Chapter 1: Prologue-Silent Feet
Chapter Text
"Do not chase another human being. Instead, chase your curiosity. Chase your development and your goals. Chase your passion. Strive to work for something bigger than yourself, and instead of trying to convince someone that you fit within their world, strive to build your own."
-Bianca Sparacino, Seeds Planted in Concrete.
This was a bad idea, very much so, but she never was capable of resisting the gentle pull of curiosity.
Her mum would always tell her curiosity killed the cat-owl, Kaz though that at least the cat-owl would die satisfied.
As soon as she had heard that Prince Iroh of the fire nation was visiting their city she had decided she would know why. It wouldn't be too hard Kaz kept repeating in her mind, she'd been sneaking in governor's Xhu residence for two years; no one has never noticed her.
The first time she had entered the residence was out of hunger, her mum did the best she could to feed them but it wasn't always enough, so she had stolen from the kitchen. Each time she got in she became braver, she did it less out of necessity and more out of delight. One time she had stolen the ingredients for her favourite tea; her mum understood what she had been doing. Kaz got a scolding and promised she wouldn't steal other food, she kept her promise and ended up stealing money instead.
It was during one particular escapade in the governor's office that she heard him talk. As soon as she heard the door rattle she hid in the dark; the governor and one of his accountants had entered the office and had started discussing. The governor was collecting higher taxes so that he could conduct a lavish life and he was falsifying the documents he sent back to the capital, the accountant wanted to stop the heist. A few weeks later the accountant had disappeared. This is how Kaz learned that information was what was really worth stealing, so she went back every week and listened, she listened to the servants, she listened to the governor, she listened to his wife and her friends; maybe one day what she knew could help her or maybe it could make her disappear like the accountant.
This his how she ended up hiding on a beam in the room that was to be occupied by the Dragon of the West. Kaz had dimmed the candles with her bending and hid once again in the shadows, her eyes keen and her ears perked wondering why she just couldn't resist her curiosity.
The door creaked and Prince Iroh came in, he looked disappointingly normal, typical fire nation top knot and pointy beard. She looked at him while he set up a Pai Sho table for a game and started preparing a pot of tea with two porcelain cups, a grave frown on his face. Maybe he was expecting someone, she hoped they would talk about something important or maybe just play Pai Sho, at least she could learn how to play the board game.
"I hope you enjoy ginseng tea."
Who was he talking to? He was the only one in the room, except for Kaz, he couldn't have noticed her couldn't he? Maybe he was just mad and was talking to a ghost. Her breath hitched in her throat silently.
"I'm talking to you beam spy, I usually am quite good at guessing people's favourite tea by their looks but well, I can't really see you."
He continued with a firm tone.
Kaz had messed up, she had bit more than she could chew and now she was going to pay for it. Would her mum be angry or sad at what she had done? Would she pay to?
Her voice came out wispy and incredibly shaky. "How?"
Prince Iroh turned around towards the sound of her voice and for the first time got a peek at the intruder. Big scared orange eyes were looking at him from the ceiling, they weren't a spy of the governor they were just a kid. He thought of his own son and his voice softened.
"You're controlling the flames to hide you, the flickering is following your breath though, it's much too regular to be natural, on the other hand, I must compliment your control it's very good."
The flames flickered again, the kid was really scared, he looked at the beam again and saw tiny droplets of water hitting the ground just beneath it, they were crying, Iroh's heart clenched.
"Come out, if you don't like tea or Pai Sho it's alright, even if I must say tea is one of life finest delights, you should try it."
Kaz couldn't really think about tea at the moment, the only thing in her mind was how scared she was and that she didn't want to disappear like the accountant, she just wanted to go back to her mom. Tears kept falling down her face and the flames flickered more as her breath became more erratic, the stupid flames that betrayed her.
Her voice came out even shakier.
"Are you going to make me disappear like the accountant?"
Iroh's eyebrows shot even higher, this was the last question he was expecting.
"Don't cry, I'm not making you disappear. I want to speak to you and then you can go back to your family."
The eyes were looking at him again as if to gauge his sincerity. Then they disappeared in the darkness and the kid appeared to move. He couldn't really tell, since he stopped hearing them. Then he saw a little kid silently hopping from the beam on top of the closet, dirty clothes and messy black hair, probably around Zuko's age.
"What did you say about the accountant? Why did they disappear?"
Kaz perked up at this question, the governor was lying to the royal family, to Prince Iroh, maybe if she used what she knew right she could go back to her mum. She still didn't trust the Prince word, she knew rich people lied more often, but she could at least try.
"If I tell you you'll let me go?"
"I would have let you go in any case, but if you tell me you could really help me out."
Iroh saw the kid, probably a little girl, thumbing through her hair while trying to decide if he was trustworthy. He thought of Zuko; he would have trusted everyone without a second thought. This kid seemed much warier. Her wispy voice interrupted his musings.
" The governor is lying about the tax money, the accountant wanted to tell the truth but he disappeared just after fighting with the governor about it."
She was looking at him now, her eyes burning with hope, her hand still thumbing through her hair.
"Thank you, but how do you know this?"
Kaz started shaking, he had tricked her, she was really in trouble now, she should have never mentioned the accountant, she looked around the room but he was a soldier and he would be able to stop her. She guessed she could only tell the truth, maybe that would be enough to protect her mum.
"I was in his office, I was stealing from him, I just wanted to be able to buy something nice for dinner. He has all the documents in his study too, I don't understand everything they say but I could read enough to know they were about taxes and expenses."
Iroh sighed, his brother was right to call him a bleeding heart, this was just a kid caught up in something bigger than her. Yes, she had committed crimes, but he couldn't ignore the talent she showed, good control of her fire and the promise of being a great spy for the Nation if trained right. Maybe that was the solution, he could take her in as an apprentice so she wouldn't be punished. He had to find her parents, probably one of them was a servant at the residence, he could talk to them. He would just have to convey his sincerity to the kid.
"You did something very wrong Kaz, but I think you're a good kid, maybe if you bring me to your parents we can solve this situation, are they here? Should I call for them? I swear I won't hurt you nor them"
Kaz's eyes widened, she looked at the Prince trying to understand if he was lying to her, but he looked sincere. So she decided to just trust him completely, her hand still in her hair and looking at her feet she answered.
"My mum works in the red light district"
Iroh let a sigh escape his chest. Talented indeed if she had sneaked in from the outside, multiple times apparently. Probably a trouble maker too. Whatever, he smiled reassuringly at her and spoke.
"Hop down Silentfeet, let's go find your mum."
The kid had luckily stopped trembling and now was looking at him with scrunched up brows, still thumbing through her hair.
"Silent feet?"
Iroh let out a laugh.
"That's your nickname until you tell me how you're actually called"
***
Iroh soon found out that Silentfeet's real name was Kaz. Her mother worked in one of the city's brothels and she made excellent rose tea, whenever Kaz managed to get her hands on the right ingredients at least. Also, Kaz had apparently entered his room out of curiosity and not to steal, she was lucky it had been Iroh and not Ozai the Prince visiting.
He had convinced the guards to let him go alone, he argued a six-year old couldn't possibly harm a master fire bender. Now he was in front of a red brick building in the shady part of town, Kaz standing by his side and glaring at the door.
"My lord, do you really want to talk with my mum?"
Iroh was surprised at the shift in formality.
"Positive."
Kaz sighed, she approached the door and just before she entered her mother rushed out embracing her.
"Where were you, Kaz? I was so worried."
"I'm sorry mum," Kaz mumbled in her arms.
At that moment her mum raised her gaze and noticed Prince Iroh, a few feet behind Kaz, silently observing them. Her eyes widened when she recognised who he was, she moved Kaz behind her back and bowed deeply.
"My Lord, I'm sorry if Kaz has done something to displease you, she's just a child, she didn't mean any harm. If there is a way in which I can repay your troubles, I'll gladly follow through with it."
Iroh smiled gently. Kaz was definitely a trouble maker if her mother was already assuming the worst.
"I'll gladly accept a cup of tea for my troubles, your daughter says you're an excellent brewer."
The woman's posture seemed to relax at his answer. She straightened her spine and nodded. She was incredibly pretty, her and Kaz shared the same bright orange eyes and black hair but the similarities seemed to end there, the woman had long straight hair, an oval face and a straight sophisticated nose. Little Kaz in short words was scruffy.
"Yes, My Lord, follow me. I am sorry our home is far too humble for a Prince."
Iroh shook his head and gestured for the woman to lead the way. "It's not a problem, Miss.?
"My name is Syrah, My lord."
At this she turned around and walked to the back of the red building where another smaller house was situated, it was probably where the workers resided.
Kaz was walking next to him meekly, the spirited child he had talked to until now gone, Iroh smiled at her and ruffled her already messy hair. Kaz looked at him surprised and then smiled back.
They finally arrived in a small room with two cots, Syrah took out an old pot and started brewing their tea, probably rose from the delicious smell that now permeated the room.
Once he was surprised to see Kaz move and fill his cup and then her mother's, then her Syrah filled Kaz's cup; so the little girl knew how to behave, she just chose not to.
Iroh drank a sip of tea and his eyes widened.
"This is the most delicious tea I've ever had, your daughter was right in praising you."
Syrah smiled sadly. "My parents owned a tea shop, they and the shop where lost in the war."
Iroh looked at her with sympathy, he could imagine how she ended up here now.
"I'm sorry for your loss."
Syrah steeled herself, this wasn't just a courtesy visit, she glanced at Kaz she looked relaxed but Zyrah saw the wariness behind her gaze. What had she done this time? Kaz was such a bright child but she just didn't understand that she couldn't sneak around and cause trouble without consequences.
"I'm sorry for my directedness but what is this visit due, My Lord?"
Kaz saw the Prince take another sip of his tea, then put the cup on the low table. His smile had faded and she couldn't help but feel nervous. She tried to make herself smaller and sip her tea quietly. Then the Prince broke the silence.
"Kaz sneaked into my room at the governor's residence," here it comes, he's going to discuss her punishment with her mum, who at the moment was looking at her shocked. "she also told me that she had been stealing from the residence and listening in on conversations. Unfortunately, theft is a crime, fortunately, what she heard was helpful to the Royal family."
Kaz was really tense now, both her and her mother were expecting the Prince to continue, it could either go very bad or very well. She had definitely messed up but maybe that conversation she had overheard would help her case.
Prince Iroh continued."Moreover, she has shown talent as a possible spy, would she serve the Nation and very good control of her firebending for her age. I propose to forget her crime and I would like to take her as my student. This means that she will have to come to the Royal Palace with me and won't be able to come back here."
Kaz breath stopped, he wanted to take her as his student? This was a huge opportunity but it would mean leaving mum. She couldn't help but speak up.
"What if I want to stay?"
Her mum hissed her name, she didn't want her to be in ulterior trouble because of her attitude. Iroh looked at her directly, he wasn't smiling anymore.
"We would have to arrange some sort of punishment for you, I don't know what it will be, the governor would decide and he's not a gentle man."
Kaz looked at the cup, this was true. The governor wasn't forgiving and without the Prince on her side things would go down badly. Iroh spoke again.
"Think about it Kaz, what life awaits you here? You too Syrah, I know you love your daughter, do you want to keep her here and deny her the possibility to grow up with something more?"
Syrah knew the Prince was right, she loved her daughter and letting her go was the best thing for her. It didn't mean it was easy, Kaz was the best thing in her life, despite her being a handful most of the time. Syrah would miss her incessant questions, the bright smile she gave her when she got a good grade at school or seeing Kaz thumbing through her hair while she concocted some plan.
Syrah looked at her daughter who was still staring at her cup of tea like it held all the answers she needed, took her chin in her hand and leaned in to give her a peck in her forehead.
"Kaz, I know you don't want to leave me but this is probably the best opportunity you'll ever have, you shouldn't let it go for me. Just remember to never let the sunshine inside of you get dimmer."
Kaz was looking at her mum now, her eyes watery, she didn't want to leave her, but her mum was right. So, Kaz closed her eyes let her tears disappear and looked back at Prince Iroh of the fire nation with determination.
"I'll be honoured to be your student, Master Iroh."
Mum had told her that grandfather Kuzon always said to test your luck, you may gain a dragon ride. Kaz had tested her luck the moment she had entered that room, maybe the ship to the capital would be her dragon ride or maybe she would get burned.
Chapter 2: Fire Lord “Arse”ulon
Summary:
Kaz arrives at the palace and meet an unpleasant Fire Lord and a very friendly prince. She also starts learning fire bending.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions.”
-Mark Twain.
Kaz's eyes widened as the ship approached the Great Gates of Azulon. Her gaze swept over the gigantic statue of the Fire Lord and the brass dragons sculpted in the sides of the bay. As she took in the imposing structure; she had never seen anything like this.
The governor had been arrested and thanks to the scrolls she had noticed they had managed to prove his crimes. Things seemed to go well but Kaz missed her mum.
Iroh had started her training during their three days trip back to the Capital City. After assessing she had control down to a notch they had started on basic firebending forms. Kaz would have started firebending lessons at school in the following months, but Iroh was sure that with his teaching she could thrive and be more than just a foot soldier.
At that moment Master Iroh joined her side and ruffled her hair, he smiled at her and spoke.
"What is your first impression of the capital?"
Kaz looked ahead at the city with sparkling eyes.
"It's so beautiful."
Iroh laughed at her wide eyes, she looked as if by opening them more she could take more information in. "Wait until you see the palace. I hope you'll find yourself at home, my son Lu Ten is eager to meet you; I hope he won't try to steal my student."
Kaz giggled at that and looked up at Iroh for a moment, only to look right back at the city while the ship docked.
"I'm eager to meet him too, from how you talk about your son he sounds great. I'm sure I'll look up to him too."
Iroh's face suddenly turned serious, he took Kaz by her shoulders gently and looked at her in the eyes.
"Kaz, I sent a letter to Fire Lord Azulon too, in order for me to take a student he wants to make sure you really show promise. As soon as we get to the palace we will meet with him; it's imperative for you to be on your best behaviour and do everything I say."
Kaz nodded and looked back at him, the childish joy was gone from her eyes now. In its stead, Iroh saw the clever spark he observed every time he showed her a new firebending form. She was storing and processing the information he just gave.
"Yes, Master Iroh."
With this, she was back at observing the scenery, but behind the joy, he could still see the gears turning in her brain, she had also started thumbing through her hair again. Iroh smiled at that, Kaz's love for knowledge and natural curiosity if rightly cultivated could be her greatest weapon. He ruffled her hair again and motioned her to follow him.
***
Kaz stood behind Iroh in front of the doors of the throne room. All the confidence she had on the ship had disappeared, what if the Fire Lord thought she wasn't worthy of being taught? Especially by his firstborn son and heir to the throne. She took a breath and tried to calm her nerves. Master Iroh looked back at her with a reassuring smile.
"Ready?" Kaz's voice was non-existent so she just nodded in response.
When Iroh entered the throne room Kaz followed silently behind him. The Palace was the most sumptuous place she had ever been in, even more than the governor's residence, and the throne room wasn't any less intricately decorated.
The room was wide and covered in dark red stone, large columns set on golden stumps occupied the whole space. The throne was positioned above a set of stairs and behind it stood a golden statue of a dragon. The only source of light was the fire that came out from beneath the snarling Stratton. On the throne sat Fire Lord Azulon.
The man was old. He had long white hair and small beady eyes, his gaze was set on Iroh but it still made Kaz get goosebumps. While looking straight at Iroh he spoke.
"Welcome back my son. Didn't you bring your street pick-up along as I asked?"
Iroh made a sign for Kaz to move into sight, she did so and bowed in front of the Fire Lord, mostly to hide her displeased face for being called street pick up.
"Yes, here she is, father."
The Fire Lord squared her down, looking at Kaz as if she was nothing more than a little ant. Kaz assumed it made sense since he was the Fire Lord. It still wasn't pleasant, this man was supposed to care for his citizens not think of them as dirt; Master Iroh had never regarded her with so much disrespect despite Kaz being his student and coming from low social status.
"Rumpled. Too small, can it even firebend. At least it's as silent as you told me in the letter."
Kaz bristled, 'IT!?', she was a person, a kid yes, but a person non the less. She had to bite her tongue not to lash out, she tasted the coppery flavour of blood and glared at her feet.
Iroh's brows furrowed.
"Despite her age, Kaz already has enough control of fire, I've already been able to teach her some forms. Test her, she will not disappoint."
The Fire Lord appraised Kaz with the same haughty look.
"Show me this incredible control my son talks about. I want you to control the flames behind my back, surely you'll be capable of such a small feat.."
Kaz heard Iroh take a sharp breath, apparently, he wasn't expecting this. The Fire Lord was looking at her with an evil glint in his eyes as if to mock her. A little child that flew too close to the sun and ended up burnt. At that moment the room was plunged into darkness.
Kaz set her face in a determined scowl, she was tired of being looked down upon, she was tired of being just a street pick-up, she was tired of being regarded as dirt. Kaz closed her eyes and tried to feel for the source of the flames, it was barely there smouldering coals behind the throne, there were so many though; to light them up she would have to use all her will. It didn't matter, she had to do it. Her anger turned in cold tenacity, she was good and she would show them that she could be great.
She took one deep breath and the flames didn't follow.
She took another and the coals didn't get any warmer.
Kaz took a third breath, she thought of her mother, she had to succeed for her too, she thought of Master Iroh who had seen something in her nobody's else had. When she released the air from her lungs the coals were lit by a tiny spark. Slowly a little flame spread out across the darkness, it was just enough for her to see some of the warm hues behind her closed eyelids. It was nowhere as big and bright as the one made by Azulon; like a squirrel-toad compared with a dragon. She could keep control of it only for a couple more breathing cycles. When she, at last, couldn't manage the flames anymore she opened her eyes to the dark room once again, dejected, she had failed.
The fire illuminated them once again, this time burning hot and bright but always steady. Azulon had lit it up once again.
Why was the Fire Lord looking at her with wide surprised eyes? She turned to Iroh, he wasn't smiling, but his eyes were glimmering. The Fire Lord speaking to her once again called back her attention.
"Apparently you're worth something little girl." He then turned to Iroh, "Take her as your student, a dull sword needs sharpening to become deadly."
Iroh bowed "Yes, father."
He turned around and made a sign for Kaz to follow, she bowed once again to the Fire Lord and scuttled after the Prince.
Once outside Iroh looked at Kaz with the same glimmer in his eyes. "You know what you did Kaz?"
Kaz frowned, "Not really, I barely managed to make some fire, I could not even control it properly, I failed." Iroh shook his head, "You shouldn't have been able to control it at all, Azulon gave you something way to difficult for you. We're lucky you're better than I thought, that or more stubborn than an earthbender."
Kaz's eyes widened then her hand started thumbing through her hair, "I was just wanted to succeed, to prove I'm good enough." She mumbled uncertainly. Then her eyes lost focus while she continued thumbing through her hair.
Iroh noted she had gone in thinking mode, what exactly she was thinking about he didn't know, she would tell him once she got to a conclusion.
He gently took her shoulders and guided her through the palace, he really had missed his son and couldn't wait to embrace him again. Iroh hoped Lu Ten wouldn't be thrown off by Kaz's presence. He doubted Lu Ten would have a problem.
***
Luckily lunch was a pleasurable endeavour. Kaz at first felt intimidated by Lu Ten, he was sixteen and was a Prince. As soon as Iroh presented them he gave her an exasperated look, shook his head while looking at his father and then politely introduced himself. Now she thought the heir to the throne might be the best person in the whole world, she finally had found someone to whom she could fire as many questions as she wanted. Usually, people just shut her up but Lu Ten just answered everything she asked with a smile.
Lu Ten knew his father had a tender heart beneath his general armour so when he had received his letter where he told him about the new student he wasn't surprised. A talented little kid destined to either the front lines or reform school? Obviously, his father had taken her under his wing. At first, he was just resigned to his father decision but Kaz was already growing on him; be it her crazy curiosity about pretty much everything or the way her eyes widened every time he answered one of her many questions, all in all, she looked like an overexcited puppy and one couldn't help but love puppies. Also if he had to be fair he liked feeling like he was the one who held all the answers.
Iroh was glad his son had the patience of a sage. Kaz had been asking him the most random things that seemed to cross her mind like 'where does the sun go when it sets?' or 'How many letters can travel through the Omashu mail system?'. Lu Ten had been answering each one of them for almost two hours and somehow was still smiling at the exuberant kid.
A mischievous glint passed through Kaz's eyes, she smirked up at Lu Ten. The young Prince shivered in his spot, that smirk reminded him an awful lot of Azula, it wasn't a good sign for it to be directed at him.
"Any other questions, Kaz?" His voice felt strained.
An innocent expression took the place of the smirk, Lu Ten relaxed a bit.
"Yes, the last one for now- Where do babies come from?"
An undignified squeak came out of Lu Ten's mouth and his eyes seemed too almost pop out of their sockets. Iroh started coughing he had apparently choked on his green tea.
The young teen started stuttering, "The- uh-they, you-uhm-you know, two pe-eh-people that love..."
Kaz started snickering and looked at Lu Ten with amusement. "I'm sorry, it was too good of an opportunity to pass it out."
The Prince looked at her in mock offence and shrilly told her "I'm not answering any of your questions after this!".
Kaz's mouth hung open, she had to recover, she had to use her greatest weapon.
Her eyes widened and her mouth set into a pout, she used her puppy eyes. "No, come on, you're already my favourite person in the whole world."
Lu Ten looked at her sceptically, although a smile was already lifting the corners of his mouth. "Don't try to fool me, I'm not answering anymore-for now," Kaz answered with a large smile.
Suddenly Iroh's booming laughter interrupted their bickering. These light moments where the things he fought for; every time he went to the front lines he longed to feel the warmth of his family again. Even if Kaz was mainly here to learn how to fight he hoped he could give her a second home.
***
"Kaz, when you move your feet you tend to lose your root. Remember, be steady but be flexible."
Iroh's voice reverberated in the empty training room.
Kaz brows furrowed, what was that even supposed to mean?
"Yes, master." She conceded while trying to understand the instructions.
"Good, now repeat this sequence again ten times."
Kaz's eyes widened, she dropped her stance and turned towards Iroh.
"TEN?!"
Her voice sounded almost screechy "I don't even get how I am supposed to stand."
Iroh hummed from where he sat. "Why didn't you tell me that you didn't understand my instructions?"
Kaz adverted her gaze and shrugged. "I didn't want to seem lacking."
Iroh stood up. "If you don't understand you have to say so. In any case, let me demonstrate."
He threw out a low punch and flames came with it. One leg in front of the other, both slightly bent. He then moved one leg back and quickly threw out two other fire punches. Jumping gracefully he landed in a crouch, the fire still following his movements. He stood up and threw two other punches, this time in different directions all the while switching his footing.
Kaz was trying to take it all in. The stance that was so difficult for her especially. Iroh was always swift on his feet without being unstable.
He looked at her calmly. "You get it now?" Iroh asked, "Earthbenders need to be stronger than the rock they move; waterbenders need to move as fluidly as the ocean they control; airbenders need to be as light as the wind they used to control and we; firebenders, need to be as willful as the flames we produce."
Kaz nodded looking pensive."I understand master."
Iroh put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed reassuringly. " You stand too much like an Airbender Kaz, too light on your feet, it is both your greatest strength and your weakness. When you'll be a master you'll be able to use it to your advantage, the same way you'll be able to learn from other benders to become stronger; but for now, you have to learn the basics because without them you won't be able to learn the rest."
Kaz looked up at him, this time she looked more determined, something akin to longing burned behind her eyes.
"So this is only the first step, what is the limit?"
Iroh's eyes widened maybe not longing, more like hubris. "I don't know Kaz what the limit of firebending is." She smiled, her eyes burning even more intensely, then she would be the one to find out.
Iroh squeezed her shoulder once again and brought her out of her thoughts. "Come on, repeat the sequence correctly ten times and then we will have tea."
This time Kaz did not complain.
Notes:
Thanks to all of those that have decided to give this story a chance. I hope the lack of Zuko for these first two chapters wasn’t too upsetting, I just wanted to give some characterisation to Kaz. Moreover I have planned three other chapters before the actual storyline of ATLA starts.
Next chapter: Stolen Pastries and Turtleducks.
Chapter 3: Stolen Pastries and Turtleducks
Summary:
Someone new finds his place in Kaz’s little circle of loved ones. years go by and she starts exploring what can and can’t be done with firebending but for now her ideas are only theories. Just as Kaz finds a brother in Lu Ten it’s time to say goodbye.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
"What can be more delightful than to have someone to whom you can say everything with the same absolute confidence as to yourself?"
-Marcus Tullius Cicero, Treatises on Friendship and Old Age
Kaz looked to her right, then to her left. Nothing. She huffed how come in thus the whole Palace there was nowhere to hide besides the obvious closets or cupboards in the kitchen?
At least her puppy eyes earned her a few cinnamon egg tarts. She could smell their spicy aroma from the packet in her hands, her mouth was watering while imaging how delicious they were going to taste.
No, now wasn't the time to think about the tarts. First to find a good hiding spot, then eat. It would be a double win and if she felt generous she could leave a tart to the enemy.
The enemy was Lu Ten, who was currently looking for her all over the palace. He probably regretted accepting her challenge at hide and seek. It took her five minutes to find him and it had been two hours since Lu Ten had started searching for Kaz. To her defence nobody said that you couldn't change hiding spots, so she moved every time she heard loud Prince getting too close. Now though, she had run out of options in the Palace.
Ah-ha! Inside the Palace she had nowhere to hide, the outside was still unexplored terrain, she had to find a place in the gardens. Those weren't off-limits either, at least nobody had said so.
Kaz continued to move quietly while thinking about the gardens. There was one with a big tree right next to a pond that was almost always empty, it would be good.
Her run to the garden came to an abrupt halt when she saw a kid sitting right next to the pond, hunched figure breaking little pieces of bread and throwing them sadly into the pond. There was no way for her to get to the tree without him seeing her. Kaz cleared her throat and tentatively said- "Hello there!" The kid jumped up startled and turned towards her "Who are you and what are you doing here?"
Kaz gave him an easy smile, "Name's Kaz, I'm General's Iroh student and I really need to climb that tree." She pointed at it with her chin. The kid looked at her as if she was sprouting another head. Kaz sighed and continued "You are?"
He blinked, almost surprised, and started shuffling the piece of bread he had from one hand to the other. "I'm Zuko-Ahem-Prince, yes Prince Zuko. Is climbing trees a training technique?"
Oh, this was Lu Ten's cousin, she had overheard a couple of things about him. Kind but naive, that's what she had gathered. The young Prince also always came second to his sister when it came to firebending, maybe he wanted to learn something to impress his family. Unfortunately, tree climbing wasn't a training exercise. While she was lost in her thoughts she hadn't noticed he had come closer and was waving a hand in front of her face. "Oi, is it or is it not."
Kaz blinked and took a step back. "Uh, no it isn't-uhm- sorry. I'm just hiding from your cousin" As soon as she saw the mistrust start forming in Zuko's eyes she moved her hands in front of her and shook her head while giggling. "No, nothing bad, simply hide and seek. So, here have a tarte, I'll hide and if he passes by you don't tell him I'm here, okay?"
He nodded while looking between her and the tarte unsure, "Where did you get this?"
Kaz passed him and started circling the tree, looking for the best way to climb. "They gave them to me in the kitchens, I asked for them."
At this point, she jumped up, latched onto a branch and used the momentum to get up completely.
A surprised awe reached her ears and she peeked from to foliage. Kaz saw Zuko looking up at her with wonder. "You didn't even make noise. Even Tai Lee makes noise when she climbs."
Kaz smiled back at him complicitly. "Well, I don't, now-" she brought one finger up to her lips in a shushing motion, clever eyes that promised mischief and a smile that spelt troubles. While settling back into the foliage she saw Zuko sitting back at the edge of the pond and eating his tarte. He looked even stiffer now, if before she had the impression the Prince felt the weight of the world on his shoulders now it was as if a fire was licking at his feet too. Every once in a while he would look towards where she was hiding, open his mouth as if to ask a question and just shook his head and remain in silence.
