysterically- or perhaps all three at once. What was it about her that led to every power-mad tyrant she met ending up attracted to her (or, in the case of Fire Lord Azulon, seeking to marry her to his son)? "Will you join me for dinner?" The warlord continued.

Ursa focused and put on the mask of cool politeness one perfected in the Fire Lord's court. "I would be honored," she said in a tone that showed she meant no such thing but would join him anyway. Xang motioned to the other soldier, and the man hurried forward and pulled back a chair, which Ursa sat down in with regal grace. Jian Chin's eyes never left her.

"Leave us," the warlord ordered his men after Ursa was seated. Both bowed to their master and departed. Though she was quite hungry, when Ursa began eating she made certain to do so with stiff formality, never meeting Jian Chin's eyes. She didn't enjoy the man's company enough to make him want this to be a regular occurrence. Across the table, Jian Chin was eating with all the grace and culture of a wild hogmonkey. Another reason not to look- Ursa didn't want to spoil her own appetite.

Finally, as the moon was beginning to rise, the warlord spoke. "You are beautiful in the moonlight, Lady Ursa."

"Save your flattery," Ursa said. "I know what you are, and I've done my best to make it clear to you that I'm not attracted to you on any level. Why do you insist on this farce?"

Jian Chin stood and began to pace. "I have a vision," he said, "of an Earth Kingdom united under a single ruler- not like it is now, with cities that do whatever they want and an Earth King who is a toothless symbol, but truly united. Then it can pool its resources and become the greatest civilization in the world, and whoever accomplished it would go down in history as one of the great heroes of all time." He turned to look directly at Ursa. "I intend to be that hero."

"And you think that by marrying Fire Lord Ozai's former wife you will get respect and glory that will help you become the greatest leader in the Earth Kingdom," Ursa finished, having heard this speech before. "But that is what I don't understand. My husband was a monster- the entire world hates him. Why do you think that associating yourself with him will do you any good?"

Jian Chin paused and adjusted his crown. "Because you can admire Ozai's achievements even while hating him. Whatever else he was, he came within inches of dominating this world- what conqueror wouldn't want to be associated with that kind of power and drive?"

"There was nothing about Ozai worth admiring," Ursa said stiffly. "And if glory's all you care about, why not simply force me?"

"Because you must come to me of your own free will," Jian Chin said. "That is what will prove that I am a leader as strong and powerful as the Fire Lord himself. And, I must admit, I admire your resistance. You are a challenge, Ursa, and all great warriors enjoy challenges." His eyes grew hard. "But if you resist me much longer, I may lose my patience." He stamped one foot on the floor, and the fortress rumbled with his power. Jian Chin was not a truly skilled bender- he lacked the discipline and patience for that- but his raw power was tremendous. It was why his people still served him, even though for the most part they hated him.

Ursa looked at the warlord briefly after the ground quieted, her expression impassive. Tremendous his power might be, but she had dealt with tremendous power before, and he was not the only dangerous person who sat at this table tonight. Perhaps he needed a reminder of that fact. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply in and out. The candles on the table flared brightly and then their flames shot into the sky, and Jian Chin stumbled back in shock. Ursa rose to her feet and stood, framed by fire – a suitable image indeed. "I may not be the warrior you are, Jian Chin,” Ursa said, "but the noblewomen of the Fire Nation are not helpless fainting flowers, whatever you might think. If you try to harm me, I will fight back, and it will not go easily for you."

The flames died down, and Jian Chin stepped forward again. "A challenge," he repeated softly to himself. Then he called for his soldiers and ordered them to escort Ursa away.

///

Azula didn't know the name of the Earth Kingdom port where her ship had put in, and she didn't particularly care. It was exactly like any number of places along the coast of any nation- a medium-sized town that had sprung up around a natural harbor and become a nexus for all manner of travelers and merchants. They had docked here in the early evening the day after the pirate attack, and now Captain Shin and his soldiers were unloading the prisoners and handing them over to the local authorities.

"We've been after this crew for a while," the Earth Kingdom commander said. "Captain Shang and his men have been causing us a lot of trouble. I can honestly say this is the first time in my life I've been thankful to see a Fire Navy ship."

"Don't thank me, Commander," Shin said, and gestured towards Azula. "It was the princess who killed Shang and defeated his waterbender. The rest of us just helped."

"Princess?" The commander's eyes widened and he stared at Azula, seeming to realize exactly who she was. He blinked rapidly several times, and then hurried off to join his men rather faster than politeness allowed.

"Why did you do that?" Azula demanded when he was gone.

"I thought that you appreciated being known and feared?" Shin replied.

"You potentially jeopardized this mission. I'm trying to keep a low profile, Captain. People in the Earth Kingdom hate me because of what happened in Ba Sing Se. If it becomes common knowledge that I'm on board this ship, I doubt things would turn out well."

Shin snorted. "I have a copy of my orders back in my cabin, complete with your brother's signature. No one can threaten this ship without causing an international incident."

"That still doesn't answer why." Azula's eyes bored into the captain's. "Tell me. Now."

"Maybe I was just curious to see how he'd react." Shin paused for a moment. "Or maybe I wanted to see how you'd react."

"His fear was an appropriate reaction," Azula mused, almost to herself. "I am royalty, and was until recently his nation's enemy. He should be frightened of me."

Shin shook his head. "Must be hard, going through life hoping everyone's afraid of you."

"Spare me. You're an officer- surely you've used fear to get your men to obey you at least once."

"I do my best to lead through respect, princess. My men follow me because they know I'm a competent leader and a good soldier, and that I wouldn't risk their lives needlessly." He looked at her intently. "The problem with fear is that it leads to hate, and sooner or later everybody else realizes there's more of them than there is of you, and well- that's the end of it."

"You understand nothing," Azula snapped, and she turned and stalked across the deck, heading for her cabin.

///

Later that evening, Ty Lee was lying on her back on her bed, staring up at her cabin's ceiling, when the screaming started. The acrobat sat bolt upright and listened intently. There could be no mistake- that sounded like Azula!

In an instant Ty Lee was on her feet and hurrying to the cabin next to hers. She didn't know what was going on, but she did know that she'd never heard Azula make any kind of sound like that before- whatever was happening, it wasn't good. She pulled open the door and hurried inside.

Azula was tossing and turning on her bed, her eyes tightly closed. She'd stopped screaming now, but whatever nightmare had her in its grip wouldn't let her go. She was moaning incoherently and every so often mumbled something that Ty Lee couldn't make out. The acrobat didn't know what to do. On the one hand, this wasn't exactly something she could fight, and Azula wasn't even awake to talk out her problem (nor was she likely to do so truthfully in front of another person under any circumstances). But Ty Lee was basically a kindhearted person, when push came to shove, and Azula was clearly in distress.

"Shh, shhh," Ty Lee said softly, walking towards Azula and reaching out to pat her hand softly. "It's okay. There's nothing to be afraid of."

Azula's hand twisted around and seized Ty Lee's wrist. Her eyes were open now, but they were vacant and staring- it was obvious that whatever she was seeing, it wasn't what was happening in the cabin. Before Ty Lee could react, Azula hurled her away from the bed and back against the wall before collapsing again.

"Yikes," Ty Lee muttered. "What was that for? I was just trying to help!" Azula's only response was to curl up tightly and continue making pained noises. "I guess you thought I was trying to hurt you, huh. Well, I won't try that again, but maybe if I just sit here so that if you do need help I'll be here you won't mind." Ty Lee sat down with legs crossed by the foot of Azula's bed.

"I think lots of people wonder why I stayed with you when I could have just run away and forgotten all about you," the acrobat said softly. "Everybody thinks you're cruel, and you use people, and I guess they're right. But seeing you like you are right now or like I heard you were after Zuko beat you- it's just sad, and it hurts that something like that could happen to someone. I know you don't think about things like friendship a lot, but it matters to me, if you understand what I mean." Ty Lee hung her head. "I guess I'm kind of out of practice being serious- you know I don't do it a lot. But what I'm trying to say is- I just want to help."

Ty Lee fell silent and sat there for Spirits-only-knew how long, until finally she gave a great yawn and her head fell forward into her lap.

///

When Ty Lee woke up, Azula was crouched in front of her. The acrobat started for a moment, then leapt to her feet. "Azula, you're awake!" she said happily.

"You stayed here all night?" The princess asked, her tone disbelieving. "I saw you here, but I thought it was just another hallucination."

"Well, yeah," Ty Lee admitted sheepishly. "I mean, you sounded like something was really wrong, and I couldn't do anything about it, but I guess I just couldn't leave you."

Azula studied the acrobat intently, her eyes filled with some emotion she didn't seem to understand how to show. Really, for someone so smart about other people, it was amazing how little the princess really understood about expressing emotions herself. Finally she leaned in close and said "Never speak of this to anyone again," in a tone that brooked no argument, and left the room.

Ty Lee sighed. "You're welcome," she murmured, and hurried out on deck to practice her acrobatics.

///

This chapter we get a chance to check back in with Ursa and Jian Chin. There’s a bit of dark comedy for me as a writer in terms of just how very unimpressed she is with him, and he’s too stubborn to admit or realize that fact. Jian Chin is the sort of person who really just doesn’t know how to give up, and he lacks the perspective to strategize effectively around problems that have him stumped. As for Ursa herself, I rewrote a few parts of this section to emphasize that she is a dangerous person in her own right – after all, this is the woman who killed* the monarch of the most powerful nation in the world and made it look like natural causes to protect her child. At the moment she’s still too guilty/apathetic to make much of an effort against her captor, but still, Jian Chin doesn’t fully appreciate who he’s been dealing with.

As for Azula’s side of the story, the bit with her and Ty Lee is a scene I’d had in mind since I knew I’d be bringing Ty Lee in for Path of Fire. I think it largely speaks for itself, but I think it showcases both the lingering torment in Azula’s mind and Ty Lee’s pity and desire for help; at the moment, I think Ty Lee is the only real friend Azula has. Of course, Azula still doesn’t want the knowledge of her “weakness” made public.

-MasterGhandalf

*So far as the show led us to believe. I consider “The Search’s” statement that Ursa merely made a poison that Ozai used to be a retcon; Ozai described her actions as “vicious” and “treasonous” in the show (he’s not really an objective source, but he is the only one we got), and what she did in the comics counts as the latter but not really the former, IMO. I’d always assumed Ursa had a more… direct role in Azulon’s death, and that’s what this fic went with.

 

Chapter 13: The Lawless Shores

Following the battle with the pirates, the remainder of the voyage passed without major incident. As the Fire Navy warship continued sailing around the northern edge of the Earth Kingdom, Azula spent the majority of her time practicing her firebending or standing near the prow, eyes fixed intently on the horizon. At night, her sleep remained troubled by nightmares that she couldn't remember, but that left her lying awake in a cold sweat, all possibility of rest lost.

It bothered Azula that she couldn't remember the dreams. Fear was a natural part of life, but the princess had never allowed any fear to rule her or even influence her actions - apart from the fear of failure, which she had always dealt with by the simple expedient of never failing. That something could disturb her on some primeval level and not even leave a memory of itself behind was itself disquieting. Azula had trained her mind ever since she was a child to be a precise tool for analyzing and solving any problem she might face, and there was nothing someone like her found more frustrating than an unknown factor.

Still, she was able to draw some measure of comfort from Ty Lee's loyalty, even if she had come to realize it was something she didn't fully understand. The only person to whom Azula had ever felt that kind of loyalty was her father, but that was different- Father was the single strongest influence on who she had become, and he was the ruler of her nation on top of that. She'd always expected absolute loyalty from others, of course, but that was the sort of thing one took for granted- she was royalty, and fully capable of using her firebending and cunning to enforce obedience if her birthright failed. Of course people were loyal to her. Mai and Ty Lee had been closer to Azula than most, true, but the principle had been the same.

When she'd gone to Kyoshi Island to retrieve the acrobat for her mission, she's expected that Ty Lee would go along with her- after all, she always had (with one notable and humiliating exception which Azula preferred not to think about). Since then, however, Ty Lee's determination to help the princess through her troubles had proven to go beyond mere loyalty to a deposed royal, even though she had shown just before Ba Sing Se that she was perfectly willing to challenge Azula if she felt the need. That was a newer development, one of which she was uncertain of its meaning. If it had been anyone else she would have expected an ulterior motive, but the notion of Ty Lee as a cunning schemer was laughable enough that even Azula's paranoid mind couldn't entertain it for long.

"It's called friendship, Azula," a calm voice said nearby. Azula turned her head and was not at all surprised to find her mother standing on the deck next to her. "Sometimes people are loyal to each other not because they want something or because they're afraid, but because they actually like each other."

"And what have I ever done to make people like me?" Azula asked darkly. "I was never in the business of being liked. That implies equality, and royalty have no equals. Everyone else should respect our power and fear it being turned against them. It is the natural order of things."

"Apparently Ty Lee disagrees," Ursa said. "She no longer fears you, yet seems determined to stand by your side nonetheless. Would you throw that away just because of your pride?"

Azula turned back to the ocean and stared into its depths. "No," she finally whispered. "During the last few weeks of the War I chased everyone who ever cared about me away, and then… you know what happened. You are what happened."

"Maybe Captain Shin is right," Ursa continued. "Maybe fear isn't the only reliable way to ensure loyalty. Maybe fear prevents true loyalty."

