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Perhaps there is a way to put General Iroh back into power, but that's a long way off. It might be simpler to plant the idea of a functional democracy. But those are hard to establish, and harder to keep from becoming corrupt or slaves to the corporate money holders. Already the wealthy have Ba Sing Se in a chokehold, with only the Dai Li to balance out power.

A balance the latter – and the former, I imagine – would gladly upset, if it meant more advantages for them.

Until I know more, there can be no changes. I don't know how the Fire Nation people think, what it is they care about most. If a shift in power to the benefit of the people occurred in the Northern Watertribe, the council would clamber to retain their power, leading to the benefit of only their own families.

So there would have to be measures in place to ensure that won't be a possibility.

As it happens, I believe Arnook to be the best man for the job, although I have no idea who would be his best replacement. I'd keep it being a non-bending family. Benders are already far too influential compared to the non-bending population. But those aren't immediate concerns of mine. Not until after everything is over. That is, the situation with the Firelord and my spiritual problem.

.

We are brought to our sleeping quarters after a tense dinner that I entirely ignore in favour of some booze. Spirits know, I'll need it. Katara is so preoccupied that she forgets to shoot me dirty looks as we sit across from each other.

Aang looks dejected and I know he's the type to want to do something to change that. Only, so far he's been given the options of 'do nothing until we get to Omashu', or 'do everything to achieve the Avatar State'. Seems I need to open his eyes to another option.

We are shown to our sleeping quarters and while the other three choose beds, I close the door and lean against it.

"You know, Aang, it's already been a hundred years of fighting. In the grand scheme, a few more months aren't going to matter," I begin and he looks like he wants to interject something, "No, no, let me finish. You heard our reasoning, but think about what it took the last few times to get you into that state and if you want to relive that every time you need to achieve it."

"That's right, Aang! Remember when we were at the Air Temple and you found Monk Giatsu's skeleton? It must've been so horrible and traumatic for you. I saw you get so upset that you weren't even you anymore. I'm not saying that the Avatar State doesn't have incredible and helpful power. But you have to understand that for the people who love you, watching you be in so much rage and pain that you lose yourself like that is really scary," Katara says, voice growing softer and softer towards the end of her speech.

I didn't expect that. Neither did Sokka, by the looks of it. And Aang, who was so full of fight after my cold reasoning deflates like a hot air balloon.

I sigh, "Aang. Ultimately, it's your decision. But pushing yourself into something that you're not ready for is not going to help anyone. Maybe, with the Northern Watertribe now firmly against the Fire Nation, there are other ways of achieving what General Fong wants at the end of the day."

Sokka, once again, is my helpful ally, "Remember how I told you about my dad? Well, he's fighting the Fire Nation right now. I'm sure, if we can manage to unite all our forces and work together, the Avatar State won't be crucial, but a welcome addition."

Aang nods, still dejected.

I push off of the door and gather the things I need for a bath. There is a note in my pack. Looks like Pakku's handwriting. "How long can you hold that state anyway? How exhausting is it? How often can you use it in a row? For General Fong's plan to work, you would need to be able to hold it for at least an hour, maybe twice a week. More often, if the 'cut a swath' plan is meant to be successfully implemented. I don't really want to see what that would do to you."

And then, I'm back out the door, on my way to the bath.

The note reads Kaito, I expect you have much to tell the Avatar and his friends which is why I do not. They need an ally such as yourself with slightly more experience in the way of people's struggles for power. Never let fear of the unknown cloud your judgement. Take care of them. Pay attention to their needs. You were my best student. Your friend, Pakku.

That old idiot. Still not capable of showing his feelings in person unless drunk and prodded. Not, like I'm any better. So he thinks I should let them know about the comet soon, then. The question is how soon is too soon? They're all recovering. Is it better to tell them now? To hint? To allow them some time to be children? Fong's not too keen on it.

I set about washing myself as I think. Being clean again, after a week on that ship is wonderful. The water's hot and relaxing.

I hear the sound of wet feet slapping on tiles.