Kaz didn't bother to talk either, she just observed him through the foliage and branches, his hunched shoulders and unsure demeanour sparked something into her. She had always thought that sharp her smile and her ambition would bring her far, but it had always sanctioned her loneliness; other kids didn't like her attitude and adults either saw her for what she could become, a weapon for her nation or as a rascal. Maybe letting the scorching flames hidden behind the pretence of her happy laugh be quelled a bit could make her find a friend.
Only a couple of minutes after the sound of quick footsteps could be heard coming nearby. Followed by an "Aha!"
Lu Ten entered the garden hoping to finally find Kaz, she had to be cheating, he had combed the whole Palace and there was no trace of her. Instead of her, he saw Zuko sitting by the pond and feeding the turtleducks.
His heart ached for his little cousin. Zuko was such a sweet kid and somehow didn't have any friends. He only had the company of his mother, occasionally him and his sister that would just tease him. His father didn't make things any better, ignoring him or outright dismissing him. Maybe once he found Kaz he could introduce them, they both needed a friend their age.
Zuko turned towards him and looked at him with wide eyes. "H-uh-hi." Lu Ten smiled and waved back, trying to reassure him, why was Zuko this nervous? "Howdy Zuko, have you perhaps seen a little girl, this tall-" he gestured with a hand to his hip "With curly black hair and orange eyes?"
Zuko jumped up and started fidgeting, he wasn't even looking at him in the eye. Lu Ten grew suspicious, he might have seen her and for some reason didn't want to tell him. "I-uhm I mean, I you know, didn't, I-"
Lu Ten interrupted him with a raised brow "Where is she?"
Zuko choked on his word and then all in one breath answered. "Sheshidinginthetreebranches."
An angry shout came from somewhere up said tree "Traitor! I even gave you a tarte!"
While chuckling Lu Ten approached the tree and looked in the foliage. He saw Kaz sitting on a branch looking back at him with an affronted expression. "Found you, cheater. Now jump down. Also thanks Zuko."
She huffed and jumped down turning her pissed off stare towards Zuko who proceeded to squeak and hide behind him. "You can't lie for shit, a no would have been enough."
Lu Ten pinched her cheek "Language Kaz." She glared back at him and then at Zuko again, he was pitying his cousin at this moment, Kaz had the scary gaze down to a notch. "Yeah, Yeah. I didn't cheat I was betrayed despite my selfless act of kindness!" She also was quite the drama queen.
Zuko looked up from behind Lu Ten apprehensive "I'm sorry." He hadn't wanted to tell, he just wasn't a good liar.
Kaz brought a hand to her forehead, as if she were a distressed lady, circled behind Lu Ten and started to talk to Zuko dramatically. "I'm hurt, broken, my trust betrayed. The only way for it to be restored prince Zuko-" He was waiting for her to finish almost holding his breath, panicked even, why was he so tense? it was just a joke, Kaz softened her gaze towards him and smiled "Is for you to play with me and Lu Ten, if you want to obviously."
Something heavy seemed to lift up from Zuko's shoulder's, he smiled back at her widely. "Yes!-ehm I mean alright."
Behind them Lu Ten clapped his hands, startling them both. "Perfect! So, since she cheated Kaz is it."
She put her hand on her hips. "I said I didn't cheat, you have to specify the rules better."
***
Kaz was sitting in the library scribbling away in a worn notebook while reading from multiple scrolls. Ink stained her face and her hands but she was careful not to dirty her precious reading material. In the last year, she had finally managed to get the basics of firebending down to a notch and Master Iroh now wanted her to implement other element's bending forms in her own. It was difficult but stimulating nonetheless.
She had started with some old airbending scrolls that were sacked from the temples. Kaz didn't know if she should feel angered by the fire nation stealing and erasing the history of Air Nomads or grateful for the opportunity to feel closer to the grandma she had never met. Most of the time she felt more outrageous than happy though. While reading about the mainly defensive moves she couldn't help but remember every time she had been punished in school for affirming that Air Nomads were peaceful and not ready for war like their books taught. These scrolls were proof that the tales her Mum recounted her of the spiritual people that appreciated the fun in life, or of her grandma easy laughter before she had been discovered and killed were truth.
Kaz's musings were interrupted when the chair in front of her was roughly moved by a quite upset Zuko. He had quickly become her closest friend, it had taken a bit but finally, Zuko was less guarded around her which made her more comfortable, while Kaz had softened up most of her edges to avoid hurting his feelings. Surprisingly though, Lady Ursa was less than happy with them being friends; she had wanted for Zuko to have some but would have preferred someone other than the crown Prince spy in training. Kaz really didn't understand why Ursa didn't trust her, she would never harm Zuko.
She looked back at home while he sat with a huff. "What's wrong Zuko?"
He shook the book in his hands in front of her face.
"This! This is what is wrong!"
Kaz looked from the frantically moving to the frustrated Prince, then arched one brow "And this is?" she droned.
"This is a book court conduct and the most boring thing one could have to read in the entire world," Zuko answered putting the book so forcefully on the table it tussled the scrolls, then moved it towards Kaz for her to examine it. She took it in her hands gingerly and skimmed through the first couple of paragraphs.
"It does seem awfully dull but-" She started to say, only to be interrupted by Zuko. "Exactly, couldn't I read something interesting like battle strategy or theatre plays?" Kaz sighed and picked back up from where she left "But you may need to know how to behave in certain situations in order to avoid complications, so it could prove useful." Zuko rolled his eyes in response. "As if, I know how to behave." Kaz looked from him to her now disordered scrolls with a knowing smile. "Well, you're my friend, Kaz, no need to be prim and proper." She chuckled "Definitely not but I would appreciate some regard towards my study material."
Zuko hummed in response now looking at her scrolls and notes interested. "Why are you studying airbending?" Kaz shrugged and turned her personal notes towards him. "I'm trying to see if there are airbending techniques that can be applied to firebending. This is how Master Iroh invented the fire breath to keep warm. Airbending is mostly defensive and uses the opponent's energy against them, fairly different from firebending true but some evasive manoeuvres can be achieved by contrasting the opponent's fire. Moreover, our fire still uses energy as a fuel to burn, if I can use less energy I can make incomplete combustion that produces smoke, which can be used to blind and in case poison an enemy."
Zuko blinked back at her then shook his head smiling fondly."For all your brainpower and talent in firebending you can't easily explain your thoughts, can you? You'd probably be an awful teacher." Kaz scrunched her nose but conceded "Yeah, probably."
Zuko was looking intently at her notes now. "The smoke would blind and poison you too, how do you think to avoid it?" Kaz frowned "I don't know, I'd need a way to locate my enemy in the dark and be quick. I'll have to think about it." Zuko took her carbon and made a note about it next to hers, his neat calligraphy contrasting with her messy scrawl.
"Thank you," Kaz said softly taking back the notebook. "I should not distract you from your own studies though." Zuko glared at his book "You do more interesting things, it's unfair."
***
Kaz had just finished training with Master Iroh. They had started implementing the evasive moves of airbending into her skill set. The dynamic nature and flexibility of this art was something that she greatly enjoyed and loved. It made her understand that fire wasn't just made for attack, but also defence. Kaz didn't have the raw power to go against a strong opponent one on one, as in an Agni Kai, if she wanted to win she had to use unorthodox method and her brains.
Her wild ideas on how to use firebending were the reason why she was looking for Lu Ten. She could have asked for more information from Iroh, but he was busy with a war council and there was no way she was going near the Fire Lord. Moreover, this gave her a reason to look for Lu Ten, not that she needed one as he had made abundantly clear, it was just nice to have a topic to talk about.
The problem was, Lu Ten was nowhere to be found. She had looked in the gardens, she had looked at the training grounds, she had even looked at his favourite nook in the library. The only place he could be in was his room and she didn't really want to disturb him there but her questions had been nagging at her mind for days and she couldn't really bear the continuous voice that repeated all of them in the back of her mind seemingly at every hour. Maybe she could go, knock and if he was free she would ask, if not she would have to endure another sleepless night of looking at her notes.
Once she arrived in front of his door she lifted her hand to knock. Then she heard two voices, she couldn't distinguish what they were saying behind the heavy door. Well if he was busy Kaz would simply go away, so she knocked.
Kaz heard a yelp coming from behind the door, that was definitely Lu Ten. What was going on? It was followed by shuffling, then a thud, the other voice grumbling and another thud. Then a breathless Lu Ten opened the door.
"Oh, it's just you Kaz." He seemed to take a sigh of relief. Kaz cocked her head to the side and looked at him unsure "Yeah, I was just wondering if I could ask you some questions. Always if you're not busy." At this Lu Ten jump up and replied with a shrill voice "Busy? Why would I be busy? Come on in!" Kaz followed him muttering a "weirdo" under her breath at which the Prince pinched her cheek.
Kaz was about to sit on the floor by his bed when Lut Ten scrambled by her side and gently guided her to a chair next to his desk. At her raised brow he responded, "Don't sit on the floor, it's uncomfortable." Kaz just raised her brow further "I always sit on the floor." Lu Ten made a dismissive gesture and sat in another chair by her side "Then I've always been a terrible guest." Kaz looked at him unimpressed "Then the bad lying ability is genetic."
At this, she suddenly stood up, moved across the room and looked beneath the bed. Lu Ten scrambling after her.
There she was met with a pair of grey eyes. "Howdy! Nice to meet you," said Kaz. Lu Ten groaned in frustration behind her.
The guy under the bed gave her a strained smile and waved back. Kaz turned around towards Lu Ten and put her hands on her hips. He sighed and looked at her with a worried frown" I suppose you want to know why Mak was hiding right?" Kaz just raised one of her brows. Lu Ten huffed, then gazed at her square in the face, a grave look encompassing his expression."Can I trust you, Kaz?"
Kaz's eyes widened. She shifted her gaze between Mak, who had moved beside the Prince, and Lu Ten. Thus was more serious than she had thought. The smirk was wiped away from her face and she nodded almost solemnly "With your life."
Lu Ten looked at Mak, almost for reassurance and the other boy nodded encouragingly to him, then put one hand in his shoulder in a tender gesture meant to give courage. Understanding started to dawn on Kaz right before Lu Ten spoke again." I presume you know the laws and regulations my great grandfather implemented under his rule." Kaz nodded and began counting the main ones on her fingers. "Dancing is forbidden, failure to respect this law will earn the infractor a fine of one thousand Ryo. Drafting, every able fire bender and fighter in the nation will join the army, failure to do so will be sanctioned with exile. The Fire army can read all the correspondence that travels through the fire nation without the need of a permit. No papers or citizen is allowed to besmirch or question the authority of the Fire Lord. People of the same biological sex aren't allowed to entertain amorous relationships, if found in such a relationship the citizens will receive capital punishment."
At this Kaz lifted her gaze and squared her shoulders, she looked quickly at Mak that now seemed nervous then to Lu Ten who's grave face was still on and was judging her every move." I told you you could trust me with your life and I intend for it to be so. Nobody will hear of this from me." Tension seems to be lifted from both boys, Mak even smiled at her and whispered a thank you before quickly going out. Lu Ten still seemed nervous so Kaz went towards him and embraced him tightly. "No matter what you'll always be my favourite person in the world." Lu Ten sighed with relief and hugged her back "And you're like the sister I've always wished for." For the first time since she had come to the Palace Kaz felt like she was at home.
Lu Ten stopped hugging her and looked at her with a smile, his hands still on her shoulders. She almost missed the embrace, the last time someone had held her close it had been her mother more than a year before. Kaz had never been one for physical affection, but now she understood that she missed it a tad.
"So Kaz, what was it you wanted to talk about?"
Kaz's eyes widened, she skipped to the desk, picked up her notes and sat on the floor, Lu Ten followed her and peeked at the pages, scrunching his nose at her terrible scrawl. "When people get burned they don't usually bleed, right?" Lu Ten looked at her almost worried and cautiously said "No, they don't." Kaz's eyes were almost twinkling now and he didn't like where this was going. "Exactly, you reckon it's possible to stop a person from bleeding out by burning the tissue surrounding the wound? Also, how dangerous it would be in the case of internal wounds? Would this prevent infection or the dead tissue would make it more likely?"
Lu Ten was surprised, Kaz usually came up with methods to kill or fight, this was actually something made to heal and possibly save lives. With warmth in his voice, he answered." I think it's possible, but you would need incredible control of your vending to do so. Maybe you could check some scroll about anatomy, some about waterbending healing and healing, in general, to help you out. The water bending ones are in the forbidden section, I'll get them for you."
Kaz beamed at him, took her charcoal and opened a brand new notebook. She wrote down 'Cauterize' in big letters at the start of the first page." Ready for a new set of notes".
***
If one were to use simple words Kaz was upset. If one wanted to be accurate she was distressed. Five years ago she had to leave her mother, the only family she had known since birth. It took her a while but she had finally found another one in Lu Ten, Zuko and admittedly master Iroh too. Now two-thirds of her newfound home were preparing to leave and go fight in what seemed an endless war.
She knew that if normal citizens had to fight it was only fair for the Princes to be dispatched. She also knew Iroh was one of the strongest benders out there and she should not worry. Lu Ten was a capable fighter too and he would have Mak by his side. Despite all of this she couldn't help but worry. They weren't joining a minor fray but Iroh was preparing to attempt a siege to the biggest city in the Earth Kingdom. Ba Sing Se, which as the name said was known to be impenetrable. Couldn't it have been Na Sing Se instead?
A knock on her door interrupted her sulking session. "Who's there?" she asked. "It's me, Lu Ten, I wanted to show you something before saying goodbye." Kaz jumped out of bed and opened a sliver of the door. She was grated by the sight of a melancholic Lu Ten. She sighed and opened the door completely. "I thought you didn't depart until tomorrow." An uncertain smile overcame his features as he ruffled her hair. "Me too, but dad decided to depart tonight. Have you already seen him?" Kaz's expression fell further. "I'll do it soon."
"Let's go to the training grounds, Kaz." Kaz followed him uncertainly. "Shouldn't you be resting? Also, I don't really feel like training." Lu Ten shook his head and kept walking "This is important." Kaz only had the force to nod.
Once they were in the training grounds they made sure to be alone. They sat on the ground one in front of the other. Lu Ten regarded her with an appraising look and then started talking. For the first time his voice lacked the usual jovial tone, he seemed to carry the weight of the world on every syllable. "I know Iroh is your teacher, but I wanted to be the one to explain this to you." When he started talking again the weight was almost lifted, instead, he kept universes of wonder in his eyes and the promise of infinite in his voice. "Fire has long been used as an instrument of war and pain, our army has burnt cities, villages and temples to the ground leaving nothing but Ash and charred bones." Kaz shivered, she knew war was cruel and had always been torn between her mother's pacifistic worldview and how she was being taught to kill.
Hearing Lu Ten one of the most righteous people she knew say loud and clear how cruel it was shook her.
"It's not Fire the cruel one though, don't mistake me, it's the way our nation has erred for hundreds of year believing greatness laid in the path of violence. Fire to its core it's a synonym of life. It's the element we use to warm ourselves during a cold day, to light our path in the dark of night and to cook our food for it not to poison us. Fire is what makes us human bender or not." He put a hand on her shoulder and smiled."Kaz, you must always remember this. Your genius must be used in kindness. Use your fire and lightning to cauterize and not to cut. Only this will bring you on the path of happiness." Kaz's eyes almost watered, she wanted to heal and be kind so much; but she lacked the strength for it and the ability to forgive. So she asked."But what if one's bleeding on the inside? Cauterization will only lead to emmoragy and death." Lu Ten's other hand grasped her free shoulder and squeezed lightly. "Then you must also find a way to heal yourself first."
He let go and jumped on his feet. "Now get up, I have to show you a Firebending set, it needs the both of us." with this he taught her the Dancing Dragon, a set not made for war but to showcase beauty.
When he was about to leave to prepare his baggage Lu Ten looked back at Kaz. "I have one last thing for you" he gently handed her a red string bracelet with a small dragon head made of carmine stone. She delicately took it in her hands. "Thank you. For everything."
Kaz whispered.
Lu Ten smiled "It's nothing, you're family. Also, now we're matching." He brought his wrist up and showed her the same bracelet but in blue around it. Kaz smiled for the first time that day and hugged him tightly. "Please don't let it be a goodbye, promise I'll see you soon." He hugged her back. "see you soon little sis."
Notes:
Ehm sorry, guess I got lost in the path of life. Next chapter: Blood on my Hands.
I have no idea when I’ll finish writing it though. Thank you for all the kudos and views even if this story was practically abandoned for months.
Chapter 4: Blood On My Hands
Summary:
Sorry I disappeared I got lost in the path of life, quite literally. Hope you enjoy!
Kaz has to make hard decision in order to save a life but maybe she's not ready for the consequences.
Aka character development.
Notes:
TW MURDER, POISONING AND VIOLENCE
Chapter Text
This chapter's title should be a warning on itself. In any case Kaz was never meant to be an easy character nor the hero of the story. TW: Blood, Gore and Manipulation.
"I have made the
obscene decision
to do something
unforgivable
for the sake
of our survival."
-s.b.l, I AM ON MY WAY
Kaz's week had started surprisingly normal, which per sé was a problem, since Iroh and Lu Ten had departed for Ba Sing Se she had been forced into a routine and this routine was stifling her. Everyday she woke up, had breakfast, trained until lunch, studied history and strategy from scrolls and then dinner or alternatively she had to hide away and gather information. The only breaks in this damn cycle were the times she managed to hang out with Zuko, thanks Agni for his friendship, he was her breath of fresh air now more than ever.
However at the moment her best friend was weirdly nowhere to be found, so Kaz had simply settled underneath the tree next to the turtle duck pond. A few books and her trusty notebook sitting neatly by her side.
She was scribbling some new notes when she heard some footsteps behind her, too heavy to be Zuko's. She turned around only to meet the frowning face of Lady Ursa. Zuko's mother remained Kaz of a lion-hawk, beautiful but incredibly sad, a bird caught in a golden cage and with broken wings. No matter how much Kaz had tried to be polite and show her she meant no harm Ursa despised her, whenever she saw Kaz and Zuko together she called her son away and every time she crossed paths with Kaz she reserved the girl only a disdainful scowl.
Kaz bowed her head politely in salutation. Ursa didn't reciprocate the curtesy. "If you're expecting Zuko he's busy. He's with his sister and her friends. I, well-" She gave a once over to Kaz's messy hair, the coal on one of her cheeks and ink stained hands. "I thought it would be good for him to be in different company." Kaz nodded, Ursa meant in better company than her, it stung. Kaz stood up, briskly picked up her study material and bowed tightly to Ursa.
"Where are you going?" Kaz turned around and shrugged. "Somewhere, no need to wait for someone that's not coming." She spun around and kept walking quickly away. It didn't matter if everyone but Zuko, Iroh and Lu Ten hated her and thought little of her, they were the only ones that counted. All of the rest would come to regret underestimating her.
While walking with her head in a dark cloud Kaz stumbled into something dripping wet. Lifting her head she was met with a pissed off Zuko, it was a wonder all the water hadn't already evaporated. All the anger lifted from Kaz and she sighed, "I assume I didn't go well with your sister."
Zuko huffed and stomped around leaving small little puddles. Kaz tried really hard to suppress her amused smile at his antics. "You wouldn't believe me! I swear girls are crazy." Kaz crossed her arms and moved in fron of him raising smiling faintly, "Zuko, you know I'm a girl right?"
Zuko went red up to the tips of his ears, "oh, we-well, you're my best friend, it's different." He stuttered. Kaz brought a hand to her chin and hummed thoughtfully, "Humh, I really want to see you when you'll have o marry a 'crazy' princess." She answered sarcastically and skipped away, "come on, let's get you dried up."
Zuko followed Kaz frowning, "I'd rather marry you and have to hear you ramble about lighting and smoke for the rest of my days, it would be good to fall asleep." Kaz glared back at him mockingly, "Too bad I have other plans than to be your bed time story." Zuko looked at her confused, he had never heard Kaz talk about what she wished to do in the future. "What plans?" Kaz smiled almost wistfully, "To see all there is to see, or at least try." She looked back at him with a familiar spark in her eyes, a crackling orange flame that made Zuko know it was Kaz, he smiled back. "Maybe I could come with you, to escape from crazy princesses." Kaz eyes brightened and Zuko felt warm at seeing her so happy, since Lu Ten had departed it was so rare. "It would be nice." She answered.
"Yeah, it would be."
***
Kaz was trying to conjure lighting and thus far she was not succeeding. She tried again. Kaz positioned her hands in the correct form and started feeling for her chi. It started there deep in her belly, she needed to make it flow through her body. She moved her arms in circular motion. She felt her fire ignite a tiny spark, it travelled to her fingertips and then. Only a puff of smoke came out. Kaz grumbled discontented.
Then she saw Azula snicker at her attempts. Kaz glared at the princess, it was no wonder the two didn't get along, they share too many difects to truly like each other, it was like seeing a distorted and ugly version of each other.
"So even the great Kaz struggles." Azula said while getting close, a smirk still present on her lips. "As if you could do any better Azula." Kaz grumbled.
Azula frowned back, "I could still beat you up, peasant." It was Kaz's time to smirk, "Maybe, but how good are you really if you can only fight?"
"That's what a weak person would say." Kaz shrugged, "That's what a stupid person would quip back." Azula scoffed at her words and muttered something about sounding like uncle Iroh. Kaz couldn't complain, Iroh was a good person.
"So Azula, what do you want? You usually avoid me." The princess smiled brightly, like Kaz had just made her the best birthday present she could wish for. Kaz's stomach dropped, that expression on Azula's face promised nothing good. "Nothing really Kaz, I figured I might help you in your work, you were busy training when mum received this letter."
Azula handed her a tiny scroll. Kaz took it with hesitant hands, could this be a trap, she observed it. Iroh seal on the side was already broken, why hadn't he written to her too? She slowly opened it and quickly read its contents. Kaz gasped as all breath escaped from her lungs.
Lu Ten, had died, she felt her eyes burning with tears and her knees buckle. This couldn't be true, he'd told her he would be back, he was fine in the last letter he wrote. Kaz teary eyes went up to Azula, who watched her almost gloating.
"So you came here to relish in your cousin death? Or maybe just to see me mourn for someone I cared for?" Kaz croaked spitefully. Azula got even closer to her, an angry edge to her voice, "He was my family not yours." Good though Kaz, hurt her like she just did you, "And still I'm the one who's hurting, no wonder your mother thinks you're a monster." Kaz venom lead voice answered and for each drop of venom she spilled the dark satisfaction made her hurt quell. "Oh Azula, you can't even muster any empathy towards your cousin and uncle. Such a horrible kid."
The angry look on Azula's face pleased Kaz. The princess had come here with the intention to cut her deeply, well it had worked. "YOU'RE NO BETTER! TAKE IT BACK!" She shouted, Kaz couldn't even bring herself to smile, "But you know it's true Azula."
The princess shouted and threw fire at Kaz, who didn't manage to dodge completely, her right shoulder getting the worst of it. Kaz smelled her burning flesh, then felt the intense stabbing pain of the burn and hissed. The physical pain felt almost welcomed and numbing in comparison to what she felt inside. Then she heard a shout and saw Lady Ursa separate her and Azula.
As she was lead to the infirmary she swore she saw smoke still come from Azula's thight fists.
***
Kaz was sitting alone in front Iroh's Pai Sho board, one of the first thing he had done when she had come to the Palace was teaching her the game, her training was on hold because of her hurt shoulder. At first Kaz hated it, she was awful and could barely understand how it worked. Master Iroh ad often joked about how she would have been a champion if creating disharmonies gave you points, alas it was the opposite. Only thanks to Lu Ten's infinite patience Kaz finally mastered the game. Now she was alone, Iroh still in Ba Sing Se and Lu Ten- the white dragon piece in her hand blurred as her vision was clouded by unshed tears. Kaz put the piece down and made a small flame with her hand, she started at it until the urge to cry disappeared.
Suspicion had settled into Kaz's heart. Tragedies on the battlefield were doomed to happen but why had the Prince been so close to peril? It was an unfair reality of the fire nation military, higher ranked positions were more secure while lower soldiers were often seen almost as disposable, inhuman really if you asked Kaz. Maybe she thought like this only because she would have been a measly jasmine tiles in a cruel general's had Iroh not seen worth in her, not that now she was much more, maybe she upgraded from a jasmine to a rhododendron.
This still didn't explain why Lu Ten had been in harms way. Iroh wouldn't have put him, that was for sure. If she where to continue with the Pai Sho metaphors, Lu Ten was a white lotus, he was a special one, the person that turned disharmony into harmony. Who would gain from his death? Only one name came to Kaz's mind.
She stood up at once.
If she hoped to confirm her suspicions, she had to be careful. Trading lightly through the shadows as if she were one here Kaz went towards Ozai's study. Quiet as a rat-mouse she slipped in and headed straight for the desk. I was improbable incriminating correspondence would be laid in the open, but Ozai was no master strategist and probably his greatest measure of security was the fear he thought he inspired in others.
Carefully Kaz picked the lock of the study and opened just enough of the door to slip in.
Once inside she lit a small fire on the top of her finger, just enough for her to see not visible on the outside. Attentively with her hand, as to avoid burning anything, she started searching.
She found nothing on the desk, nothing in between the books, not even an hollow one, se quitely tapped the floorboards but nothing.
Then her eyes landed on an ornate tea set. Kaz knew that, contrary to his brother, Lord Ozai disliked the beverage, so when she lifted the first cup ad didn't find a speck of dust Kaz knew she had found it.
Kaz slowly as not to make a sound moved all the other cups and the teapot. Then she tried to slid the tray open, it clicked, there they laied, letters. Kaz quickly read as many as she could, her time was running out.
Apparently Ozai had faked himself Azulon and had given the order to station Lu Ten on the front lines. Cold fury for the man settled in her heart, she promised herself she would make him pay, maybe not immediately but in due time, first she had to tell Master Iroh even though it would break his heart even more.
***
Kaz had heard about Zuko's mistake in front of Arseulon from some servants so she had decided to wait in his room. Kaz knew he would have been upset but maybe some company could help, even if she was still fuming from what she had read in his father's study and pained at the perspective of not seeing Iroh for one more year.
The door clicked open and she heard the sound of sniffling, in a heartbeat she was up and was hugging Zuko without a second thought. "It's okay Zu, mistakes are the best teachers." He held her tighter and huffed "You're staring to sound like uncle." A pang went through Kaz heart but the pressed it back, Zuko needed her she'd deal with her own pain later.
Kaz made a pensive expression "Perhaps a cup of tea and a game of pai-sho will make you feel better young one." She said while imitating Iroh. Zuko cracked a tiny smile "He's definitely influenced you in a bad way."
Suddenly the door opened and Azula came in.
Whatever warmth Kaz had shown earlier had flown away immediately replaced by the usual cold fury she felt in the presence of the Princess. "What do you want?" Kaz hissed at Azula. The Princess glared at her "You'd better learn your place, and I want nothing from you."
Then Azula turned towards Zuko sing songed "Dad's going to kill you." Something churned into Kaz's stomach.
"Really?" Asked Zuko.
"Yeah" Azula answered while a smirk cut her face, at this she turned towards Kaz and looked at her straight in the eyes, she understood that Azula wasn't lying, not this time. It felt like a bucket of cold water was dropped upon Kaz, desperation gripped at her, she could not loose anyone else, especially Zuko.
"Ah ah Azula, nice try." bit back Zuko rolling his eyes, although a bit of uncertainty could be heard in his voice. "Fine, don't believe me, but I've heard everything." Azula shrugged her shoulders, "Grandfather said Father's punishment should fit his crimes." then she lowered her voice in an imitation of Azulon. "You must know the pain of losing a first born son by sacrificing your own." She skipped a step and giggled to Kaz's growing horror and Zuko's augmenting fear.