"Then where does loyalty come from?" Azula snarled. "Love? Father always said he was the only one who loved me, but then he abandoned me because he didn't want to share his glory with the one person who worked tirelessly to help him get it. In my experience love is just another way people manipulate each other. I'm better off without it, thanks."

"You only say that because you've never really learned what love is. You never let yourself. Azula, you've spent your whole life trapped in the destiny that your father set for you. Isn't it time now to think about what you want from life?"

Azula snorted. "Now you're just sounding like Uncle."

"Maybe Uncle was right, too."

"Uncle may be a great firebender, but he's a silly old fool who thinks more about tea and food than about his royal birthright. He told me where to look for you, but otherwise I really don't think his so called wisdom is worth considering."

"You don't believe that," Ursa said sadly.

"How do you know what I believe?" Azula demanded. "You're not my mother. You're just a shadow from the past- you don't even exist."

"I do exist, Azula, inside you. Everything I say comes from you, remember?" Ursa gave her daughter a final sad smile and faded away, leaving Azula standing alone in the prow. Looking back towards the main deck of the ship, the princess saw Ty Lee standing there, looking at her with concerned eyes.

"Azula?" the acrobat asked. "Who were you talking to? There's no one there!"

The princess turned to face her friend. "Nothing," she said. "Just a memory."

///

After several weeks of continuous sailing, the ship finally came within sight of its destination- a rugged, thickly wooded land with mountains rising up further inland. The shores were rough and rocky, and there was nothing resembling civilization in sight. It was a land vastly different from the orderly, efficient Fire Nation, but Azula could feel an air of brooding menace that hung over the place. Out here, her royal blood would count for nothing to any outlaw or petty lord she stumbled across- only be keeping her wits and firebending at their sharpest would she survive. Though the prospect of somewhere where royalty received little respect went against every aspect of Azula's beliefs, she nonetheless felt a slight thrill as she watched the coast go by. There was little that gave the princess as much satisfaction as facing a challenge and overcoming it.

Captain Shin joined her by the rail. "Are we close to our destination now?" she asked him without preamble.

"According to the information you received from General Iroh, yes," he said. "This coast is part of the place where your uncle indicated your mother was most likely being held. According to my map, there's a port a short ways down the coast- we should be able to put in there within the next day or so."

"Excellent." Azula looked out towards the lawless coast. "I'm coming, Mother," she whispered. "Then you'll see that I'm still in control. I know who I am." Shin looked at the princess quizzically, but knew better than to comment.

The next evening, the ship pulled around a rock formation that jutted out into the sea, and Azula had her first look at what passed for a port in this forsaken place. One glance was enough to confirm that while she was certain she had seen less pleasant places during her life, none were currently springing to mind. It somewhat resembled the port town where Shin had turned over the pirates to the Earth Kingdom authorities, but it was rather larger, built with no apparent sense of style or taste, and decidedly run down.

"That entire town looks like the Drill vomited slurry all over it!" Ty Lee said with a shudder as the ship moved into port. "Are you sure this is the right place, Azula?"

"I don't know if my mother is here or not," Azula replied, "but I do know that the kind of scum who live in places like this tend to know everything that happens around them, and are more than willing to give that information up, for a price. A Fire Nation noblewoman traveling alone is the kind of thing that would be noticed."

"Well, if you say so." Ty Lee stretched her arms and balanced on one foot, then the other. She wouldn't stay down for long, Azula knew. While Mai coped with the unforgiving life in a high Fire Nation noble family by shutting down almost all emotions, Ty Lee survived by always trying to find the bright spot in any situation.

As the ship pulled into the dock (no one challenged their arrival, and no officials or soldiers waited on the pier- port authority seemed nonexistent in this town), Captain Shin came to stand by Azula and Ty Lee. "I believe it would be best if I came with you both this time," he said. "These lands are dangerous, and I don't want to have to explain to your brother how I allowed you to be killed."

"Trust me, he won't care," Azula said. Shin ignored her.

"I'll bring two of my best firebenders with me," he continued. "The rest will remain here and guard the ship- if it gets stolen, we're walking back to the Fire Nation, something I don't think any of us wants."

"That's why you and your men will all be staying here," Azula said. "They may have noticed us in this port, but I will most likely travel further inland before I find my mother. Fire Nation soldiers in a place where even the Earth Kingdom doesn't have any real authority? You'd stand out in a heartbeat. I can't have you jeopardizing my mission."

"My men and I are quite capable of wearing clothing other than our uniforms, princess," Shin said evenly. "Besides, if you ran into serious trouble on your own, wouldn't you firebend to get out of it? I think blue flames would be as much of a giveaway as my soldiers."

Azula's eyes narrowed, her brain working furiously behind them. "I see it, now- you want to be with me when I find my mother, so that you can share in the honor and whatever rewards Zuzu will hand out when we get home. Well, I won't allow it! This mission is mine!"

"Azula, calm down!" Ty Lee said, but the princess ignored her, focusing entirely on the captain in front of her.

Shin stood very still, his eyes dark. "I have done my very best to help you in your mission, and have no desire to claim it for myself. If it would put your mind at ease I will of course remain with the ship, but I still recommend that you take two of my firebenders with you. You may, of course, feel free to disregard that advice if you so choose, princess."

Azula breathed deeply, in and out, allowing her anger to fade away. Like almost all firebenders the princess was an intensely emotional person, but she had learned long ago to channel her emotions into useful pursuits, rather than letting them dominate her. She certainly wasn't going to start letting the bizarre, unstable mood swings that had plagued her since coming out of the trance-like state she'd entered after her breakdown prevent her from practical considerations. "Very well," she finally said. "Send two of your best men with us. I can send one back to the ship for reinforcements in the unlikely event that I require more."

Shin nodded curtly. "As you say," he said, and then turned and left to select the men he would send with Azula.

///

The ship was tied up at the dock and lowered its ramp to the shore. Azula and Ty Lee stood at the top, the princess in the hooded cloak she had worn in Ba Sing Se, Ty Lee in Earth Kingdom green. Two grim-faced firebenders stood behind them, dressed as common laborers.

"Well, this is it, Azula," Ty Lee said. "We're gonna find your mom- I know it." She sniffed the air and winced. "I just wish we could've started looking somewhere that smelled a little better."

Captain Shin came forward. "Princess, Ty Lee," he said. "Good luck. Men- keep them safe."

"Aye, sir!" the firebenders saluted.

"Good-bye, everybody!" Ty Lee said loudly, waving to the ship at large. "We'll be back in a few days!"

"Come on, Ty Lee," Azula said. "Let's go." She nodded at Shin, who returned the gesture, and then the princess, the acrobat, and the two soldiers descended the gangplank and set foot on the shores of a land where no king ruled, and they hoped to find long-vanished royalty.

///

I feel like this chapter is mostly self-explanatory. We get a bit more focus on Azula’s lingering madness and inner conflict as she hallucinates her mother and nearly blows up at Shin, and the mission has arrived somewhere in the general vicinity of its destination, but for the most part this is one of those chapters that lay the groundwork for what is to come. Next time, Azula and Ty Lee search, but they aren’t the only ones interested…

-MasterGhandalf

 

Chapter 14: The Search

Long Feng stood on the deck of the Dai Li's vessel as it hung at anchor near the edge of the harbor where Azula's ship had put in. They would pull all the way in and dock in the port town the next morning, by which time the princess would be too distracted by her search to notice their presence until it was too late. For now, though, stealth was key.

A Dai Li agent with a spyglass in one hand hurried over and saluted his leader. "The princess and some of her crew have gone ashore, sir," he said.

"Could you tell who specifically went with her?"

"It looked like two ordinary soldiers dressed as civilians and the girl Ty Lee, sir," the agent said. "I wasn't able to get a closer look."

"You've done well," Long Feng replied. "You're dismissed." The agent hurried off, and the former Grand Secretariat turned to the shadows behind him. "You heard?"

Wei Ming stepped out of the darkness, a knife held loosely in one hand. "How did you know I was there?" she asked.

"I guessed," Long Feng replied. "You are skilled at hiding yourself, but you do have your habits."

She stalked over to the rail and stared out intently towards the town. "I'm going ashore," she said matter-of-factly. "Azula seeks her mother, and I will follow her. I'll report back to you when I have the information you'll need- and then we can move in for the kill." As she finished speaking Wei Ming smiled viciously, her eyes distant. In spite of himself, Long Feng found himself disquieted. He'd done terrible things during his life, of course- things that would have broken a lesser man- but it had all been for a cause: maintaining the stability and culture of Ba Sing Se at any cost. But he'd never taken the kind of pleasure in them that Wei Ming seemed to experience when contemplating her revenge. That level of emotion implied a lack of control he distrusted.

In that one aspect- enjoying the destruction of an enemy beyond all other pleasures- the shadow-girl and the Fire Princess were more alike than Long Feng imagined either would ever care to admit. And also like Azula, Wei Ming would someday prove a liability to the Dai Li- but this time he would make certain that his ally would not have the opportunity be a threat.

"Why do you hate Azula so much?" Long Feng asked calmly, phrasing the question as a casual question but not expected his companion to be fooled.

Wei Ming turned to face him, eyes narrowed. "What does it matter to you?"

"Curiosity. What could she have done to you that you would be willing to tack her across two continents for revenge?" That wasn't the whole truth, of course- as head of the Dai Li, Long Feng had learned quickly that information- getting the most complete picture of the facts yourself while controlling what others were allowed to know- was true power. He knew very little about Wei Ming, and asking her when her revenge was on the mind her defenses were relatively low seemed the most prudent way to learn. Either she would tell the truth or she would lie, and both could prove fruitful.

"Oh, it isn't anything she did, though she’s certainly done enough, by all accounts," Wei Ming said softly. "It's more the fact that she exists at all…" her voice trailed off and her eyes lost focus, as if she was reliving some terrible memory. Then her gaze snapped up again and fixed on Long Feng like violet fire. "But don't think this ends with Azula," she hissed. "There are others who have wronged me, and they will all pay in time." Then she turned and wrapped her cloak tightly about herself, merging with the shadows and disappearing. Long Feng would pay a fortune to learn how she did that.

When he was certain she was gone he raised his hand and two Dai Li came up from where they had been hiding. "What are your orders, sir?" the first of them asked.

"Go ashore," Long Feng ordered. "Follow Princess Azula and report her findings to me. If she leaves the town, inform me and I will follow a day or so behind. Do not lose her if you value your honor, your positions, and your lives. Her mother is our gateway back into power."

"What about Wei Ming, sir?" the second agent asked. "I don't mean to question you, but isn't she already doing this?"

Long Feng turned to the agent and scowled. Was the man really that dense? "Wei Ming has allowed bloodlust to affect her reasoning," he said. "I don't trust her not to simply kill Azula- or try to- on sight, and that is something I cannot permit. We'll let her have Azula after the princess has served her purpose, but that is where her own usefulness ends as well."

"If Wei Ming does attempt to kill the princess before we have our information?"

"Then do what you must." Long Feng nodded to them. "Now go." Both Dai Li bowed and hurried towards the shore, removing their bulky outer robes to reveal civilian clothing beneath. Agilely they leapt from the deck to the rocky shoreline and hurried off into the night. Long Feng watched them go, and breathed the night air deeply.

"Soon," he whispered.

///

Azula pushed the door to the seedy tavern open and stepped inside, nose wrinkling slightly at the smell that hit her. This place- this whole region- was highly unpleasant, but she'd never been some helpless fairytale princess who couldn't handle a little work to get what she wanted. She strode boldly into the ramshackle building, Ty Lee and the two soldiers following close behind.

"Azula, why are we here again?" Ty Lee asked, looking at the tavern's various patrons, who seemed to be if anything less pleasant than their surroundings.

"Because this is a gathering place for lowlifes, thugs, and criminals," Azula whispered in reply. "In other words, exactly the kind of people who would have information on any strange occurrences- and be willing to sell that information. A Fire Nation noblewoman passing through a region like this? They'd notice."

"If you say so." Ty Lee sounded unconvinced. Azula ignored her and made her way to the bar, pounding on it to get the barkeep's attention.

"What'ya want?" he demanded in a rough, uncultured voice.

"Information," Azula said. "And I'm willing to pay." She reached into a pocket and withdrew two gold coins, which she slid across the bar, causing the barkeep's eyes to light up.

"Well, now," he said, "What'ya need to know?"

"Have you or anyone you know seen a Fire Nation noblewoman- gold eyes, black hair, a bit taller than me and very beautiful- pass through here in the last few years?" Azula fixed the man with her eyes, letting them bore into his face as if she were trying to read his mind. She smiled slightly as he flinched- it was pleasant to remind herself that even without the resources of royalty, she could still scare people when she needed to.

"No, I haven't," the barkeep said nervously. "But I do know someone who might be able to help you. His name's Chang- he's a mercenary, travels around a lot, and he comes in here most nights. If you wait for a little while, he should be here soon. He usually sits over there." He pointed at an empty table in the corner.

"Very well." Azula turned and walked away from the man, business concluded.

"Maybe you'd be willing to add in another gold piece for my help?" he asked from behind her.

Azula snorted. "Don't push it. You've given me nothing of value so far- I'm not known for my generosity." The princess selected a seat near Chang's table and waited, joined by Ty Lee and the soldiers.

They waited for what felt like half an hour, watching various ruffians and thugs coming and going, before finally the door opened and a weathered, middle-aged man stepped inside, walking up to the bar with an easy confidence in his step that showed that he felt completely comfortable in this rough setting. Ordering his drink, he turned and walked over to the table that the barkeep had indicated as Chang's. Azula got up and walked over to him.

