#atomicwrites

A bell rang from another side of town, and the women waved at him as they dispersed from the doorway, laughing and talking amongst themselves.

“Don’t pay them any mind,” Shenzu said, drawing Zuko’s attention back to the table and the group of men he sat with. “Aunt Wu spoils them, that’s why they’re like that.

Zuko shrugged and picked up a bowl of rice and his set of chopsticks. “Happy women make for a happy village.”

That sent a ripple of laughter through the men immediately gathered around him. “Yeah—these women sure are happy enough now!”

“What do you mean?”

“They were all brothel workers. Aunt Wu bought the contracts of every woman working in a brothel that she could get her hands on, and brought them all with her when she settled here,” Shenzu explained.

“Them and the others,” another man to Zuko’s right said.

Someone beside him cuffed the back of that man’s head. “Don’t talk about them like that. Aunt Wu’s given them a chance that no one else wanted to.”

Zuko rested his rice bowl against his thigh. “Gave a chance to who?”

Again, Shenzu spoke up, his voice even and subdued. “Warriors who got very badly burned. Every inch of them is wrapped up in bandages, the burns are so bad. A lot of people got caught up in some nasty battles, and Aunt Wu’s got a soft heart. She helped when everyone else turned their backs on them.”

The scar on Zuko’s face suddenly became a point which every man in the room avoided looking at directly.

“It’s from an angry spirit,” Zuko told them without anyone needing to ask about it. “It touched me before I drove it away. I’ve been following it to try and stop it once and for all.” His gaze dropped to the half-empty rice bowl in his hands. “Before anyone else can get cursed like me.”

A low murmur went through the room. One man came over to sit beside Zuko. “You should talk to Aunt Wu about it,” he said with a mouthful of rice. “She may have a soft heart for people, but spirits don’t shake her at all. You should have seen the way she dealt with Ozai!”

“Yeah—to think we were giving it gifts all these years! Who knew we just needed to shoot it?”

“Well, we couldn’t have done that even if we’d’ve known. Not before Aunt Wu showed up.”

“Who’s Ozai?” Zuko interrupted, feeling a sharp sliver of dread form in the pit of his chest.

“Who’s Ozai?” the man echoed, incredulous. “Only the spirit of the volcano! We used to go up to the rim every year and take offerings to it to keep it from blowing up and destroying our whole village. But then Aunt Wu showed up with her warriors and rifles.”

“Rifles?” The word tasted strange on Zuko’s tongue, acrid and sharp. It made him think of the smell of his face after the spirit had touched him. He didn’t like it.

“A weapon that lets us nonbenders fight back with iron and fire.” The man holding the rice bowl beside him gesticulated sharply with his chopsticks, sending a few grains flying. “Some of us are earthbenders, but we never stood a chance against spirits like that before. We’re real lucky Aunt Wu decided to come to town.”

The dread in his chest grew until it felt like there were shards of it pressing against his lungs. “Why did she come here?” Zuko distantly heard himself asking.

“She heard about the iron in the ground beneath this town, but we’d mined all that out years ago. She thought there was more further up the sides of the volcano, but fear of Ozai making the volcano erupt had always stopped us from clearing the forest and finding out,” Shenzu continued. His voice wavered and Zuko wondered what he’d seen.

The other man next to Zuko laughed, half-eaten rice sticking to the sides of his mouth. “Well, she was right. Soon as she got rid of that spirit we were able to get at a whole lot more iron.”

A warmth grew within the scar on his face, making the ruined skin feel tight and painful. Zuko clenched his teeth. His face began to burn as it had when the angry spirit—Ozai—had touched him, and he recalled exactly how large the swath of burned forest around his home was. Fury began boiling deep within him, like a fire in his belly that he did not ignite, and he had to take a few deep breaths to calm his flame before it erupted from his fingertips. Before he could stop himself, he lifted his hand and pressed fingers against the outer edge of the scar, willing it to stop throbbing.

“What’s the matter?” Zuko recognized Shenzu’s voice out of the angry red haze that had settled over his senses. “Does your… face still hurt?”

With a controlled release of breath, Zuko lowered his hand from his face and held it tightly against his lap. “I was just thinking how angry the spirit must have been, wounded and driven from its home. How full of hate for humans it must have become.”

Silence hung in the air after he spoke, thick and unsettling, like too much grease in the stomach from roast duck.

“Aunt Wu’s ready for you,” a young woman announced from the doorway, her voice cutting through the stillness. Everyone in the room knew who she was talking to—there was no need for her to name him. Zuko put his unfinished dinner down and stood, giving the men in the room a mild bow of thanks before following her out.

The woman, who introduced herself as Meng, led Zuko down a dirt path through the center of the village. “You’ve caused quite a stir here,” Meng told him as they walked, and Zuko could not tell if she was amused or irritated by him.

“I didn't mean to,” he said, looking around the village with interest. It was different from the one he grew up in, and the presence of the massive tatara made the architecture have unusual additions he’d never seen anywhere else, a strange combination of Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom. “I just followed the spirit’s trail. It led me here.”

Meng sent him an unwavering look, but said nothing more. Zuko contented himself with the silence, though he wondered how they saw his arrival. He hadn’t outed himself as a firebender yet, so he wasn’t sure how warm their reception would remain if that became known. As they neared the other end of the village, the growing sound of singing filled the air. A great slash of light and shifting shadows stretched out across the path not too far ahead of them. When they reached the light, Zuko stopped and stared at its source—the inside of the tatara bellows. A shift of women were steadily working them, their plain hippari short and allowing them to move without hindrance. They sang in a rhythm to help them all move in time—and, Zuko supposed, to pass the long shift they worked with some form of entertainment.

Standing in the wide doorway, Zuko watched the women move and sing. When Meng cleared her throat to get his attention, he didn’t move his gaze at first, then slowly turned and rejoined her.

She led him up a small incline to a wooden house with actual shōji, unlike the cloth-covered open frames most of the other buildings they’d passed along the way had. Aunt Wu was inside, scrawling notes on a scroll. When he entered, she set her brush aside and smiled at him.

“Good evening, stranger,” she said. Though it was a polite enough, innocuous greeting, there was something about it that struck him as sharply astute. It reminded him of his uncle in a way, wherever he was now.

Aunt Wu nodded to Meng, who took this as a signal and left them alone in the room, the fusuma clacking quietly as she closed it on her way out. Once she left, the older woman turned her gaze back to him. “Now. To what do I owe the pleasure of someone from the homeland coming here? Surely you’re not here to steal my rifle design—a firebender doesn’t need it when he has the real thing.”

His eyes widened. “You know I’m a firebender?”

Laughter filled the room, bright and thoroughly amused. Zuko kept his face as impassive as he could, though he could feel his traitorous eyebrow trying to inch its way up his forehead.

“Like knows like, my dear boy.” Aunt Wu rested one hand on the writing desk that held a lattice for scrolls and her writing brushes. “Don’t worry, I won’t give your secret away. The people here have come to accept me as one, but they’re still Earth Kingdom. They still fear the power of destruction we wield.” She watched him as he shifted a little uncomfortably under her gaze. “Now, tell me what brings you here.”