"Liar." Zuko groaned, "I'm doing this for your good, maybe you could find a nice earth kingdom family to adopt you." Seeing Zuko's discomfort Kaz put herself between the siblings, "Then stop it, Azula." The princess glared at Kaz, her giddiness disappearing at her defiance. "Move and let me talk to my brother or I'll burn you again." Kaz shivered lightly, her shoulder still aching but her determination not wavering. "Go right ahead this time I'll fight back."
Zuko gripped lightly her good shoulder, this made Kaz relent. "Stop you two. Azula, you're lying dad would never do that to me." He said in a shaky voice.
"Your father would never do what to you?" Ursa stern voice interrupted the discussion. "What is going on here?" she demanded furrowing her brows at Azula and Kaz, who both had subconsciously shifted in battle stance, with Kaz slightly shielding Zuko.
Ursa frowned at Kaz and gently took Azula by her left arm "We need to talk." With this said she took her out of the room.
Zuko crumpled on his bed, olding his face. "Azula always lies, Azula always lies." He looked up at Kaz, hope and desperation for it not to be true heavy in his voice, "Azula was lying Kaz, right?" Kaz stepped forward and embraced him tightly, Azula might usually but not this time and neither would Kaz. "Nobody is going to kill you." She answered instead, then she moved and exited the room, there must be something she could do.
****
Kaz quickly tracked Ozai in the Palace and started tailing him. Around three hours later she saw him meet up with Ursa and start talking in hushed tones in a corner.
It wouldn't have been strange if the relationship between the two hadn't been colder than the North Pole, not that Kaz had ever been there to know.
So Kaz silently used her bending to dim the the torches that illuminated the corridor to get closer. In the years she had perfected her hiding technique and now she blended seamlessly with the shadows, she could even make the fire flicker naturally.
Thus she listened in on the couple like the spy she had been trained to be.
Kaz heard Ursa describe the qualities of a poison Ozai had to administer to Azulon. This was the price, the firelord had to die in order for Zuko to live. Both adults had a problem though, they couldn't access the fire lord's Chambers officially unless they wanted to be seen as prime suspect and they couldn't sneak in. Moreover, neither of them knew how to forge the will that would make Ozai the heir. They would have to think about another plan.
Kaz was about to go away when she heard Ozai threaten Ursa, either she solved the problems or he would go along with Azulon. This could not happen, Kaz could do it, even if it costed her life. She sighed and she stepped out of the shadows.
Ozai and Ursa jumped at her sight and Then the Prince stepped towards her in a menacing way. "What have you heard?" He hissed. Ursa scowled at her.
Kaz bowed, then raised her eyes hesitantly. "I did hear your plan-and the problems that come with it, I am offering to carrying it out." The glimmer of ambition shine in Ozai's eyes while Ursa looked suspicious. She had at least won one of them, although she expected the opposite.
"And why would you help? How do we know you're not here for Iroh?" Ursa questioned. Kaz looked straight at Ursa and tried to convey all her the desperation she felt, the same they was gripping the Princess herself. "We share the same goal, had I been here for Iroh I would have stayed hidden." With this Ursa nodded.
Kaz turned towards Ozai who looked just like someone had brought the head of the Avatar on a golden platter in front of him. He passed her a small vial of clear liquid.
***
This is how Kaz found herself slipping in Azulon's private Chambers and poisoning a cup of sweet wine. She carefully dripped the liquid into the cup with an eye on the sleeping regent.
When she was done she took the cup in hands firmer than she thought possible. The room felt stifling hot despite the braziers being reduced to cinders, she almost wished she could burn with the entire room. Kaz was a kid, yes a spy in training but not an assassin, what made her think she would be able to achieve this.
Yes, she was sure, Azulon would wake up he would have her head and it would result in Zuko's death, maybe the Lord would think she had been sent by Iroh and he would banish his son.
Kaz steeled herself. She quickly got to Azulon's bedside, just as the rustle started to wake him up she swiftly touched a pressure point for paralisation that Ozai had shown her for this precise purpose. Then she carefully made the Fire Lord drink the poisoned wine.
Kaz looked straight at his face and counted. At three seconds his breath became laboured and she pressed her hands on his mouth to muffle the noise. At ten she felt something wettin her hands, foam, that she'd had to clean immediately after. At fifteen Kaz could swear she had seen the exact moment the light was gone from the man's eyes.
The room now felt freezing.
Almost as in a trance Kaz cleaned the foam from Azulon's mouth and from her hands, she closed his eyes and took out a pice of parchment from his personal desk forging a will in which he declared Ozai his heir. She got out of the room and walked towards her exile.
***
Ursa saw Kaz slowly walk towards the peer. She was glad Ozai had kept his end of the deal with the kid, exile and not death. Although Ursa had been shure of the contrary for both of them, probably they would have to watch their back once outside of the capital.
When Kaz reached her side Ursa looked down on her messy head of hair, her face was completely hidden. "I said goodbye to Zuko for you too-he's going to miss you." She said softly. Ursa had spent years feeling unsure about the kid that had just saved her son's life, kindness was the least she could give Kaz. Kaz just nodded. "Is everything okay Kaz?"
At the question the girl turned to her with empty orange eyes, almost as if not seeing Ursa, who gasped at the sight of the vacant look encompassing the kids face. Then Kaz seemed to come back to reality all of a sudden, horror took over the emptiness and a raw pained scream tore through her throat. After a moment of esitation Ursa hugged her tight, they had all forgotten Kaz was just a lonely kid, who was about to be even lonelier.
Chapter 5: Sparks Of Revolution
Summary:
The white lotus is born and Kaz grows up so does the pile of bodies in her wake.
Chapter Text
"You are shaking fists & trembling teeth. I know: You did not mean to be cruel.
That does not mean you were kind."
-Venetta Octavia, excerpt of "THE BURNING".
***TRIGGER WARINING*** explicit violence in the second half of the chapter.
The inn smelled faintly of smoke and boiled cabbage, the kind of scent that clung to clothes and hair until you felt it in your skin. Kaz stood outside for a long moment, leaning on the splintered wooden rail, eyes scanning the street. The last three months had turned every shadow into a threat, every face into a possible informant. It was a habit she could not break.
Inside, voices murmured over cups of tea, the clink of pottery and the occasional scrape of a chair legs across the warped floorboards. She adjusted her scarf higher over her face before stepping in, every muscle tight and alert.
The innkeeper was a stout woman with laugh lines creasing her round face. She looked up as Kaz approached the counter, and Kaz instantly softened her expression. The mask slipped into place.
"Mmh, sorry, miss," Kaz began, voice pitched just shy of trembling. "I’d hope not to be a bother, but I’m looking for my grandpa. He has a pointy beard and drinks way too much tea." She blinked hard, coaxing tears to her lashes.
The woman’s expression melted into sympathy at once. She reached across the counter to touch Kaz’s cheek, and Kaz forced herself to stand still under the contact. "Oh, baby. I think I can help you. Let me call your grandpa down here."
It was almost disappointing how easy it was. Maybe the world wanted to believe lost girls could be helped.
Minutes later, Iroh appeared at the top of the stairs. Kaz moved before he could speak, crossing the distance and folding herself into his arms. She pressed her lips close to his ear and whispered, "Do not sell me out. I need to talk to you."
They sat across from each other in a quiet back room, a low table between them. Steam curled from the teapot in slow, lazy ribbons. The scene could have been plucked from years earlier, when the war had not yet burned them hollow. But the slump in Iroh’s shoulders and the iron-hard tension behind Kaz’s eyes told a different story.
The tea had steeped three times before Kaz finally poured it into their cups. Iroh’s hands were steady; hers were not.
"I am sorry," Iroh began.
Kaz’s mouth twisted into a sharp line. "I am not here for apologies. We would both have to exchange so many we would be here until we died."
His gaze softened with something like hurt. "I know grief hardens everyone, but Kaz—"
"Let us address the elephant-mole in the room," she cut in. "I killed your father. And I put Ozai on the throne."
The silence was heavy enough to make the wood in the walls groan. Iroh placed his cup back on the tray without a sound.
"What brought you to that point, Kaz?" His tone was maddeningly calm. "More importantly, how are you?"
The question landed like an insult. "What do you mean, what brought me there? I committed high treason!" Her voice rose to a shout, and the tea in her cup quivered, ripples racing across its surface.
"You are here," Iroh replied, his voice unshaken. "And you do not act without thought, or at least I believed you did not before this display. That means there was a reason. I am asking what it was."
Her breath caught, constricting in her throat. She forced the word out like it burned. "Zuko. It was either that or him."
Iroh’s eyelids lowered, and a deep sigh left him, the kind that seemed to take years from his body. "It is as I feared. My own brother would have committed filicide for power."
"Not much you can do?" Kaz’s tone sharpened like the edge of a blade. "You are still a general. Though apparently a cowardly one, if the whispers are true."
The insult slid over him like water over stone. "Kaz, I know you do not mean that. But without Lu Ten, I have no fire left in me."
"Then find it," she snapped, slamming her cup onto the table. Tea splashed over the rim, staining the wood. "We can still adjust the board. For Lu Ten, for Zuko, for everyone else drowning in this madness."
Her gaze fell to the cracked cup and the tea pooling beneath it. "There must be something I can do to make things right. But I cannot do it alone."
Iroh rose and knelt beside her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. "Then we will do it together. Just stop spitting venom at everything. It will only poison you."
For a moment, she let herself lean into the embrace. "I made a mess of things," she said quietly. "How do I fix it now?"
He sat back, taking a long sip of tea before answering. "First, you finish your training. You become as proficient in your bending as possible. Difficult times are coming. And then we build connections, a web that works in shadow to topple Ozai. Best case, we find the Avatar."
Her eyes narrowed in thought. "We will need more than just contacts. We will need someone with reach in the Water Tribe who will not drown a firebender on sight."
"Almost anything can be done," Iroh said. "You have the anonymity to go where you please. I have the name to open doors. It will be the most dangerous game of Pai Sho we have ever played."
Jeong Jeong’s camp sat low in a valley, hidden by thick stands of cypress and the thin smoke of a carefully banked fire. He was waiting when they arrived, arms folded, eyes hard.
"Iroh." His voice carried the weight of years and grudges.
"Jeong Jeong," Iroh returned evenly.
His gaze slid to Kaz. "This is your student? The one who toys with fire as if it were a festival lantern?"
Kaz’s chin lifted. "Better to know the rules so you can break them with precision."
Jeong Jeong’s lips thinned. "Precision? I have heard the stories. You scorch the earth for the sake of curiosity. That is not mastery. That is recklessness."
She stepped forward, heat blooming in her palms. "And what would you know about mastery, hiding out here while the world burns?"
For the first time, his composure cracked. His voice rose, deep and cutting. "I know that fire destroys more than it creates. That those who wield it without discipline are no better than the tyrants who started this war."
Her eyes sparked, the faintest shimmer of heat distorting the air between them. "And I know that fear of fire is just another kind of weakness. You cannot change the world by hiding from its heat."
Iroh’s voice cut between them, low but carrying. "Enough."
Jeong Jeong’s glare did not leave Kaz. "She will get someone killed."
Iroh’s tone sharpened like a drawn blade. "If she does not continue to grow, she will be unprepared for what is coming. And if you think you can lecture me on training a soldier, you forget how many I have led into and out of fire."
The air between them cooled, but only slightly. Jeong Jeong finally looked away. "I will not condone her methods."
"You do not have to," Iroh said. "But you and I will teach her what she needs to survive."
The forest had thinned by the time they made camp, trading the cypress canopy for wide sweeps of sky. Iroh chose a flat ridge, wind-scoured and bare except for a few stubborn grasses clinging to the cracks in the rock. He claimed it was perfect for training because there was nothing around to burn. Kaz suspected it was also perfect for ensuring no one heard the shouting she knew was coming.
The sun had dropped low, painting the clouds in molten gold. Iroh stood at the center of the ridge with the patience of a man who had commanded armies and brewed tea with equal precision. Kaz stood opposite him, arms crossed, her irritation still simmering from Jeong Jeong’s dismissal.
"Lightning," Iroh began, "is not like fire."
Kaz snorted. "It is fire’s sharper cousin."
He shook his head. "It is not a cousin. It is a different creature altogether. Fire is born from will and breath. Lightning is born from precision and stillness. You do not force it. You guide it."
She rolled her shoulders, loosening the muscles. "I can guide heat. I can guide a flame the width of a hair. This cannot be so different."
His gaze narrowed. "Overconfidence will kill you faster than ignorance. You will listen. You will not interrupt."
Kaz bit back a retort and inclined her head in mock deference.
"Lightning comes from separating energies," he continued. "Your breath, your chi, must split into positive and negative forces. You keep them apart, let the pressure build, and then… release." His hands traced a slow, deliberate arc, the movement smooth as silk. A pale blue bolt cracked into existence, searing the air before vanishing into the darkening sky.
Kaz’s pulse quickened. She had seen lightning before, had even redirected it, but producing it was another matter. The sheer elegance of it made her chest tighten.
"Your turn," Iroh said.
She stepped forward, planting her feet. She closed her eyes, feeling for the twin currents inside her, heat and cold, push and pull. She coaxed them apart, her breath steady. A faint tingle raced along her arms. Her palms opened—
—and nothing. The heat collapsed into itself and burst into an uncontrolled flame.
Iroh’s voice was calm, but the weight in it pressed against her ribs. "Again."
She tried. Again and again. Each time, the currents slipped through her control, twisting into ordinary fire or sputtering out entirely. Sweat slicked her back, and her breathing grew harsh.
"You are chasing it," he said finally. "That is why you fail. Lightning is not a beast you hunt down. It comes to those who are still enough to let it arrive."
Her eyes snapped open. "I do not want to sit still. I want to master it."
"And that," Iroh said, "is why you are not ready."
The words landed like a slap. Her chest burned hotter than her failed sparks. "You think I cannot do it?"
"I know you cannot do it today," he replied. "And if you force it, you will burn yourself from the inside out."
Her teeth ground together. The sunset behind him turned his silhouette into something regal, untouchable. She hated it in that moment . hated the calm certainty that he could do what she could not.
Iroh stepped closer, his voice dropping. "Kaz, you have power. You have skill. But you lack stillness. Without it, lightning will always slip away from you."
She held his gaze for a long moment before looking away. "Then I will find my own way to catch it."
He let out a quiet sigh. "Perhaps one day you will. But for now, you will train with fire. We begin again at dawn."
The next morning came sharp and cold. They drilled for hours; breathwork, precision strikes, channeling energy through single points. Every attempt at lightning fizzled, each failure clawing at Kaz’s pride. By the time they broke for water, her frustration sat like a stone in her stomach.
Iroh poured tea, his movements unhurried. "You have improved your control," he said. "Even without lightning, you are stronger for the effort."
She took the cup, the heat of it grounding her. "Strength without results is worthless."
"Not if you live long enough to see the results," he replied.
She wanted to argue, but the taste of the tea silenced her. For now.
What she did not know was that the lesson would stay buried in her bones until the day it broke free in a storm of red light and the smell of scorched flesh.
Ozai’s assassins had become almost a rhythm in her life; like the changing of the moons or the tides, predictable and irritating. She could always feel them before she saw them. A shadow too steady to be wildlife. The faintest shift in the air pressure. The click of boots that didn’t belong on the same path she walked.
It had been like this for years, and the attempts had gone from terrifying to pathetic. The first few had cost her sleep. The third had made her watch every shadow like it was her executioner. By the seventh, she stopped flinching.
They were all the same. Young. Angry. So sure they’d be the one to do it. So sure they’d bring her head back to their Fire Lord and be rewarded.
And every time, they didn’t come back.
She’d thought about sending Ozai something before; a finger, an ear; just to let him know how many lives he’d wasted. But she always stopped herself, worried that answering him in kind would make her no better than him.
Now, she wasn’t so sure she cared about the distinction.
The forest was still in that predator way, a silence that hummed like a drawn bow. Her steps were unhurried, measured, though the wound in her thigh from their last skirmish still ached faintly in bad weather.
She didn’t bother turning when she finally spoke.
"Are you going to attack me, or can we pass each other like civil people?"
A pause, then the roar of flame.
She shifted to the side, smoke blooming in her wake, the heat licking at her shoulder. The smell of scorched grass reached her before she stopped moving.
"Listen. Walk away. You keep your life, I keep mine."
The voice that answered was young, raw with conviction. "I won’t listen to a traitor like you! You sold out the Fire Nation!"
Kaz’s jaw tightened. "Then you’re loyal to a throne that would burn you alive for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Congratulations."
"Fight me!"
"I said no." She sent up another curl of smoke, letting the forest take her shape and scatter it. She could leave without killing him. She was ready to.
The knife hit before she’d taken three steps.
Pain bloomed white-hot in her thigh, staggering her. The weight of him followed, knocking her flat, his knee pinning her wounded leg. He wrenched the blade free and she felt the tear of flesh widen.
"I got you," he growled, raising the knife again.
Something in her vision shifted; no more smoke, no more exit plan. Just his heartbeat, the heat in his chest, the sharp cold clarity that snapped her fear in half.
Her fingers moved without thought. The spark that leapt from them was crimson instead of white, jagged instead of clean. It tore into his chest with a wet, ugly sound.
His body jerked, went still, then slumped forward.
The smell hit like a wave, charred meat, scorched hair, the copper of her own blood. She shoved him off, hands shaking, breath ragged. She stared at her fingers. At the hole burned through his tunic.
Her leg was bleeding fast. She pressed a hand to it, fire curling in her palm, sealing the wound with the hiss of cooked flesh. Her scream rang in the trees, then died into silence.
When she could see straight again, she looked at the body. Young. Not much older than she’d been when she’d left the palace. She knelt, fingers steady now, and pulled the knife from his cooling hand.
A clean slice. The body jerked reflexively once, then stilled.
She held the severed tongue up to the dying light, watching it glisten. "No more messengers, Ozai," she murmured. "You want my death, you come get it yourself."
The rest of him she burned, feeding the fire until there was nothing left but ash and warped metal. The smell clung to her hair, her clothes, her skin. She wrapped the tongue in oiled cloth, tucking it deep into her pack.
When she reached the next Earth Kingdom village, she limped, her face pale, her voice trembling as she told them, "A firebender attacked me on the road. Please, I just need a healer."
They gave her herbs for the burn, salves for the blistered skin, bandages for the wound. She thanked them, ate their bread, drank their water, and left before dawn.
Somewhere between here and the next border post, she’d find someone willing to slip a small, oiled parcel into the hands of a Fire Nation courier.
And when it reached the throne, Ozai would understand exactly what she meant.
Chapter 6: The only nice thing in Ba Sing Se
Summary:
In Ba Sing Se, exiled firebender Kaz meets Biyu, a sharp-eyed medic who sees past her scars. One drink turns into a spark—and for the first time in years, Kaz wonders if she could be something other than a weapon.
Notes:
This chapter sat in my drafts since 2022—until a recent Avatar rewatch finally pulled me back into the story.
Chapter Text
"She was trouble,
chaos really.
But her smile,
her smile dared me to fall in love with her."
—Atticus
Kaz appraised the drink in her hand with a thoughtful expression. The taste was vile. Bitter, watered down, and just faintly metallic, like someone had poured dishwater over crushed mint and forgotten to rinse the cup. It wasn’t good. Neither were the five drinks that came before it. But it was cheap, and cheap would do.
She swirled the liquid in her cup slowly, watching the ripples spread and break against the ceramic edges like tiny waves crashing against a shore. Her other hand traced a lazy circle along the rim, restless. The bar was dimly lit, full of smoke and the quiet groans of tired men and women trying to forget something. The same as her. Always the same.
She hated Ba Sing Se.
She hated its polished lies, the way every surface was painted with the illusion of order. In the Upper Ring, nobles paraded down stone streets like they owned not only the city but the world. They looked at her with cold, appraising eyes that caught on her foreign features, too sharp, too angular, too Fire Nation. Their sneers were carefully hidden behind silk sleeves and porcelain cups of jasmine tea, but she felt them all the same.
The Middle Ring, in contrast, was filled with ambition. People clawed for wealth, recognition, and safety, even if they had to cheat and betray to get it. Kaz had lived that kind of hunger before. She had clawed and bitten and burned her way up, and it still hadn’t been enough. Look how that ended.
And the Lower Ring, where she now sat? The Lower Ring reeked of desperation. The streets were too crowded, the homes too cramped, and everywhere there were too many people trying to patch together a life after the world had torn it apart. War clung to the place like smoke—embedded in its walls, floating between alleyways, trailing behind the children who played barefoot near broken carts.
It made her stomach turn. It also made her drink.
Once, long ago, she had believed in something. Believed in her nation. In its power, its destiny. She had believed in the stories they told her when she was a child; about order and strength, about a world purified by fire. It felt like another life now. Another girl. A naive girl who had not yet left her mother behind. Who had not yet lost the boy she called brother to war. Who had not yet killed, again and again, until her hands trembled even when they were clean.
Azulon had succeeded in turning her into a sword.
A beautiful, deadly sword. Sharp. Controlled. Efficient. He had forged her carefully, piece by piece, in the flames of discipline and violence. He had molded her into a weapon so finely honed that she had nearly cut herself into nothing. What he probably hadn’t expected was that the blade he forged would one day be turned against him.
Kaz had killed Fire Lord Azulon with steady hands and dry eyes. And for that, Ozai had given her a choice. Kill the Fire Lord and vanish, or refuse and watch Zuko die. She had made the decision in an instant. Not even a breath of hesitation.
Zuko was the only decent thing that still remained in that palace of monsters. He was kind, despite growing up in a lion’s den. He believed in honor, even when the world mocked him for it. Maybe, just maybe, he could survive long enough to change something, to build a new Fire Nation from its ashes. If his father had not already poisoned every part of him.
She had only hoped Iroh was still watching out for him.
Four years had passed since she had been exiled. Four years since Kaz became Hebi, the snake in the grass, the blade in the dark, the ghost of the Fire Nation who now wore no banner but her own. Since she had joined the White Lotus, at times a tiresome crusade, at others a fragile thread of hope pulling her forward.
She and Iroh had started small, moving carefully between nations, recruiting old allies and unlikely friends. Iroh had used his connections to speak with the waterbenders of the North, with Zuko’s swordmaster, with former generals and wandering monks. Kaz had gone after the firebenders in hiding, those like her who had burned their bridges and refused to kneel. She had convinced one, a master, a man of grit and fury who had finished Kaz’s training. Their philosophies clashed, sure, but he had taught Kaz how to wield her fire with purpose.
And then there was King Bumi. Unpredictable, strange, and probably half-mad but once he had heard the names of her grandparents, he had grinned like a child and agreed. She did not understand him. But she trusted him.
Now, the White Lotus had roots spreading through the Earth Kingdom, mostly in merchant circles. Hidden, watchful eyes. Secrets passed in spice sacks and ledgers. It was through one such contact that Kaz found herself allowed, temporarily, to live in the Upper Ring. The goal was simple: convince the Earth King to back their cause. The timeline, however, was not. She had been told she must wait a month for an audience.
So she waited.
And drank.
Kaz was about to lift her hand for another round when she felt someone touch her shoulder. Not roughly, just the barest pressure. Still, her body tensed instantly. Her instincts surged like fire beneath her skin, ready to strike. She turned her head slowly, her eyes narrowing.
“Haven’t you had enough for this evening?”
The voice was calm. Firm. Female.
Kaz turned the rest of the way and found herself face to face with a girl. A woman, really. Her skin was sun-warmed, her long black hair braided with practiced care, and her eyes deep brown and steady, they held no fear. Only concern. Genuine, perhaps. Or foolish.
Kaz raised a brow, a smile pulling at her lips in mock surprise.
“Oh, have I? I feel startlingly coherent for an intoxicated person.”
The girl’s expression didn’t shift. She withdrew her hand and crossed her arms, posture straight as a blade.
“If you have another one of those, you’ll regret it tomorrow.”
Kaz smiled wider, not caring if it looked dangerous. Maybe because it was.
“Wonderful. Then have a drink with me, darling.”
The girl rolled her eyes, but after a beat, she took the seat next to her. Kaz gestured for the bartender and ordered two more drinks.
“I’m not your darling,” the girl said plainly. “I have a name. It’s Biyu.”
Kaz leaned back slightly and turned to look at her fully now. Biyu. It suited her. Her features were soft but strong, her frame lean and resilient. She looked like someone carved out of glacier ice and clay, forged under pressure but never cracked. She looked like a woman who would carry the weight of the world across a crumbling bridge if someone asked her to.
What was someone like her doing in a place like this?
Kaz’s curiosity stirred, quiet but sharp.
“Nice to meet you, darling. Name’s Hebi.”
She downed her drink in one long swallow.
Biyu watched her for a moment, her brows furrowed slightly. Something shifted in her face. A flicker of something close to recognition but not of Hebi’s name. No, it was something deeper. Something about the way she moved. The way her smile didn’t reach her eyes. The way her entire presence felt like a collapsing star, drawing people in with the quiet promise of destruction.
Biyu had known, from the moment she approached, that this was a bad idea.
She had trained long enough to recognize danger when she saw it. The sharpness in Hebi’s eyes was not the kind born from idle hardship. It was the gaze of a predator. A fighter. A survivor.
And yet, she had approached anyway.
There had been something compelling in the way Hebi sat; half-slouched, half-coiled. Something lonely. Something tragic. And Biyu, for all her practical knowledge and Water Tribe pragmatism, had never been able to resist trying to fix broken things.
So she lifted her drink. And she drank.
***
The air in the Lower Ring was always a little too thick.
Smog and smoke curled through the narrow alleys. The scent of damp earth, metal, sweat, and human suffering never quite left the nostrils. It pressed in close, like a second skin, clinging to anyone who walked those streets for too long. Biyu had long since learned to stop flinching at the smells. The wounds, the cries, the death—that was harder.
She moved through the small medical shack with practiced efficiency, sleeves rolled past her elbows, hands already streaked with dried herbs and iodine. It was not even midday, and already a child had come in with cracked ribs, a woman had collapsed from hunger, and a man with a festering infection in his leg had to be restrained while she drained the rot.
There were never enough supplies. Never enough hands. Never enough time.
Biyu had learned to ration her energy as carefully as she rationed their gauze and painkillers. She gave what she could. Always. But never more than she could afford to lose.
That morning, the shack had fallen into a lull. A rare silence. Patients rested on their mats. One of the younger medics had taken a child outside for fresh air. Biyu was wiping her hands when the door creaked open.
She turned.
And froze.
Hebi walked through the entrance, dark clothes clinging to her like smoke. Her footsteps were soundless, almost eerie in how quiet they were on the wooden floor. Her eyes, usually sharp with mischief or masked detachment, looked hollow now. Not haunted exactly something deeper. A kind of grief that didn’t scream. It just settled into the bones like cold.
Biyu stared as she approached, weaving her way past patients and cots.
All dressed in black. Moving like a shadow. The look on her face was unreadable. And for a strange moment, Biyu wondered if Hebi wasn’t a person at all but some kind of spirit. A silent deity of death, come to ferry away someone’s soul.
Then Hebi was in front of her.
Up close, her orange eyes were more mournful than terrifying. Her shoulders, though squared, sagged with exhaustion. Not physical. Something else.
“Hi,” Hebi said softly.
It was barely a whisper. Like her voice, too, had worn itself thin.
“So you’re a medic,” she continued. “It’s noble of you.”
Biyu blinked, grounding herself in the now. “Thanks. I don’t want to appear rude, but… why are you here? As you can see, the situation is quite difficult.”
Hebi didn’t answer right away. Her gaze wandered around the room, trailing over the bandaged bodies and fevered faces, the cramped corners and flickering lanterns. Something about it caught in her chest. Something she couldn’t quite name.
“I don’t know,” she said eventually.
She didn’t.
She could have waited to see Biyu somewhere else. She knew where the girl drank tea in the mornings, where she walked after dusk. But something had drawn her here, into the tight air and the quiet suffering.