"You're a good strategist, you know?" Sokka says and I shrug without opening my eyes.

The sound of a washcloth being doused in water reaches my ears. Oh, right. Not a bender. I slip one eye open. "Want some help?"

"What?"

"I'm a waterbender."

"Oh. Right. Sure, I guess?"

So with some smooth gestures of my hands, I gather the soap with a tendril and work it over Sokka's back.

"Thanks."

I slip my eyes closed. I think I'm going to lose my good constitution if I'll continue to spend my days motionless on a flying bison. I wonder if I can practise bending the clouds. That could be fun. I should try it out when we next fly. Still not enough exercise though.

"Ow!"

"What is it?" I ask without opening my eyes. I might see more than I want to.

"Nothing, just shaving."

I open my eyes. There's a bleeding cut from his jaw to chin. "Didn't anyone ever teach you how?"

His eyes shift to the ground. That's a no, then. What, did Katara heal every cut of his whenever he tried? I run a hand over my cheek. Yeah, it's about time. Ah, puberty. The struggles of growing a full beard.

"Alright then," I get out of the water and wind a towel around my waist.

"Wuh?" he's dabbing the cut with a towel.

I bend some hot bathwater to heal his cheek and clean away the blood. Then, making an icy mirror, I show him how to shave on my own face. Then I hand him my icy blade, sharpen the edge in case it's melted a little and get back in the bath.

When he's finally done, he gets in the pool opposite me and grumbles a "Thanks."

I wave him off without opening my eyes. So many good deeds today. Is this what Pakku meant? Someone to take care of?

Soon enough, Aang joins us. Sokka washes his back. They're unusually quiet.

I use this opportunity to start a waterfight without bending.

Sokka's pretty good at grappling well enough to dunk someone rather well. But I do have some experience over him. There's no wins anyway. Aang laughs.

We all do, actually. Something lightens the pressure around my ribcage.

.

The next morning, I wake up with my hands and feet earthbended to the wall in front of the stairs to the audience hall we were first led to. I can't even twitch a finger. These guys clearly know what they're doing.

Their only mistake is that I've still got my face and something everyone has free. Spit. I remember that one episode with Bumi clearly, and so, when I set about learning under Pakku, I learned to bend with the most miniscule of motions, and because of pride, only with my face.

I take stock of the situation. To my right, there are Katara and Sokka in similar situations to myself. Only, they're still passed out. Aang though, is high on energy and escaping the attacks of around fifteen earthbenders, Fong and multiple guards.

"You can't escape forever!" Fong's got a point. Best get to it, then.

"You can't fight forever!" Aang's also got a point. I'm still escaping my restraints, though.

I gather most of the spit in my mouth and send a tendril towards my left hand. Slowly, with as much concentration as I can muster, I use a click of my teeth to slash my left hand free. The problem with bending with so little water and only my face is the pressure I need to be able to build up to slice through the stone. I need three tries before I get free. Ah, nicked my index.

Sparing a moment to reassure myself that no one noticed, I wriggle my fingers and free my feet, then my other hand. Both Katara and Sokka are still out cold.

Fong is just about to smash Aang to pieces with one of the round earth wheels. Fuck-

Using his distraction, I launch myself at him, smash him to the ground, bend his own spit out of his mouth into an icy spike to hover at his neck, my right hand curled into his hair. All activities halt. "Now, that's no way to be treating guests, is it?"

No one answers. Aang is panting hard, hands on his knees and shooting me an immensely grateful look.

"Now, I strongly suggest someone release our friends, fetch our packs, get Appa and Momo and throw a map to Omashu and some provisions in there."

The benders hasten to do what I demanded and Aang manages to get Katara and Sokka into the saddle. Then, with a vindictive satisfaction, I smash Fong's face into the ground. There is a crunch as his nose breaks.

Once I'm in the saddle, too, Aang takes off.

At least I got a bath out of it.

What I did only worked because they don't want us dead and our continued presence wasn't worth losing a commander for. My threat… I would've followed through. You don't make threats you can't follow through on. Would've gotten me an earful and maybe a separation from Team Avatar, though.