Zuko lifted a hand to the left side of his face, his fingertips touching the skin just below his scar. “This.”

With no immediate further explanation from him, Aunt Wu’s eyes narrowed just slightly. A slender line of silence stretched between them, and he made himself remain steady and unwavering beneath her gaze, his hand falling back to his side.

“You’ve been spirit-touched,” she said at last.

“Cursed,” he corrected, and the curt edge to his tone made her eyes focus on his again. “An angry spirit attacked my village, and burned the entire surrounding land in the process. I drove it away and then chased after it, hoping to stop it before it could curse anyone else like it did me.” As hard as he tried, as much as he hoped, Zuko knew he had not succeeded in that. He’d seen too many burns being tended in the villages he passed through on his way here, too many patches of scorched earth.

Aunt Wu’s eyebrows both went up, though her expression remained carefully neutral. “And so you came here.”

Zuko nodded.

Abruptly, she stood, her long haori robes skimming the ground. She folded her hands inside her sleeves. “Will you walk with me, stranger? I have something to show you.”

Unsure but curious, Zuko nodded.

She led him through a few corridors of her home before walking out a doorway in the very back of it. A few wooden steps off the engawa took them down into a lush garden, full of all kinds of herbs, vegetables, and flowers. Zuko even recognized a small section of tall, awned wheat spikes that bobbed gently in the air.

“My private garden,” Aunt Wu said as she continued through, leaving him to trail a few steps behind. “I’ve tried to get fire lilies to grow here, but they just won’t last. Only a few have even made it past sprouting.”

“Must be the climate,” Zuko said, feeling awkward and off-put at so mediocre a conversation as gardening. He’d been waiting for her to make the connection that he knew she had set the spirit here on a rampage by driving it out, but instead she was taking him on a tour. He frowned.

“Perhaps.”

Passing through the garden, she followed a dirt path that ended in a stream with a small, flat bridge overtop it. Just beyond that was a smaller house that butted up against a wooden wall within the outer wall that surrounded the entire village. Aunt Wu led him there.

It was a simple wooden house, about a third of the size of Aunt Wu’s machiya, with no engawa surrounding it. Unlike the rest of the village buildings, and even the machiya, it had a hinged door. Aunt Wu opened it and went inside first, clearly expecting him to continue following her. Zuko lagged behind for a moment, then stepped in.

Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn’t the sight that greeted him.

About a dozen people were in the house, some working at a low table on long pieces of wood and metal that formed an instrument Zuko didn’t recognize, some lying down on woven tatami mats. They were all wrapped nearly head to toe in bandages. Despite himself, Zuko’s eyes widened. These were the burned warriors that Shenzu talked about.

“Hello, Aunt Wu,” one of them said. She smiled at them and went over.

“How are you all doing this evening? Do you need anything?”

The concern in her words was genuine, Zuko noted. All at once he felt even more an interloper onto something private for which he shouldn’t be present.

“We’re all right,” a woman said, her head tilted up toward Aunt Wu. Zuko could see parts of her face beneath her bandages, and the shadows of burn scars there. “We’ve finished with the next prototype you asked for.”

“Excellent. I can show off your wonderful work to my guest.” Aunt Wu didn’t motion toward him, but all the eyes in the room turned his way. He felt exposed in a room where other burn victims were covered in bandages. Zuko wondered if theirs still burned hot as well.

“A guest, hm?” The bandaged woman who’d spoken before turned her head carefully to look at Zuko. Only one eye peered out at him, the other completely covered. “Not another addition to your special forces?”

A ripple of quiet laughter spread through the room, including Aunt Wu in its wake. “No,” she said. “He saved some of our people earlier, and brought them back to us alive.” She bent and picked up one of the wooden and metal instruments off the table and hefted it, testing its weight. “This is better, but I think it’s still a bit too heavy,” she told the bandaged woman, who laughed.

“I’m not sure we can make it any lighter. It won’t be able to fire as well if we do.”

Aunt Wu smiled, a bright motion. “I know that you can,” she reassured them. “And without losing and of the punch it needs. But, I need something that won’t be too heavy for the girls.”

Looking back to him from the nodding woman, Aunt Wu’s smile faded to a more schooled expression. “Follow me.”

She crossed the room through the seated people to a ladder that extended up through a hole in the roof. For holding something in one hand and being a woman of greater years, Aunt Wu climbed the ladder with familiar ease. Zuko wove his way through the room and followed her up. Once they stood on the roof, Zuko saw the cleared land beyond the wooden wall that surrounded the village, and the darkness of the forest beyond that. Beneath his feet, there were little soot marks dotting the roof itself, but they didn’t look as if they were from firebending.

“Look.” Aunt Wu broke his thoughts, and he did as she instructed, lifting his gaze from the soot marks. She now stood with the long wooden and metal instrument on one shoulder, its open end pointed out toward the forest.

When she didn’t explain further what he was supposed to be looking at, Zuko took the few steps forward to lean his hands on the wall. Something moved in the dark between the village and the trees.

“What is that?” he asked.

“Spirits,” Aunt Wu replied. “They come by night after night, trying to replant the forest.” With a sudden scowl, she snapped her fingers and lit a wick sticking out of the metal part of the instrument on her shoulder. It lit and burned quickly. Zuko watched with wide eyes as she pulled on a trigger and made a hammer-like object the wick was attached to snap down. An instant later, a blast of flame and smoke erupted forth from the open end of what Zuko now understood to be what Shenzu called a rifle. The sound loud and made his ears ring for a moment, and the firing itself made Aunt Wu jerk back from the force. A distant thud followed soon after the ringing faded from his hearing. He looked back to the cleared space of forest ringing the village to see the spirits there had scattered and were headed back toward the thick of the tree line.

Heat rose briefly in Zuko’s scar, but it faded as soon as someone spoke again, though it wasn’t to him. She leaned back to peer down the hatch they’d come up.

“How does it fire?” The bandaged woman’s voice drifted up from the house.

“Smooth as silk,” Aunt Wu called down. “But, still too heavy.”

She looked back up to Zuko, drumming her fingers along the wood of the rifle once. “Would you like to try, stranger?”

Zuko shook his head when she held out the rifle to him. “No,” he told her simply, then turned his gaze back out toward the forest. “You know they’re not going to stop until the forest comes back,” he said. “That’s all they want.”

He didn’t have to look at Aunt Wu to know she was scowling. He could hear it in her voice. “They can want it and try all they like, it’s not going to happen. I helped these people carve a better place for themselves in this land, and a couple of mindless spirits aren’t going to undo all that work.” There was a pause between them. “Why do you defend them? You’ve been cursed by one of them by your own words. Help me drive them away for good. Perhaps then your curse will be lifted.”

Part of him wanted to laugh at the suggestion, but his mouth tugged down into a frown instead. “No,” he repeated. “That wouldn’t solve anything. You have to find a way to live in harmony again with the spirits, or all this will just end badly.” He lifted a hand to skim fingers over the ruined flesh of his cheek. “I know that first hand.”