Maybe it was the weight on her chest.
Maybe it was the dream she had the night before. Lu Ten. Lying on the forest floor. Blood soaking through his uniform. Iroh kneeling beside him, screaming until his voice broke.
Had he died in a place like this? In a room that smelled like blood and antiseptic and too-late apologies?
The thought made something in her crack.
“I guess I needed a reminder,” she murmured.
Biyu tilted her head. What was with this girl and half phrases? “A reminder of what?”
Kaz shook her head and gave a bitter smile. “Sometimes I wish I’d learned how to heal instead.”
“Instead?” Biyu echoed, her voice barely above a whisper now too.
“Instead of being a merchant,” Kaz said, eyes glinting just slightly. Testing. Always testing.
Biyu nodded, but something faltered inside her. Something small. It was in the way Hebi looked at her. Like she had expected a different answer. Like she had wanted to be seen through.
Whatever it was, she had failed some invisible test.
“Well, we always need more help,” Biyu offered, shrugging off the unease. “Do you still wish to learn?”
That caught Kaz off guard.
Her eyes widened, just for a heartbeat. “You’re offering to teach me?”
“What else?” Biyu said simply. “Maybe you’ll be good enough to be of actual help. Do you have the time? It will require a lot of it.”
Time. As if that was the obstacle.
Kaz didn’t hesitate. “I would make time for this, even if I was busy.”
Something had shifted in her tone.
The self-destructive flame that usually flickered in her voice had dimmed, just a little, replaced by something brighter. Something steadier. The beginnings of a spark that hadn’t burned in years. Biyu saw it, saw that flicker of life return to Hebi’s expression, and for a moment, she wondered what kind of person she might have been before the war carved her into a weapon.
Her heart beat a little too quickly.
“All right,” she said, fighting down the smile. “You can help me prepare bandages. That’s where every apprentice starts.”
Kaz nodded, and for the first time since she walked through the door, she looked lighter.
Maybe she wasn’t entirely broken.
Maybe.
***
That evening, Ba Sing Se was blanketed in fog. It curled around the lanterns like silk and muted the city’s chaos to a whisper. Kaz walked alone, past the market squares and alley cats, past closed shops and silent homes. Her thoughts tangled like the mist.
The memory of Lu Ten followed her everywhere in this city.
Ba Sing Se had always been foreign to her, even when she first arrived years ago. But it was worse now. The silence reminded her of the lull before a battlefield clash. The stone walls felt like they were watching her. Judging.
What was she doing?
She didn’t belong in a healing tent. She didn’t belong in clean places. Not with her bloodied hands and lying tongue.
And yet… when Biyu looked at her earlier, she hadn’t flinched. Hadn’t recoiled. There had been nothing but sincerity in her voice.
“I would make time,” Kaz had said.
And she meant it.
Because she needed something to fight for that didn’t involve blades and fire. Something that didn’t end with bodies.
She found herself outside the tea stand without meaning to. It was closed now, but the scent of ginger and mint lingered in the air. Her lips parted. Her stomach clenched.
One day, Biyu would learn the truth.
That Hebi was Kaz. That the soft-spoken apprentice with clever hands was really a traitor, a firebender, a killer.
But not tonight.
Tonight, she would sleep. Maybe dream of something else. Maybe dream of ginger tea and healing herbs. Maybe, just maybe, dream of being someone good.
Chapter 7: Lies and Scalpels
Summary:
Kaz's quiet life in Ba Sing Se begins to crack. A panic attack in the market reveals the weight of her buried trauma, while a medical emergency forces her to reveal her firebending—and her identity—to Biyu. A moment of vulnerability draws them closer… until Kaz's mission drives her to the Earth King's palace, where an encounter with Long Feng forces her to flee the city. She leaves behind a lie—and a broken-hearted Biyu.
Notes:
From the next chapter onward, the story will begin to intertwine with the main ATLA plot. Familiar faces will return, and Kaz will find herself caught between the war, the White Lotus, and her own haunted past.
Chapter Text
“Sometimes I can feel my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.”
— Anne Carson, “Plainwater”
The Lower Ring’s marketplace pulsed with life, a writhing, chaotic mass of color, clamor, and scent. Lanterns swung gently in the humid air, casting golden halos on rows of vegetables, spices, cloth, and secondhand trinkets. The smell of frying dumplings mingled with incense smoke and the sharp tang of metal.
Kaz followed Biyu through the winding stalls, hands buried in the pockets of her worn coat. She kept her head low, hair tucked behind one ear, careful not to brush too close to strangers. Her movements were instinctive, fluid, quiet, contained. The crowd pressed in on all sides, but Kaz moved like smoke between them.
Biyu, on the other hand, seemed to belong here.
She greeted vendors by name, haggled with a sharp but friendly voice, waved at children who darted past her legs. Every now and then, she turned to Kaz and offered a quick explanation “This one has the best ginger root,” or “Don’t ever trust that man’s fermented tofu, I’m serious.”
Kaz nodded when she was supposed to, offering the occasional smile. But it was thin. Strained. Her eyes kept flicking, constantly scanning. A soldier’s reflex.
“You all right?” Biyu asked, pausing by a stand of dried herbs.
Kaz hesitated. “Yeah. Just… crowded.”
Biyu studied her a moment longer, then offered a faint smile and said nothing. She returned to her shopping, trusting Kaz would speak up if she needed to.
But Kaz wouldn’t. Couldn’t.
The noise was rising. Children yelling, hawkers shouting over one another, someone slamming crates into a cart. Her breath caught slightly. Her fingers curled tighter into her sleeves. A man passed by with a long scar across his face, and something in her stomach twisted violently.
"Here it is!" Kaz train of though was interrupted by Biyu herself. They had stopped in what seemed to be the butcher's stand. Biyu was tapping her chin while contemplating the various cuts, her braids gently swaying in the breeze. If she focused on that Kaz could ignore the smell of the nearby barbecue, she could stop thinking about how a human body burning only smelt slightly different. "What do you think, Hebi?"
Kaz gaze focused back on Biyu. "Sorry, darling, I got distracted." She couldn't manage to smile though. Biyu looked gently back at her, "it's alright, do you feel okay? You look unwell." Kaz just nodded, "All fine."
Biyu looked at her sceptically, "I was asking you if you'd rather eat something more common like moksal and ansim, or something more traditional like beef tongue." Just as Kaz heard the word tongue she turned her head towards it, there she what used to be one of her favourite meats.
Now she felt herself start trembling, all the noise of the market quieted down and the buzzing in her head went up.
And then she was there.
Not in the market.
Not in Ba Sing Se.
She was in that forest. Years ago.
She could feel the blade sink into her thigh all over again. The assassin’s body crashing into hers. The pain, sharp and deep, had startled her more than the blood. It had bloomed across her leg like something too bright to be real.
“I got you,” he’d snarled into her ear. Young voice. Furious. Righteous.
She hadn’t thought. Her hand had moved on instinct. Not smoke this time.
Red lightning.
The jolt had lit up the assassin’s chest like a firework. His scream had choked off mid-sound. He dropped onto her, weight and silence crushing her together. The smell of burnt flesh had hit her immediately. Too strong. Too wrong.
Kaz stumbled backward now, in the present, bumping into a fruit cart. The vendor cursed. She barely heard him.
She remembered the sound her own voice had made when she’d cauterized the wound in her thigh—raw, jagged, more animal than human. The hiss of her skin searing beneath her palm. The bubbling of flesh. The copper tang of blood filling her mouth. Her scream echoing in that alley while the dead boy beside her still smoked.
The present bled into memory until all she could feel was heat and ash. The crowd warped around her. Too close. Too loud. Too many people. Too much air and not enough space and
“Hebi?”
Biyu’s voice cut through the fog like a blade.
Kaz barely registered her. Her knees buckled, and Biyu caught her before she hit the ground.
They were on the stone floor now, in the shadows between two stalls. Biyu crouched beside her, one hand bracing Kaz’s back, the other gently cupping her cheek.
“Breathe,” she said softly. “Just breathe with me. In, then out. Like this.”
Kaz was shaking. Her eyes darted around, unseeing, still trapped in a place no one else could go.
Biyu didn’t ask what had happened.
She didn’t ask if Kaz was all right.
She just stayed there, breathing steadily, quietly grounding her, her hand never moving from Kaz’s back.
It took time. Maybe minutes. Maybe more.
Eventually, Kaz’s breath evened out, though her hands still trembled. Her heart was still galloping against her ribs like it wanted to escape. She stared at the cobblestones.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Biyu shook her head. “Don’t be.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“You don’t owe me an explanation,” Biyu said. “But I’ll listen, if you want to give one.”
Kaz was quiet for a long time. But Biyu was still there. Patient. Solid. Real.
And Kaz, still trembling, decided on a story she’d told before. One that was close enough to the truth to wear like a second skin.
She spoke softly, voice fraying at the edges. “My village was attacked. Years ago. A Fire Nation raid, middle of the night. We had nothing worth burning, but they didn’t care.”
Biyu stayed silent.
“They torched the homes first. People were screaming. I was trying to help pull people out, but there was so much fire. I got—” She touched her thigh, just above the old scar. “I got caught in it. Tried to stop the bleeding with fire. Like the soldiers did. It worked, but—”
Kaz shrugged. The memory stung, even in this shape.
“Someone was captured,” she added, quieter. “He was young. He shouldn’t have been there at all.”
Biyu didn’t speak. Didn’t prompt her to go on.
Kaz did anyway.
“A week or so later we recieved and invoice. From the fire nation. There was nothing in it but a human tongue.”
She stopped. The words choked.
Biyu didn’t push. Biyu’s hand was still on her shoulder.
“I see,” she said gently. Kaz nodded.
She that her dreams still sometimes smelled like a blood soaked forest and her own flesh burning. She didn’t mention how she was the one that had cut someone’s tongue out and sent it as a message.
“Sometimes I just this memory would disappear, but it’s still there. Always lingering and presenting itself when I least expect it” she whispered.
Biyu said, “Sometimes forgetting is the hardest thing.”
They stayed there in silence for a moment longer.
The market moved around them, but no one paid them any mind. It was a city of ghosts and secrets. Everyone had their own.
Eventually, Kaz stood. Her legs were unsteady, but she didn’t fall. Biyu rose beside her and offered her a flask of water.
Kaz took it with quiet thanks.
“I should go,” she said, voice hoarse.
“You can,” Biyu said. “But you don’t have to.”
Kaz looked at her. Really looked.
And for the first time in days, something inside her softened.
“Would you… walk with me a while?” she asked.
Biyu smiled, not brightly, but warmly.
“Of course.”
They left the market together, not speaking, but side by side. The fog was lifting. The sky above the Lower Ring still held the weight of soot and dusk, but below it, two shadows walked in tandem, slowly, toward something like peace.
***
The day had started like most others with the weight of illness pressing against the walls of the small clinic. The cramped space pulsed with humidity, its earthen floor stained from years of tread and treatment. The air hung heavy with the pungent tang of dried herbs, old sweat, and something sourer the lingering breath of fever.
A single window let in a spear of dull sunlight, its reach just shy of the central cot. The rest of the clinic lived in half-shadow.
Kaz had come in early, as usual. She preferred the hour before the chaos, when silence reigned and the city had not yet shaken off the night. It gave her time to move methodically through the morning rituals: checking gauze supplies, grinding dried roots into fine powder, restocking salves, counting herbal tinctures. Her fingers moved through the tasks with steady precision.
Biyu kept everything in perfect order; each bottle labeled in careful ink, every cloth folded to size, poultices lined in crisp rows like soldiers waiting for battle. She had once told Kaz, "When everything else is chaos, order can save lives."
Kaz hadn’t disagreed. She’d just nodded, grateful to have something to do with her hands that didn’t end in smoke and ruin.
Her hands, once trained for war and espionage, had been instruments of damage. Here, in this space, they were slowly learning to become something else. Maybe not gentle, not yet but useful. Healing.
She still hadn’t told Biyu the truth. Not about who she was. Not about what she’d done. There never seemed to be a right moment. And even if there was, she wasn’t sure what she’d say.
Biyu arrived shortly after sunrise, as always, her dark braids pinned tight and sleeves rolled above her elbows. Her expression was already lined with focus.
"Boil water. Restock the gauze. We’ll be busy today," she said by way of greeting.
Kaz nodded without a word and moved to obey. She didn’t take the brusqueness personally. Biyu was like that, brisk, efficient, commanding. Her tone could carve a path through panic like a blade through silk.
The morning passed in its usual rhythm. They treated a knife cut from a gambler’s quarrel. Packed a tooth infection. Cleaned out a wound that had festered with pus. Kaz was taught to distinguish between the angry redness of irritation and the creeping rot of sepsis.
She’d begun to feel… useful.
Then came the screaming.
The door slammed open so hard it bounced against the wall. A woman staggered in, her hair wild and skirt soaked in blood. In her arms was a boy, no older than ten, limp and grey-faced. A Dai Li agent followed, his stone gauntlets glinting with dust, looking entirely out of place.
The child’s leg; Kaz couldn’t look away. It was a ruin of torn flesh and shattered bone, the foot nearly severed.
The blood came fast and thick.
Kaz stood frozen beside the shelf of poultices, the world narrowing into that single flash of red.
"Here! On the table, now!" Biyu barked, shoving supplies aside.
The woman hesitated, her eyes wet and wild. "Is he—?"
"Still breathing," Biyu snapped. "But not for long if we don’t act now."
Kaz remained rooted. Her heart thundered. She couldn’t breathe. She’d seen wounds like that before — in jungles, on battlefields, under torchlight. That much blood meant the body was failing. It meant time was almost gone.
Biyu didn’t look up. Her hands were already moving cutting cloth, uncorking tinctures, dousing clean pads in antiseptic.
"Hebi, I need you."
Kaz didn’t respond. She had forgotten her fake name for a second.
"I said I need you!"
Her name cracked like a whip across the clinic.
Kaz blinked. Swallowed. Her throat felt like it was full of sand.
"We’re going to lose him to blood loss," Biyu snapped. "I can’t sew what’s not stable. I need the bleeding stopped. Now."
Kaz took a step forward. Then another. The boy’s leg was gushing. A makeshift pad of cloth was soaked crimson, pooling over the side of the table.
Biyu pressed down harder. "There’s no tourniquet strong enough for this. Not with the limb like that. Damn it…"
Kaz stared. The world warped at the edges. The sound of her own heartbeat filled her ears.
You survived.
You can do this.
Her hands trembled. “ I have an idea, but you have trust me and promise you won’t tell the Da Li.”
Biyu looked at her like she was speaking gibberish. “ Hebi please just do whatever.” Kaz shook her head, “First promise me, it’s vital.”
Biyu nodded “I promise I mean it, now act!”
She reached inward not to her thoughts, but to the place beneath them. The core of her.
Where the fire lived.
But she didn’t call on flame.
Lightning was different. Fire’s cruel cousin. Sharp, quiet, clean. A blade instead of a blaze.
Her fingers twitched.
First spark — too faint. Flickered and died.
Second — too hot. Cracked across the air, uncontrolled.
Kaz exhaled through her teeth. Closed her eyes. Steadied herself. She pictured the boy’s face, pale and breathless. Pictured Biyu’s hands trying, failing, slipping in blood.
A third spark hummed into being.
It didn’t crackle. It purred. A thread of violet energy traced between her fingers, thin as a reed stem and just as steady.
She opened her eyes.
"Move," she said softly.
Biyu looked up. Her lips parted, not quite forming words. Her gaze fell to the light held in Kaz’s hand, and for one long moment, she didn’t breathe.
But she stepped aside.
Kaz knelt.
The hum of the lightning filled the space between heartbeats. The scent of burning flesh would come later she braced for it.
Her fingers hovered, then touched the edge of the wound.
The boy jerked, whimpering.
But the blood began to slow.
Kaz moved with the precision of a calligrapher. No waste. No flourish. Just the practical sweep of power used to mend instead of maim. She sealed the worst tears. Closed the blood vessels one by one, cauterizing as she went.
When she finished, her hands dropped into her lap, empty and shaking.
But the bleeding had stopped.
Biyu resumed her work without a word. She stitched, cleaned, and bound the leg with steady hands, face unreadable.
Only when the boy was finally breathing evenly beneath a clean sheet did she speak.
"Are you all right?"
Kaz blinked. Her mouth felt dry. "You’re asking me?"
"You’re pale. You’re trembling."
Kaz looked at her hands. They were shaking again. She stuffed them into her pockets.
"I’m fine."
Biyu tilted her head, studying her like one might study a patient hiding symptoms.
"That wasn’t ordinary firebending."
Kaz offered a half-hearted shrug. "Guess I’m not ordinary."
A silence stretched between them.
Then Biyu nodded once. "Thank you. You saved his life."
Kaz nodded too. But the gesture felt hollow. She could still smell the singed skin. Still feel the echo of pain in her own thigh, a memory her body hadn’t forgotten.
But this time, the power in her hands hadn’t ended a life.
Maybe it wasn’t healing. Not exactly.
But it wasn’t destruction, either.
And for now, that was enough.
***
The walk back to Biyu’s apartment was quiet.
Not strained, not exactly, but filled with something thick and unspoken, like smoke after a blaze. Kaz kept her eyes forward, her pace steady, as if still running on adrenaline. Biyu didn’t rush her. She walked beside her, silent, her shoulder brushing Kaz’s now and then.
The healer’s apartment sat just above a baker’s stall in a crooked old building near the edge of the Lower Ring. It was small, but warm the kind of space Kaz had never imagined herself entering, let alone returning to, day after day.
Inside, Kaz kicked off her boots by the door and slumped onto the floor cushions near the hearth. The usual smell of ginger tea lingered faintly in the air, comforting. Safe.
But she didn’t feel safe. Not really.
Biyu set down her satchel and moved through the room with practiced ease, putting on a kettle, laying out clean bandages for the next day, folding towels. But Kaz could feel the question before it was spoken.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Kaz didn’t answer. She stared at the kettle like it might reveal an escape route.
“You used lightning.”
Still, Kaz said nothing.
“You’re a firebender.”
The word hung in the air between them, heavy and sharp. Not an accusation. Not a scream. Just… a statement. Quiet, edged.
Kaz finally turned to look at her.
Biyu’s expression was unreadable. Calm, yes. But not distant. Her dark eyes searched Kaz’s face like she was trying to solve a puzzle with too many missing pieces.
“I didn’t know,” Biyu said. “I trusted you.”
Kaz swallowed. Her throat was dry. “You still can.”
“Can I?” Biyu asked.
Kaz’s breath caught.
There it was; the crux of it all. Not the lie, not the bending, not the war. Just that question. The kind that slipped between ribs and settled in the heart.
Biyu sat across from her, legs folded, back straight.
“I’ve seen what firebenders can do. What they’ve done to people I love. To my home. My village. My friends.”
Kaz didn’t flinch. She didn’t try to defend herself.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me,” she said quietly. “I’m not even asking you to understand. I just—”
She broke off. Her hands, clenched on her knees, were trembling again.
“I just didn’t want to be that anymore. Not to you.”
Silence.
Then:
“Why me?” Biyu asked. Her voice was softer now.
Kaz met her gaze.
And for once, she didn’t have words.
So instead, she leaned forward.
Slowly. Carefully. Like testing uncertain ground.
And she kissed her.
There was no heat in it. No fire. Just breath and closeness and the gentle pressure of something fragile trying not to break. Kaz kissed her like someone who didn’t expect to be kissed back. Like someone offering the truth in the only way they knew how.
And for a moment, everything was still.
Then Biyu didn’t pull away.
She didn’t say anything, didn’t move just let Kaz’s lips rest against hers like a held breath.
When Kaz pulled back, eyes half-lidded, unsure of what she’d see—
Biyu was watching her.
The look in her eyes wasn’t fear. It wasn’t anger.
It was something deeper.
Wary. Tender. Cracked open.
“I don’t know what this means yet,” Biyu said.
Kaz nodded, throat too tight to speak.
“But I’m still here,” Biyu added. “So… maybe you should stay.”
Kaz blinked.
Then she nodded again, just once.
She didn’t know what she had expected; rejection, maybe. Silence. A door closing.
But Biyu had left it open.
And for the first time in years, Kaz let herself step through.
But peace, for people like Kaz, never lasted long.
***
That night, long after Biyu had fallen asleep in the next room, Kaz slipped out into the dark.
She dressed in silence. Left no note. Only the faintest trace of her scent remained on the blanket where she had sat, curled by the hearth. She didn’t look back.
The palace wall was higher than she remembered. Kaz climbed it anyway.
The shadows of the Upper Ring curled close as she scaled the final ledge and dropped lightly into the garden beyond. Moonlight glinted off tiled roofs and koi ponds. A guard passed near the gate, but she moved like smoke, silent and unseen.
This wasn’t the first time she’d broken into a royal residence. But it might be the stupidest.
She wanted an audience, not with the Earth King, who from what she had learnt by spying on the Dai Li was said to be soft and sheltered, but with someone who could move levers. Influence. Tip the balance.
Instead, she found herself face-to-face with Grand Secretariat Long Feng.
He emerged from the shadows like a serpent shedding light, dressed in layered green silks, his expression unreadable.
"You’re not exactly subtle," he said smoothly.
Kaz straightened. “I’m not here to cause trouble.”
Long Feng arched an eyebrow. “Curious, considering you’ve just trespassed into the most protected seat of power in the Earth Kingdom.”
“I’m looking for allies,” she said. “To end the war.”
“Ba Sing Se does not concern itself with outside conflicts,” Long Feng replied, voice as calm as a still pond. “We preserve harmony within our walls.”
Kaz stepped forward, jaw clenched. “That’s an illusion. I see the cost of your neutrality every day in the Lower Ring. Refugees. Starving children. Disease. You pretend this city is untouched, but it’s rotting from the inside.”
Long Feng’s expression flickered. Something calculating entered his gaze.
“You’ve been in the Lower Ring, then.”
Kaz froze. She’d said too much.
The shadows thickened. Long Feng tilted his head.
“Your bending,” he murmured. “It’s rare. Refined. Not something taught by street rebels or peasants.”
Kaz tensed.
“You’re not from here,” he said.
She didn’t answer. Her breath stilled.
Long Feng smiled thinly. “So who sent you? The White Lotus? Ozai?”
Kaz blinked once. A twitch. A mistake.
“Guards will be here in less than a minute,” Long Feng said, his hand rising. “You’ve made a mistake.”
The earth buckled beneath her feet. She leapt back just in time as the stone tiles shattered upward, spikes aimed for her knees.
Kaz landed hard, rolled, and flung herself into a sprint.
“Tell your king,” she spat, “that walls won’t save him when fire touches the gates!”
Long Feng moved again, a wall of stone lurching toward her. She dodged it barely, slipped between hedges, vaulted the outer gate.
Pebbles lifted and chased her heels as she ran. She didn’t stop until she was deep in the shadows again, breath ragged, ankle twisted, adrenaline burning away the ache.
She couldn’t stay. He’d seen her. Felt her bending. She would be hunted by morning.
...
When Biyu awoke, Kaz was gone. She found the letter on the table, folded and sealed with wax. No name. Just the neat, precise writing Kaz had picked up while copying supply lists.
Biyu,
I’m sorry I lied. I’m sorry I made you care.
But I can’t stay. I’m not who you think I am. I never was. Whatever you felt, it wasn’t real. Please forget me.
Stay safe. Stay kind.
Hebi
Biyu stared at the words, then at the empty hearth.
Anger was the first thing she felt. Hot. Sudden. Betrayal bloomed in her chest like a second heartbeat.
“You coward,” she whispered.
She crumpled the letter in her fist, then flattened it again. Her hands trembled. She wanted to believe the lie. That it had all been pretend. Easier that way.
But she couldn’t. She had seen Kaz bleed for strangers. Had seen the way her voice softened when she spoke to patients. Had kissed her.
She sat on the cushion where Kaz had sat. Pressed a hand to the blanket that still held her warmth. Her throat was tight.
She thought of chasing her. For one wild second, she thought of tearing through the streets, finding her.
But Kaz was already gone.
So she did the only thing she could. She threw the letter into the fire.
And watched it burn.
Chapter 8: Too Many Spirits
Summary:
Kaz receives an urgent message from Iroh: the Avatar has been captured and is being held in Pohuai Stronghold. Donning her black mask once more, Kaz infiltrates the fortress, only to find another masked figure, Zuko in disguise, already executing a rescue. With Aang in tow, the three form an unlikely alliance, fighting their way through guards, gates, and chaos. Amid daring escapes, smoke bombs, and sarcasm, Kaz realizes the Blue Spirit is none other than Zuko, her enemy… and once, her friend. After stunning him to protect Aang, Kaz sees firsthand the toll Ozai's abuse has taken on Zuko. The trio regroups, revives Katara and Sokka, and for the first time, Kaz begins to integrate, awkwardly, into Aang's team.
Notes:
We made it. Kaz is officially part of Avatar: The Last Airbender canon! 🎉 This chapter was such a joy (and challenge!) to write, blending canon action with Kaz’s voice, skills, and sarcasm. I wanted her to feel like she belonged in the episode without altering its emotional core and also to show how much her presence complicates everything.
Chapter Text
“We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes…”
— Paul Laurence Dunbar, “We Wear the Mask”
Kaz had never been one for theatrics, but tonight called for masks. The black silk fit snugly over her face, hiding the scowl she wore beneath. Iroh’s note was simple and urgent. Aang had been captured and imprisoned in the heavily fortified Pohuai Stronghold. No one could sneak in and out like she could. And Kaz didn’t leave missions unfinished.
She was traveling close to the Fire Nation border when a rustling in the trees above her made her pause. A firehawk landed on her shoulder, a small missive tied to its foot with a white string. "What could Iroh need?" Kaz muttered, gently untying it and reading:
Kaz, the Avatar has been captured and he's being held in Pohuai Stronghold. If there is someone that can sneak in and break him free, it's you. Please be careful though.
—Great Lotus P.S. Are you doing alright?
Kaz sighed. Great. The Avatar had somehow gotten himself captured and now she had to risk her neck to get him out. She gave the hawk a piece of dried meat and sent it back with a single black ribbon tied to its leg. It would be enough. Iroh would understand she was on it. He could scold her for never answering letters in person—if she made it back.
Kaz took the black mask from her pouch. It was time to don it again. She only hoped it wouldn’t end in bloodshed.
***
She entered the fortress the same way she always did... through the shadows. Her movements were calculated, quiet, and laced with familiarity. But something was off tonight. She wasn’t alone.
In the courtyard, a masked figure moved like water through guards, dispatching them with twin dao blades. Kaz watched from the shadows, a smirk tugging at her lips. “Well, someone beat me to the party.”
Still, she had a job to do. She dropped from the wall, landing silently on her feet behind two distracted sentries. A flick of her fingers released small bursts of lightning, just enough to knock them unconscious. She tugged her hood lower, smoke trailing her path as she advanced toward the tower.
Aang was chained to the wall, struggling uselessly, his face scrunched with frustration. That’s when a figure wearing an Okai blue mask entered the chamber. He looked down toward the guards Kaz had just stunned, then looked at her and raised the silver blades gleaming in the torchlight. She brought up her hands in an appeasing manner. “They’re still alive. Guess we’re here for the same reason.” She nodded toward the Avatar. “Truce?”
The figure nodded and proceeded to enter the cell. She followed “Mr. Blade,” she decided, because he clearly wasn’t into introductions. Aang screamed in surprise as the figure cut him free.
“We’re here to get you out. He’s not much of a talker though,” Kaz told the Avatar.
“Oh! Oh, thank you, I guess,” Aang stammered.
Kaz followed Mr. Blades out and lingered in the hallway, eyes narrowed, scanning for other guards. When Aang tried to gather the frogs scattered across the floor, Mr. Blades gave a curt shake of the head and grabbed Aang like a sack of rice.
"Hey! Wait, the frogs! I need my friends to suck on them!" Aang protested.
Kaz couldn’t help a tiny smile. "They’ll survive. Probably."