"Are you Chang the mercenary?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said. "You want to hire me, girl? I'll warn you- I don't work cheap."

"I'm not interested in hiring you," Azula said, resting her hands on the table. "But I am willing to pay- for information. I've heard you travel around a lot. I need to know if you've seen a Fire Nation noblewoman around here in the last few years."

"Apart from you, you mean?" Chang said with a slight smirk. "Yeah, I can tell what you are- pale skin, black hair, gold eyes – and the way you’re looking at us like we’re scum you’re about to scrape off your boots, of course. That cloak doesn't hide it if you know what to look for."

"The person I'm looking for is in early middle age, taller than me, and very beautiful," Azula said without missing a beat. She removed a few gold pieces from her pouch and began to idly toy with them. "Give me useful information and these can be yours- and I have more where they came from."

"Well now- let's see here," Chang said to himself. "I can't say I've seen anyone quite like that myself- but I do know someone who has. An old friend of mine- name of Yin Tzu- was doing a job for some warlord about a week to the south of here. Can't remember which one – there’s a lot of those types around here. Anyway, about five or six years ago, Yin Tzu and some of his buddies were hired to kidnap a woman and take her to the warlord's castle. I remember him telling me about that, because he told me later that he'd never seen eyes quite like hers before- like liquid gold." He looked at Azula straight on. "Just like yours, in fact."

Azula's gaze bored into Chang's, and though she could tell he was nervous he didn't flinch or look away. "Are you telling the truth?" she asked in a quietly dangerous voice. "Because if you're lying, I will find out about it- and then you will suffer the consequences."

Chang laughed bitterly. "Girl, you offered gold. I don't lie when there's gold involved- it's bad for business. You pay me to do something, I do it." He held out his palm. "Now then, unless there's anything else you want to know, I'll be taking my payment now."

"One more thing," Azula said. "Your friend. Where is he now? He'd better not be dead."

"No, he's still alive. He's retired now, and lives in a village about a day south of here." Chang looked from his palm to Azula and back again. "Now then, I did my part. Money."

"Here." Azula dropped a small handful of coins into the mercenary's waiting hand and left him counting them eagerly as she walked back over to her table. "I have what I need," she said to her companions. "We're leaving."

Ty Lee and the two soldiers quickly got up, the acrobat looking particularly relieved. Together they headed towards the door- only to be blocked by a pair of large and particularly thuggish looking men.

"Out of my way, scum," Azula said. "I have business elsewhere and I'm not interested in delays."

"Come on," one of them said with a broad grin that the princess found reminiscent of a hungry rhino. "Stay awhile. It's not often we get such attractive company around here." He leered at both Azula and Ty Lee.

One of the soldiers stepped forward, but Azula waved him back. "I'll handle this," she said, stepping towards the thug who'd spoken. "I'll tell you one last time," she said in a voice that made the frozen tundra of the North Pole seem warm in comparison, "get out of my way, or you'll regret it."

"I knew I'd regret a lot of things I've done," the man said, "but I did 'em anyway." He reached out a meaty paw towards the princess's arm.

Azula spun away from his grip with a speed that left the man's mouth hanging slightly open. She brought her hands up and struck him hard on the stomach, neck, and head. The man collapsed in a heap, groaning. The other man pulled up his fists and lunged at the princess, only to fall back before what looked like little more than a human-shaped blur delivering quick, precise blows. Then he was down too, paralyzed by Ty Lee's chi-blocking.

"Anyone else interested in messing with us?" Azula asked idly. The other patrons quickly pulled away, and the princess smirked. "All right, then. We'll be going." With that Azula and her companions stepped out into the night streets.

"I'm so glad to be out of there!" Ty Lee said with absolute sincerity as she hurried up to stand at Azula's side. "Did you find out anything?"

"Yes." Azula kept her eyes straight ahead. "We're heading south. There's a village a short distance from here, and a man lives there who may have helped kidnap my mother. He and I are going to have words."

///

Yin Tzu shut the door to his small house behind himself and stepped into his kitchen, pulling the vegetables he'd just bought out of his pack and slipping them into the stew he'd been preparing for most of the afternoon. That done he sighed happily and seated himself by the fire, breathing in the smell and waiting for his meal to be done. The old man had once been one of the most fearsome mercenary warriors in this spirits-forsaken part of the Earth Kingdom, but since he'd retired a few years ago he'd been finding more and more pleasure from simply sitting by his fire and resting.

A knock sounded on his door, snapping Yin Tzu from his reverie. He jumped to his feet, finding old reflexes still there and active, and turned towards the sound. "Who's there?" he demanded angrily. "I don't want to talk, so go away."

"I'm afraid I can't do that," a cold female voice said from the other side. "Open up, and I might be able to offer you some money. If you don't- well, I'd really hate to have to kick your door in." The woman's tone suggested that she'd feel no such thing.

"Fine, fine- you don't have to be so pushy!" Yin Tzu grabbed his sword from where it hung on the wall- couldn't be too careful, after all- and then hurried over and opened the door. The person who'd spoken was younger than he'd expected- not much more than a girl, really- but the look in her golden eyes and the easy confidence of her stance told him that this was not someone to trifle with. Another girl- this one looked rather friendlier- stood behind her, along with two men who dressed like commoners but carried themselves like soldiers.

"I want to ask you some questions about a job you did a few years ago," the girl in front said. Her features seemed familiar, somehow, but Yin Tzu couldn't place them. "Answer to my satisfaction, and I'll give you some gold. Displease me and you'll regret it."

"What do you need to know?" Yin Tzu asked. "I did a lot of jobs over the years."

"This wasn't too long ago," the girl said. "Just a few years ago. I talked to your friend Chang yesterday, and he said that you helped a warlord kidnap a woman with golden eyes. I need his name, and the place he had you take her."

"That would be Jian Chin," Yin Tzu said. "A real nasty piece of work- steer clear of him if you're smart, girl. Not the sharpest sword in the armory, true, but he's a powerful enough earthbender to make up for that. I took the woman to his fortress. It's on a cliff several days to the south- one of the oldest buildings I've ever seen."

"Jian Chin," the girl repeated, seeming to taste the name. Then she fixed Yin Tzu with her gaze, and he found himself trembling slightly in the face of those merciless eyes. "And did Jian Chin tell you the name of the person you were to kidnap?"

"No, he didn't, I swear!" Yin Tzu lied, but those terrible eyes remained fixed on him and he finally gave in. "Yes," he said softly. "He didn't want me to tell anyone. Her name was Ursa, and he said she was the Fire Lord's former wife. That's why he wanted her." Yin Tzu looked at the girl again, seeing the similarities between her and the noblewoman he had abducted- and then, with a cold feeling in his gut, he realized who this visitor was. Even here they'd heard stories about the girl who brought Ba Sing Se to its knees single-handedly- and he'd just admitted to kidnapping her mother. Yin Tzu prepared himself for a quick and painful death.

It didn't come. Azula simply counted out three gold coins and held them out to him. "That is for your help," she said, and then turned to go.

Suddenly she spun around and struck Yin Tzu with a flying kick that sent him stumbling back against the wall, gasping in pain. "And that was for laying hands on royalty." Then the princess did turn and leave the house, followed by her companions, without a backward glance at the stunned mercenary behind them.

///

We get a little more insight into Wei Ming’s history this chapter. I deliberately wanted her to have not been (directly) wronged by Azula as the motivation for her vengeful crusade, for reasons that I’ll discuss later, but we get a bit more of a hint that her backstory isn’t pretty. There’s a reason she hates everybody, and the Fire Nation especially, but even Long Feng hasn’t guessed it yet.

Azula finds out information on her mother’s location rather quickly, and that was also deliberate on my part. I didn’t want to waste too much time on her digging through an ultimately-irrelevant investigation, and didn’t think she’d need too – most people in this area know of Jian Chin, and though he’s not exactly advertising that he’s got Ursa, neither is he going out of his way to hide that fact either. Tracking that information to its source wouldn’t be that hard for someone of Azula’s talents. No, locating Ursa was never the hard part. Getting her away from Jian Chin without getting killed? That will be rather more difficult…

-MasterGhandalf

 

Chapter 15: Kingmaking

"You're certain?"

The Dai Li agent nodded. "Yes, sir. We questioned the mercenary once the princess was gone and confirmed what he told them- Jian Chin is the man who has the Lady Ursa."

"Excellent." Long Feng allowed himself a calmly satisfied smile. "And where is Azula now?"

"She and her companions rented rooms in the local inn for the night. I overheard her telling them that they were going to return to their ship tomorrow and collect more firebenders before confronting Jian Chin."

"Good. Then I should have time for a brief side-trip of my own." Long Feng held out his hand. "Did you learn the location of the warlord's fortress?"

The agent reached into his robe and removed a scroll, which he then unrolled and revealed to be a map of the region. "We took this from Yin Tzu's home, sir. Jian Chin's territory is clearly marked."

Long Feng took the map and studied it. "This should be close enough for us to reach in time- if we hurry. I believe that this warlord and I have matters to discuss."

"Sir?" one of the other Dai Li asked tentatively, "What could this… uncultured barbarian have to offer us?"

"We need Ursa, and he has her. Negotiation can prove every bit as effective as open conflict- and a man like Jian Chin might prove the solution to more than one dilemma facing us."

Mocking laughter rang from the nearby trees. "Of course, everything and everyone are nothing more than Pai Sho tiles to the great Long Feng!" With a rustle Wei Ming dropped from the branches and landed in the midst of the Dai Li. She looked around to the nearby agents and smiled. "I wonder how that makes them feel?"

"Don't get self-righteous with me," Long Feng said coolly. "You're no better. I use you to accomplish my return to power- you use me to achieve your revenge. And as long as we're both aware of that, I don't see why that can't be the basis of a working partnership."

Wei Ming shot him a fierce grin. "True enough. So it seems you're agents know their jobs- they found the same information I did."

"Yes. Azula is now preparing to return to her ship and get additional firebenders- therefore, I am dividing my forces." Long Feng looked at each of his agents in turn. "Two of you will come with me to visit Jian Chin. Two others will return to the port and scuttle the Fire Navy ship- we cannot allow Azula's forces to link up. The remaining six will follow the princess herself and prevent her from joining any survivors." He nodded at Wei Ming. "You, my dear, may of course go with any group you see fit to join."

She surprised him. "I'm coming with you," she said. "I want to meet Jian Chin myself."

Long Feng raised an eyebrow. "Really? I would have thought you would want to take Azula. She is the object of your revenge, after all."

"One object," Wei Ming hissed. "But I have plans too, Dai Li. Don't think you know all of them."

If Long Feng had anything to do with it those plans would never come to fruition, though he was wise enough to keep that thought to himself. "Very well, then," he said. "If you want to come with me I will oblige." He motioned to the two nearest Dai Li, who came to stand at his sides.

They currently stood in the forest halfway between the port-town and Yin Tzu's village, where Long Feng had come to meet with his agents after their shadowing of Azula. Now the minister and his two chosen agents centered themselves and held their hands out over the earth- and then as one jerked upwards. The ground itself rose beneath them, and soon they were standing atop what appeared to be a wave of dirt and stone.

"Climb on- otherwise you won't be able to keep up," Long Feng said rather more stiffly than normal- the earth-wave wasn't difficult, per se, but it did require much of his concentration. Wei Ming scowled and slipped up behind him, seating herself cross-legged on the wave. Then the three earthbenders pushed forward and the earth carried them off to the south far faster than a person could run.

///

It was near the middle of the night when they arrived at Jian Chin's fortress. The castle, which seemed to project an air of brooding, crumbling majesty, perched atop a cliff, and at its feet was spread out a run-down town. Long Feng knew cities, and he could tell at once that this place had a different feel to it than the equally chaotic port- that was a place of lawlessness and disorder, ruled by criminals and thugs. This was simply a place of poverty and despair. Long Feng found himself disgusted by the sheer inefficiency of it. Still, it told him much about the personality of the man who ruled here- clearly Jian Chin lacked either the competence or the initiative to run an actual, effective government. That particular trait fit in with Long Feng's plans rather nicely.

As they approached the outskirts of the town the minister nodded at his agents. Together they released their wave and allowed it to sink back into the earth. Long Feng looked over his shoulder. "We're here," he said.

"I know." Wei Ming was standing at his shoulder, her eyes glittering in the darkness. As usual she was slightly unnerving, but Long Feng didn't allow her the pleasure of seeing that. He simply nodded once and motioned for her and the two Dai Li to follow. Together they crept into town.

All four figures were well-accustomed to stealth, and they passed between rows of dark, run-down buildings without disturbing a soul. Occasionally guards in mismatched armor would walk past, but they saw nothing but shadows. Long Feng and his Dai Li might not have Wei Ming's uncanny ability to blend in with the darkness, but they knew full well how to conceal themselves from prying eyes.

They came to the base of the cliff and Long Feng looked up towards the fortress. Going in the front gate wouldn't do at all- he needed to get inside in order to make sure that no idiot night guard would turn him away before he had a chance to see Jian Chin, and he certainly didn’t want to earn the warlord’s ire by being forced to kill or maim any of his staff. Breathing deeply, he centered his stance and slammed a fist into the rock.