Instead of any kind of sympathy, Aunt Wu said sharply, “You sound a lot like that damn waterbender.”

Surprised, Zuko turned from the forest back to her, one hand still resting on the wooden wall. “Waterbender?”

“Yes.” Aunt Wu rested the butt of her rifle on the roof and didn’t meet his gaze. Now she was the one looking out toward the forest. “Runs with the spirits almost as if she’s one of them, and attacks her own kind—us—instead. She’s the reason those people you saved earlier were in danger in the first place.”

His frown deepened. Fighting on either side wouldn’t only instigate the other further, but he didn’t know how to stop it. He didn’t know if he could, or even if he was the right person to do so. He’d followed a single angry spirit to try and stop it, and came upon a far more complex situation than he’d anticipated. Zuko longed for the wisdom his uncle could have provided.

“Will you help me?” Aunt Wu cut through his thoughts. “Will you help the people here defend their home and their livelihoods?”

It tore at him. The villagers deserved a chance to make their lives better, but it shouldn’t be at the cost of the spirits of the world. They should all be in this together, not at each other’s throats. He had no answers.

“I will help wherever I can,” he said carefully.

That didn’t seem to wholly satisfy Aunt Wu, who fixed him with another piercing look. “I’ll hold you to that, stranger.”

He climbed back down the ladder, alone, but hadn’t made it halfway to the door out before a weak voice called out.

“Boy,” the voice said. It was difficult to tell through the rasp if the person was a man or woman. Zuko stopped in his tracks and turned toward the source, gaze finding a person in the back corner entirely covered in bandages, including their face. They were also missing an arm and a leg from the knee down.

“Stranger,” they said again. “Aunt Wu took us in when no one else would. They sent us to fight and then condemned us for coming back not whole. She cares for our burns and scars herself, makes sure we’re comfortable as can be.” The person was overtaken by a coughing fit, and a few others nearby shifted as if to try and help them. The coughs subsided.

“This village was like us, scarred and dying. It was under the whim of a reckless spirit that would never care about the people here. Then she came and helped it get on its feet again, helped the people throw off the shadow of the volcano. Now it’s thriving.”

Zuko swallowed, hearing threads of his own conflicted thoughts echoed back at him.

“I won’t let anything happen to the village,” he said, hearing his own voice crack. “But I can’t sit by and let other spirits be driven mad and do to others what one did to me.”

He couldn’t be here any longer, couldn’t stand to hear more. His heart would surely crack listening to how these people had been helped by the woman whose actions resulted in him being cursed. Zuko fled the little house and went back out through the garden. The way through the machiya proper was easy enough to remember, and no one barred his exit. Soon, he was back out on the streets of village, his heart pounding and trying to swallow down the ache in his chest.

It wasn’t until a wave of golden firelight bathed him in heat that Zuko realized his feet had brought him to the tatara forge. He stopped in the wide doorway and watched the women work the bellows, moving together in steady rhythm with one another. The distraction was welcome.

One of the women lounging on the worn tatami against one wall inside the forge recognized him from when he arrived earlier that day. She waved at him and he went over, recalling her name was Lan Yi. “Hey! Look who it is! How do you like Makapu so far?”

“It’s been very welcoming,” came his mild reply, his gaze drifting from her to the women working the bellows. Their attention was divided now between him and their work. “You all must work very hard here,” he said, marveling at all the kinds of strength these women had as well as feeling his heart break a little that it required such hard labor. But, this was the Earth Kingdom, and taking pride in the work they did was in their blood; he would not insult them by suggesting otherwise.

The women around him laughed heartily. “Yeah, it sure is. But we love it. It helps Aunt Wu and it helps the town, so it’s more than worth our effort,” Lan Yi said. Her grin widened into something almost sharp. “The men all think they have the hardest job, lugging all that raw iron and cutting down trees, but they wouldn’t last a single shift here.”

Zuko’s gaze followed the women working, not saying anything for a moment. Then, on a sudden whim, he asked, “May I join in for a little while?”

Lan Yi and the other women exchanged surprised looks, but in the end she just gave him a shrug. “Sure, if you think you’re up to it.”

He undid the ties of his hippari and shed the layer of clothing, stepping up to one of the women on the bellows and giving her a small smile. She glanced at him twice and blushed a bright red at his bared chest, tugging at the front of her own hippari in an attempt at propriety. Zuko barely noticed, being far more focused on stepping in at the right time and picking up the rhythm they had going.

A few of the women on the bellows with him whooped a bit, the hems of their hippari flapping. He was so focused on trying to make sure he wasn’t slacking among them that he’d picked up the pace and stepped deeper than any of them with his longer legs.

Lan Yi laughed somewhere behind his shoulder. He didn’t look back, but kept his concentration on the bellows.

“I’m impressed,” she said, not really sounding all that impressed. “But, you won’t be able to keep up that pace. Our shifts here are four days long.”

“It sure beats working a brothel in the city!” another woman chimed in from his other side. Several laughed.

“You got that right,” Lan Yi said. “We get good square meals here, and the men don’t bother us unless we want them to.”

That sent another wave of laughter through the women. Zuko didn’t join in, now completely set on the bellows. It was hard work, and he respected the women even more for their dedication to it. Sweat quickly formed and rolled down the trough of his spine, but the exertion felt good. Especially after the conversation with Aunt Wu and her rifle makers, which left his heart hurting and his gut twisted. This was honest, simple work, and he threw himself into it for as long as he could.

After some time—longer than Lan Yi had expected, she readily crowed when he surpassed all the bets the ladies had going on how long he’d last—Zuko finally threw a glance over his shoulder. The women there took immediate note of his signal and stepped in while he stepped off.

“Good job, stranger! I haven’t seen a man last that long at anything in my life,” Lan Yi said with a wide grin. She handed him a thick strip of cloth.

He accepted it gratefully and wiped the sweat off his face and neck. “It felt good,” he agreed. “In a really tiring way.”

“Well, you’re more than welcome to come back any time and do that again. We certainly enjoyed ourselves—and the break was nice too!”

Despite himself, Zuko chuckled. Both the bellows and the women who worked them were like a breath of fresh air after everything else earlier in the evening. “If I’m ever back this way again, I’ll be sure to take you up on that offer.”

“You’re leaving already? You just got into town today.” Lan Yi grew serious.

He shook his head. “Thanks, but there’s someone I’ve got to find in the forest.”

A shadow passed over Lan Yi’s expression, and she looked at the woman to her left momentarily. “You must mean that waterbender.”

Before Zuko could ask her what she might know about the waterbender in the forest, a clamor from outside interrupted their conversation. He tugged on his hippari and tied it shut, then jogged to the open doorway to see what the commotion was about.

“The waterbender,” Lan Yi said darkly behind him.

“Good afternoon, Master Katara.” A pleasant voice broke up her thoughts.

She smiled and glanced back over her shoulder as Zuko’s uncle joined her at the prow. “Good Afternoon to you, too. Another nice day, isn’t it?”

