Azula held a few suspicions that Zuko was in fact the mysterious and enigmatic Blue Spirit, but now she was absolutely certain. That may have made the Blue Spirit considerably less mysterious and enigmatic, but it was hardly a major loss. They were just words to her in any case. But it did make the irony of the impromptu meeting they were all holding together in the Fire Lord’s throne room all the more delicious.

“So…this ‘Blue Spirit’…snuck into my palace and helped my brother…escape,” Ozai rumbled, leading a nervous silence that had the Minister of Justice sweating buckets, relieved at last by a carnal fury that sent the flames surrounding the Fire Lord’s throne to the roof, and they could see the Fire Lord standing tall, a formidable presence even without the flames, “this is the heart of the Fire Nation! How could this happen!?”

“We strengthened security after the night before, Oh Fire Lord…” the Minister of Justice remained sitting straight with what shreds of dignity he could muster. Cowering for forgiveness was worse than committing suicide as far as Ozai was concerned, “whomever this ‘Blue Spirit’ is, his skill and determination must be formidable to counter our defences. We must do whatever it takes to hunt him down!”

Ozai paused to consider this turn of events, sitting back down on the throne. Azula was kneeling upright next to Zuko, as grim-faced as ever, and still feeling excluded as evidenced by his continued refusal to wear a uniform or a top-knot, but she could tell the nervousness swelling underneath that hard surface. She was positive he was the Blue Spirit. It made perfect sense, since Zuko had momentarily disappeared during the festivities last night, and he was the one person who would have access to the Royal Dungeons and the motivation to free Uncle. Azula was starting to wonder why the other assembled generals and ministers hadn’t the remotest clue that the real enemy was in their midst, but then she was frequently annoyed at the failings of others. That was a problem she planned to rectify sometime soon.

“This worm that bested the Royal Guard must be found and dealt with,” Ozai commanded, “but Iroh is of greater importance. I want him found, and I want him killed on sight. I want one of you to dedicate yourselves to this task.”

Here is when a beautiful plan comes together, thought Azula. There were only two people in that room with the capacity and experience to engage in wild hunts around the Nation: Zuko and herself. Zuko could never bring himself to hunt down and kill his own uncle, so he would be given the ‘lesser’ task of hunting down the Blue Spirit. Let’s see how adept the proud and fierce Fire Prince Zuko is at hunting himself.

Actually, she didn’t need to see. She already knew. The search for the Avatar had defined Zuko in many ways, and without that, she had observed, Zuko had wandered listless through the halls of power for the past few days. He had come back and singularly failed to live up to his father’s love, just as she knew the weakling wouldn’t, and could never dare support his uncle publicly because of her staged assassination attempt. Publicly, he had to meekly go along with whatever his father said, and try to help his uncle privately. The contradictions would break him apart, leaving him diminished as a person, a hollow shell.

Azula smiled at Zuko’s pained silence. Her plan, set in motion she felt ever since she was born, was about to trample yet another block in its path. The impurities were being cleansed, one by one. The grainy, lumpy sand was being burnt, smoothed, and purified into clear, beautiful glass. A reflection of herself, as flawless as the still, midday waters of Pingfang Bay. Confident there would be no interruption, she breathed slowly before speaking.

“I will deal with Iroh,” Zuko firmly announced.

Azula stumbled. Her plan was supposed to be perfect. But there was no mistaking the stare Azula gazed into. He meant it. Every single word. Zuko remained still, that nervousness swelling inside him firmly locked tight, as he calmly asserted himself. Ozai was uncertain himself, but it was hard to tell behind those high flames and that darkened face.

“You had better not fail me, Prince Zuko,” Ozai spoke to his son impatiently, but Zuko’s gaze never wavered.

“I will not fail,” Zuko, who for the first time looked straight in his father’s shadowed face, “because I know where he is going.”

“What!?” Ozai flared up again, and stood to face down the scarred prince. Everyone except Zuko and Azula briefly flinched, “tell me where he is! Tell me if you know!”

Zuko paused, still unflinching, and Azula could tell he was gearing up to something large. What could he possibly have up his sleeve? He’d know where his uncle is if he helped the old kook escape, but then why free him in the first place? Zuko spoke with absolute certainty, “it is my belief that the Avatar is alive, and I believe Iroh knows this as well.”

Azula was not used to being stunned. It didn’t come naturally to her. She took upsets and miscalculations as minor upsets in the grander narrative of her drive to perfection, but right now she was calculating a 50/50 chance between the Fire Lord either being too shocked to reject Zuko’s insane announcement or roasting him right now for his incredulity. Amazingly, as Ozai slumped back down, it turned out to be the former.

“You will not have many resources for this fool’s errand, Zuko,” Ozai subtly threatened, “but regardless of the Avatar, you must bring me Iroh’s corpse or I will have yours!”

“I will, father, and I do not need many resources,” Zuko confidently stated, “Iroh will search for the Avatar, or his companions, and when he finds them…we will have them both in our grasp.”