Long Feng prided himself on being one of the few earthbenders to master the art of reading vibrations within the earth itself. He couldn't do it at will the way the Avatar's companion Toph Beifong could (what a warrior she would have made with Dai Li training!), but with effort he could still perceive the world through the rocks. Furrowing his brow, Long Feng concentrated and felt the echoes from his punch pass through the cliff and bring him information about the shape of the fortress above.

Then his eyes widened slightly. "Fool!" he hissed. "The fool lives in a fortress that's built atop a whole network of caverns! This whole area is unstable; any skilled earthbender could bring it all down."

"Yes," Wei Ming said in a soft, dreamlike voice. "I can feel it too- there are places down below us that have never known the light of the sun, and the darkness runs deep and thick."

Long Feng felt a shiver run up his spine, but he ignored it. "It's of no importance," he said. "We're directly beneath one of the walls- we should be able to climb here. Follow me." He pressed his hands against the rock and felt the earth give beneath them, forming itself into hand-and-footholds. Using these he began to swiftly ascend, the two Dai Li agents following behind in the same manner. Wei Ming leaped lightly onto the cliff side and began to climb swiftly like a spider, without any apparent need for earthbending to help her way.

They reached the top of the cliff swiftly, and after a brief pause and stretch continued up the wall. Long Feng noted a window about halfway up and motioned for the others to follow him. One after another they leaped through and found themselves in a dark hallway.

The corridor was empty except for statues and tapestries lining the walls, arranged seemingly at random. It did not escape Long Feng's notice, though, that all of these pieces of artwork depicted scenes and figures from the Earth Kingdom's glorious history, with a disproportionate number featuring Chin the Conqueror in some form. The former Grand Secretariat noted with a wry smile that part of one tapestry had been crudely torn off just before it could depict Chin's legendary humiliation and defeat at the hands of Avatar Kyoshi.

The sound of footsteps echoed down the hallway, and Long Feng held up his hand for silence. Two bored-looking men in the same armor they'd seen in the town below came around a corner, talking to each other in low voices. They nearly walked directly into Long Feng before stopping and staring in utter shock, then hurriedly they drew their swords. "Who are you and what are you doing here?" one of them demanded.

"My name is Long Feng," the head of the Dai Li said calmly. "I'm here to see your master, Jian Chin. Could you tell me where he is?"

"What are you, an assassin or something?" the guard demanded, pointing his sword threateningly at Long Feng's throat.

"If I was an assassin I wouldn't be standing here talking to you about it," Long Feng said with a sigh. "I want to make a deal with Jian Chin that could benefit us both. Now, could you kindly point me in his direction?"

The first guard turned to the second. "You stay here, and make sure they don't leave. I'll go talk to His Lordship and see what he says." The guard hurried off, leaving his companion looking like he'd rather be anywhere else.

They stood in the corridor for some time, no one speaking, the guard looking nervously from Long Feng's steady gaze to the blank expressions of the Dai Li to Wei Ming's predatory smile. Finally the first guard returned. "His Lordship says he'll see you, Long Feng," he said. "The other three will have to wait below."

"Fair enough," Long Feng said. The guard motioned and led the Dai Li and their companion down to the ground level of the fortress and a large, open audience hall. More guards waited there, and at a nod from their leader the two agents walked over to stand with them. The first two guards led Long Feng to a door in the back of the hall and opened it. He stepped through.

This room was relatively small and decorated with weapons and hunting trophies. A burly man in gaudy clothes and a too-small crown waited there, looking at once irritated and intrigued. "They say you got in through a top-story window," he said in a rough voice. "Only an earthbender could've done that. You look a little skinny to be an earthbender, though. I bet I could break you in two without even trying."

"Jian Chin?" Long Feng asked evenly.

"You found me," the warlord said. "Now what do you want? My man said that you want to make a deal. What are you offering?"

"My name is Long Feng, formerly Grand Secretariat of Ba Sing Se and head of the Dai Li. You probably haven't heard of me before, but at one time I was the most powerful man in this entire Kingdom."

Jian Chin stroked his beard. "Dai Li? I've heard of them. I guess you are an earthbender then, if you're telling the truth. So what's the head of the Dai Li doing all the way out here? Lose track of your city or something? I hear that Ba Sing Se's pretty hard to miss!" The warlord laughed heartily at his own joke.

"In a matter of speaking," Long Feng replied, refusing to rise to the bait. "I am currently looking for a way back into power, and I believe that you can help me on that front."

"Really?" Jian Chin asked. "And how exactly could I do that? And why would I?"

"I believe that you currently have a hostage in this very fortress- the Lady Ursa. If I was to return the Lady to her son the Fire Lord, I believe that the reward would be most handsome." Long Feng looked the warlord straight in the eyes. "I want her."

"No!" the other man almost shouted. "Ursa is mine! You can't have her!"

"Not even if I offered something of greater value in return?"

"Greater value?" Jian Chin demanded. "Like what?"

Long Feng allowed himself a tight smile. "The Earth Kingdom."

Jian Chin stared at the minister for several moments, then burst out laughing. "Seriously, what are you offering?"

"I am deadly serious, Jian Chin," Long Feng said. "I was the Earth King's most trusted advisor, and I know secrets of Ba Sing Se that even he could only guess. There is a series of tunnels beneath the city that lead directly into the Earth King's palace. Some of those loyal to the king know of them and have doubtless tried to block them off- but only I ever knew the entire network. Using those tunnels I could smuggle you and your men into the city and then you could seize control of the palace in less than a day. With the apparatus of government under your control, Ba Sing Se is yours- and the rest of the Earth Kingdom will swiftly follow."

"And I suppose the entire city will just roll over and accept this?" Jian Chin asked.

"They will if you reinstate the Dai Li as the backbone of government. I devoted my life to maintaining order in Ba Sing Se- with the government and Dai Li once again under my control, I could have the entire city eating out of your hand in days."

The warlord nodded. "That might work, but I've got to wonder one thing- if you knew about these secret passages all along, why didn't you off the Earth King yourself a year ago?"

"Because I am a planner, Jian Chin, an administrator, not a conqueror. I can run a government, but I have no interest or need to become its public face." Long Feng smiled again. "But if I had someone like you who could do that for me- well, you would get all the credit without having to do any of the actual work. Think of that, my friend- all the glory of the Earth King's throne is yours, and the only price you have to pay is to give up Ursa to me."

"I admit, I like the sound of that." Jian Chin's face turned concerned, and he leaned close. "But there's one more problem- the Avatar. I don't want to fight that if I can avoid it. You have an answer to that, clever man?"

"Avatar Kyoshi was the first of the Dai Li," Long Feng said. "My goals and the Avatar's are the same- balance, stability, order. I admit I miscalculated in my dealings with him in the past- I underestimated him, treating him as a child." He winced slightly and rubbed the leg that had been bitten by a several-ton sky bison a year and a half ago. "I learned my lesson on that occasion. This time, however, we will have no reason to quarrel. The current Earth King knows nothing about actually ruling a nation- your kingship and my return can only improve matters. I will make him see that the Dai Li are the backbone of Ba Sing Se, and always have been."

Jian Chin nodded. "All right." He held out a meaty paw and Long Feng took it. "We have a deal then, Dai Li. I'll give you Ursa- but only after you make me a king."

"Excellent." The warlord and the minister shook. "I believe that our alliance will be most profitable for us both."

///

Long Feng stepped out into the audience hall again and found his agents standing silently among Jian Chin's soldiers. "Come with me," he said to them, and they quickly fell into step behind him. "The warlord has agreed to give us Ursa- but first we have a final loose end to tie up. We're going to rejoin our comrades and take Azula."

"You mean kill Azula," Wei Ming's cold voice said from Long Feng's side.

"I mean take," the leader of the Dai Li said. "I thought that you might want the honor of the actual kill."

"Oh, I'm looking forward to it," she said. They walked down the corridor in silence, and then Wei Ming spoke again. "I'm surprised by you, Long Feng. I wouldn't have thought that a cultured city man like you would be willing to make this back-country bandit Earth King."

"So I take it you were eavesdropping on our conversation?" Long Feng asked, rather unsurprised.

"Of course. I was in the room the whole time." She turned to look at him. "You didn't answer my question."

Long Feng glanced to make certain no guards were in earshot. "The Earth King is not practically relevant to the government," he said softly. "A trained hog-monkey could perform his duties. The monarchy is the embodiment of the State, its beating heart- but while the heart is necessary for life, it is the mind that controls the body; the Grand Secretariat is the mind, and the Dai Li are the limbs, of the state. Jian Chin is a fool, and it won't be difficult to convince him that he is important when in fact he is no such thing. I think he'll make a fine king, actually, once I convince him to change his clothes and take a bath."

The minister shook his head. "And if he fails miserably, he will take the fall and all the blame- while I still have Ursa and the Fire Lord's favor. I have nothing to lose from promising him the throne."

"You are truly devious, Long Feng," Wei Ming said in a tone at once admiring and contemptuous, if such were possible. He paid her little attention. Her purpose was to kill Azula for him- after that, the Dai Li would kill her as well and keep her vengeful and erratic nature from threatening his schemes. He stood poised now to gain the favor of Fire Lord Zuko and quite possibly a position within the Fire Nation government- and, in the event that Jian Chin's kingship actually worked out, a stranglehold on the Earth Kingdom government as well.

Then the Dai Li would have accomplished through guile what Sozin and his heirs failed to do through brute force- the world would be united under ordered rule, even if it didn't know it. Long Feng couldn't think of an idea that he found more satisfying.

///

And so our three main villains have now met up and formed an alliance (even if Jian Chin is, for the moment, unaware that he has two partners instead of one). Long Feng is, as ever, careful, cunning, and patient, but it should be fairly obvious that his plan would never work out in the long run because he still lacks perspective. Specifically, he doesn’t really understand why Aang and friends opposed him in the first place; he thinks his mistake was treating Aang like a child to be shoved to the side rather than an equal to be treated with, rather than, you know, being a manipulative and repressive shadow-dictator whose regime actively hindered the Earth Kingdom’s efforts against the Fire Nation. Getting the Avatar on his side this time around wouldn’t be as easy as he thinks. Of course, that’s small comfort for Azula, who’s about to find herself in the rather more immediate crosshairs of his scheme.

The earth-wave the Dai Li use to take themselves to Jian Chin’s fortress was based on the technique Toph used after escaping from Xin Fu and Master Yu in “Crossroads of Destiny”, by the way. It also made sense to me that the Dai Li would be able to use a version of Toph’s tremorsense, as that ability would be incredibly useful for their work in various ways, but even Long Feng, the most skilled of them, can’t use it on nearly the level she can. Keep those caverns Long Feng and Wei Ming mentioned in mind, by the way. There’s a reason those got brought up here…

-MasterGhandalf

 

Chapter 16: The Reckoning

Captain Shin paced back and forth on the deck of his ship, every so often shooting a dark glance towards the shore. He didn't like this place, not at all- its lack of any sort of order offended his sensibilities both as a soldier and a man of the Fire Nation, and the fact that it was a hotbed of criminals and thugs made him worry for his ship and men. He had no doubt that they could protect the ship if someone tried to steal it, but he'd certainly prefer not having to fight anyone at all. Unlike some soldiers he'd known, Shin was no lover of carnage.

He hoped that the princess would be back soon, either with news of her mother or Ursa herself in tow. Shin wasn't much fonder of Azula than he was of this wretched port, but at least she was a somewhat known factor.

From the corner of his eye the captain saw movement along the docks. Hurrying over to the rail he ignited a flame in his hand and held it out, but now the shore was completely empty and still. Shin shook his head. He really needed to get some sleep- now he was seeing things. With a sigh he extinguished the fire and turned back towards his cabin.

The ship rocked suddenly, and Shin was sent sprawling. Hastily pulling himself to his feet, he saw several of his crew members hurrying out onto the deck. "Captain!" one of them shouted, hurrying over. "What's happening?"

"I'm not sure," Shin growled, "but I think I get the gist- we're under attack." The ship rocked again, and this time the captain grabbed the rail to steady himself and looked out into the night. There he saw it- a long pillar of stone, shooting up from the floor of the harbor and piercing the ship's side. He cursed loudly. He hadn't realized that there were earthbenders that powerful out here.

"Captain?" one of the men asked tentatively.

"Yes, we're under attack!" Shin snapped back at him, not intending to sound as harsh as he did but having no time for pleasantries. "Earthbenders are trying to scuttle the ship, but I can't see them."

"Your orders?"

The ship rocked again as a rocky pillar slammed into it from the other side. "We can't take many more hits like that!" Captain Shin said, feeling even as he spoke that the pillars were beginning to retract, dragging the ship to the harbor bottom. "And we can't fight back if we can't see them. Into the water, now!"

The Fire Nation crew dove off the side of their ship and into the harbor as one, even as another rocky pillar seized hold of its side to drag the vessel to a watery grave. Shin had never lost a vessel under his command before, and as he broke the surface, he vowed that whoever did this was going to pay.

///

Twilight was falling as Azula and her companions came back into the outskirts of the ramshackle port town. The princess looked exactly as she had ever since they'd arrived in this part of the Earth Kingdom- focused and intent, aware of her surroundings but focusing primarily on her larger goal. It was how Ty Lee remembered her acting just before an important test- or even a game- at school, or during their pursuit of Zuko and the Avatar during the War. On one hand it was a good sign, because while she was focused like this Azula's strange outbursts and conversations with thin air seemed to stop completely. On the other hand, the acrobat wasn't so certain that her friend's return to her previous behaviors was best for her in the long run.