We cross one river and follow the next to the mountain that separates us from Omashu. We decide to take a couple day's rest here. Aang needs some time to sort himself out and so do Katara and Sokka who are still out of it. Aang and I deposit them in the shade of a tree with a few strong-smelling plants nearby to startle them out of it.

"Kaito," Aang says, his face a mixture of curiosity and dejectedness, "How did you manage to get free? I saw how they cuffed your hands and feet."

I give him a grin, "That's an easy one. I can bend with my face."

His eyes grow into gigantic proportions. "What?"

"Oh yeah," I say, jerk my chin and direct a tendril of water from the river to wrap around Aang's ankles and yank him into the air.

"Whoa! That's awesome! Teach me!"

Eh, sure. Not like we've got much else to do while the other two sleep. Other than… making Aang realise that the only sensible thing to do is to master all four elements before the Comet arrives.

So I teach him to face bend.

"Aang, this is about fine control. You know how it goes with air, yeah? Try to find that wispy feeling or whatever you want to call it. Try bending air with your face. Then move on to water."

And he does, he tries and I make dinner, chuckling at the faces he makes.

"Hey, I get it now!"

And he does. A bit. Droplets.

Maybe I should've showed him how to draw moisture from the air first?

Well. This way he'll be able to do it anyway.

"Aang," I say.

He stops, sensing that the topic is a heavy one. He comes to sit by me.

"You realise that what Fong wants, this insane plan he proposed… it's not just because he's losing ground faster than ever before. There is something you need to know. And we should also tell Katara and Sokka, but I want you to come to terms with it first. Because this will determine your outlook on life, on your… world-imposed mission as the Avatar."

"…Okay. Tell me, Kaito."

"It's. Easiest to explain by mentioning what happened to… to the air nomads. I'm sorry to bring this up, Aang."

He shakes his head sadly. I am about to continue when he stands. He's going to leave? Well. Okay then, better find another way to explain-

He sits down directly next to me, pressing his shoulder to my arm and that's basically a request for a hug, from him, so. So I put an arm around him. I have no idea what I'm doing.

"Go on," he says, after some time.

"The reason the Fire Nation could do what they did to your people was what's today called Sozin's comet. It grants firebenders great power while it is close. And it passes by our world every hundred years," I pause, unsure if he's making the connection. "Aang… it will return in about ten months."

"Oh," he says, and pushes his face to hide in my tunic.

…sorry.

.

In the end, Aang returns to face bending and can get a drop of water to fall on my head, but not much more.

Then, his stomach growls and we see what the earthbenders packed for us. There are some fruit and bread. To my delight, there's some booze and to Aang's some vegetables, but no meat. Well, Aang doesn't eat any anyway, if I recall correctly. With combined efforts, we manage a decent soup.

That is what Sokka finally wakes up to, his nose leading the way.

"Hey! Where are we?" he shouts as soon as his eyes open.

"General Fong tried to trigger my Avatar State by drugging and earthbending you to a wall!" Aang reiterates, "Did you know that Kaito can bend with his face? How cool is that?"

And, apparently, that's all the information Sokka needs to prioritise food.

Katara wakes to the sound of their voices, demands to know the same thing Sokka did, in more detail and then eyes me throughout the entire meal. She probably wants to get me to offer teaching her to bend with her face, too. Well, no one said I can't be petty. She's going to have to ask.

I lay back for a nap in Appa's fur and sleep the afternoon away. These kids have never even heard of the concept of taking a watch, so I'm taking all the night shifts.

To keep myself from becoming too much of a vegetable, I go through some forms my father taught me before he died, then I practise my bending with a miniscule amount of water. I got lucky today, but if the earth bindings had been any thicker, I wouldn't have been able to free myself with just that.

There are enough rocks to practise with, thankfully.

Once I've deemed it enough, I find a tree to lean against, not close enough to the fire to blind my eyes to the dark forest.

My thoughts drift back to what I thought about Aang only having two paths pointed out to him. Now, of course, it's back to only the one, but there must be another.