“Yes! The weather has been very kind to us this trip. I must admit,” he continued, standing next to her and looking from her to the sea, “I am quite surprised that my nephew has decided to make our journey back with more leisure than is his custom.” A smile spread across his face and the corners of his eyes crinkled. “But, I am not complaining—whatever the reason, I welcome it.”

A soft noise cousin to a hum signaled her agreement. “Me, too. I love sailing, and it feels like it’s been a long time since I was out on the open sea.” Katara’s shoulders relaxed as she followed Iroh’s gaze. “And sometimes it’s just nice to take your time.”

“You are right, and very wise to understand such a thing at your age. It is a bit of wisdom that I often worry my nephew will never quite take to heart.”

Katara laughed. “Oh, I don’t know. Once Zuko’s put his mind to something, he follows through to the bitter end. Maybe you just need to convince him slowing down is something he needs to learn to do.”

“Ah, that is something that I have been trying for years now, I’m afraid.” His eyes were merry, and focused on her in a way she might have thought calculating had it occurred to her. “Perhaps it is a thing better left in another’s hands at this point.”

Before she could think to say anything, he continued, “Would you join us for lunch, or shall I leave you to the sea for a while longer?”

Katara hesitated, but then pushed off the rail. “The sea will still be here, I’m pretty sure. Lunch sounds great.”

Lunch turned out to be on the observation deck, where she could see the ocean anyway. Iroh brewed a ginger and orange blossom tea, which he declared would compliment their food marvelously. Katara was pouring it when Zuko joined them.

“Ah, Nephew. I am happy you could join us,” Iroh exclaimed as Zuko took a seat at the end of the table, where he could see both of them.

“The food should be up soon,” Zuko told them, taking a cup from her with a nod of thanks. He lifted it beneath his nose. “Is this a new blend, Uncle?”

The old man in question lost half his face to a grin. “You are developing quite a good nose; it is.” He gesticulated gently as he spoke. “I wanted something simple, yet complementary to go with our lunch.”

“We’re just having leftover curry,” Zuko said. “It’s not anything to make a special blend for.” Still, he took an appreciative sip of the tea.

Two crew members brought up their food and Iroh turned his attention to thanking them. Katara took advantage of his distraction and leaned close to Zuko. “I think your uncle just likes experimenting,” she said in a quiet voice that did nothing to hide her amusement.

The way his mouth curved made part of her chest fill with warmth. “I know. It reminds me of the years we were on my ship. He was always having us make port for different kinds of teas… and anything else interesting that caught his eye.”

The dip in his tone made Katara giggle. “I sense a lot of stories there.”

Zuko rolled his eyes. “You have no idea.”

Bowls were placed before them and a thick curry ladled into them, accompanied by smaller bowls of rice. The curry smelled like it was going to be spicy, and she found herself looking forward to the heat. Katara peered at it, wondering just when she had developed a liking for spicy foods.

“It’s not too hot,” Zuko said suddenly. She blinked up at him, and his cheeks tinged with color as he shifted his gaze away from hers. “I mean—I know you’re not as used to spices as us—you know, hot spices.”

Katara could not resist a little affectation. “By now I’ve gotten used to dealing with heat,” she said, and he looked at her again, bemused. “Zuko, you remember I’ve been on the ship the whole time, right? And I was in the Fire Nation for several weeks, living off the spicy land.”

Iroh chuckled across the table from her, and Zuko’s face reddened more, but he didn’t back down. “Should I see if the cook can whip up some east island dishes for you then? Those even make me sweat sometimes.”

His challenge made something winch a little tighter in her belly. “You’re on. I bet I can handle it just as well as you can.”

The smirk that he sent her way stoked the competitive spark in her, and she suddenly wanted to drag him down to the deck and go toe to toe with him. She hadn’t had much chance to stretch her bending since the war ended, and never with Zuko. She wondered if they sparred as well as they fought together.

“Zuko,” she began, idly twisting her wrist to stir her curry, “what do you think about getting a good workout in while we’re still on the ship?”

Almost as soon as she asked, he started coughing, slamming the porcelain spoon in his hand down on the table. Katara glanced worriedly at Iroh, who seemed unperturbed.

“Nephew, are you all right?”

Zuko waved them both off and reached for his teacup. After a few sips, he calmed down, though his face and neck were still flush.

“I didn't realize an offer to spar would be so surprising,” Katara droned.

“Sparring!” Zuko echoed. “Yes. No, it wasn’t—yes. I would very much like to spar.”

Katara took a spoonful of curry to hide her smile. It was spicy, but not so much that it burned the subtleties of flavor away. While in disguise during the war, she had tasted a few foods from Fire Nation markets that she couldn’t even tell what they were supposed to taste like, they were so spicy. This was good, though—a nice heat down the back of her throat while still allowing her to savor it.

“How about later today, then?” she offered.

“No, no, no. That won’t work at all,” Iroh interjected, quite adamantly. Both Zuko and Katara stared at him. “It’s the end of the week,” he said, as if that were a fitting explanation.

At a loss, Katara looked to Zuko for some sort of elaboration. Instead of giving her an answer, however, he closed his eyes and his shoulders slumped.

“I forgot,” he groaned. “Can’t we just… skip it this trip?”

Iroh gasped, utterly aghast. “Nephew, how could you even suggest such a thing! The crew has come to expect—no, anticipate it!”

Tired of not knowing what they were talking about, Katara pressed, “Anticipate what? What’s going on?”

“Music night, of course!” Iroh beamed at her; Zuko looked as if he wanted to dunk his head in the curry. “Once a week, the crew all gathers with instruments for song and dance.” He lifted his spoon in a vague salute. “It was our custom during the war.”

“That actually sounds like a lot of fun,” Katara said, rousing another beleaguered sigh from Zuko. Ignoring him, she looked, bright-eyed, at Iroh. “Can anyone join in?”

“Of course,” Iroh told her, sounding delighted she had taken to the idea. “Do you play?”

“If there’s a morin khuur, I just might.”

Zuko perked up, just a little, with curiosity. “A what?”

“It’s a string instrument of the Water Tribes,” his uncle answered. “But, I’m afraid we do not have one—I have not seen, or heard, a proper morin khuur in many years.”

“Oh.” Katara tried not to allow disappointment seep into her voice, but she sounded crestfallen even to her own ears. She tried to pick up the pieces and brighten her tone. “That’s okay, I can just listen.”

Iroh stroked his beard, already lost in thought. “Even though we don’t have a proper one, we do happen to have a kokyū on board. It is not the same, but quite similar. I am sure that its owner would be delighted to have you play.”

An old aching hollow settled in her chest, but she smiled and nodded as if it hadn’t. She had years of practice pushing back any of the sorrow she felt from the loss of her culture, so the suppression was second nature. Of course there weren’t any morin khuur on board. Katara wondered if they would find her khoomei singing to be barbaric, or simply exotic and different.

Those were unfair thoughts to have, she realized, and did her best to quell them. So, she deftly changed the subject and they finished out lunch with pleasant conversation; Iroh seemed just as happy to talk about something else, and she guessed Zuko was probably glad for the change in topic.