Azula needed help- Ty Lee knew that better than anyone. She needed help to get over her breakdown and help learning how to relate to people now that she wasn't the favored child of the most powerful man in the world anymore. The problem was that Ty Lee didn't have any real idea about how to help her. The acrobat had always gotten over her own problems by always looking on the bright side of things and taking whatever life threw at her with happiness and a smile, but somehow that didn't seem like something Azula would take well to.

Ty Lee wrinkled her nose slightly as they passed deeper into town- seriously, what was it that smelled so bad around here?- but Azula seemed to ignore the scent, her eyes fixed straight ahead of her. The acrobat hurried up from where she'd been walking by the two soldiers and put a hand on the princess's shoulder. "It's gonna be all right, Azula," she said. "We'll find your mom- I know it."

Azula pulled away. "I know," she said softly. "You don't need to reassure me, Ty Lee. I know what I'm doing, and I don't need you to coddle me like a child."

"I wasn't trying to coddle you," Ty Lee said, rather indignant. "I just wanted to help."

"I don't need that kind of help," Azula snapped. She pulled away from the acrobat and strode forward more quickly, forcing Ty Lee and the soldiers to hurry to keep up. The she stopped suddenly, eyes widening and head cocked as though listening.

"There's something here," she whispered. "Someone's following us."

"If you'll forgive me, princess," one of the soldiers said, "in a place like this, I'd be very surprised if someone wasn't following us."

"This is different," Azula said. "This town was teeming with life before- even though it wasn't particularly civilized. Now it's gone quiet." She raised her hands and began to circle around, looking for threats and preparing the firebending to deal with them as they approached.

Ty Lee saw the shadowy figure perched on a nearby rooftop first, but before she could shout a warning it struck. Its hands shot out and what looked like a pair of stone hands came flying straight at Azula. Her own hands shot up and blasted the strange projectile out of the sky with a burst of vivid flame- but at that precise moment, a second pair took her from the other side. Azula was sent stumbling backwards, her wrists bound tightly together by stone cuffs.

Ty Lee recognized the strange weapon, and Azula did too. "Dai Li," the princess snarled into the night sky. "Show yourselves, cowards!"

Two men in plain green-brown robes leapt from the rooftops and landed on the street. They weren't wearing their official uniforms or distinctive wide-brimmed hats, but Ty Lee recognized the cold eyes and casual confidence of the Dai Li agents anyway. She felt her body tense and clenched her fists tightly, preparing herself to block the earthbenders' chi if they tried to attack. "I guess you were right about that guy in Ba Sing Se!" she shouted to Azula.

"Of course I was," the princess said angrily. She fixed the two agents with her hawk's gaze. "Traitors. I led you to conquer all of Ba Sing Se, and this is how you repay me!"

"You betrayed us, Princess," one of the agents said coldly. "We served you loyally and you abandoned us. It's time you learned that even for royalty, betrayal has consequences."

"Oh, there will be consequences!" Azula jumped backwards and kicked one of her legs out in an arc, sending a wide arc of blue fire streaking towards the Dai Li. Both agents leaped into the air and avoided the blast, but almost before they'd touched ground, Ty Lee was on them. A series of quick jabs to the right places and one of the earthbenders was down, unable to move anything that could be used for bending.

Quickly the acrobat turned to the other man, but before she could even move towards taking him down she felt something catch her legs from behind and pull her to the ground. Looking over her shoulders she saw that her ankles had been bound together by another pair of stone cuffs. Rolling over, Ty Lee looked up at the sky in time to see that four more Dai Li agents were descending from the rooftops.

"Did you think we would be foolish enough to reveal our full strength just because you called to us?" the first agent asked Azula. The princess snarled wordlessly and prepared to launch another firebending attack, but before she could complete the motions two more agents fired their stone hands. The rocky weapons wrapped themselves tightly around Azula's mouth and ankles, bringing her crashing to the ground. She gazed up at her opponents with venom in her gaze.

Behind the Dai Li, the two soldiers dropped into fighting stances and launched fireblasts of their own. The agents dodged easily and then as one called on their own bending. The street buckled beneath them and the ground opened up beneath the warriors, swallowing them to their waists.

"Good work, men," the first Dai Li said. "We need to take the princess back to Long Feng immediately. You two finish these, and then catch up with us." He and two other agents went over to stand by the prone Azula, and then as one they bent down and seemed to pull at the earth. It rose in a wave and bore them swiftly off towards the edge of town.

The two remaining Dai Li and their fallen comrade remained behind. "Well, then," one of them said, "let's get this over with." The other nodded and they both moved to stand by the captive soldiers. The men tried to firebend at them, but from their trapped position it did little good. Ty Lee realized what they were about to do and looked away, but she could still here the crunch and the screams cut short. She hadn't known either man well, but she found any death upsetting- especially one as brutal as that.

A shadow fell over her, and Ty Lee saw the two agents standing over her. They both raised their hands, and she could feel the earth begin to tighten around her. She tried to move, but with her legs bound by heavy stone it did little good. The acrobat closed her eyes tightly and waited for the pain.

It didn't come. Instead she heard the Dai Li yelping in surprise and pain of their own, and when she opened her eyes again she saw why. Captain Shin and several of his men stood further down the street, looking strangely wet but shooting fireblasts at the agents. Both turned to flee, but one of them caught his boot on a loose stone and stumbled slightly. He'd righted himself momentarily, but that brief moment was enough for Shin's men to catch up to him and seize his arms. The captain himself knelt by Ty Lee and formed a small dagger of fire in one hand, using it to burn away the stone binding her. As soon as it was gone the acrobat leapt to her feet, and Shin went over to his two dead firebenders.

The captain looked at their remains for several moments, then looked up at the captive Dai Li with fire in his eyes. "You aren't a common criminal," he said. "You will tell me who sent you- I will know who was responsible for this. I cannot allow these deaths to go unavenged."

"You're a fool if you think I'll talk, firebender," the Dai Li said defiantly.

"He doesn't need to," Ty Lee said. "I know who he is- he's a Dai Li agent. Six of them ambushed us, and they have Azula!"

Shin grabbed the agent by the shoulder and slammed him against the wall of a nearby building. "Tell me where they took her," he snarled.

The Dai Li were brave, not stupid. The agent recognized the danger in Captain Shin's tone, and knew better than to cross it. "All right," he said softly. "I'll tell you, if you'll let me go."

"Let's here what you have to say, first," Shin said. "Talk."

///

Azula felt herself being hurled roughly to the earth. She twisted around and looked up- she lay on the ground in what appeared to be the forest around the port, several more Dai Li besides the ones who'd captured her standing in a semi-circle, and just in front of her was a man she recognized. He'd been balding when they'd last met and now appeared to have shaved his head completely, but she still recognized those bland features and cold, calculating eyes. Long Feng, head of the Dai Li.

"Forgive me the indignity of your current position, Princess," the minister said in his usual calm, coolly polite tone. "But I cannot allow your hands, feet, or even mouth freedom to move. Personally I have great respect for your firebending talents and have no desire to be on the receiving end of them. Unfortunately, however, you are now an obstacle, and obstacles must be removed."

Azula glared up at him, and though she couldn't speak her expression said volumes. If you want me dead, why not kill me now? Long Feng wasn't one to drag out a prisoner's suffering for his own enjoyment, after all – he was too pragmatic for that.

"Oh, I'm not going to kill you," Long Feng said with an amused chuckle. "She is." He motioned to the shadows behind him and a figure emerged from them. Azula's eyes widened as she took it in- the dark cloak surrounded by writhing shadows, the chalk-white skin and strange violet eyes. It was the shadow-girl who she'd seen on the docks on the Fire Nation, and on Captain Shang's pirate ship as it went down.

"This is Wei Ming," Long Feng said. "She hates you with a passion, though I haven't yet figured why."

The shadow-girl- Wei Ming- knelt in front of Azula and lowered her hood with one hand, while the other reached into the fold of her cloak and withdrew a long-bladed knife. "Oh, I have longed for this," she said quietly, a half-mad gleam in her eyes. "Remove the gag," she said to the nearest Dai Li. "I want to hear her screams."

The agent looked at Long Feng and back at the girl. "I don't think that would be wise-" he began, but Wei Ming whirled on him.

"Do it now!" she shrieked. "Or would you like to join her in death?"

"I will not be threatened in that manner!" the Dai Li snapped and raised his hands to earthbend, but Long Feng stepped between them. He leaned over to his subordinate and muttered something that sounded like "humor her" into his ear. The agent nodded reluctantly and clenched one hand into a fist. The gag crumbled to dust in an instant.

Azula took a moment to spit out the sand in her mouth and then without pausing to speak she opened her mouth wide and breathed a stream of blue fire straight at Wei Ming. The shadow's violet eyes widened and she quickly brought up a hand, catching the firebending and deflecting it as she had with the lightning in the Capital, dispersing it harmlessly in the air around her.

"What are you?" Azula demanded.

"Death," Wei Ming replied. "Your death. But not a fast death, though you will soon beg for that." She knelt down in front of the princess and drew out her knife again. "No, you're going to suffer first. All your life you and your Nation have grown fat on the pain of others- now it's your turn to be the one on the receiving end." Her lips twitched into a half-smile.

Azula turned her head and looked at Long Feng. "She's crazy- you know that. You don't seriously think she isn't going to turn on you, do you? Let me out, and we can take her down together."

"At the moment, you are the greater threat, princess," Long Feng said coldly. His gaze shifted to Wei Ming. "Do it quickly, girl. We don't have all night."

"I've waited more than a year for this moment, old man," Wei Ming snarled savagely. "I'm going to enjoy it." She turned back to Azula. "They say princesses are supposed to be vain. Let's see if that's true." She raised her knife and set the point against Azula's cheek.

"Do it!" Long Feng snapped.

"Don't rush me!" Wei Ming replied. Then the shadow-girl paused, and looked up into the trees around them. Her strange eyes widened in surprise, and then the fireballs struck.

The Dai Li and their companions all dodged in time, but they looked shaken. Wei Ming leaped to her feet and drew her other knife with her other hand, and Azula used that opportunity to raise her head. Captain Shin stood just beyond the circle of Dai Li, hands raised for another fireblast. His men stood behind him. Only one person was missing- Ty Lee.

And then the acrobat was there, dropping down lightly out of the trees and shooting straight towards Wei Ming. Ty Lee's fists came up and delivered her blinding fast chi-blocking jabs, but the shadow responded equally quickly, parrying each blow before it could strike a key point.

"Wow," Ty Lee breathed. "You're good- even better than Suki. Did the Dai Li teach you to that?"

Wei Ming didn't reply, but her lips pulled back in a snarl. Quick as the shadow she resembled she lunged at the acrobat, and again their blows went back and forth at a blinding speed which even Azula was barely able to follow. Finally Wei Ming pulled back and leaped into the trees. Ty Lee hurried over to Azula's side, and Shin and his firebenders moved to engage the Dai Li.

"Azula, are you okay?" Ty Lee asked in a worried voice.

"I'm fine. Get Wei Ming- the shadow. She's the most dangerous person here."

"What about you?"

Azula looked around. Good- the Dai Li were all busy fighting, and none of them seemed able to concentrate on her bindings. She inhaled sharply and focused her will, and then fire shot with incredible force from her hands and feet. The stone bindings shattered, and she leaped into a fighting stance. Her eyes scanned the battlefield until she caught sight of the figure slipping away into the trees. Her eyes narrowed. "Long Feng is mine," she hissed. Ty Lee nodded once, and leaped away in pursuit of Wei Ming. Azula gave a fierce grin and hurried after her own target.

///

The shadows were thick among the trees as Ty Lee leapt from branch to branch. She knew that the girl with the knives- Wei Ming- had gone this way, but she couldn't see her. Her dark cloak blended in perfectly with the night. Ty Lee considered herself very lucky that she hadn't gotten cut during their brief fight on the ground- those knives the other girl had were fighting knives, not throwing ones like Mai used, and they were very long and wickedly sharp. Ty Lee knew she needed to get them away from Wei Ming at all costs.

Mocking laughter echoed from nearby. "Silly girl," a cold voice said. "You think you can beat me here? The darkness is my ally- you're good, but even you can't beat someone you can't find."

Ty Lee turned towards the sound of Wei Ming's voice, but before she could react something struck her side and knocked her out of the tree. Twisting quickly in midair, Ty Lee grabbed another branch and pulled herself onto it, and looked up above her. Wei Ming crouched on the branch from which she'd fallen, a grin on her face that put the acrobat in mind of the giant eel that lived in the waters around Kyoshi Island- the Unagi.

Ty Lee had always been able to see things that other people couldn't- patterns of energy hovering around herself and others, giving clues about their moods and revealing weak-points that her chi-blocking exploited. What she saw when she looked at Wei Ming was like nothing she'd ever seen before- a shifting cloud of blackness that seemed almost alive. There was something else here besides – or perhaps within - the strange girl, Ty Lee realized, something very powerful and very evil. She was shook to her core. And then there was the look in her eyes- hate, pure and unrelenting. Ty Lee had heard people say that Mai hated the world, but she knew that really Mai just found the world dull and uninteresting. But Wei Ming really did hate it with a passion that was truly horrifying.

"What are you looking at, silly girl?" the shadow asked. "Why are you staring at me with that look in your eyes?"

"Because you scare me," Ty Lee answered truthfully.