Mr. Blades took off down the hall with Aang in tow. Kaz flanked their rear, tossing smoke bombs to confuse the pursuing guards. Her breath was steady, her footsteps silent.
They reached the courtyard. Alarms blared louder. Gates slammed shut with metallic groans. Arrows zipped through the air.
"You take left, I’ll cover the right," Kaz whispered, finally stepping beside the Mr. Blade.
He didn’t respond—just nodded once.
Together, they moved like twin shadows. Kaz generated thick clouds of smoke to obscure their path, using her agility to leap from wall to wall. She stunned archers with crackles of lightning, her short black hair whipping in the wind. The Mr. Blade handled the melee, slicing through chains and knocking out guards with clean precision.
They were fast, too fast for the guards to form a proper defense.
"Who are you guys? Ninjas?" Aang asked, still being carried.
Kaz rolled her eyes beneath the mask. "More like stressed freelancers."
The Mr. Blade slashed a pulley rope, causing a portcullis to crash down behind them. They kept running.
They reached the outer courtyard as the third gate began to close. The timing would be tight.
“Go, I’ll hold them!” Kaz shouted.
The Mr. Blade hesitated but then darted forward, slicing through an oncoming guard. Kaz turned back toward the crowd forming behind them, lifted her hands, and unleashed a wide arc of fire that burst out like a blooming flower. The sudden wall of heat sent soldiers skidding back.
Aang used the opportunity to whip up a gust of wind, knocking the rest off their feet.
Kaz vanished into the smoke again, reappearing just in time to land a boot against a guard’s helmet, sending him sprawling.
She looked toward Aang and nodded. “Go!”
Aang extended his glider, catching a wind current and grabbing the Mr. Blade’s arm. They soared upward. Kaz followed close behind, vaulting with fire-assisted jumps and leaping from ledge to ledge. She twisted mid-air, tossing another smoke bomb behind her.
They crash-landed into the next tower. It was swarming with guards.
Kaz ducked a blow and countered with a spinning kick, flames trailing her foot. “Remind me again why this wasn’t a terrible idea?”
The Mr. Blade didn’t answer, but Kaz swore she heard a muffled snort of amusement.
They fought side-by-side, a dance of perfect coordination, fire and steel, wind and smoke. Kaz knocked out a spearman with a pulse of lightning while Aang blasted another with a gust of air. The Mr. Blade spun through two soldiers with a blur of blades.
They reached a rope dangling from the wall—the Mr. Blade’s earlier escape plan. He and Aang began climbing it quickly. Kaz hesitated, readying to follow.
But then, the alarm rang louder and a guard at the top of the wall cut the rope. Aang and the Mr. Blade fell.
At the last second, Aang airbended a cushion of air, breaking their fall and landing them safely. The Mr. Blade pointed toward the open gates and they began to run. Zhao appeared on the balcony.
"The Avatar has escaped! Close all the gates immediately!"
The gates began to slam shut. Aang urged, "Stay close to me!" and blasted aside guards with powerful gusts of wind.
Aang barely slipped through the closing doors. But the Mr. Blade was cut off, forced to defend himself against several guards. He held his ground, slicing through their ranks, but was clearly losing steam.
Realizing the Mr. Blade was no longer with him, Aang turned and leapt into the fray. He knocked out the guards with airbending, grabbed the stranger, and hurled him onto the next wall where more soldiers immediately swarmed him.
Aang spun his staff like a helicopter, propelling himself upward and locking his legs around the Mr. Blade’s chest. Spears flew, but the Mr. Blade deflected them with his blades.
They crashed on the next wall. More guards. More chaos. Kaz fought her way up, arriving just in time to hurl fire and smoke at the new wave of enemies. Together, they repelled the assault. Aang blew away the next set of troops; Kaz and the Mr. Blade cleared the rest.
When troops climbed bamboo ladders to reach them, Aang blew them down. Then he grabbed three of the ladders, handed one to the Mr. Blade, and said, “Get on my back!”
They used the ladders like stilts to cross to the final wall. But a guard lit the last one on fire.
They leapt, barely making it over the wall, and crashed hard to the ground in front of the main gate.
Firebenders closed in. Zhao held up a hand. “Don’t attack. The Avatar must be captured alive.”
Suddenly, the Mr. Blade held his swords to Aang’s neck, threatening him. The guards froze.
Zhao, fuming, ordered the gate opened.
The trio backed out slowly, Kaz joining them from the shadows, tense and silent. As soon as they passed through, Zhao climbed to higher ground.
“Take the shot,” he ordered.
An archer loosed an arrow. The Mr. Blade crumpled.
Kaz moved on instinct, smoke and fire flaring. Aang raised a dust cloud. Guards rushed in.
Inside the haze, Aang knelt over the Mr. Blade and pulled off the mask.
“Zuko?” he whispered.
Kaz’s stomach dropped. She knew that posture. She stepped forward, pulse sharp. "Of course it’s you. Of all people." Kaz’s breath caught when she saw his scar in the moonlight—raw, ragged, and hideous. Her anger at Ozai surged like a wave.
"Is this what he gave you for loyalty?" she whispered, too low to hear. Then looked at Aang “Quick we have to get away” and they managed to get far enough from the guards thanks to Aang’s speed and stopped in a secluded part of the forest.
***
Later, as Zuko regained consciousness, Aang sat beside him and began talking.
"I had a friend named Kuzon once," he said softly. "He was from the Fire Nation. We went to school together. He was smart, and kind, and funny. I thought maybe we could've been friends, too, if things had been different."
Zuko didn’t reply. He looked at Aang like he was something he couldn't understand, couldn't afford to trust.
Then he attacked.
Kaz didn’t hesitate. She surged forward, channeling just enough lightning to stun. Her fingers sparked.
Zuko saw her, just for a second, the bright orange of her eyes behind the mask.
Then darkness.
Aang stared. “Did you just—”
“Yep,” Kaz said, brushing soot from her sleeve. “He’ll wake up with a headache and bruised pride. Better than what he planned for you.”
They vanished into the forest.
As they moved through the forest, Kaz glanced back toward the direction they had come from, where Zuko lay unconscious. Her fists clenched at her sides.
He should have never turned his fire on Aang.
He should have never had to carry that scar.
That blind rage in his eyes… it wasn’t really his. It belonged to Ozai. Passed down like a poisoned legacy, buried deep in the boy’s chest until he couldn't tell where his anger ended and his father’s orders began.
Kaz had seen that look before in soldiers, in children trained too early, in herself when she still wore red without shame. But Zuko… he was just a kid she fled.
He hated Aang because Ozai told him that capturing the Avatar was the only way home. That he was worthless without honor, and that honor could only be earned through pain.
It made her stomach twist. Zuko didn’t need a throne. He needed someone to tell him he didn’t have to become his father.
And yet, here they were—running from him.
She looked ahead at Aang’s back, still obliviously humming as he checked on Katara and Sokka. If Zuko had grown up with him instead… maybe things would have been different.
Maybe Zuko would have been free. She tried to bring her train of though to less angering things.
"You said you knew someone named Kuzon, right? Did he perhaps ride a dragon once?" she asked.
Aang nodded, surprised. "He was my friend, a hundred years ago. From the Fire Nation."
Kaz looked ahead, voice quieter now. "Probably was my grandfather. Small world."
Aang looked at her stunned “WHAT?! That’s awsome! So you’re going to be my friend for sure! You have to tell me everything that happened to him.”
Kaz looked at him with a sad smile, thinking about how unluky Kuzon had been at the end, killed for having loved an Air bender and having hid her, their child , her mother, that had to flee once again only to end up in a brothel.
***
They found Katara and Sokka where Aang had left them still sick, sprawled near Appa and moaning softly. The frogs were long gone.
Kaz knelt and touched Katara’s forehead. “Fever’s breaking, but barely. They won’t last long.”
“I was supposed to bring frogs,” Aang mumbled, guilt thick in his voice.
Kaz reached into her satchel and pulled out a few dried herbs and a flask. “A...Friend” She hesitated “ taught me a few things that don’t involve licking amphibians. Give me a second.”
She ground the leaves, mixed the powder into warm water, and gently poured a little into each of their mouths.
Sokka stirred first. “Is it Appa’s breath or did someone light a campfire in my throat?”
Katara blinked awake. “Aang?”
Aang grinned. “Hey! You’re back!”
Then he gestured toward Kaz. “Guys, this is Kaz. She helped save me. She’s a firebender.”
That last word hung in the air like smoke.
Sokka leapt up, wobbling. “She’s what?!”
Katara shot up too, lifting a shaky hand. “Step back, Aang! She could be dangerous! You shouldn’t trust Fire Nation people!”
Kaz raised her brows. “If I were still Fire Nation, you’d be extra crispy, and he’d still be in chains.”
Katara, not impressed, summoned a bubble of water and hurled it toward her.
Kaz barely moved. She lifted two fingers, releasing a small flame that turned the water to steam before it reached her.
“Really?” she said dryly. “I just made you a tea that saved your life. That’s a weird way to say thanks.”
Aang stepped in between them. “She’s not like that. She’s my best friend’s niece.”
“And that should make her trustworthy? It’s been a hundred years she could be here to spy on us.” Sokka muttered.
Kaz smirked. “Oh no, don’t worry I retired from that, now I just offer my services to break out lost Avatars from fire nation strongholds.”
Sokka blinked “So you’re just a sarcastic pyromaniac.” Kaz nodded sardonically.
Katara groaned, but Aang laughed. “See? She’s great.”
Kaz observed Katara while she stomped towards the ginormous fluff that was Appa. Then she moved her eyes towards Sokka, he was already sitting on the saddle and was holding his boomerang in what was meant to be a threatening way. She sighed and turned to Aang at her side.
“They really hate me huh?”
The Avatar looked back at her sheepishly. “Maybe hate is too strong of a word, they just have to get used to you. In any case I’m your friend now so you can lighten up!”
Kaz raised one of her brows. “We’ve known each other for approximately three hours.”
Aang just gave her a huge smile. “Yeah, but in these three hours you saved my life and healed my friends”
Kaz looked at the sky. “Bonding experiences I guess.” She mumbled.
If possible Aang smiled even wider. “Exactly!“
Chapter 9: A Cloudy Load of Nonsense
Summary:
Kaz helps save a village from a volcano, insults a fortune-teller, and watches Sokka lose an argument with both lava, fish and an egg.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves." — William Shakespeare
The early morning sun glinted off the rippling surface of the river, turning the water into shifting ribbons of gold and silver. Kaz sat cross-legged on a flat stone, the steady rasp of her whetstone against the knife a rhythm that kept her grounded. It was peaceful here; at least until Sokka’s voice cut through the air like a badly-played flute.
“That one’s mocking me,” he muttered, glaring at a silver flash that broke the surface and vanished again.
Kaz didn’t even look up. “The fish? The animal with the brain the size of a bean?” She meant it, too. Hatred was something she reserved for people who earned it, oppressors, liars, traitors, not something that swam in circles and forgot what it saw five seconds ago.
“It knows,” Sokka hissed, lunging for his fishing rod like he was about to duel a mortal enemy.
On the grassy bank, Katara hummed softly while weaving flowers into her hair, the petals bright against her braid. Momo was a warm bundle curled in Aang’s lap, tail flicking as he dreamed. For a moment, Kaz took in the tableau, peaceful, domestic, and felt a faint, uncomfortable twist in her chest. It looked… nice. The kind of nice she didn’t trust to last.
“Pretty sure the only one taunting you here is your ego,” she said, blowing a strand of hair out of her face.
Sokka ignored her, casting his line. A second later, he froze. “Where’s my line?!”
Kaz stopped sharpening the knife, curiosity piqued. She knew that tone; outrage balanced on the knife-edge of disbelief.
Aang suddenly became fascinated with brushing a leaf off Momo’s ear. “Umm… about that…”
Sokka rounded on him. “Don’t tell me—”
Aang held up a necklace. Fishing line twisted into a cord, a clumsy stone carving dangling from it. His eyes were too bright, too open. “Katara lost hers, so… I made this.”
Kaz caught the subtle shift in Katara’s face—the softening, the way her lips curved despite herself. “Aang… this is really sweet.”
“Sweet?” Sokka deadpanned. “That was my line. That was supposed to catch breakfast.”
Kaz muttered, “I thought it was catching feelings,” just loud enough for Sokka to hear. He shot her a glare that only made her smirk.
“You’re not helping,” he gritted out.
“I’m not trying,” she replied with a shrug, but her eyes lingered on Aang. The kid looked at Katara like she was the sunrise, like the whole world could shift if she smiled. Kaz had seen that look before she had don it while looking a Biyu. It was a dangerous kind of hope.
Aang’s posture lit up under Katara’s approval, and Kaz almost pitied him. Almost.
“Oh no,” Sokka said, clocking the expression immediately. “Don’t you even start with—” He puckered his lips in exaggerated smooches.
Aang turned pink and ducked behind Momo. Katara blinked at them. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing!” Aang squeaked.
“You’re like a cute little lemur,” Katara said, patting his head before going back to her flowers.
Kaz winced. “Oof. Brutal.” She’d seen grown men take a spear to the shoulder with more dignity.
“It gets worse every day,” Aang mumbled into his hands.
Sokka still clutched the useless rod. Finally, his patience snapped. “Alright, if I can’t fish with this, I’ll stab something with it!”
Kaz leaned back, amused. “By all means.”
He charged into the shallows with the ferocity of someone on a personal vendetta, brandishing both knife and rod like a mismatched set of weapons.
“Should we stop him?” Aang asked, halfway rising.
Kaz tilted her head. “Let nature do its thing.”
“Nature’s about to get stabbed,” Aang said nervously.
Before she could answer, the underbrush shivered. Her senses sharpened instantly, her body knew a threat before her mind caught up. Something big crashed through the treeline. Heavy footfalls. Scales. Fur. A flash of claws. And a duck bill.
“What in the multiverse is that?” she blurted, already tracking its path.
The platypus bear charged straight toward a man strolling as if he had nowhere better to be.
“Sir! Run!” Katara shouted.
The man simply smiled. “Lovely day, isn’t it?”
Kaz’s irritation spiked. “MOVE!” But he didn’t. He just stepped aside as the swipe missed.
Her jaw tightened. Either this man was fearless, delusional, or both.
Aang leapt onto Appa, dropping down in front of the beast. Appa’s roar rattled the ground. The platypus bear froze, then, in one of the strangest things Kaz had ever witnessed, laid a spotted egg and fled.
There was a beat of silence before Sokka, dripping and defeated, scooped up the egg like a prize. “Breakfast!”
The old man was still unbothered. “No need to worry, children. Aunt Wu predicted I’d have a safe journey today, and she’s never wrong.”
Kaz folded her arms. “You almost became bear food.” She kept her voice flat, but inside she felt the same unease she always did when people used superstition as a shield. She’d seen too many die waiting for a miracle.
“But I didn’t,” he said with a shrug.
Sokka’s jaw ticked. “You almost died.”
“But I didn’t!”
Kaz rolled her eyes. “And I almost didn’t roll my eyes. Yet here we are.”
He handed over a neatly wrapped package. “She also said I’d meet travelers today. This is for you.”
Aang opened it, and rain began to fall immediately.
Sokka just stared, egg in hand.
It slipped from his fingers, smacked his forehead, and slid down his face.
Kaz tilted her head, smirking. “Wow. You’re really not winning today, huh?”
“This doesn’t prove anything,” Sokka grumbled, wiping yolk from his brow. “The sky’s been cloudy all morning. Anyone could’ve said it’d rain.”
He jabbed at the horizon. “It’s going to keep drizzling!”
The clouds parted instantly, sunlight beaming down on him like the world’s most personal joke.
Kaz barked a laugh and walked past. “Tell me again how you’re the reasonable one.”
Sokka hurled the broken rod into the grass. “I hate this day.”
The steep, winding path to Makapu was thick with the scent of spring: wet soil, distant flowers, and something vaguely sulfuric rising from the mountain. Mist clung to the treetops like a veil, and the cobblestone road beneath their feet gleamed damply in the late afternoon sun. As they crossed under a wooden arch carved with stylized clouds and turtles, Kaz adjusted the strap of her satchel, eyes flicking over the village rooftops.
A small, oddly serene town nestled at the base of Mt. Makapu, Makapu Village looked like the kind of place where time refused to hurry. Tiled roofs curved like river waves. Lanterns bobbed in the breeze. Smoke rose gently from chimneys. Everything felt a little too quaint, like it had been arranged for guests they hadn’t realized they were about to be.
The group had barely stepped into the misty mountain village when a rotund, cheery man stepped directly into their path, his hands folded over his belly like a shopkeeper awaiting customers. “Ah! Travelers,” he said with a knowing smile. “Aunt Wu is expecting you.”
Kaz, trailing behind Aang and Sokka with arms crossed, blinked at him. “She’s expecting us?” she repeated. “Did we send out RSVPs and no one told me?”
The man chuckled as if she were a particularly slow child. “She sees all things. She told me I would meet four travelers today, and that one of them would be especially skeptical.”
“Great,” Kaz muttered, shouldering past. “Now I’m a plot point.”
Katara glanced over her shoulder. “Can you try not to be rude to literally everyone we meet for five minutes?”
Kaz gave her a tight-lipped smile. “Not everyone. Just the ones trying to embark me in some kind of prophetic cult scam.”
Aang, sensing the tension, clapped his hands. “Let’s just… check it out? What’s the worst that could happen?”
“I don’t know,” Sokka said, walking backwards toward the building. “We’re overdue for a cursed trinket or a deadly dessert.”
The door to Aunt Wu’s home creaked open before anyone knocked. The sound was accompanied by the hollow clatter of bone wind chimes, a delicate, unnerving jangle that made Kaz glance up sharply. “Are those actual vertebrae?” she muttered.
Inside, the building was close and warm. The air was thick with curling incense smoke, heavy with lavender and something herbal and cloying. Shelves lined with scrolls and bowls of dried herbs crowded the walls, and low red cushions sat in a ring around a central hearth where a pot of water steamed gently.
Kaz wrinkled her nose. “I don’t trust places that smell like lavender and nonsense.”
She didn’t mean to say it that loudly, but the room was quiet—too quiet—and her voice carried. Katara gave her a sharp look.
“Could you maybe try not to insult the first peaceful place we’ve found in days?”
“I’m not insulting,” Kaz replied, voice calm. “Just making an observation. This whole place smells like it wants me to believe in it.”
“Because that’s clearly worse than setting everything on fire,” Katara muttered.
Kaz’s eyes narrowed slightly, but she said nothing. Instead, she stepped toward the far wall and leaned against it, arms folded. Her gaze slid over the plush surroundings, taking in the strange symbols embroidered on the curtains and the cloud-shaped teacups set out like they’d been waiting.
From the back of the room, a girl with twin buns emerged. She wasn’t particularly tall, but the bounce in her step made her seem like she might float. Her eyes locked onto Aang instantly.
“Hi!” she said brightly, cheeks pink. “Would you like some bean curd puffs?”
Aang blinked. “Uh… sure?”
Meng giggled and vanished into the back, nearly skipping.
Sokka leaned over to Kaz. “She’s got it bad.”
Kaz made a face like she’d just bitten into something rotten. “They’re twelve. This feels like a crime.”
Moments later, a young woman burst out from the fortune room, clasping her hands to her heart. “He’s going to give me a panda lily! He’s the one!” she cried, and dashed out into the street.
Kaz watched her go, then looked sideways at Sokka. “Did I just witness romantic prophecy or an herbal marketing scheme?”
“Brain fog,” he confirmed.
Meng returned, puffs slightly squashed, and tripped, almost face-planting. Aang caught the tray. Their hands touched. Meng gasped. Kaz rolled her eyes.
Aunt Wu appeared a moment later, gliding from the back room like mist. She had silver-threaded hair pinned with cloud-shaped combs and a robe the color of polished bone. Her presence was quiet but undeniably commanding.
“Well,” she said, smiling serenely at them all, “Which of you would like to go first?”
Katara stepped forward eagerly. “I guess that’s me.”
Aang watched her disappear through the curtain like she was being dragged away by fate itself.
Sokka leaned toward Kaz. “They’re probably talking about babies.”
Kaz grimaced. “Please don’t say ‘babies’ again.”
“What? That’s what fortunetellers do, right? Love, marriage, doom, babies.”
Kaz tilted her head toward the window and stared at the sky. “Why do people want to know what’s coming? If the future’s already written, then we’re just passengers. And if it’s not… what’s the point in pretending?”
Aunt Wu turned to her with a small, knowing smile. “Would you like to know your future?”
Kaz met her eyes flatly. “Hard pass.”
“Sometimes the future shows us what we need to grow.”
“The future I was promised turned into a prison. Forgive me if I don’t want to watch bones snap over candlelight.” Kaz said with a venomous tone.
Aunt Wu nodded slowly. “Very well. But if you change your mind…”
“I won’t.”
The pause was heavy, but not unfriendly. Aunt Wu turned next to Sokka.
“Oh boy,” he muttered. “Let me guess. I’ll marry a cactus and get eaten by a badger-mole.”
She looked at him with mild amusement. “Your life will be full of struggle and anguish… most of it self-inflicted.”
Kaz barked a laugh. “That’s the most accurate thing I’ve heard all day.”
Sokka turned, offended. “You think this is funny?”
“I think it’s prophecy,” Kaz said with a smirk. “Prophecy at its finest.”
He huffed. “I’m going to go find a tree to talk to. At least trees don’t pretend they know my destiny.”
Aang’s name was called next. He offered a nervous wave and disappeared behind the curtain. Kaz remained in her spot by the window, watching storm clouds crawl across the horizon.
Meng drifted back over. “You don’t believe in any of this?”
Kaz didn’t look away from the window. “That cloud looks like a fish riding a unicycle. Should I prepare for circus-related tragedy?”
Meng frowned. “That one means ‘prosperity in the east.’”
Kaz deadpanned, “It also means ‘the fish union is planning a coup.’’
“You see that one?” Meng pointed to a wispy cloud overhead. “That one means a strong harvest.”
Kaz squinted. “Looks like a duck. Wearing a hat.”
Meng frowned. “They’re metaphors!”
Kaz shrugged. “That one looks like my patience, floating away.”
Meng let out a frustrated sound and stormed off.
Kaz allowed herself the smallest of smirks.
When Aang returned, he looked equal parts confused and sulky. Kaz eyed him.
“Let me guess. She told you you’ll save the world but never get the girl.”
Aang blushed. “How did you—”
“Lucky guess,” she said. Then her tone softened. “You’ll be fine, kid.”
He blinked at her. “You think so?”
She shrugged. “You’re sweet. And people like sweet. Until they don't. Just… don’t let what she said tell you who you are.”
Aunt Wu returned and glanced toward Kaz with a mild, amused expression. “You’re quite the skeptical one.”
Kaz leaned her head back against the wooden beam. “Forgive me if I don’t think duck-shaped clouds are the path to enlightenment.”
Aunt Wu smiled. “You may not believe in them… but that doesn’t make the future less real.”
Kaz returned her smile, just as mild. “And it doesn’t make it more real either.”
Their gazes locked.
Then Aunt Wu nodded. “We’ll see.”
Katara emerged just then, looking faintly dazed. “She said I’d have a great romance,” she said, glancing down at her hands, dreamy.
Kaz muttered under her breath, “Yeah, well, she also said Sokka wasn’t going to walk into a door.”
Sokka reentered at that moment with a bruise on his forehead and said, “I think the walls here move when you’re not looking.”
Katara brushed past Kaz without a glance. “I’m going to go talk to Aunt Wu again.”
Kaz tilted her head. “Didn’t you already get your answers?”
Katara turned slowly. “It’s none of your business.”
Sokka raised a brow. Aang looked awkward.
Kaz didn’t flinch. “Sure. But maybe leave a few panda lilies for the rest of the desperate villagers.”
Katara’s eyes narrowed. “You think it’s stupid.”
Kaz smiled, tight. “I think hanging your heart on someone else’s predictions is dangerous. Especially when they’re making money off it.”
Katara opened her mouth, then closed it again, and stormed off.
Aang rubbed the back of his head. “She’s just… excited.”
Kaz’s eyes softened, if barely. “Yeah. I get it. People need hope. Just wish they didn’t always need it to be bought.”
Sokka returned with a handful of bean curd puffs. “Well, I got these without emotional fallout. Who wants weird food and trauma?”
Kaz took one and bit into it. “Tastes like regret.”
Sokka grinned. “That’s the spirit.”
“Your life will be full of struggle and anguish, most of it self-inflicted,” Sokka mimicked in a singsong voice, stomping down the dirt path just outside Makapu Village.
Kaz walked beside him, hands behind her back, watching the villagers mill about with cheerful faces and baskets of fruit.
“She’s not wrong, you know,” Kaz said, casually side-stepping as he kicked a rock down the path.
“I am not self-inflicted,” Sokka snapped. “My life is joyful. Joyful!”
The rock bounced off a tree root, ricocheted off a wooden signpost, and smacked him squarely in the forehead.
Kaz didn’t say anything. She just raised one eyebrow slowly, smirking.
“I don’t want to hear it,” Sokka grumbled, rubbing the growing bump.
They reached the town square, where a crowd had begun to gather. A platform had been set up, and Aunt Wu stood there, hands clasped serenely behind her back as she studied the sky. Her assistant Meng flitted nearby with a parasol over her head and a lovesick grin plastered across her face.
“She’s reading clouds now,” Sokka muttered. “Great. I bet one of them looks like a cabbage and she’ll declare war on vegetables.”
“Cabbage genocide,” Kaz said, deadpan. “Truly, the darkest timeline.”
Aunt Wu raised her hands for silence. “This year’s clouds bring good news! We will have a prosperous harvest, and”—she pointed to a swirling tuft—“this shape here tells me it will be a lucky year for twins.”
The crowd cheered.
“And most importantly…” She turned and pointed toward the looming figure of Mount Makapu. “The volcano will not destroy our village this year.”
More cheering. Someone threw confetti made of flower petals.
Kaz leaned over to Sokka. “Let me guess. Next week she’ll read the leaves and declare a sale on cabbages.”
“I told you!” he hissed. “This is all just vague feel-good nonsense!”
Behind them, Aang watched the clouds with far less skepticism, but his expression wasn’t serene; it was miserable. Katara was sitting beneath a papaya tree, happily munching fruit while nodding at Aunt Wu’s assistant. Every few minutes, she’d run up and ask the fortuneteller another question.
“Obsessed,” Kaz muttered.
Sokka snorted. “You mean Katara?”
Kaz nodded toward the tower. “No, the one staring at Katara like he’s gonna faint.”
Aang stood frozen in place, clearly tortured by whatever internal storm was brewing between his heart and his Air Nomad stoicism.
Sokka followed her gaze, then sighed. “Yeah, he’s got it bad.”
Kaz folded her arms. “He’s going to end up writing poetry about her under a waterfall, isn’t he?”
“Please don’t give him ideas,” Sokka groaned.
Aang trudged over and flopped onto the ground beside them. “She doesn’t see me that way,” he mumbled. “I’m like… like Momo to her.”
“Ouch,” Kaz muttered.
Sokka tried to look wise. “Okay, listen. You want her to notice you, right? You have to be cool. Act aloof. Girls like guys who are mysterious and broody.”
Kaz choked on a laugh. “Yeah, because that always ends well.”
Aang perked up. “You really think that'll work?”
Sokka gestured toward himself. “Look at me. I’m a romantic expert.”
Kaz raised her hand. “Objection.”
“Overruled,” Sokka shot back. “Go be cool, Aang.”
Kaz watched with mild amusement as Aang marched off with forced indifference toward Katara, who offered him a piece of papaya.
He blinked. “Whatever. I don’t care about fruit.”
Katara tilted her head. “Are you okay?”
“Totally,” he said, trying to look bored. “You know. Just doing Avatar stuff.”
Kaz leaned toward Sokka, voice dry. “He’s going to trip over a rock and confess in interpretive dance, I can feel it.”