Afterward, Katara excused herself to return to the rail again. Her thoughts wandered back to music night and she chastised herself for falling back into old, bad habits. Letting out a breath in a rush, she leaned out over the edge of the rail, her hair stirring in the wind.

Closing her eyes, she breathed in deep the brine smell of the sea, and let the spray in the air settle into her skin. It helped her find her center again. She felt so off-kilter lately, from her decision to stop traveling around with Aang to the faded traditions of her Tribe still digging hollow within her. She wasn’t entirely certain going to the Fire Nation to be a Water Tribe Ambassador was the right thing for her to do, but it was something that she chose to do. It was her suggestion, it was her choice to offer herself for that role, and that, at least, felt right.

She felt warmth, as if someone had brought a torch into her proximity, and didn’t need to look to know who it was.

“I’m sorry,” Zuko told her.

Now she did look at him, casting a glance back over her shoulder amid her curling hair. “For what?”

He leaned against the rail. “You don’t have to come to music night if you don’t want to, let alone participate.”

He sounded so deflated that Katara had to laugh. When he shot her a confused look, she turned, putting her back against the rail. “Why don’t you like your uncle’s music night?”

“It’s just…” He let out a breath. “So frivolous. I was so intent on finding the Avatar that any unrelated distractions just made me angry, I guess.”

“So why are you still moaning about it?” She leaned over and nudged his shoulder with her own. “You might end up liking it now that you’ve got real free time.”

Zuko snorted. “I’m not sure anyone in the Imperial Palace actually knows about this mythical ‘free time’.”

“You’re not at the palace now,” Katara pointed out. She craned her neck back almost enough to see the ocean stretching out behind her. “We’re out in the middle of the water with a week or more left before we rejoin civilization. So why not live it up a little?” She lifted her head to look at him again, only to find his gaze already on her. It made her feel warmer.

The smile he offered her was soft at the edges, and while not wide, it reached his eyes in a way that made the heat in her spread.

“Maybe I will.”

Later in the afternoon, one of the crew approached her with a worn case in hand. The helmsman turned out to be the owner of the kokyū Iroh mentioned, and he was more than happy to show her the fingerings along the neck and let her handle it to get a feel for it. It was all at once familiar and strange in her hands—the body was smaller, the neck shorter, and the timbre of the whole instrument was much higher than the fiddle her mother had taught her on, but the basic mechanics were the same. It took her a little to get used to the different spacings of the notes, but she could play it passably. Well enough for an informal music night on a ship in the middle of the ocean, anyway.

It wasn’t until after the sun set that the crew gathered on the foredeck. Katara didn’t notice at first, sitting perched upon a crate and plucking quietly at the kokyū strings. When it became nearly too dark to see, she joined the crew, surprised by how many had come. It seemed only a skeleton crew was left to run the ship.

Feeling a bit awkward carrying an instrument not actually hers—or even of her culture—Katara took an empty spot to settle in. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea, she found herself thinking. She didn’t know how one of these things actually went, and what if her music was too strange for all the Fire Nation sailors, or she didn’t play this instrument as passably as she thought she did…

A swell in the conversation around her interrupted her worrying, and she refocused her attention. Several torches and a few grated canisters had been moved to form a circle of light in the center of the deck, illuminating the deck for everyone to see. A group of three men settled not far from her, each with a different sized drum nestled in their laps. One of them idly began a beat; she presumed this meant it was starting.

Iroh’s laugh came from one side, and she craned her neck to find him. He was talking with a man carrying a gekkin, and they both made their way into the circle of light. Katara hadn’t yet seen Zuko, and she wondered if he was going to sit out after all. Part of her was glad—he wouldn’t have to see if she did fumble her song—but another part was disappointed; she was hoping she’d play well enough that he might enjoy hearing a song from her Tribe.

It seemed all the other crew members were far more relaxed than she felt, and she wondered if they were all part of Zuko and Iroh’s old crew. She soon was drawn out of her thoughts when the gekkin player began. The other drummers joined in, handing out an upbeat tune to start off the night.

The gekkin wasn’t alone—after the first song was over, another joined in with a liuqin to complement and pluck around the more melodic wanderings of the gekkin. By the time they went into their third song together, several of the crew were dancing to the cheers of others. Everyone that passed by Katara had rosy cheeks, and it dawned on her that they were drinking, as well. It reminded her a lot of Aang’s dance party in the cave, only more raucous.

Listening from her seat, Katara plucked along with some of the melodies she knew or could pick up quickly, and only partially out of nerves. She hadn’t played—or sang—in a really long time, and while she was honestly looking forward to it, she also worried about how she’d sound. She did not think of her mother or the nights in their home around the cooking fire she spent learning to play the morin khuur.

She was so determined not to be lost in thought about the past that she wasn’t aware Iroh had come up to her until he put a gentle hand on her shoulder. Startling a little, she looked up at him.

He smiled, cheeks rosy and the wrinkles around his eyes deep. “Are you still willing to play for us?”

One fortifying breath was all she needed to give him a firm nod. She was ready. Sitting a little straighter, she nestled the kokyū between her knees and picked up the bow. The drums quieted, waiting for her to play. She started slow, languidly reminding her fingers of the different fret spacings this instrument had. Despite being an octave or so higher than it should be played, Katara found the winding melody she was searching for. The dancing crewman slowed to watch her, and she kept her eyes on her fingers, coming to a pause with the bow. She couldn’t stop her grin as she leaned into the next part, lifting up the melody into an easy, faster rhythm; the drums picked up after only a few repeats. It was a simple tune, the melody played overtop the drone of the other strings—there was one more than she was used to—but it was driving and she could forget that she wasn’t playing around a Water Tribe communal fire. Almost unbidden, her voice came bubbling up through her throat and she hummed the melody line before mustering the last bit of her courage to sing Tribe words to this crew of Fire Nation sailors.

She was rusty, she knew that, and it was by no means perfect—especially to her own ears. But she sang. In the ancient words of her Tribe, she sang the joy of her people finding land beneath the ice and building a home there, and the Fire Nation sailors thoroughly enjoyed themselves. How much of that enjoyment was augmented by alcohol, she couldn’t say, but if it was, she was grateful for it. It was pleasant, having such an enthusiastic audience.

When she finished, she could feel the last notes reverberating in her bones. Finally looking up from her fingers, Katara was taken aback by the sudden burst of applause and foot stamping that commended her. Her face hurt and she realized that she was grinning; even if it wasn’t the traditional instrument or people listening, it felt good. She felt good.

Bowing deeply to the helmsman, she handed back his kokyū with breathless thanks. He asked her to show him how to play like that, and laughing, she agreed. She searched for Zuko, then excused herself and looked for him. Maybe he would dance with her if she could find him, informally.

“I didn’t know you spoke another language.” Zuko said a little bit away from her, once more leaning on the rail and looking out at the salt-dark of the ocean.

Smiling halfway, Katara shook her head. “I can’t. I only know a few songs in the Tribe tongue. We don’t really speak it anymore.”