"I scare you?" Wei Ming laughed lightly and dropped down so that she and Ty Lee were perched on the same branch. "You follow Azula around like a little lost turtleduck and I scare you? Apparently you need to pay more attention to your own life. Why do you follow her, anyway? It's obvious she doesn't care about you."

"I don't know if she cares or not," Ty Lee said angrily, "but I think she does. She just doesn't know how to show it. She was raised to think she was better than everybody else, and then had all that come crashing down. She doesn't know how to treat people as equals yet."

"And you think she can learn? Fool. Princess Azula was born a monster, and she will die a monster. It's in her blood- she can't help it. That's why I'm going to rid this world of her and all her kind. You'll thank me for it someday."

"Well, whether Azula cares or not, I care," Ty Lee said. "And maybe if I show her that enough, it'll help her change and be a better person. She's already better than she was a year ago."

"Really?" Wei Ming laughed again, long and cold, and Ty Lee felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. "You still think that, even after she recruited you for this mission for the sole purpose of fighting me?"

Ty Lee went still. "What?"

"Oh, she knew about me from the start. We met in the Capital, you know, a few days after I killed her father. Don't say she didn't tell you? She knows that I can defeat her bending, so she went looking for the one person she knew who could do something similar- you. She doesn't care about you at all. Azula is just using you, like she's always done, and when you've served your purpose you'll be cast aside again."

"No," Ty Lee said. "I don't believe you! You're lying!"

"Am I? Azula is the liar, just as she's always been. Everything I say is the truth." Wei Ming stepped closer, maintaining her balance on the limb with ease. "We've both been wronged, but I can offer you a way out. Come with me, and we can punish Azula together, and then you'll never have to worry about being used again. Think of it- after all your life, you'll finally be free."

"No," Ty Lee said, drawing herself up. Though it wasn't really her style, she thought of Azula and Suki and tried to hold herself with something of their easy, deadly dignity. "I don't believe you, and I won't go with you. You keep talking about how awful Azula is, but even if she’s really as bad as you think, I don’t think you’re any better. All you really want to do is hurt even more people, and I've had enough of that."

"Fool! Then you will die as well." Wei Ming drew her twin knives and lunged forward. Trapped on the limb, Ty Lee was unable to dodge very much, and she felt the knife blade graze her arm, drawing blood. But she hadn't really intended to dodge anyway. In her anger, Wei Ming had left herself open to attack, and even as hot pain lanced up Ty Lee's arm she struck two of the other girl's pressure points in quick succession. Wei Ming's arm went limp, and the knife spun from her loose grip into the night. She looked up at Ty Lee with venom in her gaze, and called her a name one didn't normally hear in polite society.

"Really!" Ty Lee said. "That wasn't very nice. I was just defending myself!"

"Your time will come, you little freak," Wei Ming snarled. "But not tonight." She launched herself from the branch and vanished into the shadows.

Ty Lee watched her go, and then leaped into the branches of a nearby tree. She had to get back to the main battle. Whatever else she was, Azula was her friend, and she needed her help.

///

Fireblasts met flying boulders in the air around Azula as she dodged past trees and Dai Li agents, following Long Feng's trail. He was fit for a man in middle age, but she knew it had been awhile since he'd done any serious field work, and she had no doubt she could catch him.

Finally she saw the moonlight reflecting off the back of that bald head, and she smiled. Bringing up one hand, the princess focused her energy and launched a bolt of searing blue fire at her enemy. Long Feng heard it coming just in time and spun around, a wall of earth rising to catch the blast. It splintered, but the fire was too weakened afterwards to hurt him.

"Long Feng," Azula said as she approached. "I should have killed you when I had you helpless in Ba Sing Se. I thought you'd be useful and were broken, but it looks like you weren't. Oh, well- I can fix that mistake now."

"We will see." Long Feng dropped into a firm stance and threw a punch forward- too far to hit Azula, but the princess was not his target. A fissure opened in the earth and shot towards her, but she could both see and feel it coming and leaped into the air. She landed lightly to one side, safe.

"You Dai Li need to learn your strengths," Azula said. "You're the best in the world at ambushes and sneak attacks, but in face-to-face battle, you're just average." Her eyes hardened. "And against me, average just won't cut it."

"Don't gloat yet, Azula," Long Feng said. "Even you can't see the future of this battle."

"No. But I can figure it out well enough." She launched another bolt of fire, and Long Feng pulled another stone shield up from the earth to block it. Then he raised his hands and sent what was left of the shield shooting towards the princess. Azula jumped on top of it and then off it, hurling herself feet first at the head of the Dai Li. Long Feng caught her foot in one hand, but she still impacted with enough force to drive him to his knees. Azula pulled back and began to move her hands through a complicated pattern, forming focused blue sparks that then erupted from her fingers as lightning. Long Feng quickly dodged, but he hadn't been the target. The tree behind him fell, bursting into flames and igniting the forest nearby.

"Fool!" he snapped. "If you start a forest fire here you'll kill us both!"

"No I won't," Azula said. "I can protect myself from fire. Can you?"

"I don't need to," Long Feng replied smoothly. He held his hands out over the earth, and stone pulled itself free from the ground and wrapped around his body, giving him the appearance of some crude statue come to life. Eyes narrowed, the minister shot forward across the ground and caught Azula's throat in one hand, pinning her up against a tree. He began to squeeze.

"Aren't you going to gloat?" Azula gasped. "Tell me how you've triumphed and how feeble I am before I expire?"

"No," Long Feng said. "I'll just tell you what you told me a year ago- you weren't ever a player. Not in this game."

"You could have at least come up with your own line," Azula gasped out. "But it doesn't matter, because you still didn't notice me doing this!" One hand came up, trailing sparks behind it- weaker than she would have liked, but still strong enough- and hit Long Feng's armor right over the heart. The lightning bolt exploded, sending the Dai Li hurtling backwards, his armor shattered. Slowly he got to his feet, still smoldering. Azula dropped to the ground across from him, massaging her throat.

"Clever," Long Feng said. "But this isn't over yet."

"Oh, it is," Azula said. "Look at you- you can barely stand. Give up now, and I might just let you slink back to whatever hole you've been hiding in."

"No you wouldn't," Long Feng said with a dark half-smile.

"You're right." Azula shrugged. "But this ends now." She once again began to move her hands through the pattern to summon lightning, and Long Feng braced himself to resist.

Then something leaped down from the nearby trees and pulled itself into a standing position. Both Azula and Long Feng paused to look at it, but what was relief to one was horror to the other. Ty Lee had triumphed over Wei Ming, it seemed.

"Still like your odds?" Azula asked as her friend prepared to spring.

"To win?" Long Feng asked. "No. To escape? Most definitely." He held both hands down to the earth at his feet, and it opened beneath him. The former Grand Secretariat of Ba Sing Se fell into the makeshift tunnel and vanished, the earth closing behind him.

"Is it over?" Ty Lee asked in a quiet voice.

"No," Azula said, allowing just a hint of exhaustion to show. "But we won this round. Now then, let's find Shin and his crew. I need to know how many of my men are still standing."

///

A big chapter here, both in terms of length and events! In the show, Azula and Long Feng never had any sort of direct confrontation, seeing as he gave in after recognizing he’d been outplayed, but here they finally had a chance to have it out. Long Feng is good, but Azula is better in the arena of physical combat as well as politics, and now the Dai Li’s plans look to be falling apart. One-on-one duels are something of a motif for Azula in Path; she’d previously faced Ilook and now Long Feng, and she has two more in store for her before the fic ends. I don’t think it’ll be too hard to guess who they’ll be with.

For the Trilogy, I decided that Ty Lee’s aura reading is real rather than just a bit of quirkiness on her part (considering how much of the Avatarverse deals with chi, spirits, and spiritual energy, it didn’t seem like much of a stretch). Here, it let her catch a glimpse of the force empowering Wei Ming, which I don’t think will be much of a spoiler to say is the same spirit Azun was dealing with last fic. Next chapter will have some significant revelations concerning what is going on with Wei Ming and her abilities, but one thing we can confirm here is that she’s not immune to chi blockingJ. Her conversation with Ty Lee was an important moment for both of them, and is as much about two fundamentally different ways of viewing the world colliding as it is about these specific characters – Ty Lee’s good-natured optimism vs. Wei Ming’s spiteful nihilism. That said, this is a very important moment for Ty Lee because even in the face of another layer of Azula’s deceptions, she’s articulated her reason for staying by her friend – not from fear or manipulation any more, but out of genuine faith that Azula is capable of becoming a better person. Of course, she’s still going to have some rather pointed questions for Azula about how much she knew before long…

And with the ship destroyed, Azula, Ty Lee, and Shin won’t be returning to the Fire Nation the way they came. They’re stuck here in the eastern Earth Kingdom with no choice but to see their mission through to the end.

-MasterGhandalf

 

Chapter 17: Shadow's Vengeance

The stillness of the forest clearing was broken as the earth began to roll and crack. Finally it burst open, and from the opening arose the form of a man who seemed rather worse for the wear, both from his underground detour and recent battle. Long Feng scowled as he shook dust off himself, then brought his hands together with all the force he could muster, causing the fissure from which he'd emerged to seal itself.

Using earthbending to propel himself underground was hardly the head of the Dai Li's favorite way to travel, but it did have its advantages- namely, that it was nearly impossible to track unless one was an earthbender skilled enough to read vibrations in stone. For all her intellect and deadly skill, not even Princess Azula could force firebending to reveal his location. Turning away from the clearing, he began to stalk off into the forest night.

The situation was bad, but not unsalvageable. Long Feng didn't know what had happened to his Dai Li agents, but much as it pained him to admit it Azula had been right about one thing- for all their skill, the Dai Li would be no match for trained soldiers in direct combat, particularly once the princess and her friend joined in. The best course of action now would be to return to Jian Chin and warn the man that Azula was coming and planning to rescue her mother. The warlord's men might not be as good as the Dai Li, but there were a lot more of them. Weight of numbers was, in Long Feng's opinion, a crude and inelegant strategy, but it could be effective. Of course Azula would kill many before she was taken down, and that would make putting Jian Chin on the throne more difficult, but so long as the warlord and Ursa both survived, his plans could proceed.

Something rustled in the tree above him. Long Feng paused and listened, and then, to his utter lack of surprise, a shadow-wrapped figure jumped down in front of him.

"You," the minister said in a tone that dripped venom. "This is your fault, girl- all of it. If you'd just killed Azula cleanly we could have been on our way before the soldiers and Ty Lee ever found us. But you had to stop and play with your dinner, and you've cost me dearly. Do you have any idea how long it takes to train ten Dai Li agents?"

"Do I look like someone who cares?" Wei Ming asked, matching his malice with her own. Long Feng noticed that she was holding one of her arms strangely, like she was having a hard time moving it; Ty Lee’s doing, no doubt. Apparently the shadow hadn't come out of tonight unscathed either. "If your men had killed the soldiers properly they couldn't have found us. Don't blame me for your own mistakes."

"As you wish," Long Feng said. "From here on I will have no reason to. Consider this alliance terminated. Now get out of my way."

"I'm afraid I can't just let you walk away from me, Grand Secretariat," Wei Ming said, and with her functioning hand she drew one of her long knives. "You see, you still have something I want."

"What?"

She smiled her feral smile and leaned in close. As she did so, Long Feng noticed that her appearance seemed changed, somehow; before, her face had possessed an eerie, uncanny beauty, but now her cheeks seemed hollow and her face wasted and gaunt, and that made her pallor stand out as even more ghastly. It was almost like looking into the face of a corpse…

Finally she spoke, and Long Feng found himself unsurprised at her words. "You. Did you think my revenge was only against Azula? This world is a breeding ground of treachery and evil, and there are so many out there who deserve punishment. Do you really think the Earth Kingdom is any better than the Fire Nation? I'd hoped that either you or Azula would manage to bring down the other for me, but it seems that won't be happening. So I guess I'll have to kill you myself."

Long Feng backed up slowly, making sure that he was centered above the earth and could draw on its power. "Well then," he said in an effort to stall Wei Ming for at least a few more moments, "if you're going to kill me, it doesn't matter what I learn about you, and I feel like you owe me an explanation. How do you know me?"

"I suppose I have changed a bit since we last met," Wei Ming said. "But I'm sure you remember this." She pulled back her hood and smiled a vacant smile. "Hello. I'm Joo Dee. Welcome to Ba Sing Se." She took a step forwards, and her smile became feral and mad again. "We're so lucky to have our walls to create order."

Despite all his self-control, his years of practice stoicism, Long Feng was stunned. The Dai Li had used brainwashed young women- code-named "Joo Dee"- to spy on and subtly manipulate important visitors to Ba Sing Se in the guise of tour guides for years, but the idea that one of them might come back for revenge was absurd. The conditioning broke the mind completely, so that the Joo Dees were good for nothing but following orders. That one of them could be standing here, now, as such a threat… unthinkable "I don't believe you," he said. "You're just trying to unsettle me. What do you really want?"

"What do I want?" Wei Ming shrieked, all pretension of self-control gone; her violet eyes almost seeming to bulge out of her skull. "I want my home, and my family, and my life back. But I can't have that, can I? You and the Fire Nation and all the other monsters stole them all away from me. But I will have the next best thing- pain for pain. This whole corrupt, hateful world will know my suffering before I am through."