I vaguely remember there being a quote from some pope about injustice becoming justice and therefore resistance becoming duty. The way the Firelord is portrayed in the series indicates that he's actually a tyrant the likes of which this World can't remember having seen before Sozin. He propagates the strength of the Fire Nation and furthers their patriotism blatantly. But there must be some who recognise it for what it is.

Even though this has been going on there for over a hundred years, there must be those who question. Now, if they're smart enough to see through the propaganda and not get caught, how do I find them? They'll either be organised like the White Lotus is, or they will be all over the place and nowhere to be found. The problem with that, aside from the obvious, is that any whispers of anything approaching treason will be met with arrest or a flame to the face.

From what I know, the Fire Nation has forgotten the original way of bending and they channel emotions like anger and hate into their bending. Of course, that requires them to hate something, and so, they are taught to hate all who are not Fire Nation.

Infiltration with features like mine is nigh to impossible. My skin might not be as dark as Katara's or Sokka's, but the difference would be noticeable amongst all the pasty whites of the Fire Nation nobles. And it's the nobles I'd need to have access to, as well as the general populace. Then, there's the blue eyes that no one there has. Sunglasses, maybe, but I haven't seen any yet. I could pretend to be blind, but that's entirely unhelpful.

But I should learn to sense water surrounding me when I can't see well anyway.

Besides, at some point there are going to be wanted posters of us and try as I might, I can't hide my nose. It's the long and slim kind with the typical watertribe crook, so nothing special, but it's so long that it's not forgettable. Makes my face all planes and angles. So, I'm recognisable instead of the average I'd want to be.

Before I worry about that, though, how would I find out about whether there are pockets of sceptics in the Fire Nation or not?

"Hey," Sokka's whisper from his bedroll interrupts my thoughts.

"Hey."

"D'you wanna spar?" he asks, getting up and tiptoeing towards me with exaggerated movements. It makes me smile.

"A spar? I could make us some swords, I suppose."

And so we spar. I'd say that if I hadn't been training with Hahn for so long, Sokka would definitely be better with a sword than me. As it is, I just about beat him. It's good that he's such a fast learner.

.

By the time the sun rises, Sokka is out like a light, exhaustion finally setting in.

I get an apple for breakfast and watch as the others slowly wake up.

Aang and Katara decide to do some waterbending practise.

Soon, Sokka floats about in his underwear. I decide that Sokka's got the right idea and join him. Aang seems normal, after our talk yesterday. Maybe I should've led with Sokka and Katara? Just Sokka? Just Katara? I have no idea. They'll have to know soon, too. Maybe I can talk to Aang again and then we tell them together? Or something?

At some point midday Sokka and I get into a contest of who can balance their knife better on their fingertips without having to get up off the leaf.

Katara and Aang practise their octopus bending, which is all nice and good, the flirting's funny to watch, too. "You make a fine octopus, Aang."

She does help him out of it, though, so the Avatar doesn't die.

"What am I doing wrong, though?" he asks after he's caught his breath.

She shakes her head, "It was probably that while you were yanking on my ankle, you also pulled the rest of the water around you towards you."

Nope, not it, but neither of them know that you can manipulate another's forms so long as you're connected to the source either. I never said I was mature. I'll let them in on it later.

"Yeah, makes sense."

Then, music. I completely forgot about those guys. Man, they've got to have some of the good stuff, if I remember correctly. Maybe they'll be charitable. I haven't smoked since I was reborn.

"Don't fall in love with a traveling girl, she'll leave you broke and broken hearted," the one with the sweeping hair sings and Sokka splashes into the water behind me with a squawk. That one wasn't me. Katara, maybe.

"Hey-hey! River people!" he greets and I raise a hand to wave at him. The Chinese-looking man waves back.

"We're not river people," Katara says.

"You're not? Well then what kind of people are ya?"

"Just… people," Aang says. I get off of my leaf.

"Aren't we all, brother? Woo!"

Sokka walks over, "Who're you?"