No sharp sorrow tinged her voice; it was not something she personally forgot, but that had been lost before she was ever born. A slow erosion from her culture the way that water carved away ice over the course of years.

“What’s left of ours is mostly in old poems,” Zuko said, and she was as surprised by that as she was grateful it wasn’t an apology.

“Really? Do you know any?” She joined him at the rail and absently wondered how many times during this trip they would find each other here.

He was silent for a long while. Then, so quietly she almost didn’t hear him over the sound of the music and laughter and waves, he said, “I don’t know if I can do this.”

She lost no elation from the music; she felt herself soften. He didn’t have to explain himself for her to know what he meant; she felt the same way.

“You can,” she told him earnestly.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Zuko—” The way he looked at her when she said his name made her breath hitch for a moment in her throat. Her cheeks warmed and she angled her head to look out over the waves. “You know, I don’t know if this is even something I should be doing,” she said, subdued but not timid. “It makes me feel like I’m abandoning Aang, like I’m running away from my responsibility to him.”

“You’re not—” Zuko shook his head. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. You’re not wrong, but you’re not entirely right, either. I’m his friend and teacher, and I’ll always feel responsible for him. He’s still a kid in a lot of ways.”

Zuko snorted softly. “We’re all still young. I’m not the youngest Fire Lord ever crowned, but I’m the youngest to rule without a regent before I officially come of age.” He let out a heavy sigh and ran a hand through his hair. “Now that we’ve established we both don’t know how to do something we’re not even sure we should be doing in the first place…”

Katara laughed. “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it. Look,” she said to his incredulous glance, “we’ve overcome a lot of things I would have never thought possible, that I used to question a lot.”

“Like stopping my family?”

She reached out and gave him a playful shove. “Like becoming really good friends. I didn’t know if trusting you again was the right thing to do, or even something that I could do.” Her hand came to rest on his arm when he cast his gaze down at his hands and she knew his memory was in the catacombs. “But we did anyway, and I’m really, really glad that we did.”

He looked up at her then, hope and vulnerability and something a little too raw drawn clearly across his face. “You are?”

Swallowing the sudden thudding of her heart, Katara nodded. “I am. I’m also really nervous about being an Ambassador, but I’m going to do it anyway, too.” She paused for a breathless moment. “And I think it’s something I really want to do.”

Zuko shifted until his hand found hers, and then her fingers were encased within his. He gave her hand a warm squeeze. “I’m really glad you’re going to be there.”

“Me, too.”

He leaned back on one arm, bent at an angle that aggravated an old, sharp pain there. Feeling the tremors that rattled around the aches in his joints, he stared up in petrified awe at the amount of control and power the Southern waterbender girl now wielded. Would she drown him? Freeze him?

Or would the exiled Prince be the one to kill him?

It was strange; time seemed to slow to a stop in that moment, as suddenly and completely as the rain had stopped around them. A bizarre calm fell over Yon Rha as his gaze flickered from the rain to the waterbender, to the exiled Prince. He contemplated the possibilities of his imminent death.

He’d killed the waterbender’s mother with fire, so perhaps the Prince would be his executioner. Wouldn’t that be poetic justice? The firebender who thought he’d killed the last Southern waterbender, killed by another firebender under the real last Southern waterbender’s employ.

But then he looked back at the waterbender herself and saw the fury in her eyes, saw in them the terrifying savagery of the sea.

She would be the one to kill him, he was certain.

Like a phantasm, his own words echoed cruelly up from the depths of his memory—I’m afraid I’m not taking any prisoners today—and he watched her shift her weight, circle her arms up and back behind her head, then thrust them toward him.

Dull light glinted sharply off the water in the air, taking some horrific form he couldn’t bear to see. Yon Rha squeezed his eyes shut, cowered behind his own crossed arms as if that would do anything, counted his hammering heartbeats like a mantra—what I did was wrong, what I did was wrong, what I did was wrong—

Coldness surrounded him, did its best to leech the last bits of warmth from his body. This was it. This was his death come for him, after so many years.

Except it didn’t.

His heart still hammered in his chest, shaking his bones. His breath still hiccuped in his throat. Slowly, fearfully, he opened his eyes and the sight that greeted him undid the tenuous hold on his bladder. It was the only warmth now trickling anywhere along his skin.

More ice than he’d seen in years hung in the air before him—right before his face—arching backward high into the air, and puncturing the earth around him, as if she’d been trying to outline his silhouette. Each shard that she held aloft looked like glass, broken from some great window somewhere and honed into points more cruel than any worked steel blade he’d ever seen. She didn’t even have to have good aim toward anything truly vital—he would become a sieve the moment she flicked her wrist the right way and impaled him to the ground in a hundred different spots.

But she didn’t move.

And then it all came crashing down with a single step back that she took.

The weight of a rainstorm fell upon him all at once, drenching him—washing off the contents of his bladder—the ice released back into water as cold as the frozen South that was her home.

And then Yon Rha was on his hands and knees in an instant, groveling in the mud and his own piss on the ground. Pleas and meaningless words came tumbling out of him as he kept his eyes on a point between his trembling hands. “I did a bad thing! I know I did and you deserve revenge, so why don't you take my mother? That would be fair!”

Now he did dare to look up at her, and immediately regretted it.

The look she gave him shook him to the very marrow of his bones, set a chill deep inside him that he suspected he would never get rid of for the rest of his days. It was cold, her gaze, and hard as ice, frightening as the midnight depths of the sea he’d always feared as a sailor.

All she said to him, naming him pathetic, sad, empty—he barely heard her over the rush of blood in his ears and over the frantic tumbling of his own mind, trying to figure out why she hadn’t impaled him. What could she want from him? What could be more terrible than to die with his lifeblood staining ice red?

When he spoke again, his voice was no more than a whimper, but he didn’t have any strength or presence of mind left to muster. “Please, spare me.” Hot tears ran freely down his cheeks and mingled in the mud on the ground.

The only thing he heard from her answer, and even then it took a moment to truly sink in, was that the waterbender wasn’t going to kill him. He lifted his gaze to her, mouth curving up in a sudden exhale of relief—but then was cowed again by the ferocity of the scowl the exiled Prince aimed at him.

Even then it was clear he wasn’t going to do anything, wasn’t going to go against the waterbender’s decision. She walked away from them both, and the exiled Prince followed in her wake. Yon Rha was left alone and shaking in the slanted rain.

He knew why Prince Zuko didn’t kill him, even though he saw the same fury, the desire to do it in the younger man’s eyes.

The waterbender had made her choice, and if Yon Rha had been in Prince Zuko’s place, he wouldn’t have dared go against her wishes—spoken or unspoken—either.

For the first time before, during, or after his lengthy career in the Fire Nation Navy, Yon Rha found himself doubting. After serving their glorious nation and the determined iron will of their Fire Lord, with whom he had the distinct honor of meeting a handful of times, Yon Rha found himself doubting.

Against the elemental power and control and raw force the waterbender wielded, against the matched impassioned and clear devotion to her he saw in the Exiled Prince, could even the prodigy of the Fire Nation truly withstand an onslaught from both of them together?