Sokka shook his head. “He’s trying. That’s more than most guys.”
A few minutes passed in relative peace, until Aang stormed back toward them, face twisted in determination.
“That’s it. I’m going to find her a panda lily.”
Kaz blinked. “That’s… very specific.”
“She said the guy she’ll fall in love with is going to give her one. I’m going to get one myself—from the volcano.”
“Wait, what?” Sokka said. “Like, from Mount Makapu?”
Aang nodded. “They grow on the rim.”
“Of the active volcano,” Kaz clarified.
“Don’t worry. It’s dormant,” Aang replied confidently. “Aunt Wu said so.”
“That’s the part I’m worrying about,” Kaz muttered.
Still, the three of them set off toward the mountain, climbing switchback trails and carefully leaping across rocky ledges. The path up the mountain was steep and overgrown, but Kaz didn’t seem to care. Her black boots crunched through dry leaves. She walked with a determined stride, head slightly down, the breeze tugging at her short black hair.
Sokka trailed a few steps behind, panting slightly. “Are we sure we have to go this far up? I mean, maybe the volcano just looks angry from a distance.”
Kaz glanced back at him, one brow raised. “And if it doesn’t? I’d rather be sure before it decides to do something more than look angry.”
“Right,” he muttered, shouldering his bag again. “Just saying. Aunt Wu did say it wasn’t going to erupt.”
“And you trust her?” Kaz said, a sharp edge of disbelief in her tone. “She told one girl she was going to marry the man with big ears and suddenly everyone’s making life decisions based on cloud shapes.”
Sokka gave her a sidelong glance, a grin tugging at his lips. “You really don’t like her, do you?”
“It’s not personal,” Kaz said, brushing aside a low branch. “I just don’t like people handing over their brains in exchange for comfort. Prophecy’s a good excuse to stop thinking for yourself.”
He snorted. “Now that sounds like something I’d say.”
Kaz stopped walking and turned to him. “Well, that’s terrifying.”
He blinked, then realized she was joking. She started walking again, and Sokka quickened his pace to catch up.They made it to the rim just before dusk, where the wind was sharp and the air tasted like sulfur. A patch of delicate white lilies bloomed along the edge, petals catching the late golden light.
Aang ran to the flowers, reaching to pluck one; but stopped.
A low rumble echoed beneath their feet.
Sokka’s eyes went wide. “Was that your stomach?” He asked towards Aang.
She sniffed the air. “Nope. That’s magma, boys.”
Kaz squatted near a crack in the earth, touching the blackened ground with two fingers. She held her hand there for a few seconds before yanking it back.
“Hot?”
“Burned,” she muttered, shaking her hand. “Too hot for a dormant mountain. Something’s happening.”
They reached the edge and peered down.
The lava chamber below was glowing red, bubbling and pulsing like a heartbeat. Smoke curled up in thick plumes.
Kaz took a step back. “And she said this thing wasn’t going to erupt?”
“She read clouds,” Sokka said, horrified. “We trusted clouds.”
“I didn’t trust anything,” Kaz muttered, already pulling Aang back. “But I still came, so maybe I’m the fool.”
Aang and I’ll check the southern vent. You head for the north slope. Meet back here in an hour. If both are active, we go back and convince the others to move the village. If not... well, then Aunt Wu can keep her cloud-based ego.”
Sokka blinked. “Wait, split up?”
Kaz was already walking. “You’ll be fine. Unless the mountain decides to kill you. Then not so much.”
Aang grinned. “Come on. Let’s find that other vent.
The southern vent Kaz and Aang found was worse than she’d feared. The ground was fractured into black, jagged plates, each step sounding like brittle pottery cracking underfoot. Heat bled through the soles of her boots in waves, an invisible pulse that set her teeth on edge. Small jets of sulfurous steam hissed from fissures, curling into the air with a stench sharp enough to burn the back of her throat.
Kaz tugged her scarf higher over her nose, eyes narrowing against the sting. Aang hovered a few feet away, staff in hand, his expression caught between fascination and unease. His glider’s fabric flapped faintly in the heated wind, like even it was restless.
The air shimmered with heat distortion, bending the horizon into a wavering mirage. Kaz could feel the pressure; not just as warmth on her skin, but deeper, in her chest, as though the mountain’s heartbeat was syncing with her own. This wasn’t just a volcano shifting in its sleep. It was waking.
She crouched and pressed her fingertips to the scorched earth, ignoring the sharp sting. Firebenders could read heat like waterbenders read tides, her uncle had told her. Heat carried mood, warning, intent. She closed her eyes and let it thrum up her arm.
Her eyes snapped open. The sensation was wrong: volatile, restless. The fire hiding in the magma below wasn’t simply moving; it was surging, clawing upward like it wanted out.
“This isn’t right,” she said, her voice low. “The magma’s angry.”
Aang knelt beside her, his grey eyes scanning the vent. “I can feel it too. The wind’s carrying ash already.” He tilted his head slightly, as if listening to something only he could hear.
Kaz met his gaze, and for a heartbeat there was no banter, no teasing, just shared recognition of the danger.
“We’ve got hours,” she said. “Maybe.”
They didn’t waste another second. Boots skidding on loose gravel, they raced back up the ridge, heat biting at their heels.
Sokka was already at the top, waving an arm like they were late to a meeting. “My vent’s hissing like a furious badgermole. What’d you find?”
“Same,” Kaz answered without slowing, her voice clipped. “It’s going to blow.”
“We need to convince Aunt Wu and the villagers to evacuate,” Aang said, his tone tight with urgency.
Kaz stopped, planting herself with arms folded. “You mean convince a town full of people who think fortune-telling is science?” Her voice carried more bite than usual; she could already hear the platitudes they’d be met with, the polite dismissal. She hated it—the way people could look right past danger if a convenient lie told them they were safe.
“You really hate this place,” Sokka said, half-curious, half-accusing.
“It’s a nice place,” Kaz replied, gaze fixed on the smoking peak. “Just full of people who’d rather read clouds than take responsibility for their lives.”
Sokka studied her for a moment, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “You’re kind of intense, you know that?”
She shrugged, but didn’t look away from the volcano. “Surviving tends to do that to you.”
Aang stepped forward, planting his staff in the ground with quiet finality. “Then let’s go change their minds.”
They tore down the mountain path, gravel and ash sliding under their boots. The air grew cooler with each step, but the pounding in Kaz’s chest didn’t ease; not from the climb, but from the image still lodged in her mind: heat boiling under the ground like a beast gnawing at its cage.
By the time they reached the edge of Makapu, the danger felt even more surreal. The village square was a picture of blissful ignorance; children chasing each other between stalls, vendors stringing panda-lily garlands, the scent of sweet bread curling lazily through the air. And there, at the center of it all, Aunt Wu sat beneath a flowering tree, sipping tea as though the world itself were perfectly in order.
Kaz slowed just enough to feel the whiplash of the scene. They had run from a mountain on the verge of exploding into a crowd that looked like it was preparing for a festival. Her hands curled into fists.
Aang skidded to a halt on the flagstones, eyes wide. “You have to evacuate! The volcano’s about to erupt!” His voice cracked with urgency, but the words seemed to ripple through the crowd like a distant rumor, not a warning.
Aunt Wu tilted her head, expression calm, almost pitying. “That can’t be right. The clouds were very clear.”
Sokka shouldered past Aang, face red with frustration. “THE CLOUDS WERE LYING!” His shout cracked the lazy rhythm of the square, drawing startled gasps from onlookers.
Kaz scanned their faces, incredulous. “Why is that the part you’re shocked by? Not the part where we said ‘lava’? The part that’s hot and deadly and burns entire villages down?”
Murmurs rippled. No one moved.
“No one’s evacuating,” Aang whispered beside her, horror sinking into his voice. He looked from face to face, searching for even one sign of understanding. There was none.
Aunt Wu’s serene smile didn’t waver. “The volcano has never erupted before. You must be mistaken.”
Kaz blinked, stunned. The absurdity of it scraped against her nerves like sandpaper. “So if a boulder was rolling at you, but the clouds said it wouldn’t hit you, you’d just… not move?”
Several villagers nodded earnestly, as if that logic was ironclad.
Kaz pinched the bridge of her nose, willing herself not to start shouting. “I swear to Agni, if one more person tells me ‘Aunt Wu said—’”
Sokka groaned, rubbing his temples like the weight of collective stupidity might split his skull. “Okay, we need a plan. Fast.”
Kaz’s eyes drifted toward the smoking silhouette of the volcano beyond the rooftops. It loomed like a shadow over the cheerful chaos, a reminder that their window was closing fast and if these people wouldn’t act for themselves, someone was going to have to force the issue.
The village of Makapu had returned to its cheerful, oblivious state. Colorful paper lanterns fluttered in the warm afternoon breeze, casting soft golden light over dusty paths and tiled rooftops. Children raced through the streets with kites shaped like dragons and komodo rhinos, their laughter ringing high and sweet in the air. Vendors called out deals on panda-lily garlands and fried dumplings, the scent of sesame oil and candied ginger curling through the air.
And at the center of it all, Aunt Wu stood in serene grandeur, draped in her flowing crimson robes, blessing another beaming couple with a prosperous, love-filled future. Her voice, calm and assured, seemed to soothe the crowd like a lullaby. No one, not a single smiling villager, looked toward the looming volcano that towered silently in the distance.
Except Kaz.
She sat alone on a low stone wall near the edge of the village square, booted feet dangling above the dry grass. Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest, and her eyes, narrowed and sharp as flint, remained locked on the dark outline of the mountain. Her mouth was drawn into a thin, unhappy line.
"This is stupid," she muttered.
"What's stupid?" Aang asked, arriving beside her with Katara. He carried a woven basket of panda lilies, which they'd just delivered to the innkeeper. His cheeks were slightly pink from the sun, and his ever-present smile faltered at the tension in Kaz’s expression.
Kaz didn't take her eyes off the volcano. "They're trusting a fortune-teller over basic geological signs. That’s not belief. That’s denial."
Katara frowned, clutching her water skin to her side. "Aunt Wu’s predictions have never been wrong."
Kaz turned to her with one brow raised, expression unreadable. "Then we should probably start digging a graveyard. Because that mountain is going to blow."
Aang sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "We tried warning them already. No one listened."
At that exact moment, Sokka stormed up, red in the face and visibly fuming. He dropped his rolled-up map with a slap into the dirt. "They still think Aunt Wu is right! I even drew a diagram! With arrows!"
Katara opened her mouth, then shut it again.
"She predicted the village wouldn't be destroyed," she finally said, softly.
"Right," Kaz said, her voice dry enough to parch a riverbed. "And if the lava eats half the valley and just barely misses their little straw huts, she’ll still be hailed as a genius."
Aang looked torn. His gaze flicked between Katara’s uncertainty and Kaz’s unwavering certainty. "What if we show them actual proof?"
"Like what?" Sokka asked, throwing his arms up. "The volcano’s not going to send a hand-written letter."
Kaz stood, brushing grit off her dark pants. "What about the cloud-reading book? If we can make the clouds look like that destruction spiral, maybe they'll believe it’s real."
Aang paled. "Stealing?"
Kaz shot him a crooked grin. "Borrowing under time-sensitive circumstances. We'll return it. Maybe even wipe off the smudge marks."
Sokka nodded eagerly. "For once, I like your thinking."
Aang hesitated. Then he squared his shoulders, determination setting into his face. "Alright. I’ll do it."
"Of course you’ll do it," Kaz said. "Because you’re the only one who can fly without getting caught."
That night, the clouds thickened into a roiling gray canvas, smothering the stars. The lanterns of Makapu glowed faintly against the gathering gloom, their paper skins trembling in the wind.
Aang crept through the shadows toward Aunt Wu’s house, his staff gripped tightly in one hand. His steps were silent, his expression grim.
From the roof of a nearby building, Kaz watched with one leg dangling over the edge, chewing a piece of dried mango she’d found in Sokka’s bag.
"Hope your squeaky monk morals don’t get in the way," she muttered, watching him approach the door.
Inside, Aang had just reached for the doorknob when a soft voice came from behind him.
"I thought it might be you."
He froze. "Oh! Uh… hi, Meng."
She stepped into the moonlight, her eyes somber but not accusing. "You don’t feel the same way I do, do you?"
Aang winced. "Meng… you’re amazing. But... I’m sorry."
She offered a small, understanding smile. "It’s okay. My fortune said I’d end up with someone who gives me a panda lily, remember?"
He looked at her with quiet kindness. "You will. And he’ll be really lucky."
Meng hesitated, then pulled a small, leather-bound book from behind her back. "I figured if you were going to break in, I could save you the trouble. I might’ve... sort of… been following you."
Aang blinked. "You’re amazing."
She giggled nervously. "Go save the village. I’ll cover for you."
A few minutes later, Aang dropped lightly onto the grass beside Katara and Kaz, landing in a rush of wind. His glider folded under his arm, and in his other hand he clutched a small, leather-bound book; the infamous cloud-reading manual.
Kaz tilted her head, an eyebrow arched high. “You were gone long enough to write your own prophecy. Did you flirt your way into it?”
Aang’s face flushed instantly, his voice jumping in pitch. “I don’t flirt!”
“Maybe you should,” Kaz replied with a sly smirk, before flicking her gaze toward Katara. The effect was immediate—Aang went from pink to the deep red of fresh embers. Kaz hid her satisfaction behind a casual shrug, though part of her enjoyed how easy it was to throw him off balance.
The three of them crouched together, the book spread open across Katara’s lap. The paper smelled faintly of smoke and rain, its edges worn soft from years of use. Katara’s fingers traced a particular sketch, a tight spiral with jagged fringes, inked in bold black. “This is the one for ‘volcanic destruction.’ If we can replicate this…”
“I can shape the vapor,” Aang said, already opening his glider, his earlier fluster vanishing under focus.
“I’ll use ice to sharpen the edges,” Katara added, her tone brisk.
Kaz stepped back, folding her arms and tipping her chin toward the sky. “And I’ll stand here and yell if it starts looking like a cloud platypus.” The corner of her mouth twitched. Humor was easier than admitting she was anxious about whether this would actually work.
The sky became their canvas. Aang rose on a column of air, gliding upward until he was a streak of orange and blue against the pale gray. His movements were quick but fluid, weaving currents of wind like threads through a loom. Katara ascended on Appa, water streaming from the lake below to swirl in her hands before she flash-froze it into glistening edges.
From the ground, Kaz watched them turn the heavens into a warning. Even she had to admit...it was beautiful. The spiral took shape slowly, deliberately, each curl of vapor forming the ominous pattern from the book. It was both art and threat, heavy with meaning. A shiver passed through her; not from the chill in the air, but from the knowledge that they might actually pull this off.
Aunt Wu stepped out of her home, teacup slipping slightly in her hand. She gasped, one palm pressed against her chest.
Sokka jogged up, slightly winded but grinning through his breathlessness. “So. Still think it’s a sunny day?”
The villagers began to spill into the square, murmurs swelling into sharp exclamations as they pointed toward the sky.
“I must do another reading,” Aunt Wu breathed.
“No time!” Kaz barked, stepping forward. Her voice cracked through the noise like a whip. “That mountain’s ready to blow. We dig, or we die. Your choice.”
For a moment, the old woman studied her, searching past the sarcasm and fire for the truth beneath. What she found was conviction; unyielding, unshakable.
“We will listen,” Aunt Wu said at last. “Let’s protect the village.”
The trench effort began as chaos and hardened quickly into purpose. Earthbenders stomped deep ruts into the soil, each thud of their feet sending tremors through the ground. Non-benders formed relay lines, passing buckets of water and shovelfuls of dirt in a steady rhythm. Kaz moved through them like a storm given human shape, her voice sharp and commanding, bursts of flame erupting from her palms as she carved stubborn rock aside.
“Diggers to the left! Benders on the east wall! If I see you slacking, I will assume you want to melt!”
“Stop inspiring people with threats!” Sokka shouted from somewhere inside the trench.
“Then you give orders!” she shot back without slowing.
Overhead, Aang flew back and forth, releasing waves of cooling water along the freshly dug channels. Katara worked like flowing silk along the village edge, bending shimmering walls of ice and mist to shield the homes.
The mountain’s low rumble deepened into a roar. Then it howled.
The eruption came in a burst of searing light and fury. Lava spilled from the peak in a surging wave, glowing like the molten tongue of some ancient demon. The heat hit them in a single, suffocating wall.
“Stand ready!” Kaz yelled, though her throat was tight.
The trench filled in seconds. Steam hissed and whirled around them as the lava boiled against the water-cooled walls. And then it overflowed.
Aang hovered in the heart of the chaos, the wind swirling tight around him, tattoos casting a faint blue glow through the ash. With one deep breath, he unleashed it.
The typhoon slammed into the advancing lava, scattering embers and ash in all directions. The molten wave shuddered, hissed, and solidified in place transformed in an instant to a jagged wall of cooling stone.
Silence spread, almost disbelieving, before the square erupted in cheers.
Katara’s voice was breathless. “He really is the Avatar.”
Kaz let her arms fall to her sides, exhaling slowly. Her heart was still pounding, but she allowed herself a small nod. “Not bad.”
Later, when the villagers were beginning to disperse, Aang returned the cloud-reading book to Aunt Wu. “I’m sorry I took this.”
She accepted it without anger, a faint smile on her lips. “I knew you would. The clouds told me.”
“Did you lie to me? About love?” he asked quietly.
She touched his cheek with a light, almost motherly hand. “Destiny isn’t fixed, Aang. Just as you shaped the clouds, you shape your path.”
Nearby, Kaz gave a short, unimpressed scoff. “Funny coming from someone who reads duck-shaped weather.”
Aunt Wu turned to her. “And yet, you came.”
Kaz had no answer to that, so she didn’t try.
Sokka burst onto the scene, grinning like victory itself. “Vindicated! The volcano erupted! Aunt Wu was—”
The old man from earlier raised a finger. “She said it wouldn’t destroy the village.”
Sokka’s smile dropped into a growl. “I hate you.”
Katara dragged him away by the sleeve before he could start an argument.
Later, Aang returned the book to Aunt Wu.
"I’m sorry I took this."
She smiled. "I knew you would. The clouds told me."
"Did you lie to me? About love?"
She touched his cheek. "Destiny isn’t fixed. Just as you shaped the clouds, you shape your path."
Nearby, Kaz scoffed. "Funny coming from someone who reads duck-shaped weather."
Aunt Wu smiled at her. "And yet, you came."
Kaz didn’t reply. She would have answered in such a way that would have had Katara shout at her.
Sokka burst in. "Vindicated! The volcano erupted! Aunt Wu was—"
The old man from earlier said, "She said it wouldn’t destroy the village."
Sokka growled. "I hate you."
Katara dragged him away.
As they prepared to leave, Kaz fell into step beside Aang. The noise of the village faded behind them; cheers, hammering, the crackle of cooling rock until it was just the steady sound of their boots in the dirt.
“They believe in her again,” she said, eyes fixed ahead. Her voice was calm, but there was a weight under it, a quiet frustration she didn’t bother to hide.
“They needed hope,” Aang replied softly, almost like he was saying it to himself.
“They almost got ash,” Kaz countered, her gaze cutting briefly toward the volcano. Even from here, she could still see the faint column of smoke drifting from its peak.
He didn’t argue. And that, more than anything, told her he understood.
After a pause, she exhaled, letting the edge drop from her tone. “Still… you were amazing back there.” The words felt strange on her tongue, she wasn’t used to giving them out freely, but this one, she meant.
Aang’s mouth lifted into a shy smile. “Thanks.”
“Keep this up,” she said, side-eyeing him with the ghost of a grin, “and I might start believing in fortune-telling.”
His smile widened. “Even Aunt Wu’s?”
Kaz huffed a laugh. “Don’t push your luck, monk.”
The shadow of Appa’s saddle stretched across the grass as they climbed aboard. The bison’s warm, familiar scent mingled with the lingering tang of sulfur in the air.
As Appa lifted off, Meng stood in the field below, her hands clasped neatly in front of her.
Katara leaned over the edge and waved. “Goodbye!”
Meng’s lips curved into a sweet, almost angelic smile. “Goodbye.” Then, under her breath, she added, “Floozy.”
Kaz blinked, brows pulling together. “Did she just curse you?”
Katara’s head snapped around. “What?”
“Nothing,” Kaz said, the corner of her mouth twitching as she settled back into the saddle.
Her gaze drifted past them, back toward the volcano. The smoke had thinned to wisps, curling like ghostly fingers into the sky. For once, the world felt tilted just slightly toward hope but Kaz knew better than to trust it to stay that way.
She would never wait for clouds to tell her the next turn. She’d carve her own path.
Notes:
This chapter was an absolute joy to reimagine because it let me lean into Kaz’s dry wit and her clash with the unwavering faith of Makapu’s villagers. I wanted Kaz to be a counterpoint to Katara’s belief in Aunt Wu, yet still leave room for those small, reluctant moments of admiration, especially toward Aang. And, of course, Sokka getting metaphorically (and literally) egged by fate never gets old.
Chapter 10: Smell of perfume, Scent of Home
Summary:
Aang wrestles with guilt, Katara and Sokka wrestle with choices, and Kaz… wrestles with Iroh, literally. Secrets surface, perfume bottles shatter, June makes questionable comments, and Zuko discovers that heartbreak and jealousy smell an awful lot like smoke. Nobody leaves the abbey the same way they entered — or with their dignity entirely intact.
Notes:
So, this chapter is brought to you by: shattered perfume bottles, unresolved childhood friendships, Zuko’s ongoing streak of being The Most Dramatic Person Alive™, and Kaz realizing that winking at bounty hunters maybe isn’t the best life choice. Title comes from the fact that the abbey now smells like an explosion at Sephora. Enjoy the angst, the sparks (literally), and the emotional carnage.
Chapter Text
"The smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us… waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of all the rest."-Proust, In Search of Lost Time
The sun had climbed high enough to bake the stones by the riverbank, their flat surfaces shimmering with trapped heat. The air hung heavy, sluggish in its movement, thick with the scent of moss and the faint metallic tang of wet rocks drying under the summer glare. It wasn’t the kind of day where one wanted to move much — unless, of course, one was trying to coax fire from the air.
Kaz had chosen the spot deliberately. Not the shaded copse where Katara was mending a strap on Appa’s saddle, not the cool waters where Momo was splashing halfheartedly, but here — on a stretch of sun-warmed stone that radiated heat back up at their legs. Aang shifted uncomfortably, sweat already gathering along his hairline, but Kaz stood straight and at ease, arms folded loosely across her chest.
“Alright,” she began, tone brisk, “We can start with the stance. firebending isn’t about waving your arms like a confused bird. Feet shoulder-width apart—yeah, not like you’re tiptoeing through a flower garden.” She demonstrated, planting her feet solidly on the ground. “Bend your knees just a bit. Not too much, or you’ll look like you’re about to sit on an invisible chair.”
She pointed to her hands. “Now, one arm reaches out like you’re about to high-five a volcano. Fingers spread wide—fire loves to dance between your fingertips. The other arm? Pull it back near your waist. Think of it like you’re winding up a punch, but with flames instead of fists.”
Aang obeyed immediately, springing into position with the eagerness of someone desperate to impress. His bare feet slapped against the stone, knees bent, arms lifting in what he clearly thought was a disciplined guard. It wasn’t wrong, but Kaz’s eyes narrowed all the same. She began walking a slow circle around him, her boots making quiet scuffs.
Kaz gave him a deadpan look. “And breathe like you’re stoking a campfire. Deep, steady. No puffing like a dragon with a cold.”
Aang tried to copy her stance, wobbling slightly to adjust himself. Kaz just shook her head with a grin. “Not bad for a sky kid. But if you want to not burn down the village, you’ll keep practicing.”
“Hmm.” She tapped a finger against her chin. “Weight’s too far forward. You’ll choke the flame before it forms.”
Aang shifted back. “Like this?”
“Closer. Think… like you’re balancing on the prow of a ship. Feel the rocking.” She made a slight swaying motion with her hand, and Aang mimicked it.
Kaz didn’t teach like Katara did, with patient repetition and gentle correction. She taught like someone who assumed the basics were obvious. Every movement she demonstrated was razor-sharp, precise, her balance so instinctive that she barely thought about it. To her, it was muscle memory so deep it lived in her bones.
She stopped behind Aang. “Alright. Flame is heat, heat is movement, movement is—”
“—life?” Aang guessed, turning his head.
“—pressure,” Kaz corrected, stepping into view. “It’s about forcing molecules into a dance they don’t want to be in. You increase kinetic energy until—” She snapped her fingers, and a small flame winked into existence above her thumb. “—ignition.”
Aang blinked. “You make it sound like science class.”
“It is science. And art. And discipline. But mostly science.” She gestured for him to try.
He inhaled deeply, setting his hands in position, and pushed the breath forward as he’d been taught. A puff of warm air came out — heat enough to ruffle his bangs, but no flame.
Kaz tilted her head. “Not bad. You got the pressure wrong, though. Your release was… squishy.”
“Squishy?” Aang frowned. “That’s… not really a scientific term.”
“I’m improvising for your benefit,” she deadpanned. “Again.”
They went through it several more times, Kaz offering commentary that was both infuriatingly specific and frustratingly vague.
“Your fingers are collapsing inward — flame will gutter.
“You’re letting the heat escape through your shoulders.
“Imagine your lungs as bellows, not a leaky sack.”
Aang’s frustration mounted with each failed attempt. His natural airbender instincts made him want to release pressure, to guide and redirect. Kaz wanted him to hold it, build it, compress it until it broke free. The very philosophy felt backwards to him.
She noticed. “You keep letting it go,” she said sharply, stepping into his space. “Fire doesn’t come from letting go. It comes from holding on until you think you’ll burn from the inside.”
“That sounds… dangerous,” he admitted.
Kaz gave a quick, humorless smile. “That’s because it is.”
For a moment, her voice softened, eyes unfocused as if she were somewhere else entirely. Jeong Jeong’s gravelly warnings echoed in her mind — the constant lectures about restraint, about how fire takes more than it gives. He’d hated her experiments, her willingness to push heat until the air itself warped. Reckless, he’d called her. Dangerous.
And yet here she was, trying to pass the same dangerous knowledge to a boy who could barely keep a candle lit.
She shook the thought away. “Alright, different approach.” Stepping back, she brought her palms together, then pulled them apart in a slow, deliberate arc. Between them, a ribbon of flame bloomed, thin at first, then swelling into a smooth, curved wave that danced like molten silk. The edges curled with almost liquid grace — and then she twisted her wrists, splitting the flame into two separate strands that spiraled around one another before winking out.
Aang’s mouth fell open. “That was amazing.”
“That,” Kaz said, “is just temperature redirection. I borrowed the movement from airbending — you create eddies in the flame, like wind currents.”
He lit up. “I can do that!”
“No,” Kaz said immediately. “You can’t.”
But he was already in motion, hopping into the stance, pulling his hands apart like she had. A faint flicker appeared between his palms, wavered, and then — instead of spiraling — coughed into a thin cloud of smoke that curled straight into his face.
Aang coughed, eyes watering. “Okay… maybe I can’t.”
Kaz tried not to laugh, but the corner of her mouth betrayed her. “Told you.”
They tried again. And again. Kaz demonstrated variations, her body flowing through movements that were almost balletic in their precision. She coaxed flame into narrow threads, into wide fans, into blooming petals. She spoke of oxygen density, the way air currents could be sharpened to slice heat into ribbons. It was mesmerizing — and utterly useless for a beginner who hadn’t mastered a stable spark.
Katara, watching from the shade, could see Aang’s shoulders sagging further with each attempt. Kaz’s tone hadn’t turned cruel, but her corrections came so rapidly that Aang barely had time to process one before the next was upon him. It wasn’t impatience — it was a mind that had never needed to slow down for anyone else.
Finally, Aang exhaled in defeat, plopping down onto the warm stone. “I don’t think this is working.”