"I'm Chong and this is my wife Lily. We're nomads, happy to go wherever the wind takes us."

With that sentence he's got Aang hook, line and sinker. "That's great! I'm a nomad."

"Hey, me too," Chong replies.

"I know. You just said that," Avatar Sassy says.

"Oh," Chong shrugs, "Nice underwear."

Sokka goes to hide. Yeah, I'm thinking they've got the good stuff. Nice. Now how to…

One of the girls begins packing a pipe. Nice. Now how to…

"Want some?" she offers. Nice.

"Sure, thanks," I take a careful drag. No embarrassing coughing, otherwise that'll be my first and last. Ah, just as horrid as I remember. I take another, then hand the pipe back. "What's your name?"

"Shuika. Yours?" she inhales and hands the pipe back.

"Kaito."

And that's that.

I get blissfully high and let her braid my hair that's grown to my chin in the last few weeks. Then we slink off to… well, Sokka and Katara probably know, but so long as Aang doesn't need the sex talk yet, I'm going to keep this PG13.

"Heey, the lovebirds are back," Chong sings once we return to the others.

Katara immediately shoots me her death glare, but I don't really mind. We stumbled across some berries earlier and sharing is caring, so we brought them with us.

"Hey, Sokka, you should hear some of these stories. These guys have been everywhere," Aang says with a flower crown on his head.

Chong replies, "Well, not everywhere, little Arrowhead. But where we haven't been we've heard about through stories and songs."

Sokka is clearly sceptical of this. I hand him some berries. Then I settle into Appa's fur next to Chong. Sokka stares at me a little, then he gets his thought process back on track. That boy needs to learn to relax. Or remember how to. He did so well earlier.

Before Sokka can say anything more, Avatar Happy tries to get Sokka into the mood, "They said they'll take us to see a giant night crawler."

"On the way there's a beautiful waterfall that creates a never-ending rainbow," the Chinese man adds from where he's lying on the ground.

Sokka is not swayed. "Look, I hate to be the wet blanket here, but since Katara is busy I guess it's up to need to get to sidetracks, no worms, and definitely no rainbows."

That's… man, I'd have liked to see that waterfall. Maybe even surf down. I think even Katara would be up for that. Aang definitely.

Chong imparts his next bit of wisdom, "Whoa... sounds like someone's got a case of 'destination fever', heh. You're worried too much about where you're going."

His wife nods and gestures with Katara's braid, "You've gotta focus less on the 'where' and more on the 'going'."

Sokka is clearly not into that. "O. Ma. Shu." The facial acrobatics he can perform are impressive.

"Sokka's right. We need to find King Bumi so Aang can learn earthbending somewhere safe," Katara chimes in.

"Well, sounds like you're headed to Omashu," Chong deduces. Sokka is so unimpressed he smacks his own forehead. "There's an old story about a secret pass… right through the mountain."

"Is this real or a legend?" what is with these two? Always so sceptical.

"Oh, it's a real legend," I snort at that. Chong is pretty funny. Then, he begins playing the song about the tunnel and the other nomads save Aang dance to it.

"Thanks, but we'll just stick with flying. We've dealt with the Fire Nation before. We'll be fine," Sokka proclaims. I don't sweat it. I can go along with whatever.

"Yeah. Thanks for the help, but Appa hates going underground and we need to do whatever makes Appa most comfortable," Aang says.

True to his words, we get into Appa's saddle and take the areal route. It turns into a bit of a rollercoaster ride with fire elements involved. I decide to try out my skill with cloud-bending. I'm pretty good. Maybe it helps that I'm so… floaty. It's all quite fun, really.

The others don't think so, though, and so we return to where we left the nomads.

Not Aang's dead relatives. The musicians. Yeah. It's. Maybe not the best idea to get high at the moment with so many concerns floating – clouding? – about in my head. Too late. Must be fate.

And there is the gate.

To the cave. Of love… yeah. Sure.

Fuck love, though.

Fuck life.

Fuck it all.

We're still doing this.

Sorry, Appa.