Blustering for a moment, Steiner snapped, “Oh, and I suppose you want me to think the nobles of Treno are the thieves?”

“They are.” Marcus felt the control on his anger slip a little, lifting his chin just slightly to glare over Dagger’s head at the knight. “All those damn nobles do is bring more money and frivolous luxuries to one half of the city, while the other gets less and less and crumbles for it. And then they blame the slums they helped create and perpetuate for making ‘their’ city look bad.”

“So you want noble families to just hand out their money to people with none? Somehow I do not think that will work.”

Marcus took a breath, cooled the rising anger. The wind carried a faint scent of the sea and it helped him push down more argumentative words. “No, I don’t want that, and most people living there—I don’t mean the nobles—don’t want that, either. They just want better chances to make a living.” He shifted the baldric across his chest, thumb running along the underside. “Give the chance to have a better life they can work toward, instead of unending poverty deep as a pit and just as difficult to get yourself out of.”

“Surely it cannot be as bad as all that,” Steiner protested still, but now doubt drew lines across his brow and crept behind his eyes.

Dragging his eyes away from Treno long enough to send as neutral a glance as he could muster at Steiner, Marcus simply said, “You’ll see.”

Without waiting for an answer, he started down the slope toward the city , the dirt path that had vanished beneath the tall plateau grasses forming again. Now that they were arrived at Treno, Marcus’ thoughts sobered, returning to Blank and the reason for his journey to the city. The last week seemed like a step out of time in some ways, and he had to admit that he’d been distracted by Dagger—and even Steiner’s—company, and not entirely unpleasantly. He wondered how much more somber a trip alone would have been.

None of that mattered, Marcus reminded himself as they neared the outer walls of Treno. Despite Dagger’s earlier insistence of wanting to help, he was sure he’d be able to lose them easily once inside the city, and get the job done with out any possibility of them complicating things.

As if reading his thoughts, Dagger spoke up from her usual spot at his side.

“I imagine there’s a place we’ll meet up with a contact of yours once we get in the city?”

Something twisted a bit inside him, the lie readily on his tongue and yet unwilling to loose it from his mouth. “Yeah,” he heard himself saying instead, “there’s a spot Tantalus frequents.” It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth. He didn’t have to outright lie if he was going to slip away regardless, and he realized all at once that he didn’t want to lie to her.

“Hopefully they’ll have some information on which noble might have the supersoft,” Dagger went on, oblivious to his deception. Her voice was hushed as they passed through the ornate wrought iron gateway to the city, making they way into the large rotunda square that received all who entered Treno from the plateau.

“Not many nobles live here full time,” Marcus began.

“Probably because thieves abound and conspire to steal from them,” Steiner interrupted, earning a frigid glare from Marcus.

“People like me, right?” Marcus’ voice held the sharp edge of a threat along his words. Before Steiner could bristle with a reply, he shook his head. “Let’s just grab the supersoft and get this over with.”

“How dare you!” Steiner snapped. “Do you think I’d let you commit a crime before my very eyes?”

Marcus grinned because he had no intention of them being around when he obtained the supersoft in whatever manner he needed to. “What, are you going to arrest me? We’re not in Alexandria anymore, Pluto Knight Captain, and you’re out of your jurisdiction. You have a better suggestion on how to get it? Think we should just mosey up and ask nicely if the kind and generous noble who has it will just give it to us to save my friend?”

The knight stepped toward Marcus, on hand balled into an angry fist. “Quiet! I will not suffer such brazen disgrace!”

Just beyond Steiner’s shoulder, Dagger caught Marcus’ eye and made a motion with her head. He couldn’t tell if she was indicating she wanted them to ditch the knight, or if she wanted him to keep Steiner distracted while she slipped off. Marcus remembered her mentioning sightseeing the architecture—of course she didn’t want to slip away with him. All the easier to ditch them when they were the ones leaving first, Marcus told himself.

Eyes sliding back to Steiner, Marcus drawled, “I never asked you to come along,” to keep the knight occupied while Dagger jogged away down a long and winding stone street. “Quit complaining.”

Steiner’s voice dropped to a frustrated hiss. “Don’t you talk back to me! First of all—”

It was too much for Marcus to keep a straight face as Dagger’s orange overalls vanished completely from view, and he let out an involuntary snort of laughter.

“Do not interrupt me while I’m talking!” the knight scolded. “Princess, we cannot abide this vagrant’s…” He trailed off as he turned to find Dagger no longer in their company. Frantically scanning the area, he only found the confused and mildly frightened stares of Treno’s denizens.

“Princess!” Steiner called out, and Marcus could have cuffed him for being so immediately indiscreet, except that his wild searching provided a short window of opportunity for Marcus himself to slip off.

“Not again,” Steiner moaned as Marcus went off in the opposite direction Dagger had gone, weaving his way through a group of people walking past and concealing his departure. The rest of Steiner’s words faded behind the constant chatter of the city. Marcus passed through a leaning wooden frame that served to mark the passage to the poor’s slums, high above the graceful canals and stepping stone walkways of the waterfront.

It’d been some time since Marcus was in Treno last, and peering down at the lower levels, he could see that not much had changed. The estates were all well-kept and as extravagant as ever, and the huge slabs of stone that made the walls holding up the upper walkways carefully maintained so that only the most aesthetic ivy grew unobtrusively along it, acting more as cultivated decoration than natural growth. A curling sneer pulled at his lips when his eyes fell on the lavishly carved and painted domes sitting atop the King of Wands’ estate. The four more decadent of the noble’s estates sat in a diagonal across from one another, each in a different quarter of the city, each as outrageously opulent as the other three. Each one as guaranteed to stoke Marcus’ irritation every time he saw them. He couldn’t imagine what it was like to live here, with constant gilded and marbled reminders of people squandering gil while the upper levels of the city fell into ruin.

Angry at each delicate trellis and every artfully sculpted, free-standing column in Alexandrian fashion evenly spaced along the canal’s gentle edge, Marcus dragged his eyes from the extravagance and continued along a wooden platform that spanned a crumbling gap in the stone walkway.

The walls might have looked picaresque at the canal level, but they were falling into ruin at the top. At least, Marcus thought, it kept the structure intact, instead of being derelict at the base. Small comfort.

Where everything was maintained the same for the nobles, here there were several new additions of wooden patchwork to fill in the larger breaks in stone—the smaller ones were too numerous to all get to. Instead of pruned ivy, the walls and walkways of the topmost level were spotted with an oily lichen, and moss grew out of many of the widening cracks between stone slabs.

As he walked, Marcus noted a few more thin buildings than there were last time he had been this way—they leaned against one another, the older structures against the new, to try and prolong their integrity before the family inside had to rebuild or find somewhere else to sleep at night. Feeling a tight pain in his hand, Marcus realized he was clenching it into a fist so tight it hurt, and he let out a slow and controlled breath, releasing his fingers. The disparity of poverty in this city, to have a ramshackle shanty town overlooking people with more money than they could ever spend in a lifetime and have it be so ignored grated against every nerve inside him.