Azula was starting to sense the machinations in Zuko’s mind. Fine, she thought, let Zuzu have his well-laid plans. She was going to track down his mysterious alter ego, and make an example of the deluded, imperfect, scarred prince. The greatest example of all the imperfections she would rid the world of, picked apart to the bone and ground into fine powder.

The Fire Lord’s commands were set in flame, there in the red, humid confines of the hard-surfaced throne room, and Ozai’s children set about their tasks, one way or another.

The sun was directly overhead now, and the group had sat down next to the bill-board with their backs against it, apart from Toph who lay some distance away in the middle of the road, arms clutched around knees and head hidden away from the rest, breathing steadily but fretfully. The rest looked down at the ground in front of them, utterly lost. Momo was looking at all of them with interest, but they paid no attention to the winged lemur. They had lost all urge to do anything except slowly melt in the middle of that clearing.

“That’s it, I’m tired of giving up!” Sokka smacked a fist against the ground, “no matter what, we need to keep going!”

“That’s nice, Sokka, but I’m not done moping yet,” Katara explained with little effort behind her voice, “there’s nowhere to go to. The only Firebending masters who could help us are all gone.”

“Oh sheesh! Couldn’t we find a Firebending teacher from around here and just not say Aang’s the Avatar!?” Sokka gesticulated.

“That’s not how it works, Sokka,” Aang commented, looking up at the warrior, “there must be absolute trust between a teacher and their student. You just can’t trick a master and expect to learn bending, especially since we’ve got less than three months to do it in.”

“Okay, okay, scratch that and your stupid magical ‘trust’ thing…” Sokka pondered in a funk, “we just can’t let the Fire Nation win!”

“We can do the best we can,” Katara sighed, coming to terms with things, “we can help in the defence of our homes, and frustrate the Fire Nation however we can.”

“The best we can do isn’t good enough,” Aang concluded, “when the comet arrives, there won’t be anything we can do that would make more than a dent against the Firebenders. There’s only one thing that can stop the Fire Nation now, that can bring peace…and I can’t do it…”

The final conclusion was so abjectly true that it ended the conversation right there. Sokka’s one moment of pro-action shot to pieces. Nearly unnoticed, Toph’s head poked out from out of her arms towards the direction of the nearest road, and she achingly rose to her feet, saying brokenly, “there are soldiers coming.”

“We can’t take any chances, we have to hide,” Katara rose to her feet and picked up Momo to be moved, while Sokka picked up the backpacks and ran quickly towards the trees. Toph followed hesitantly, eyes hidden by her tufts of black hair but cheeks bright, patchy red. They were all inside the tree cover before Sokka turned to notice Aang was still leaning up against the bill-board.

“Aang! What are you doing!?” Sokka whispered harshly. The boy took no notice of him, and just sat there unmoving. There was nothing they could do then as the Fire Nation soldiers approached the bill-board. They just hoped the Avatar knew what the heck he was doing.

The soldiers that approached numbered only three, not enough for a regular patrol, and marched irregularly. The moustached leader of the squad held a bundle of posters in his left hand and a pike in his right. When they noticed the red-clothed boy leaning against the bill-board, they paused in their tracks until the leader came slowly forward and knelt down next to the fuzzy-haired kid.

“Hi there, little guy,” the soldier remarked warmly, “what are you doing all the way out here all by yourself?”

The sandal-footed boy looked mildly startled, as if knocked out of a deep rest, and he giggled a little, embarrassed, “sorry mister, I guess I just zoned out there. Don’t worry, I’m just waiting for someone. He won’t be long.”

“Yeah well, tell your dad to be more careful next time he leaves you around,” the leader stood back up again, “could you move, kid? We need to put a couple of posters up.”

“Oh! Sorry!” the boy stood up and dusted himself off, moving aside as to let one of the other soldiers walk up to the bill-board and splatter paste across a swathe of it, “I don’t want to be in your way. Oh hey! You want me to show you this new game I thought up?”

The leader analysed the kid for a good few moments before finally relenting, smiling expressively, “I think I’m ready to be impressed.”

“Okay,” the 12-year-old leant down to pick up a stick, and drew a circle in the dust, “what you do is, you draw a circle, and point the stick in the middle. Then you just let the stick wander all over the circle, moving whichever way your mind wanders, and just let your brain rest while you’re doing it.”

The kid did a little experiment, and came up with, unsurprisingly, a blobby mess. Wanting to try it out, the leader handed his soldiers the posters and leant down to take the stick and draw a circle of his own, following the boy’s instructions, “you know what, kid? I might remember this. It’s actually pretty relaxing.”

“I know! And you can have some fun figuring out what the shapes are,” the boy claimed. The soldier did so, and briefly chortled to himself before ruffling up the kid’s hair with his hand.

“You know what? You’re a good kid,” the leader noticed the bill-board work was finished, and stood up to lead the soldiers away, while reaching into his pocket and producing a small copper coin, flicking it towards the boy, “here’s for the game. Your father must be proud to have such a smart little guy.”

“Thanks, mister!” the small, fragile boy caught the penny in mid-air and waved the soldiers away. As soon as the soldiers were out of Toph-distance, the group wandered out of the trees in something approaching a daze. It was like they were watching a completely different person just now. Toph couldn’t even tell he was lying, but then again he gave few clues during the conversation. He just seemed like a…cute…Fire Nation…kid.