"Even so, your revenge will have to wait," Long Feng told her. "You need me, remember? Oh, you might not think I can guess what you're trying to do, but I can. You want Jian Chin on the throne of the Earth Kingdom- that's why you eavesdropped on our conversation, and why you asked so many questions about it later on. I don't know what you want with the brute and I don't particularly care, but if you do want to see him made king, then you need me. I'm the only one who can get him into Ba Sing Se in secret, remember?"

"No," Wei Ming said. "I spent months in your catacombs after the war, mapping out the ways, and I still remember them. I can get Jian Chin and his soldiers into the palace on my own, but there will be no Dai Li to help him maintain order. It will be chaos and death, and the proud city that did nothing to help the people of the Earth Kingdom will learn what war really means. And if the Avatar tries to stop it, I'll kill him. He'll never see me coming!" She gave a short laugh that sent chills up Long Feng's spine. Whatever her history, the girl was even more erratic than he'd thought.

Then her eyes fixed on him, cold and hard again. "I needed someone powerful to bring suffering to this world. I thought I’d use Ozai, but he'd already given up, so I killed him. I’ll admit, he wasn’t a loss I regretted. Then I came to you, but you disappointed me too. You're too cold-blooded, Long Feng. You just want to maintain everything like a well-oiled machine, and you wouldn’t dream of destroying what you’d worked so hard to build just for my revenge. Jian Chin, though- he dreams of glory, and he's too short-sighted to realize the consequences of his actions until it is too late. Have I said enough for you, Dai Li?"

"Oh yes," Long Feng said. "You certainly have." The head of the Dai Li leapt back and pulled, and the earth beneath Wei Ming's feet erupted. Ducking away from the pillar of sharp stone that now shot skywards, Long Feng threw both hands forward and chunks of fallen rock lifted into the air and shot towards the shadow. If she wasn't impaled on the pillar, the projectiles would finish her.

But she wasn't there. Wei Ming had dodged just to the side when the ground burst open, and now before Long Feng's shocked eyes she leaped down the side of the pillar, dodging the flying bits of rock with ease. Her feet took the minister in the chest, knocking him backwards and breaking his stance. He crashed back against a tree and Wei Ming raised her long knife. "Any last words?" she asked softly.

It was his last weapon, one that he wasn't even sure would work, but if the girl was telling the truth it would stop her in her tracks. "Joo Dee," he whispered, "the Earth King has invited you to Lake Laogai."

For an instant spasm crossed Wei Ming’s face, and he had hope – but then she snarled, and struck him against the side of the head with the hilt of her knife. Long Feng crumpled, pain lancing through his skull. He looked up to see her standing over him. "Foolish man," she said. "You know nothing. I defeated your conditioning long ago. You never had a chance."

"So, in the end I was nothing to you – just a piece in your game," Long Feng managed to gasp out through the pain, determined to hurl one last barb before the end. "She said much the same. You and Azula… very much alike."

It would be his last words, and Long Feng knew it. Still, the expression of pure shock and rage on Wei Ming's face as she brought the knife home was almost enough to make him smile.

///

The girl who called herself Wei Ming, though that was not her name, pulled the knife away and watched as Long Feng's body stilled. One of her enemies was dead, and she had expected to feel pleasure, but she didn't. Instead, his final words echoed through her mind. Was she really like Azula? True, she had lied and cheated and killed her way across two continents, but her goal wasn't power. She wasn't exploiting others for her own gain, but righting a great wrong, destroying the two corrupt nations that had ravaged the world with their war so something better could rise in their place. Wasn't she?

Banish your dark thoughts, a cold voice said in the back of her mind. She heard it sometimes when she was lost or troubled, and it always put her back on the right path. Long Feng was a monster- he deserved to die, and you should pay no attention to his final mutterings. This world is full of those like him, but we will show them all the pain they've caused. We will force them to experience it.

"Yes," Wei Ming murmured. "The cruel Fire Nation, arrogant Ba Sing Se, the Avatar who did nothing for a hundred years while the world burned- they will all pay."

They will. Remember what happened to you, and your parents? Will you let that go unavenged?

"I will not." Wei Ming closed her eyes and leaned against the tree, letting memory wash over her.

She was born in a small village in the Earth Kingdom, the daughter of two farmers. Wei Ming hadn't been her name then, and vengeance wasn't yet the purpose of her life. Her people knew about the great War that ravaged parts of the Earth Kingdom, but they paid it little mind. They were far out of the way, after all, and produced nothing important, so why would the Fire Nation bother them?

They had been proven horribly wrong. She still remembered the night when the soldiers came, riding their terrible beasts and throwing fire at their victims. She never learned why they were there or what they wanted. Maybe they wanted food or prisoners, but all the girl knew was that they killed.

She and her father had been to the market in a nearby, larger village and were just returning home when the soldiers struck. She remembered seeing their house go up in flames and running towards it, shouting for her mother. She could hear her mother's screams from inside, but she stumbled out horribly burned to die in her daughter's arms.

After pillaging the village the Fire Nation soldiers departed, and the few survivors gathered together to determine their course of action. It was clear to everyone that they'd been naïve fools- the villages were not safe from the Fire Nation. If they wanted to truly be free, they needed to travel to Ba Sing Se.

She didn't remember how long the traveled, but it felt like weeks. Finally they arrived and were escorted into the city, and a man in strange green robes assigned them to living in what he called the Outer Ring, a place of tall, rickety houses and narrow streets. It soon became apparent to both the girl and her father that Ba Sing Se was not a paradise but a prison. The green-robed men- the Dai Li- controlled everything, and there was nothing they wouldn't stoop to in the name of absolute order. Her father was furious at this tyranny in the very heart of the Earth Kingdom, and he tried to gather more refugees together to resist them.

The Dai Li came for him in the night, and when the realized that his daughter had heard them they took her too. The two of them were bundled up in a cart and carried swiftly away to an underwater fortress she heard them call Lake Laogai. There they took her father away, and whatever form of punishment they used on him she never learned. She never saw him again at all. She was brought before a high-ranking Dai Li, who looked her up and down and declared that she looked “old enough”. She barely had time to wonder exactly what she looked old enough for before she was dragged into a small room with a glowing pot and a Dai Li who told her that everything was going to be all right now…

After that she remembered nothing for a long time. When she came back to herself, she found that she was sitting in a room with other young women, all dressed in identical yellow robes and all mindlessly repeating words that a Dai Li agent told them. A part of her mind was still free, but the rest was blissfully blank. She was safe in Ba Sing Se, and that was all that mattered. Once an older man with cold eyes came in to examine them, and she heard the other Dai Li call him "Grand Secretariat Long Feng". She remembered the name.

Then there was chaos, and all the Joo Dees and other prisoners were moved to another base under the palace. She didn't know why, and wasn't even really capable of wondering. Then she saw the Dai Li gathering, and they brought with them a strange girl who held herself with aristocratic disdain. She heard the agents whispering the name "Azula", and that coldly beautiful face and those soulless golden eyes burned themselves into the girl's memory. This was someone who had never had to suffer pain or loss, and the girl found that she hated her. Later she would learn that this was the princess of the Fire Nation, one of the spearheads of the War and the one who brought Ba Sing Se down, and her hatred was redoubled.

And then the Dai Li and Azula were gone, and the girl found herself alone in the darkness, forgotten. Oh, they remembered to bring her food and water, but she seemed to have been relegated to a matter of little importance. She just sat, in a cell with all the other Joo Dees, able to think but not able to move or act, a prisoner inside her own soul.

But at last, on what she would later learn was the day of the summer solstice, something changed. A presence entered her broken mind, and she felt more than heard a cold but somehow soothing voice asking if she was through suffering. Those responsible for her condition lived, it said, but it could give her the power to make them pay. To make the whole arrogant world pay for its cruelty and injustice. She accepted, and then she felt the presence pouring itself inside of her. Filled with its power, she stood under her own command for the first time in months, and the shadows that filled the cell clustered about her, making her their own. Now she knew that she could walk unseen by mortal eyes if she wished, and though she had never had any kind of training she was aware that she possessed extensive knowledge of hand-to-hand combat. When the Dai Li agent came with food for the Joo Dees she rose up and killed him effortlessly, and took the two fighting knives she found in his robes for her own.

There was so much work to be done, she knew, so many who deserved to suffer. But two faces stood out in her mind, one a middle-aged man and the other a young girl who both looked upon the world as their possession. Long Feng was her ultimate tormentor, but the voice whispered that it was the other who was truly worthy of hate. Azula was raised in wealth and had never known hardship, and she and her family were the root cause of all the suffering the War had brought. She grew powerful off others' pain, and the girl knew that she deserved to die more than anyone else alive.

And so Wei Ming waited and plotted until the time was right and her vengeance could begin. Long Feng had paid, and now he lay cold and dead at her feet. Ozai too lay dead in his cell, but that had been unsatisfying because he had already been broken by another. But Azula still waited, unbroken, as did Ba Sing Se and the whole Fire Nation. They would all know her pain before she was through. Jian Chin was a tyrant and a fool, and she would inflict him on all those arrogant and complacent people who stood by and let the War happen, along with those more directly responsible.

After spending so long brainwashed and then pursuing vengeance, Wei Ming no longer remembered her real name, or the name of her village, or her parents faces. But they no longer mattered. Vengeance was all, and soon it would all be accomplished. Without even a backward glance she left Long Feng's body behind and flowed off into the night.

///

And so, revelation. Wei Ming was once a Joo Dee (though not any of the ones the Gaang interacted with) and before that one of the refugees who fled to Ba Sing Se. Her backstory comprises repeated abuses from those with power, and now she has the strength to strike back at those she feels have wronged her – which is basically everybody (though she admittedly has reason to feel that way). Sometimes I’ll imagine certain songs I’ve heard as fitting for characters; for Wei Ming’s backstory, I feel Gollum’s Song, which plays over the credits of The Two Towers, is somehow most appropriate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgFpHs5dGdg

Wei Ming’s relationship with the spirit who is the Trilogy’s ultimate antagonist is a bit different from Azun’s. Azun was a soldier, and essentially treated the spirit as he would a respected superior officer, but he was always separate from it. Wei Ming is actually inhabited by the spirit*, which was able to slip in largely because the Dai Li’s brainwashing had already reduced her mind to Swiss cheese (and it could have taken any of the other Joo Dees in the room just as easily, for that matter). Because she’d already had so much of her identity stripped away, the spirit essentially filled in the cracks with its own being, resulting in what amounts to a new personality equal parts spirit and girl; as a result, Wei Ming only rarely perceives it as something separate from herself, and if you asked her would tell you that her plans are entirely of her own devising. One of the thematic ideas of the trilogy is madness and the various things people mean when using that word as expressed through various characters; Azula is actually mentally ill, Azun was a fanatic, Ilook the waterbender is criminally insane, and now we see that Wei Ming is possessed.

Long Feng’s death here has echoes of his defeat in the show, once again outmaneuvered by someone he thought he had under control, this time with fatal consequences. Good, but not good enough – the ultimate summation of his life. His part may be over, but Path’s other two main antagonists are still out there, and still awaiting Azula. We’ll return to her, Ty Lee, and Shin next chapter…

-MasterGhandalf

*”Beginnings” would eventually establish that spirits can only possess people for a short time before killing them. I try to keep my fics lined up with canon as much as possible, but this particular plot point was too important for me to change. I’ve decided that the nature of this particular spirit makes it easier for it to inhabit human hosts, and why this is will become more apparent as we learn more about it in this fic and the next.

 

Chapter 18: Trust Issues

The battle between the Dai Li and Shin's firebenders was over as Azula and Ty Lee emerged into the clearing. The captain and his men had been victorious, though both sides had suffered losses- several bodies in red and green lay scattered about, some still covered in stone or smoldering. Three of the Dai Li were still alive- they'd been bound together with what appeared to be their own cuffs and were sitting against a tree, watched over by two firebending soldiers. Captain Shin and two other men stood off to the side, deep in conversation. They were all that was left.

Shin looked up as he heard footsteps behind him. "Princess, Ty Lee!" he called. "You're alive! We were just discussing whether there were enough of us to risk looking for you and keep an eye on these scum at the same time." He motioned towards the Dai Li and scowled.

"Really? Shin, I didn't know you cared," Azula replied.

"Protecting you is one of the tasks your brother charged me with," the captain said rather stiffly. "I would carry it out regardless of personal feelings in the matter. Now tell me- what happened with the head Dai Li and that girl? Are they dead?"

"Long Feng was alive the last I saw him," Azula admitted. "But he fled when he realized he couldn't defeat me." She glanced over at the acrobat. "You've been unusually quiet, Ty Lee, but judging from the fact that you're here and she's not I’d guess that you were able to defeat Wei Ming."

"She ran off," Ty Lee said, "but I don't know where she went." Both Azula and Shin looked at her, but she didn't elaborate.

"In that case, they're both still threats," the captain said. "If they did both retreat, though, I doubt they'll be coming back tonight. Did you manage to learn anything about your mother, princess?"

"Yes," Azula said. "She's being held by a local warlord who calls himself Jian Chin in a castle a few days south of here. I was just returning to the ship to collect you and your men in order to retrieve her when we were jumped by the Dai Li."

"Well, as you can see we're hardly at full strength," Shin said bitterly. "They managed to destroy our ship, and though they weren't as strong as most frontline soldiers, they made up for it by being treacherous. We're still with you, but I think any kind of frontal assault is out at this point- and there's still the matter of the prisoners to deal with first."