Kaz lowered her hands, the last of her demonstration flame dissolving into the air. She studied him for a moment, then dropped down beside him, legs stretched out. “It’s not you,” she said, which made him glance at her in surprise. “Well… it is you. But it’s not your fault.”
“That… doesn’t make me feel better.”
She shrugged. “I’ve never been without control. Not once. Even when I was a kid, fire just… did what I told it. I don’t know how to teach someone to find it. I only know how to sharpen it.”
The admission was quiet, almost reluctant. She wasn’t the sort to expose her own shortcomings, but the boy beside her had tried — really tried — and she owed him that much.
Aang fiddled with a pebble, rolling it under his fingers. “Maybe I’m not ready.”
Kaz let out a humorless chuckle. “IUnderstaind that is already a good start. Iroh can attest that i always failed in that regard.”
“You studied with him, right?”
“Long enough for him to tell me a hundred different ways I was reckless,” she said, leaning back on her palms. “He wanted me to treat fire carefully and with calm. I always wanted to push boundaries”
Aang smiled faintly. “And who was right?”
Kaz’s eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun. “Depends on the day.”
They sat in silence for a while, the river’s steady rush filling the air. Kaz finally stood, dusting off her hands. “Come on. Let’s make some tea and have something to eat before Sokka starts eating the fishing bait.” She was really turning into Iroh.
Aang grinned, but there was still a flicker of frustration in his eyes as he followed her back toward camp. He didn’t realize — not yet — that this failure would plant the seed for a lesson he truly needed: that control couldn’t be skipped, no matter how impressive the tricks looked.
Kaz didn’t realize it either. But when she glanced back at him, catching him rubbing his singed sleeve with a sheepish grin, something in her chest softened.
He’d get there. Just… not with her.
The waves crashed relentlessly against the jagged rocks, their thunderous rhythm swallowed by the thick, humid air that hung like a curtain over the shore. Sunlight glinted off wet stone, burning the heat upward through the soles of their boots. Every inhale brought in the tang of brine and the heavy, almost choking scent of damp earth. The world seemed suspended, waiting, the kind of silence that pressed against your skin and made each heartbeat feel loud enough to startle.
Ahead, half-buried in the grass and a scatter of broken sticks, a lone whale tooth scimitar jutted upright like a silent sentinel. Its ivory gleamed faintly, the polished surface catching fragments of sun as though it held a secret it might reveal only to those who dared approach.
Aang was the first to spot it. His eyes, wide and alert beneath the stark smoothness of his bald head, caught the glint immediately. He stooped carefully, gripping the hilt and tugging it free with a sharp grunt. The blade gleamed in the sunlight for a heartbeat, pale and harsh against the deep greens of the surrounding foliage. He turned it over in his hands, reverent almost, as if he could feel the weight of the battles it had known.
Kaz approached more slowly, her gaze flicking between the scimitar and the thickening clouds above. Unease churned low in her chest, a familiar sour knot she knew would not loosen easily. Her eyes lingered on the sword, but only briefly. She didn’t touch it; didn’t linger in curiosity. Instead, she handed it to Sokka immediately, her fingers brushing against the hilt for a heartbeat before letting go. “You handle it,” she said softly, voice tight but controlled, her instincts telling her this was not hers to claim.
Sokka knelt by the scimitar, brushing dirt and fallen leaves from its surface with practiced care. “Water Tribe,” he murmured, voice low, almost reverent. “Not something you see every day.” He turned it slowly, inspecting the blade. “Battles… probably. This weapon’s seen its share.”
He traced a finger along the edge, where faint scorch marks marred the polished ivory. “Burned. Whoever wielded this didn’t go down easy.” His eyes flicked toward the damaged trees, bark scarred and torn as though the forest itself bore witness to a fight that had left no room for mercy.
Katara stepped closer, scanning the devastation around them. Scorch marks clawed at the trunks, gashes and blackened streaks telling stories of firebending clashing with resistance. The land was broken here, the scars old but still speaking loudly.
“They fought back firebenders,” Sokka continued, his voice dropping to a rough whisper. “Drove them down the hill. But firebenders… they never give up without a fight.” His jaw tightened as shadows of memory crossed his features, pain pressed tightly behind clenched teeth.
Kaz’s eyes flicked through the dense trees. Every shadow seemed to quiver with hidden threat. “Bad fight,” she said quietly, low but sharp, tension coiling in her fingers into loose fists. “If angry firebenders are this close… we shouldn’t be here long.”
Aang’s gaze swept toward the horizon, where the land gave way to a softer, sandy stretch. The waves lapped gently there, almost mockingly peaceful compared to the violence behind them. He clutched the scimitar lightly, his bald head gleaming in the sunlight, expression shifting from curiosity to cautious resolve.
Sokka stood, brushing dirt from his knees. He pointed ahead toward the shore. “Trail ends there,” he said firmly, eyes scanning the sand and rocks. “But… look.”
Katara’s gaze landed on a battered boat hidden among jagged rocks. Weathered and scarred, it was unmistakably a Water Tribe ship, its prow carved with whales and waves.
“Dad’s fleet,” Sokka said, running a hand along the hull, voice hushed. “He was here. Fighting.”
Kaz’s lips pressed into a thin line. Her eyes lingered on the vessel, noting its battered edges, the way the sunlight glinted off its chipped surface. “And if firebenders got this far, they’re not done.” Her voice carried a hard edge, but beneath it, worry flickered, fleeting yet sharp.
The humidity pressed down harder now. Sweat beaded along Kaz’s temples. Her chest tightened; every breath tasted of salt and dust. Words hovered at the edge of her throat, unspoken, trapped by the weight of anticipation.
Aang stepped forward, taking the scimitar from Kaz’s hands with careful motion. The weapon’s history pressed against him, and he turned it thoughtfully, brow furrowed. “We need to find out what happened,” he said, voice steady. “And fast.”
Sokka nodded grimly. “First, gather what we can. The fight isn’t over. Not by a long shot.”
Kaz exhaled through her nose, dry humor attempting to cut the tension. “Great. Just what I needed—angry firebenders, still looking for revenge.” Her half-smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Nothing says a ‘fun day’ like running into pyromaniacs with grudges.”
Sokka’s half-smirk betrayed faint amusement. “Welcome to the world, Kaz. Around here, ‘fun’ usually means something trying to kill you.”
Kaz let the corners of her mouth twitch. “Yeah. Guess I’m lucky that way.” She stepped closer to the shoreline, letting her fingers trace shallow grooves in the hull. Every line seemed to whisper caution, reminding her the fight was close. Too close.
The scimitar felt heavier now, its weight a reminder of violence past and present. Kaz glanced toward Aang, Katara, and Sokka—each carrying the same urgent tension, the same alertness to danger.
“We need to move,” Sokka said sharply. “Before whatever’s left of that fight comes looking for us.”
Kaz nodded, swallowing the fear knotting her throat. “Yeah. Angry firebenders with weapons and grudges… perfect way to start the day.” She forced the humor, but it fell flat. They couldn’t wait for danger to come to them. They had to move.
The scimitar rested firmly in Sokka’s hands now. Kaz felt a strange release in giving it over. Its history was heavy, and she knew it didn’t belong to her. Her eyes scanned the horizon one last time, a shadow flickering across her face. “Let’s find out what really happened here. Fast.”
Sokka nodded and led the way into the forest. Kaz followed, every step careful but quick, heartbeat loud enough to nearly drown out the ocean’s roar. Sand remained warm beneath her boots as a voice called across the shore:
“Sokka?”
Kaz’s hand hovered near her knife, eyes narrowing at the figure standing where the treeline broke—a man in furs, dark hair streaked with gray, broad shoulders shaped by years of battle. Familiar.
Sokka froze, eyes wide. “Bato?”
Katara echoed breathlessly, “Bato!”
Aang blinked, startled, Momo shifting on his shoulder. “Who…?”
Kaz remained still, watching the reunion unfold. Sokka and Katara collided with the man, arms wrapping tight as if he might vanish.
Bato’s laugh cracked the tense silence. “Sokka. Katara. Spirits, it is so good to see you. You’ve grown so much.” His voice held pride, grief, something older, deeper.
Aang approached cautiously. “I’m Aang,” he said politely, bowing slightly.
Kaz nodded, silent, observing. She’d learned long ago that silence sometimes said more than words.
Sokka and Katara pressed questions: “Where’s Dad? He’s here, right?”
Bato’s smile softened. “No. Your father and the others are deep in the Eastern Earth Kingdom.”
Disappointment swept over them. Kaz’s chest tightened in recognition—longing for someone absent, someone necessary. A gust of wind stirred sand around them, and Bato guided them forward. “Come inside. You too, Avatar. And your friend.”
Kaz fell in step behind them, arms crossed against the cold. The ache in her stomach wasn’t hunger. It was memory — sharp, intrusive, unwelcome.
The abbey was stone and silence, its courtyard perfumed with herbs drying in the sun. Nuns in pale robes moved like shadows among the gardens, their faces calm, practiced. Appa’s paws thudded against the flagstones, stirring a few startled glances, but none spoke against the group.
Bato gestured as they entered. “After I was wounded, your father carried me here. The sisters have cared for me ever since.”
The Mother Superior turned, her eyes crinkling with serenity. “Young Avatar, it gives me great joy to be in your presence. Welcome to our abbey.”
Aang’s face lit up, eager and reverent. “Thank you. It’s truly an honor. If there’s anything—”
Sokka’s nose twitched, interrupting. “What smells so good?”
Kaz arched a brow, lips quirking. Predictable.
Bato chuckled. “The sisters craft ointments and perfumes.”
“Perfume?” Sokka wrinkled his nose, then pointed dramatically at Appa. “Maybe we can dump some on him, because he stinks so much. Am I right?”
The silence that followed was brutal. Even Momo blinked. One nun coughed discreetly into her sleeve.
Kaz smirked. “Your father’s wit, huh? Must’ve skipped a generation.”
Bato laughed, clapping Sokka on the shoulder. “No, he has it. Just rough around the edges.”
There was a warmth in the abbey that evening, but it wasn’t the kind that reached everyone. The hearth glowed, perfumed smoke wound upward in thin ribbons, and laughter curled around the corners of the room like a remembered song.
Bato’s hut smelled of woodsmoke and sea. Furs lined the walls, pelts draped across beams, the firepit crackling steady in the center.
Katara spun slowly, eyes shining. “Bato, it looks like home.”
Sokka nodded, almost reverent. “Everything’s here. Even the pelts.”
Aang glanced around, unimpressed. “Yeah. Nothing’s cozier than dead animal skins.”
Kaz gave him a sidelong look. “Says the boy who sleeps on a flying bison that sheds enough fur to bury a village.”
Momo scampered from Aang’s arm, pawing curiously at the gaping mouth of a bear pelt. When the jaw clamped shut under his weight, Momo shrieked and darted back. Aang scooped him up with a wince.
Katara lifted the lid off the pot hanging over the fire. The steam hit her face, and she gasped. “No way! Stewed sea prunes!”
Bato grinned. “Help yourself.”
Sokka was already ladling them greedily. “Dad could eat a whole barrel of these things!”
Kaz wrinkled her nose, crossing her arms. “And now I know where your palate comes from. Tragic.”
Aang took a tentative spoonful, sniffed, and immediately set the bowl aside, grimacing. Katara ignored him, spooning happily, while Momo dipped a paw into the discarded portion — only to spit it out with a dramatic gag.
“Bato,” Katara said, mouth full but glowing, “is it true you and Dad lassoed an arctic hippo?”
“It was your father’s idea.” Bato chuckled. “But the hippo did the dragging.”
Aang perked up. “I ride animals too! There was this time I rode a giant eel—”
“Who came up with the Great Blubber Fiasco?” Sokka cut in, eyes gleaming.
Bato’s grin widened. “You knew about that?”
“Everyone does!” Katara chimed in.
Aang blinked. “What’s that story?”
Sokka waved him off, not unkindly. “It’s a long one, Aang. Some other time.”
Kaz leaned against the wall, watching all of it. The way their laughter came easy, the way their childhood spilled into the room like it had only been waiting for permission. She didn’t join in. She couldn’t. But she didn’t look away either.
Bato’s voice softened. “Not all of it was funny at the time. But everything is in hindsight.” His eyes flicked to Aang, who was tugging at a ceremonial pelt hanging from the wall. “Please put that down. It’s fragile.”
Aang jumped, sheepish, and set it back. He slunk to the corner, quiet now, watching the others with that tightness in his chest he didn’t bother hiding well.
“Was it you or Dad,” Katara pressed, “who put an octopus on your head and convinced Gran-Gran you were a water spirit?”
“Your father wore the octopus,” Bato said, lowering his voice conspiratorially, “but I did the spooky voice.”
Sokka howled with laughter, nearly spilling his stew. Katara joined in, their joy filling the hut like firelight.
Kaz didn’t laugh. But for the first time since the shore, she smiled — faint, private, almost pained.
Kaz poked at the sea prune stew, the smell thick and briny, an assault that clung stubbornly to her nose. The texture was worse — half-melted into stringy pulp. She forced another spoonful past her teeth, chewed, swallowed.
She had eaten worse, she reminded herself. Burnt rice stolen from abandoned kitchens. Dry crusts pocketed from merchant stalls. But something about this meal — the way Katara and Sokka’s faces glowed as they slurped, the way Bato’s laughter filled the room — made her chest ache with a memory sharp enough to burn.
She had been small then, so small her feet barely touched the floor when she sat. Lu Ten had looked impossibly tall across from her, a prince, a soldier, the heir to everything. He should have frightened her into silence. Instead, he had given her that look — exasperated first, then soft, as if he’d resigned himself to her endless questions.
He had answered them all. Patiently. Where the sun went at night, how far a hawk could fly, whether the Omashu mail system could carry love letters without losing them. He’d smiled when she lit up, as if her curiosity was a gift, not a nuisance.
She remembered the way he choked when she asked him where babies came from, the way Iroh had nearly drowned in his tea, and the way Lu Ten’s mock indignation had finally cracked into helpless laughter.
The memory burned her now more than it warmed her.
Kaz swallowed hard, staring into the stew. Lu Ten had been patience, kindness, an anchor in a life that never stopped tilting. And he was gone. The world took him anyway, like it took everything.
She shoved the bowl away and leaned back, forcing her face blank.
Later, the fire had burned low, the siblings still pressed close to Bato as he told them another half-remembered tale about the Great Whale Hunt. Aang was quiet in the corner, watching the easy comfort he and Kaz didn’t share.
Bato leaned forward, his rough hands braced on his knees. “There’s something I should tell you kids. I’m expecting a message from your father.”
Katara’s gasp was immediate, sharp as ice cracking. “Really?”
Sokka all but leapt from his seat. “When?” His voice carried the demand of someone who couldn’t wait another heartbeat for news he’d been waiting years for.
“Any day now,” Bato said, his voice softening into reassurance. “Your father said he’d send a message when they found the rendezvous point. If you wait until the message arrives, you can come with me and see your father again.”
The words struck like flint to tinder. Katara’s face bloomed with unguarded joy; Sokka’s mouth hung open in disbelief.
“It’s been over two years since we’ve seen Dad,” Sokka murmured, awe threaded through the words. Then louder, bright with fragile hope, “That would be so incredible! Katara!”
Katara clasped her hands to her chest. “I do really miss him. It would be great to see Dad.”
The siblings leaned toward Bato, their shoulders touching as if bracing each other against the wave of memory.
Across the fire, Aang sat small against the furs, his staff resting forgotten by his knee. His gray eyes lowered, and he seemed suddenly younger, as if all twelve of his years weighed heavier now than they had during any battle. He pressed his lips tight and closed his eyes, trying to disappear.
Kaz noticed. She always noticed. She saw the way his hands clenched in his lap, the faint tremor of his breath as if he were holding it in. She saw him stand, the movement light but deliberate, like someone trying not to disturb the others as he slipped out.
No one else looked.
Kaz’s jaw tightened. A cruel thought flickered — of course they don’t see him. He isn’t theirs. He doesn’t belong to that warmth, not in the way they do. She hated the softness of it, hated how it cracked her chest just a little. So she leaned back, silent, and let him go.
Bato’s voice filled the absence. “It’s been far too long, hasn’t it? I’m not sure when word will arrive, but when it does—”
The door closed, soft as a sigh.
The night was brittle and blue, the sea air sharp enough to cut. Kaz stepped out only moments after Aang. She told herself it was coincidence — that she needed air, that the brine and smoke inside clung too thick in her nose — but her feet had carried her toward the shore, tracking his small form moving alone into the dark.
The abbey walls gave way to open sand, pale under the moonlight. Aang perched at the bow of Bato’s boat, knees hugged to his chest, silhouette fragile as paper against the ocean.
“You’re sulking,” Kaz said.
Her voice startled him. He whipped his head around, wide-eyed, then quickly dropped his gaze again. “I’m not sulking.”
Kaz crossed the sand without hurry, the crunch of her boots deliberate. She leaned one shoulder against the hull, folding her arms. “Right. Just brooding dramatically at the sea for no reason.”
He pressed his lips thin. For a while, there was only the hush of the waves.
Then, softer than the water’s whisper, Aang said, “They don’t need me.”
Kaz tilted her head. “Didn’t realize you were clairvoyant now.”
“They were so happy.” His words tumbled faster, desperate. “Talking about their dad, about all those stories… I just sat there. And they didn’t even notice when I left.”
There was an ache in his voice that Kaz recognized too well. That gnawing edge of being on the outside, pressing your face against a window you would never get through.
She considered for a long moment, then shrugged. “They didn’t notice because they thought you were steady enough to stay. That’s what people do with anchors — they forget them until they’re gone.”
Aang blinked, caught off guard.
Kaz smirked without humor. “Besides. You think they’ll drop everything and skip north just to hug their father? No. They’re tethered to you. Whether you like it or not.”
“I don’t want them to have to choose,” he whispered. “I don’t want to be the reason they can’t see him.”
Kaz’s eyes narrowed. “Choice is an illusion, Aang. People always say they want both, but the world doesn’t work like that. You’ll learn.”
His throat bobbed, his fingers digging into his knees.
Kaz looked out toward the horizon, the moon’s reflection trembling in the waves. “You want truth?”
Aang hesitated, then nodded.
“Truth is, if they had to choose… they’d pick their father. Anyone would. Blood, memory — it’s stronger than destiny. But that doesn’t mean they don’t care about you. It means they’re human.”
Her words landed like stones. Aang’s face pinched, but he didn’t argue.
She let the silence sit. Sometimes silence was crueler than words.
Then, abruptly, the rhythm of hooves tore through the quiet of the night.
An ostrich horse burst onto the beach, sand spraying under its claws. The rider yanked on the reins, eyes scanning the shore.
“I’m looking for Bato of the Water Tribe!” he barked.
Aang froze, panic flashing across his face.
Kaz stepped half a pace forward, stance casual but ready. “What do you want with him?”
“Message from his commander,” the rider snapped. His gaze flicked to Aang. “You know him?”
Aang’s voice cracked. “Uhh — I know Bato!” He forced a nod, too eager, too fast.
The messenger didn’t linger. He shoved a sealed scroll down toward Aang. “Make sure he gets this.” With a kick, the ostrich horse lurched back down the shore, vanishing into the night.
The beach was still again, save for Aang’s ragged breathing. He stared at the scroll as though it might burn him alive.
Kaz arched a brow. “Well. Aren’t you lucky.”
His fingers trembled as he broke the seal. The moonlight caught the ink, black lines sharp against pale parchment. His eyes widened.
“It’s the map,” he whispered. “To Sokka and Katara’s dad.”
Kaz’s head tilted. She saw it happen in him — hope flaring bright, then souring fast, then curling inward like something spoiled. His jaw locked. His knuckles went white as he crumpled the parchment in his fist.
Her voice slid through the quiet, flat as a knife. “So that’s what you’ll do.”
Aang’s head jerked up, startled.
Kaz’s smirk was thin, humorless. “Hide it. Pretend it never came. Keep them tethered to you instead of giving them the choice.”
“I—” Aang stammered, shame twisting his face. “It’s not like that. I just… I can’t let them leave me.”
“Of course you can’t.” Her tone was steady, scalding in its calm. “Because being the Avatar isn’t enough, is it? You want more. You want them to choose you. And you fear they won’t. This kind of lie only breaks bonds. Not letting them know won’t keep them close. It will only rot what you already have.”
Aang flinched as if she’d struck him.
The silence stretched then, long and unbearable. The waves filled it, hissing against the sand. Aang shifted, waiting. He kept looking at her — desperate, pleading — as though if he stared long enough, she would soften, she would take pity, she would say don’t do it.
But Kaz’s eyes were steel.
She remembered Zuko’s back turning when the Fire Lord’s approval was dangled before him. She remembered Lu Ten, smiling at her endless questions, but never hers to keep. She remembered Iroh retreating into grief so deep she had been left outside it, shut out no matter how she clawed at the door. Every time, she had not been chosen. Every time, she had learned the same truth: no one saved you from choices, not even the bad ones.
Kaz’s gaze was unflinching, cruel only because it was true. Then she shook her head, sharp and final. “Your lesson to learn, not mine.” She had already seen what lies did to relationships, what they had done to Biyu and everyone else she had to lie to in these years.
She turned, adjusting the sleeves of her shirt, the sand crunching steady beneath her boots. “Your secret,” she added, without looking back. “Your weight.”
The words hit harder than if she’d shouted.
Aang stood there, fists trembling around the hidden map, her disapproval clinging to him heavier than the parchment stuffed against his chest. The run back into the hut.
The door swung open. Aang’s smile was already too wide, too bright, stretched like paper over stone.
“Hey everyone! Sorry I was gone so long.”
Katara turned, surprised. “Hey, Aang. I didn’t notice you left.”
“Yup.” He slid into his seat too quickly, voice pitched unnaturally high. “But now I’m back. Sure could go for some delicious sea prunes!”
He scooped a spoonful, gagged as soon as it hit his tongue, then forced it down with a cough and a watery-eyed grin. “Mmm. Amazing.”
Bato frowned, bemused. Katara and Sokka exchanged a glance.
Across the room, Kaz leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, silent. Her eyes pinned him where he sat. She didn’t speak, didn’t betray him. But her expression said enough — razor-thin smirk, steady and merciless, a mirror to his lie.
And Aang, choking down another bite he couldn’t taste, felt her gaze burning into the back of his neck, heavier than any map.
The ship creaked as the tide rocked it against the sandbar, its timbers groaning like a beast too long asleep. Bato stood at the prow with reverence in his eyes, running his hand along the old scar that jagged across the wood. His father’s scar, he called it. A rite, a memory, a mark.
Kaz hung back with her arms folded, the sea wind tugging at her balck hair. She’d been listening, but only just. The way Sokka leaned in, wide-eyed and eager, the way Katara glowed under Bato’s voice — it reminded her too much of that firelit hut the night before. Home stories. Belonging. Things she wasn’t allowed to want.
Still, she didn’t miss the flicker of guilt that shadowed Aang’s face. The way his sleeve hung strangely heavy. She had sharp eyes; she noticed when people carried weight they didn’t want anyone else to see.
“This ship,” Bato said with warmth, “was built by my father. It carried me through ice and storm. It’s more than wood. It’s family.”
Kaz snorted under her breath. Family. It was always the word that unraveled people.
Aang shuffled closer, eyes darting down. He spotted the ostrich-horse tracks pressed into the sand and, too fast, too careless, swept his hand in a twist of air. Sand spilled across them, erasing the proof. Kaz’s brow twitched upward. So. He hadn’t told them yet. He was clutching his secret like a coal, burning his palms rather than letting it go.
Sokka’s voice cut through. “Is this the boat Dad took you ice-dodging in?”
Bato’s smile softened. “Yes. It bears the scar of our passage.” He patted the railing like one might a beast that had survived battle. “And now, perhaps, it’s time for another.”
The boy’s face fell when Bato asked about his own rite. Too young when Hakoda left. Too small to be chosen. Kaz knew that kind of wound. It never stopped bleeding, not really.
“What’s ice-dodging?” Aang piped up, his voice pitched high, trying to wedge himself into a story that wasn’t his.
Bato turned, patient. “It is our rite of passage. A test of wisdom, bravery, and trust. When you are of age, your father takes you out. You weave your way through a field of icebergs, guided only by your bond.”
Aang blinked rapidly. “I can do that. I mean, I trust! I’m the Avatar. I know all about trust.” He crossed his arms, defensive even before anyone argued. His words smelled like panic.
Kaz leaned against the mast, her smirk thin. He was begging them to believe him, but trust didn’t grow out of begging. It grew out of being chosen.
Sokka climbed onto the tiller, shoulders squaring with sudden purpose. “We’ll do it. Here. Now.”
Katara faltered. “There’s no ice—”
“Rocks,” Bato said, gesturing toward the jagged teeth that tore out of the surf. “They will do. The winds will punish you just as hard.” His gaze softened on Sokka. “Lead us. Your father would want it.”
The boy’s throat bobbed, pride and fear warring in him. Then he nodded, setting his jaw. “All right. Katara, main sail. Aang—jib.”
Kaz had been leaning against the mast, detached, watching. But then Sokka’s eyes flicked toward her, expectant. “And you,” he added, “will hold the stern rope. Balance. Without it, the ship lists, and all else fails.” Kaz looked back at him like he was crazy. “You know ships in my nation have engines right?” Sokka nodded still sure of his choice. “I know but I also want you ti be part of it, or are you a scaredy cat-owl?” he finished teasing but there was something expecting in his gaze. Kaz crumpled, she sighed and took the rope in hand.
The rope burned against her palms as she caught it. Her throat tightened. She wasn’t supposed to be here. She’d never been here. Her training had been in shadows, blades, smoke — not this. Not wind and water and trust.
The rocks loomed ahead, jagged as teeth.
Her grip slipped. “I can’t,” she blurted before she could swallow it down. Her voice cracked, sharp with panic. “I’ve never done anything like this—”
Sokka twisted, eyes locking on hers, steady even as the tiller shook beneath him. “You’ll make it,” he said, fierce, certain. “I’ll guide everyone. You too.”
For a moment she froze, the words hitting somewhere she didn’t want them to. No one had ever said that to her. Not Iroh, not Zuko, not anyone — that she could be guided through, that she could belong in the passage.
The rocks surged closer.
“Hold it steady!” Sokka barked.
Her knuckles went white around the rope. Her arms screamed, but she dug in her heels, breath ragged. The ship lunged, swerving between two stone spires so close she felt the scrape shudder through her bones. Spray blinded her. Katara shouted. Aang nearly lost his grip.
Kaz bit down hard on her tongue, a growl ripping in her throat. “Tell me where!”
“Now! Left tension—hold it!” Sokka’s voice cut sharp and clear.
She hauled on the rope with everything she had, the deck lurching beneath her, the sail catching just enough wind to drag them past another knife-edge of stone. The ship skimmed through with inches to spare.
When they broke into open water again, Kaz’s arms gave out. She sagged against the mast, chest heaving. Her palms were raw, rope-burned, but the ship was still afloat. Kaz wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, forcing her face blank. She wouldn’t let them see the way her chest still shook, the way her pulse thundered.
But Sokka glanced back at her, meeting her eyes for only a heartbeat. He nodded once, firm, like a promise kept.
She looked away first.
Bato’s laughter carried across the deck, booming with pride. “Well done! You honored your tribe.”
Katara beamed, her face flushed with victory. Sokka sagged against the tiller, grinning like he could taste his father’s approval across the miles. Even Aang smiled — but his was desperate, strained, a child praying no one saw the cracks.
Kaz didn’t smile. She had seen every falter. Every cheat. Every place where trust wasn’t earned but forced. Her eyes narrowed, the ghost of a frown tugging her mouth.
Later, Bato knelt and retrieved a small pot of purple paint. He dipped his finger carefully and pressed it to Sokka’s forehead. “Wisdom for Sokka,” he murmured.
Next came Katara. “Bravery for Katara,” the paint pressed carefully to her skin.