“What was all that about!?” Sokka floundered, “you could have been caught! And then all our hopes really would have bought the big one! What were you thinking!?”

“I don’t know…I just…did it,” Aang looked down at the copper piece, confused with himself, “but hey, we got some money out of it!”

Aang flicked the coin cheerfully up towards Sokka, who grabbed it while continuing to stare evilly at the red-clothed, sandal-wearing, short-haired…Firebending…young boy. Katara was too surprised to pass comment on Aang’s performance, only feeling a tinge of concern. He acted like nothing happened, but it was so huge, he just acted like…a normal kid. She didn’t know where to order it, whether it was even good or bad, and her attention drifted to the first of the posters pasted onto the edge of the bill-board. An electric shock jolted up her spine.

“Iroh’s alive…” Katara rushed forward to look at the familiar face illustrated on the poster, the late answer to all their dreams bursting through the haze of disappointment, “Toph! Iroh’s ali-”

“Yeah, I knew it the whole time,” Toph dismissed cheerfully. She had abruptly appeared right behind Katara, and apart from the puffy red around her eyes and convulsive sniffing there was little evidence that Toph had even been overly concerned, much less distraught. Toph had her arms crossed, “so did he escape?”

“Yeah!” Katara read excitedly, “in the middle of the night, right under the Fire Lord’s nose! He’s on the run right now! The poster wants people to keep a look out.”

“Wow. All the way out here?” Aang pondered, wandering forward and smiling at the kind, authoritative face looking back out of the poster. Their hearts finally felt as warm as the scorching day, now they had such an ally on their side. Aang sighed, “he’s that good, isn’t he?”

“You bet,” Toph let relief seep into her confident speech, and Momo had flown up onto her shoulder to look at the posters with them…even though they weren’t particularly edible. Toph smiled, “he’ll help us. I’m sure of it.”

“We’ve got more on our side than just the Dragon of the West, you know,” Sokka peered at the second poster, “look at the handsome face that rescued him.”

Aang’s eyes wandered over to the second poster, and abruptly seemed to shrink in their sockets. He was staring at a mask, painted blue, with fearsome white tusks and terrible black eyes. He’d seen that face before, and he never wanted to see it again.

“The Blue Spirit is in the Fire Nation?” Katara interceded almost as excitedly as before, “this is even better news!”

“Hey yeah, I heard of the Blue Spirit!” Toph interjected, “he’s meant to be this super-dangerous masked man who fights against the Fire Nation.”

“Not quite as dangerous as us, I hope,” Sokka crossed his arms pleasingly, “but I guess we can give him a head-start.”

“I just wish we knew who he was,” Katara sighed at the illustration of the masked man.

“Yeah…me too…” Aang murmured, staring into the eyes of the mask. He felt himself being sucked into their darkness. To Katara and the others the Blue Spirit was a romantic hero, a brave fighter for their side in the struggle. But when Aang saw into those eyes he felt the sharp broadswords against his neck, the voiceless menace, and the scarred face behind that mask.

Toph could sense something going on with Aang, and raised an eyebrow towards him. She couldn’t fathom his relationship with the Blue Spirit, of all people, a man of myth who she didn’t even think was real until just now. Saving Iroh from the heart of the Fire Nation of all things.

“All that matters is that he freed Iroh, that’s more important than anything,” Sokka reminded them all of his importance, “he’s free now, no thanks to a certain Fire Prince I could name-”

“Sokka, stop it,” Katara said calmly and earnestly, turning her eyes away.

“Well…I didn’t…” Sokka protested. Toph could sense that same sense of hurt in Katara again. People were hiding things, acting strangely.

“We need to help Iroh,” Toph tried to get the discussion back on its most important topic, “we have an obligation to help him.”

“As much as we need him to teach Aang Firebending,” Sokka argued, “there’s not much we can do until he gets out of the Fire Nation.”

“He’s not coming out,” Aang looked at both the posters, “we’re the ones going in.”

“Aang…” Katara started, stopping herself as Aang turned to face them all. All their attention, even Momo’s, was rapt on the small, fragile figure, the most important in all the world.

Aang looked on all 4 of them, animal and human alike. He could tell they already knew what he was going to say, but now he wasn’t sure it was the Avatar’s job to say it…to these, his closest friends. But Aang wasn’t sure he could say it. In that clearing along the Fire Nation-built colonial road through the dense forest, under the hot summer sun, humid beyond reason and hundreds of li from where this journey started, a new path opened up before them, a path a hundred times more dangerous than before, and a path he wasn’t sure any of them would emerge from alive. Here, he couldn’t speak as the Avatar, that great and powerful being beyond the reach and scope of mere mortals. He had to speak as Aang. He had to speak as the 12-year-old boy with a hole in his back, the decider in a group of vulnerable children, responsible for the entire world, having chosen a fate that none of them were under any illusions would be easy, only that it had to be done.

“We’re going to the Fire Nation.”

End of Chapter 1

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