"Kill them," Azula said with a shrug. "They're Dai Li agents- we're not going to be able to get them to betray their leader through force. In Ba Sing Se I was able to win their allegiance by convincing Long Feng that he'd already lost- after he acknowledged my superiority, the rest of them swore to follow me. Without him here to give them directions there's no way they'd betray their precious city."

"No, Azula!" Ty Lee put in, her tone unusually earnest. "Don't kill them- please. They're helpless prisoners."

"Helpless? Hardly,” Azula snapped. "As I said, they're too dangerous to keep around, and there aren't any prisons in this cursed place I'd trust to hold them. Killing them now is the simplest solution- and it's not like they’re innocent. You remember the Dai Li- they're as ruthless as any of my father's lackeys."

"I know," Ty Lee said. "But it's just that- well, you've hurt a lot of people, Azula, during the war, and that didn't work out too well in the end. If you want to do things differently this time, maybe having a little mercy might help?"

"Mercy," Azula spat. "Now you're sounding like Zuzu and the Avatar- clearly the Kyoshi Warriors got to you." Still, part of Azula had to admit the other girl had a point- if she didn't want to end up a mad wreck again maybe she would have to do something different from her old life, much as it stung to admit it. Maybe if she hadn’t treated others so cruelly she wouldn’t have had to fear their reprisals or betrayals, and maybe then she wouldn’t have spiraled down a pit of paranoia from which there had seemed no return…

"There is something we could do with them," Captain Shin said, his voice snapping Azula back to the present. Walking over to the prisoners he jerked one of them to his feet. "If it was up to me I'd side with the princess on this one," he said to the agent. "But it looks like her friend there is trying to talk her out of it, so if you want to save your own skin, you'll answer me- did you come here on a ship, or by land?"

"Ship," the Dai Li said. "We captured it from the Fire Nation years ago."

"And where is your ship now?"

"Just outside the harbor where you left yours- hidden."

"All right then," Shin said. "Here's what I'm offering- four of my men will escort you back to your vessel- bound so you can't earthbend, of course- and see you safely aboard. You'll then go back to Ba Sing Se or wherever you came from and never show your face outside of there again. If that's not acceptable- well, all the princess has to do is nod and you're dead, understand? Your friends killed a lot of mine tonight, and forgiveness isn't the policy of the Fire Navy."

"I understand," the agent said.

Azula sighed. "Very well," she said. "That is acceptable- if I went ahead and had them executed, Ty Lee wouldn't let me hear the end of it." She turned to Shin. "There's something interesting about your plan, though- it leaves us with just three people to confront Jian Chin. Was that deliberate?"

"I didn't think it would inconvenience you all that much," Captain Shin said, a look in his eyes that was almost a challenge. "After all, I heard you conquered Ba Sing Se with only three people."

Azula smiled. "And so I did. Now it's time to see if I still have the edge." Her eyes burned like molten gold in the night. On one level, she was actually glad to have the lesser soldiers out of the way. She, Ty Lee, and Shin were all highly trained, and finding a way to use them to achieve her mother's rescue was the kind of challenge Princess Azula welcomed.

///

Azula came awake suddenly, scanning the dark clearing for what had disturbed her. Shin and his men lay asleep on the far side, and the three captive Dai Li dosed against a tree, watched over by the last soldier. They would be leaving tomorrow morning for the coast while their captain went with Azula to free her mother. Nothing stirred on that side, so the princess rolled over and saw the source of her disturbance- Ty Lee. The acrobat sat staring directly at her, her large eyes troubled and morose.

"What do you want?" she asked rather irritably.

"Azula," Ty Lee said, 'we need to talk."

"We can talk in the morning. Go back to sleep."

"No- we need to talk now. There are things I really need to ask you about."

Azula stood up and stretched. "All right then. What are they?"

Ty Lee shook her head and grabbed Azula's wrist. The princess flinched slightly at the contact but allowed herself to be pulled away from the men and into the forest. Finally Ty Lee stopped and turned to her.

"What is this about, Ty Lee?" Azula demanded.

The acrobat pulled away and stepped from one foot to the other. "Earlier this evening, while I was fighting Wei Ming, she talked to me- tried to turn me against you. She said that she killed your father, and that the two of you met in the Capital before you left. Then she said that you just brought me along to fight her, but that you never told anyone." Ty Lee looked up at Azula, her grey eyes wide. "I need to know if that's true."

A thousand possible things to say spun through Azula's mind, but to her own surprise what came out was the truth. "Yes," she said softly. "She was right."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Ty Lee asked. "I knew you seemed scared when I first saw you, but I thought that was just the whole spirit-visions search-the-world-for-your-mom thing! You could at least have warned me about the crazy girl with the shadows and the foot-long knives!"

It was a question that Azula had asked herself- she knew that Wei Ming was a threat, and it would have been the logical thing to do to warn her companions about her so that they could fight her. She could have lied about it, or just refused to answer, but something in Ty Lee's eyes seemed to demand the truth. "I didn't trust you," she whispered. "You turned on me once before, and I thought that if you knew about the danger you'd leave me this time too. I realized that during the last few weeks of the War, you see- nobody's really loyal, and they'll betray you at the first opportunity. You can't trust anyone, even your friends." She tried to imbue the last word with a bitter, ironic twist, but somehow a choked whisper was all she managed.

Ty Lee's expression became one of pity. "Oh, Azula," she breathed. "It must be horrible to live like that. No wonder you went away- when I saw you in the institution, it was like you weren't even there."

"You came to visit me during… that?" Azula asked, not really believing her ears.

Ty Lee nodded. "A few times. Even after everything you did I couldn't just turn my back on you. I stopped after a few months, though- I mean, you didn't even seem to know I was there, so I wasn't really accomplishing anything."

"Why?" the princess demanded. "You betrayed me just weeks before- after more than a year I thought you might have cooled off, but not then."

"I didn't really think of what I did as betraying you," Ty Lee said. "You were shouting and looking like you were going to start shooting fire any second, and Mai had one of those knives of hers out, and it looked like in a few minutes one of you would be dead- maybe both. I couldn't just stand there and let my two best friends kill each other! I didn’t want to hurt you, just to protect Mai from you, or maybe you from Mai, I don’t really know, I just acted. But I guess you didn't see it that way."

"No," Azula said. 'I didn't. I saw you and Mai turning on me within minutes of each other- two of the three people in the entire world I was certain were loyal to me."

"Who was the other person?" Ty Lee asked, seeming genuinely curious. "It couldn't have been Zuko- did you have a secret boyfriend or something?"

Azula snorted. "No. The other person was my father, and then he left me to rot on a ruthless throne. He made me Fire Lord and then made the entire position into a sick joke by proclaiming himself Phoenix King. What does the ruler of the Fire Nation matter next to the god-emperor of the world?” Even now, the memory stung; Azula bared her teeth in a snarl and flames danced in the air around her clenched fists. “Everything I did I did for the Fire Nation – I did for him! – and then he showed me in the most dramatic way possible how little it meant to him. That's when I panicked, seeing treachery everywhere and ending up little more than a frothing animal when all of that pain and fear and rage took control.” She looked up at Ty Lee and barked a short, bitter laugh. “And now that the truth’s out I suppose you're going to leave me too."

Ty Lee shook her head. "No. I'm staying, Azula."

"Why?" the princess asked, confused at the acrobat’s apparently sincere tone. "I lied to you, remember- or at least I left a rather important part out of the truth. And you nearly got killed because of it."

"Well, part of it's because your mom's a nice lady and she needs our help," Ty Lee said. "And part of it's because I do want to help you, Azula. When we were little kids, you were the first person who ever seemed to notice me, rather than just the newest addition to a family where nobody had to worry about remembering which girl was which because they were all the same. You weren’t always very nice, and I know now that you were just trying to make a "useful ally" or something, but I still appreciate that. You may have been trying to help yourself, but you helped me figure out who I was too. Whatever happened later, I never forgot that."

Azula looked quietly at her friend for several moments, and then spoke two words she couldn't remember ever using sincerely in her life. "Thank you," she said quietly.

Ty Lee walked over and put an arm around Azula's shoulder. "Thank you for being honest," she said. "I know that's just about the only thing that's hard for you. Maybe you should try it more often- then you wouldn't have to worry about people not trusting you as much. And it's definitely better than shutting yourself up and pretending you don't feel anything- I mean, look at Mai. You don't want to end up dressing in black and sighing all the time, do you?"

"The spirits forbid," Azula said. She was reminded now of why she herself enjoyed Ty Lee's company- the acrobat was straightforward and guileless. There had been a time when the princess hadn't even been able to imagine her committing a betrayal, and now she was reminded of the depth of the loyalty she was capable of. Ty Lee flitted from emotion to emotion easily, but friendship was a constant; even the betrayal at the Boiling Rock had been rooted in it, even if it was directed at Mai. It was something Azula found difficult to understand, but that she honestly appreciated.

Trust, honesty, faith - these were things that were hard to come by in the Fire Nation court, and yet they were, Azula now realized, all the more precious for it.

///

Jian Chin sighed contentedly as he closed the door to his private rooms behind him. After the Dai Li man- Long Feng- had left the previous night, he'd spent the entire day working on gathering his subjects together and equipping them with weapons. They didn't need much training- they were just going to be meat shields to get him through the defenses of the Earth King's palace. Long Feng said he had ways around that, but Jian Chin wasn't sure he believed him and thought it best to be prepared for anything he'd overlooked.

Now the warlord was exhausted and was ready to sleep and dream of conquest. Removing his cape, he turned to toss it haphazardly over the back of an ornate chair he'd bought off a pirate captain for a ridiculously inflated price- and then stopped in surprise. Someone was sitting in it.

"Jian Chin," the figure in the dark cloak said in a cold, female voice. "We have things to discuss."

"Who by all the spirits are you and what are you doing in my fortress?" Jian Chin snarled, clenching his fist and making the floor rumble. "If you don't answer me now, girl, I'll crush you like the vermin you are!"

"Clearly the great Jian Chin's reputation does not exaggerate his charming personality," the strange girl said acidly. "To answer your question, my name is Wei Ming and we have a mutual acquaintance- one Long Feng, Grand Secretariat of Ba Sing Se and Head of the Dai Li. Is that name familiar?"

"It is," Jian Chin rumbled. "If you're here for him, he's gone. Tell me what your business with him is and I might tell him you were here."

The girl drew back her hood and shook out her glossy black hair. She was pretty, Jian Chin thought, if one was in to the pale type, but there was something deeply unnerving about her as well. Maybe something about those strange purple eyes – they were the kind that seemed to see too deeply, and too much. The warlord decided he didn't like this Wei Ming. "No need to tell him," she said. "Long Feng is dead."

Jian Chin swore. "What happened?" he demanded. "The city man was supposed to give me a kingdom!"

"He was killed by Princess Azula of the Fire Nation," Wei Ming said. "She's coming here right now- she heard you have her mother, and she's not happy about that at all. She'll be here in a few days."

The warlord was hardly a political expert, but he'd heard of Azula's takeover in Ba Sing Se and wasn't terribly keen on the idea of facing her. Still, he thought, she was only a child, and a girl to boot. A boulder would crush her as easy as anyone. "What do you get for telling me this?" he asked suspiciously.

"I want to see Azula dead, and I think we might be able to help each other," Wei Ming replied. "I couldn't help but notice that you have a small army gathering around this fortress- turn them loose on her. The princess's companions are fair game to kill, but I have something special planned for Azula herself. I believe that there are caverns located beneath this place?"

"Yeah," Jian Chin grunted. "What about them?"

"If your men can herd Azula into them, I'll do the rest." Wei Ming raised a hand and shadows trailed from it. "I'm not some shadowbender out of a ghost story, but darkness and I have and… affinity, nonetheless."

Jian Chin suppressed a shudder. "And what do I get out of this deal?"

"Long Feng was going to show you secret passages into Ba Sing Se," Wei Ming said. "I can do him one better." She reached into the folds of her cloak and pulled out a scroll which she tossed at the warlord. He caught and unrolled it, and then gave a fierce grin. This was a detailed map of the Ba Sing Se undercity- exactly what he needed. “I drew this a long time ago, thinking it might come in handy. I think you’ll be able to make excellent use of it.”

"You have a deal, girl," Jian Chin said. "You've handed me the key to the Earth Kingdom, and so I'll give you your little princess. Never let it be said that Jian Chin doesn't honor his debts."

Wei Ming smiled and pulled her hood back up. "Excellent. I'll see you again soon- though you may not see me." She rose and slipped into the shadows in the corner of the room, vanishing completely.

Jian Chin waited until he was certain she was gone and then snorted. "Cursed witch," he muttered. Still, he'd put up with her for what she'd given him.

It was time for the man who bore the name of one of the greatest conquerors in history to earn a little glory of his own.

///

This chapter is an extremely pivotal one in Azula’s development, especially when she and Ty Lee have their heart-to-heart. Still, I think most of it speaks for itself. Azula is starting to build herself back up, and is starting to grasp her way much for firmly to some idea of what friendship means and why trust is so valuable. For Ty Lee’s part, she’s reaffirmed her decision to stand by Azula, because whatever else she may have done, Azula needs help, and so does Ursa.

Especially since our two surviving main villains are now in active alliance with each other. Wei Ming is happy to pick up where Long Feng left off with Jian Chin, and the warlord is too fixated on his own glory to realize what a dangerous game he’s playing. We’re headed for a climax now!

-MasterGhandalf