Then Bato’s gaze turned to Kaz. “Balance for Kaz—”
Kaz’s jaw tightened. Her hands hovered at her sides, restless, but she stayed still. Balance, she thought, the word echoing in her mind. I’ve never had balance. Never been part of anything like this. What do I even do with that?
She glanced at the others. Sokka’s eyes were bright with curiosity, Katara’s with quiet determination, and Aang’s with that familiar calm focus. And suddenly, the tightness in her chest softened a fraction. Maybe balance doesn’t mean being perfect. Maybe it just means… being here, part of this, even if I don’t have all the answers yet.
Kaz pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth and forced a nonchalant shrug. “Balance, huh?” she muttered under her breath, letting herself secretly savor the small, strange sense of belonging settling over her. We’ll see about that, she thought.
“—trust for Aang.” finshed Bato. Watching the mark smeared onto Aang’s forehead felt like the world lying to itself.
Aang’s hand shot up, scrubbing it away. “I can’t.” His voice cracked. “You can’t trust me.”
The words struck the air like a whip. Everyone froze.
“Aang?” Katara’s voice wavered, all confusion and worry.
He fumbled in his sleeve, the crumpled paper tumbling free. His hands shook as he held it out, like it weighed a thousand stones. “A messenger gave me this. For Bato. I— I kept it. I was afraid you’d…” His throat closed. “You’d leave me.”
Silence collapsed over the deck. Katara took the parchment like it burned her. Sokka’s face twisted, betrayal sharpening him like flint. “The map. To our father. You had this the whole time?”
Aang wilted under his glare. “I just— I couldn’t—”
“You let us think there was nothing.” Sokka’s voice broke, but it carried anger sharper than steel. “You lied.”
Kaz stood against the mast, arms crossed, the wind snapping her hair. She didn’t move to defend him. She didn’t soften. Her eyes were razor-thin, her gaze hard. She had told him what lies did. He hadn’t listened. Now he could taste the cost.
“Well,” Sokka spat, “you can go to the North Pole on your own. I’m finding Dad.”
He shoved past, Katara trailing in his wake. She hesitated, only once, her gaze snagging on Aang’s pleading eyes. For a heartbeat, she looked like she might bend. Then her jaw set, her eyes closed. She turned away.
“I’m with Sokka.”
Her voice was final.
Bato followed, his silence heavy with disapproval. The three of them walked down the shore, their backs a wall Aang couldn’t climb.
The Avatar stood frozen, paint smeared across his forehead like a brand of failure. His small shoulders caved. “Wait—” he whispered, but no one did.
Kaz watched them vanish into the trees. Then she looked at Aang. His face was crumpled, guilt dripping down him like ash. His hands still clutched the edge of his robe, knuckles white. He looked at her like maybe she would save him, like maybe she would say the words he wanted — that it was all right, that they’d come back, that she forgave him.
She said nothing.
Her silence was heavier than a blade. Because this was his lesson. His failure to carry. Not hers.
The tide dragged against the sand, groaning. Aang sank onto the deck, a boy too small for the mark he’d scrubbed away.
Kaz watched them vanish into the trees. Then she looked at Aang. His face was crumpled, guilt dripping down him like ash. His hands still clutched the edge of his robe, knuckles white.
He looked at her like maybe she would also go away.
She drew in a slow breath, letting the wind tossling her black hair around. “Aang,” she said, voice low but steady. He blinked, hope flickering in his wide eyes. She didn’t move closer.
She didn’t reach out. But she let the edge of her frown soften, just a fraction. “You… should’ve told them. I get it, fear makes people do things. But hiding it—” She shook her head, exhaling. “That doesn’t make it right.” He swallowed, his shoulders sagging. “I—I didn’t want to lose anyone.”
Kaz looked past him for a moment, out toward the open water. The sea was calm now, the threat of the rocks behind them, and the sun was starting to warm the deck. “Maybe… maybe next time, you try trust before hiding.” Her tone wasn’t harsh; it carried a kind of quiet patience. “It’s harder to fix things after you break them.” He nodded, hesitating. “I understand.”
Kaz gave a small shrug, and patted his shoulder. “Good. Now let’s get back to the abbey and we can think about how you can gain their trust back.” Her smirk returned, soft but not teasing. To be completely fair they did need Sokka and Katara to get to the North Pole.
Kaz felt the perfurme hitting her nostril with all of its force as she and Aang stepped back through the abbey gates. The courtyard smelled of incense and hot wax, the heavy perfumes that clung to the walls, and somewhere deep inside, cloister bells rang their low, mournful tones. Aang’s face was pale, drawn in ways she didn’t like. He hadn’t said much since the ice-dodging, not since Katara and Sokka had turned their backs on him. The weight clung to him like an anchor, and for once, she didn’t try to cut through it with some sharp remark.
But before she could find words—before she could even decide if she wanted to—Mother Superior hurried across the stones, her beads clutched tight in her hands.
“Avatar,” she said, breathless. “You must leave at once.”
Aang blinked, startled. “What? Why? We—”
“A group has come, asking for you,” the nun interrupted. Her voice carried the sharp edge of fear. “A fierce woman with a monster at her side. And a boy with a scar.”
The words hit like a hammer. Kaz froze, breath shallow. A boy with a scar.
Zuko.
Her fingers clenched reflexively around one of her curls and started twisting it. The air seemed to thin, the courtyard tilting beneath her. Years collapsed in an instant—sparring circles lit by firelight, his laughter spilling over the palace gardens in stolen hours, the day he whispered that she was his only ally after his mother vanished. She had carried that confession like a blade tucked inside her chest, both weapon and wound.
And then the day she left him. The day she turned her back on the Fire Nation. Watching the palas as her ship vanished into the mist, the girl he had known already swallowed by exile and homicide.
Her throat ached.
“Zuko,” Aang gasped, dread flooding his face.
But Kaz barely heard him. The Mother Superior pressed on: “They had captives with them. A boy and a girl. Water Tribe.”
Katara. Sokka.
The names struck like arrows. She saw Katara’s stubborn chin, Sokka’s sharp tongue—saw them bound, dragged behind Zuko like trophies of war. Something ugly twisted in her stomach, not fear, not entirely anger either, but an anticipation that sickened her.
And then the abbey shook. A crash tore through the gates, wood splintering like bone, claws raking stone.
Kaz spun just as the monster barreled into the courtyard.
The shirshu was worse than the whispers. Huge, all muscle and sinew, its long snout dragging across the stones, nostrils flaring. Its tongue lashed wet and fast, striking sparks against the ground. The air stank of musk, perfume, and danger. June sat astride it like a queen in her throne, whip coiled in her hand, dark eyes sharp as knives.
Behind her walked Iroh, calm as ever, steps unhurried, his smile almost kindly. But Kaz had lived long enough to know there was nothing gentle in the old general’s gaze when it hardened.
And then him.
Zuko strode through the wreckage of the gate, scar bright as molten iron in the torchlight. He swept the courtyard with his gaze, hungry, violent, until it landed on her.
The world went still.
His feet stopped moving. For an instant there was no beast, no abbey, no Avatar, only the two of them. Firelight flickered across his face, but it wasn’t rage she saw first. It was recognition. Raw, stunned recognition—as if a ghost had stepped out of memory to stand across from him.
“...Kaz?”
Her throat locked. She should have looked away. Should have folded herself into the mask she wore with everyone else. But she didn’t. For a heartbeat too long, she met his eyes.
And he knew.
The betrayal that swept over his face was sharper than any fireblast. His breath stuttered, chest heaving once like he’d been struck. He stared as though she’d clawed something vital from him just by standing beside Aang.
Aang jolted into motion, staff whirling as the shirshu lunged. Appa bellowed from above, swooping down, massive bulk colliding with the beast in a crack of stone and fur. Nyla roared, claws carving furrows through the flagstones.
Kaz wrenched her gaze from Zuko, forced herself back into the fight before the recognition burned her alive.
“Go!” she shouted at Aang. “He’s after you!”
Zuko didn’t hesitate now. Fury lit in his hands, flames bursting forward as he charged Aang.
The courtyard fractured into chaos. Nuns scattered, perfume jars shattered in sprays of glass and oil. June’s whip cracked, the shirshu’s tongue snapped through the air, Appa thundered in answer. Smoke and perfume dust rose thick, choking.
Kaz drew fire to her palms, but before she could lunge after June’s beast, another presence stepped into her path.
“Ah.”
The word was quiet, almost fond.
Iroh stood in the ruin of broken perfume jars, his hands folded calmly behind his back, his smile as mild as ever. Yet his stance was rooted, immovable. His eyes carried a weight she hadn’t felt in years.
“I was hoping we’d meet again.”
Her chest tightened. A dozen memories pressed against her ribs—tea steam curling in lamplight, patient corrections in the practice yard, the warmth of someone who once called her student.
“General,” she managed.
His smile deepened. “I see you’ve kept yourself alive. That is no small feat.” His gaze flicked briefly toward Aang, then back to her, sharp with something unspoken. “But now… I wonder. How far have you come?”
Kaz sighed, shoulders drooping. “You want to do this now? Spirits, you really haven’t changed.”
“I must,” Iroh said, calm but resolute. “So that I may know what kind of warrior you’ve become. And…” his voice lowered, gentler still, “so that Zuko does not face both you and the Avatar at once.” His eyes softened with something paternal, something protective.
Kaz blinked, chest tightening in a different way. She muttered, almost fond despite herself, “Overprotective as ever.”
Then he struck.
Heat lanced through the courtyard, fire curling from his palms with all the fluid grace of a master who had lived and bled the art.
Kaz met him. Sparks spat as their strikes collided, shockwaves rippling outward.
Above them, Zuko and Aang’s battle climbed the rooftops. Fire clashed with wind, lighting the abbey sky in a furious storm. Every flare of Zuko’s fire was edged with something personal, his gaze darting—again and again—past Aang, searing toward her. As if every strike demanded: Why him? Why not me?
Kaz forced herself not to look, not to falter. She had her own storm to weather.
Iroh moved with deceptive ease, as though pouring tea, as though drifting with the tide. Every fireblast curved, redirected, absorbed into nothing.
Kaz fought sharper, faster, her flames cutting like blades. She wove arcs that hissed the air, bursts that cracked the stone beneath their feet. It was not the form he had taught her—it was quicker, lighter, a rhythm that carried the echo of her blood’s other inheritance. Her fire snapped like air caught in storm currents, swift, evasive, impossible to pin.
Iroh’s eyes glinted. “This style is not mine.”
Her jaw tightened. “I’ve… made changes.”
“Mm.” He nodded, fire spiraling neatly away from his palm. “It is good. It suits you. But—” his smile curved, exasperatingly patient—“you still rush. You still carry your power as though it might burn you if you let it rest too long.”
Kaz groaned, half-laughing, half-irritated. “Spirits, do you ever stop with the lectures?”
“Not when the student still needs them,” he replied smoothly, deflecting her flame with a twist of his wrist.
“Unbelievable,” she muttered, sparks hissing at her fingertips. “Even in the middle of a fight, you sound like you’re about to pour tea.”
Iroh’s chuckle warmed the clash of fire and stone. “Brewing tea does teach patience.”
Kaz huffed, darting past him with a sharp strike. “You’re impossible.”
And yet—beneath the exasperation, beneath the sweat and sparks, she felt it again: that old, grounding weight. Not just the strength of his bending, but the presence of someone who refused to see her as lost. Someone who still claimed her as his student, no matter how far she had strayed.
The abbey dissolved into fire and dust.
Nyla’s claws scraped the flagstones raw, the echoes ricocheting across the courtyard. Appa’s bellow answered from above, a deep, resonant roar that shook the roof tiles. Smoke curled through the night like living serpents, carrying the sharp, almost sweet scent of broken perfume. June’s whip cracked through it all, a line of fire drawn in air, snapping with a sound sharper than lightning. Screams of fleeing sisters pierced the chaos, the clang of splintering wood and stone mingling with the bison’s bellows and the hiss of flame.
On the rooftops, Aang and Zuko’s duel shook tiles loose and sent fire and air colliding in bursts that split the night sky.The abbey courtyard burned with chaos.
It should not have been a duel. By rank, by reputation, by sheer experience, she was the student and he the master. Yet he had chosen her, not Zuko, to cross fire with. Not to destroy — but to weigh.
He opened with the simplicity of a teacher, not the savagery of a general. His flames rolled like waves, predictable arcs, each one demanding response. Kaz answered with motion light as breath, sliding through the spaces he left, fire streaming off her fingers like banners caught in a current
Iroh’s form was deceptively simple. Every sweep of his arms, every shift of his feet, was water made flesh, fluid and smooth. But Kaz could feel the weight beneath the grace—the testing, the gauging. He wasn’t trying to end her, not yet. He was pulling at her, seeing if she had grown, if the lessons of her past held water.
And still, she didn’t falter.
Her fire didn’t crash. It curved. Not rooted, not crushing, but spiraling, dancing, lifted by air. Her own strikes were sharp, clipped, each one a spark that snapped off the edges of Iroh’s calm. The heat from her fists stung her palms. Her heart thundered, not from fear, but from the pull of his eyes, steady, measuring. He wasn’t just watching her movements—he was peeling back layers of her, probing her choices, her instincts, the shape of her fire itself.
Iroh’s eyes narrowed as he recognized it. “Air beneath your fire. Always you carried it in your blood.” His voice was low, almost fond, as he sent another sheet of fire that tested her footwork.“You’ve shaped it differently,” he said, voice calm and even, though every word carried weight. Their palms clashed, sparks flaring between them. “Quicker. You really let it slip like air. Quite dangerous Kaz.”
“Well it works. I am not all fire,” Kaz shot back, forcing him back a step. The ground beneath them shivered where their flames met. “Maybe because fire that only burns, only consumes, is not enough.”
Iroh’s eyes glinted with pride, subtle, almost hidden. “So you’ve remembered the lesson after all.”
Heat licked across stone. Sparks curled into the smoke, tiny stars collapsing into themselves, and Kaz could taste it, the acrid tang of scorched air on her tongue.
Kaz didn’t answer. She twisted through the heat, hair snapping with the motion, then flicked two narrow whips of flame at his legs. He pivoted, steady as stone, and they hissed out against the flagstones.
Overhead, Zuko’s shout broke across the clash as he launched fire at Aang. His eyes cut down for half a heartbeat, searching the chaos. And he froze. Kaz fighting his uncle. Kaz with fire that wasn’t wild, wasn’t desperate — but balanced, fast, impossible to pin. She slid past Iroh’s strikes with a grace that made Zuko’s breath catch, all precision where he was fury. And when she spun, her fire trailed like ribbons of gold-white, sharp and clean.
Zuko’s teeth clenched. It looked wrong — his old best friend, sparring with his uncle like an equal, almost like… an accomplice. And the Avatar at her back. Rage flared, betrayal bitter as ash in his mouth.
She had grown stronger. Stronger than he remembered.
Then a snarl cut the night—a sharp, raw sound from the shirshu. Nyla twisted under Appa’s massive weight. The bison roared, a tremor that rattled the stones, and June’s braid whipped behind her like a black banner. For a brief, impossible moment, June’s gaze locked with Kaz’s.
“Pretty thing, aren’t you?” June’s voice drifted across the battlefield, smooth and teasing, wrapped in smoke and danger. “Shame you’re standing on the wrong side.”
Kaz’s heart jumped, heat flushing her neck, her chest tightening. And then she smiled—sharp, dangerous, amused—and threw the woman a quick wink. “Maybe you’re the one that should switch.” She answered. It was instinct, pure and unthinking.
June’s braid snapped as she yanked Nyla’s reins, her dark eyes catching Kaz’s through the haze of perfume. Her grin cut sharp, feline.
“Spirits, you’re dangerous,” she purred. “No wonder scar-boy froze when he saw you.”
The words slithered across the chaos, deliberate, aimed like a blade.
Kaz’s heart kicked, but she only let a smile curl, sharp and mocking. She tipped June a quick, playful wink. “Careful. Keep staring and you’ll miss your beast’s tongue.”
The effect rippled.
Above, on the rooftop, Zuko faltered. His fireblast arced too wide, smashing stone instead of striking true. The fire in his eyes didn’t waver; it shifted, twisted, burning into something harsher, knotted deep in his chest. Jealousy. Surprise. Bewilderment at the way Kaz had moved, how she had held her ground. His lips pressed into a thin line, his fingers curling into claws over his own fire.
Kaz caught it in a flicker, not quite understanding Zuko’s falter..Oh yeah fire nation’s laws, she had forgotten. But Iroh’s hand cut across her vision, arcing like a measured current, and she shoved it back, letting her body ride the heat, her fists a whirl of disciplined chaos. He looked at her with raised brows, and she shook her head.
“You’re faster,” Iroh said, almost admiring. “But speed without stillness is waste.”
Her teeth ground. “And stillness gets you killed.”
Heat rippled through her palms as she spun a sheet of fire across the stones. He walked through it like it was water, hands guiding the surge away with a gentleness that belied the power behind it. “Still you dance,” Iroh murmured, though sweat touched his brow. “Still you refuse the earth.”
“I don’t need to be earth,” Kaz said, breath steady. She spun, sending a spiral of fire that licked close enough to singe his sleeve. “The wind carries flame farther.”
He grunted approval even as he batted the strike skyward.
She couldn’t afford to answer.
Nyla lashed out, tongue snapping, striking Appa’s leg. The bison roared, falling heavy, a shockwave through the stone that rattled the walls. Katara and Sokka strained uselessly against their ropes.
Kaz muttered under her breath. “Not them.”
Kaz’s pulse thundered, every heartbeat resonant in her ears. She drew a breath, sharp and burning, feeling the air coil in her chest, tighten, squeeze, until her arms trembled. The memory of Iroh’s first lightning lesson flashed behind her eyelids—the diagrams, the channels, the strict balance of yin and yang. Her own sparks had sputtered and died then, weak and unshaped.
But she was not that girl anymore.
Arms sweeping wide, she drew fire into its thinnest, most precise edge, feeling it stretch, straining. Her lungs screamed for air she did not have. The night tore apart in an audible crack, and lightning bloomed.
Not a spear. Not to kill. But a net. Thin, snapping strands lanced toward Iroh’s chest. For one impossible heartbeat, he froze, eyes wide, knees buckling. Paralyzed in surprise.
The ozone stung her nostrils. Her fingers sizzled, burnt raw from the current, and her lungs felt scorched with each inhale.
“I thought—” Iroh rasped, voice hoarse, reverent even. “I thought lightning could not be controlled once released.”
Kaz’s chest heaved. “Then maybe you thought wrong.”
Iroh’s knees bent but did not break. He lifted his gaze to her, not angry but astonished. And he laughed. Not mockery, not condescension. Joy. Pride. Recognition. His gaze locked onto hers, steady and unflinching even as her own hands shook.
“I thought lightning could never be mastered once freed,” he said, voice hoarse. “And yet… you bend even thunder itself to your hand.”
Her throat tightened. She didn’t let it show. “Not everything has to destroy. Lightning can bind, not just break.”
For a moment, silence cut through battle. Pride softened his lined face.
“You have gone farther than my lessons ever dreamed.”
Her fists closed, forcing the sparks back, letting them die. “I had to.”
The nod he gave her was small. Quiet. But it burned brighter than fire.
Her reply was soft, almost a promise. “The mission continues. Ozai falls. The Avatar lives.”
He nodded once more, grave. The message understood. The war wasn’t theirs to settle here.
But Zuko didn’t hear that exchange. He only saw the lightning still echoing in her hands, the calm in her face as she turned back toward the Avatar’s side. Her fingers curled. The air thickened, charged, hair lifting against her scalp as though the world itself drew in breath.
Then light.
Blue, sharp, searing. Lightning tore across the space between them — but not wild, not loose. It bent with her hand, folded to her will, caught and narrowed until it struck Iroh in a single lancing thread.
He stiffened, not burned but seized, every muscle locked in lightning’s cage. For three heartbeats he stood, outlined in that unnatural glow. Then it guttered out, leaving him shuddering, breath ragged.
Kaz lowered her hand, chest rising and falling fast, but her stance still calm.
Across the yard, Zuko froze in disbelief. Lightning. She had generated lightning. He had thought only prodigies like Azula could reach for such power — and Kaz, his Kaz, had just driven it into his uncle. Not to kill, but to control. His gut twisted. Was she that dangerous now? Was she lost to him completely?
Betrayal tore at him raw — because she wasn’t just with them. She was protecting Aang, standing against him, wielding power he hadn’t known she possessed.
His next blast at Aang came with all the fury of that realization.
Stepping forward, Kaz felt the fine hairs on her arms rise as the first jars of perfume shattered across the courtyard. The glass shattered with a crystalline ping, sending tiny shards skittering across the stones. Thick clouds of scent surged outward, curling like living smoke—sweet, cloying, suffocating. It clung to her skin, filling her nose and throat with a dizzying mélange of jasmine, rose, and something sharper, almost metallic. Her lungs burned as she inhaled sharply, tasting the acrid bite of chemicals mingled with ozone, and she shivered at the sudden intensity. Electricity prickled across her skin, humming low and hungry beneath her flesh, and she flexed her fingers, forcing herself to keep it coiled, restrained, like a tightly wound spring. The energy throbbed in her veins, teasing her with the promise of destruction and brilliance alike.
Katara moved with the fluid precision of water itself, bending the haze with sweeping, elegant motions, trying to corral Nyla’s panicked form. But the beast was spiraling out of control. Nyla spun in tight, frantic circles, claws scraping the worn stones, eyes wide, tongue lashing. Every instinct screamed chaos.
Suddenly, Nyla lunged in a blinding burst of movement, tongue flicking unpredictably. June and Zuko froze for a heartbeat, unable to dodge fast enough. A sharp crack of electricity, Nyla’s tongue striking like a whip, and June toppled into Iroh’s arms with a startled yelp. “I—I swear, I preferred the pretty lightning girl!” she wailed, eyes wide and helpless as she sank against the older man, who caught her with a practiced, patient calm. Zuko staggered, blinking rapidly, trying to shake off the sting of the shock, jaw tightening in frustration.
Kaz’s pulse thundered in her ears. She could see the strain on Katara’s face, the tremor in her hands, the way her eyes flicked from Nyla to Sokka, calculating, panicked. The beast’s erratic movements were too much, too unpredictable, and Katara’s bending was beginning to falter under the pressure. Nyla’s next flick could easily reach Sokka.
“I’ve got to do something,” Kaz muttered, teeth gritted. She felt the electricity under her skin surge, humming, coiling, waiting for release. But she needed more than lightning—she needed fire, a controlled, deliberate burst to draw Nyla away from the people in her path.
Her hands flared, a sudden ribbon of flame leaping from her fingertips, warm and sharp, cutting through the haze. Nyla screamed—a high, panicked howl—and recoiled, spinning away from Katara and Sokka, startled by the sudden heat. Kaz’s pulse hammered, and without pausing, she lashed arcs of blue lightning across the courtyard, creating an invisible barrier between Nyla and the team. Each crack of electricity illuminated the perfume haze in fleeting, jagged flashes. Nyla hit the boundary and skidded back, thrashing, tongue lashing at the glowing arcs.
Kaz’s heart pounded. She could feel the energy obeying her will, responding to her fear, her exhilaration, her absolute need to protect her friends. Sweat prickled her brow as she forced herself to remain calm, shaping the electricity, controlling the fire, holding Nyla at bay.
Katara blinked, swallowing hard, water bending again with all her skill but finally giving ground to the intensity of the moment. Sokka froze, wide-eyed, unsure whether to run or help, and Kaz’s fire and lightning made the choice for him.
“Back! All of you, back!” Kaz barked, voice cutting through the chaos. Flames hissed, smoke swirled, and lightning sparked in controlled arcs. Nyla’s eyes darted from the flames to the bolts, confusion breaking through panic. The beast hesitated, retreating slightly, and Kaz pressed her advantage, guiding her away from the courtyard, away from the fragile jars, away from her friends.
Aang’s voice rang from the edge of the courtyard, calm but urgent. “We need to move! Appa’s ready!”
Kaz’s gaze snapped upward, toward the massive shape hovering above them. Appa floated steadily, immense and serene despite the chaos below, Team Avatar balanced on his back, ready. She moved toward him, feeling the thrumming hum of power in her chest slow, tethered again by the presence of her friends. Katara met her gaze briefly, eyes wide but relieved, a spark of gratitude passing between them. Sokka nudged her shoulder, grounding her, and Kaz allowed herself a fraction of relief, letting the tension ease just enough to climb onto Appa’s back beside them.
Behind her, Zuko pushed shakily to his knees, unsteady but determined. His gaze remained fixed on her, tracing the spark of danger and raw power she carried, tracking the unspoken currents of energy and emotion between them—betrayal, desire, something smoldering, fierce, and alive. Something that burned as hot and unpredictable as any flame.
Kaz steadied her breathing, forcing herself not to look back for too long. She could feel it calling to her, the draw of everything uncontained, everything dangerous. Because if she did, if she lingered too long, she might burn.
The wind tore across Appa’s back as they rose into the sky. The courtyard shrank below, the smoke and perfume swirling in chaotic patterns. Kaz leaned forward slightly, letting the current of the bison’s flight flow through her, feeling the electric pulse in her veins sync with the rhythm of their ascent. She exhaled slowly, tasting the faint metallic tang on her tongue and letting the tension drain away into the clouds.
The wind tore across Appa’s back as they rose into the sky, whipping Kaz’s hair around her face and carrying with it the scents of smoke, perfume, and ozone. The courtyard below shrank to a patchwork of stone and shadow, smoke curling upward in chaotic spirals, mingling with the last remnants of Nyla’s frantic energy. Kaz leaned forward slightly, letting the bison’s steady rhythm guide her, feeling the electric pulse under her skin sync with the rise and fall of Appa’s powerful wings. She exhaled slowly, tasting the faint metallic tang on her tongue, letting the tension slip from her shoulders and bleed into the clouds.
Her gaze flicked to Zuko, who crouched tense and alert, eyes sharp and guarded, but not unkind. She felt a strange tug in her chest, an echo of memories she tried to keep buried. He had been her best friend once—the one she had trusted completely, the one whose safety had driven her to do what no one else could. Killing Azulon to save him had left a scar on her soul, one she tried not to examine too closely, one she could never fully explain.
She forced herself to focus, repeating the justification in her mind like a mantra: helping Aang would help Zuko too. Every step they took toward the North Pole, every moment of danger navigated together, was a shield, a chance to keep him safe from the fire that had already burned too much. Her fists clenched slightly at her sides, the familiar hum of energy thrumming under her skin as if reminding her that she could protect him, even from afar.
Aang’s voice broke through the momentary silence, soft but steady.
“So… where do we go?”
Katara’s eyes were forward, unwavering, full of the resolve Kaz had come to recognize in her waterbending friend.
“We’re getting you to the North Pole.”
Sokka’s nod followed, calm but firm. “Yeah, we’ve lost too much time as it is.”
Aang turned to them, hope flickering in his gery eyes. “Don’t you want to see your father?”
Sokka’s hand rested briefly on Aang’s shoulder. “Of course we do, Aang. But you’re our family, too. And right now, you need us more.”
Katara added quietly, “And we need you.”
KayLove12 on Chapter 1 Sat 06 Feb 2021 09:18AM UTC
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Snakeinthegrass on Chapter 1 Sun 14 Feb 2021 09:24PM UTC
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Chillingshadow on Chapter 1 Mon 22 Aug 2022 12:28AM UTC
Last Edited Mon 22 Aug 2022 12:30AM UTC
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A (Guest) on Chapter 4 Fri 26 Nov 2021 02:09AM UTC
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Snakeinthegrass on Chapter 4 Fri 26 Nov 2021 03:54PM UTC
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musumusuhasi on Chapter 4 Fri 26 Nov 2021 11:23AM UTC
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nogravityplan on Chapter 4 Fri 10 Dec 2021 05:38AM UTC
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Chillingshadow on Chapter 4 Mon 22 Aug 2022 12:49AM UTC
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