An inn came into view to his left, nestled back from the walkway on wooden planks and shouldered in-between two other narrow buildings, just as run-down and hastily repaired as the inn itself. Outside, in the middle of the walkway, a young man and woman were pacing and talking, agitated.

“They exploited us to make their money, right, Sis?” the younger of the two, a boy, said. It was obvious he was looking more for an affirmation than a true answer to his question.

His sister nodded emphatically. “Right. But we can’t just sit here and complain, or we’ll end up spending our lives in this miserable place. We gotta do something.”

At her words, Marcus’ attention piqued, and he felt the involuntary race of his heart. Perhaps there was hope, he caught himself thinking rapidly, his pace slowing to catch the rest of their conversation. Perhaps a younger generation would refuse to pick up the dregs left by the nobility and start leveraging change.

“Power to the people! Right, Sis?”

All at once Marcus found wild thoughts spiraling out in his head as he listened. What if someone could mobilize the people living here, get them to form some sort of committee to make themselves be heard? What if they could put together a petition to get relief or help from Alexandria or Lindblum and rebuild the top levels properly? What if they got a big enough crowd together with a single purpose and a list of demands—and compromises, he grudgingly added, knowing the nobility would never simply wholly agree to anything without getting something in return—to start building the lives they could, should have here?

The young woman’s voice cut through his thoughts. “That’s right. Power to the people. We’ll never go hungry once we become nobles! Follow me, Mario!”

And with a single sentence, all the optimistic thoughts Marcus had cracked as the two walked away together, further along the stone path beyond the inn. He closed his eyes and let out a sigh.

It was all wrong—the idea they could get ahead by becoming part of the problem. Maybe if he were more politically minded, or more tied to a place, he’d help get ideas closer to right planted in people’s minds, start a motion toward betterment. He opened his eyes and closed off the part of him that wanted to help. But. It wasn’t his city.

He scrubbed a hand over his face, forcing such thoughts aside and clearing his head. He had a job to do, to save Blank, and couldn’t afford to get distracted by things he couldn’t change.

Leaving the stone walkway, his footsteps echoed dully on the wooden platform that lead back to the inn, the door creaking as he opened it. Inside the inn, it was cluttered on one side, spare bedrolls and threadbare blankets and pillows all stuffed in the space from the floor to a loft platform’s underside. An old rope ladder stretched up to the loft, where there were several thin mattresses laid out. A counter sat in the middle of the room, two uneven shelves on the wall behind it with a handful of liquors on them and an older man with half-moon spectacles perched on his nose hunched over an open book wider than it was long. Off to the other side of the counter was a set of stairs leading down to a landing beyond view. Liado, the old man, was marking notes down in an inventory ledger and did not notice Marcus when he entered.

Marcus cleared his throat to get Liado’s attention. “Hey there. Is everything okay?”

Startled by the sudden voice, Liado slammed the book shut on his own fingers and winced as he turned to face Marcus. “What the hell are you talking about?” He glared over the half-moon spectacles at Marcus with no recognition.

Used to this flaw in memory retention that Liado had, Marcus shifted a little and waited patiently for the man to remember who he was.

“Hey,” he said finally, eyes widening as he finally placed Marcus’ face. “It’s you! Where have you been, Marcus? It’s been close to—what, three years since I last saw you!”

An amused smile fought its way across Marcus’ mouth. “Only two, Liado. But you know me; been around.”

Liado chuckled, a rasping sort of sound that bespoke the man’s preference for smoking, something Marcus would have known from the scent of smoke lingering on his jacket even if he hadn’t shared several pipes with him in the past. “The man’s waiting for you,” Liado said, one of his eyebrows arching, the slant of his mouth a simper one.

Giving a small nod of acknowledgement, Marcus made his way around the counter and down the creaking stairs. A loud sneeze echoed up from below the landing, and Marcus’ mouth drew into a thin line. Baku liked his sniffing powder too much for Marcus’ tastes—shaking loose memories too near to his own mother’s addiction to the dreamwine that eroded away her life when it got so bad she refused to eat or drink or do anything but consume the damn stuff.

Stuffing those thoughts back and away, Marcus continued down the second flight of stairs and joined Baku on the next floor down, the space long and narrow. Tall as he was, Baku stood half a head taller, even without the long ears that perched atop his head. He gave Marcus a stern look through the goggles he wore.

“Yer late,” he groused.

Marcus shrugged, expecting that. “A lot happened,” he replied with no further explanation. “Left me kinda tired.”

He had something of a unique relationship with the current leader of Tantalus—mostly stemming from the fact that he’d been in Tantalus before Baku ever joined it, let alone began heading the troup. Marcus had only been a young child then, still learning under the wing of his mother in the young Tantalus of those days, but he’d been there. Though she’d never said anything about it specifically, Marcus was fairly sure he was born on the Prima Vista, flying between one venue and the next. By the time Baku joined as one of the actor-thieves, Marcus had already learned the difference in weaponry—the dulled blades of the stage, the honed steel for back alleys and protection on the road, the words and demeanor that could be just as deadly and effective as any sword.

Most of all, he’d been enamored with the plays his mother performed in. She was the best in Tantalus—man, woman, or otherwise—and was regularly cast for the vast majority of the leading roles. As he grew, he learned she was also one of the best thieves they had. She taught him everything he knew, on and off the stage, and was tougher than wrought iron on him—and when Baku joined, she taught him, as well.

Eventually, she left the troupe and ended up killing herself of neglect, and eventually Marcus went back to Tantalus. There was a familiarity between Baku and himself that almost translated to something brotherly, but not quite, that almost borderlined on insubordination, but not quite. If anyone else talked to Baku the way Marcus sometimes did, they would earn a beating twice over before they could say another word, but from Marcus, Baku chose to ignore it. Mostly.

“No excuses,” Baku went on curtly, and Marcus immediately knew either something terrible had happened or he’d found something. “You’re ready to go.”

His heart rose in his chest and he felt a nervous knot twist his stomach. “You found it?” It was almost too good to be true. “You found the supersoft?”

Baku nodded, handing him a folded slip of paper, then turned away from him. “Yeah, in a noble’s mansion. You’ll go by boat and break in tonight.”

They’d finally done it—after weeks of searching, of tapping old contacts, of bribing and intimidating, they’d found where the supersoft was.

“Leave it to me,” Marcus said emphatically. “I’ll make sure we get it and save Blank, no matter what.”

His back still to Marcus, Baku’s shoulder slumped just a fraction, but it did not go beyond notice. The bigger man walked to the next flight of stairs down, hands clasped behind his back and a sombre note to his voice now, a direct contrast to the giddy elation Marcus felt at the news.

“Yeah. Except now you’ve got two liabilities coming along.”

The reminder of Dagger and Steiner sent a host of mixed emotions surging through Marcus as he turned to watch Baku descend the stairs. No words formed when Baku paused to glance back up at him over the banister along the stairwell, and Marcus knew he could not keep his face from falling. Baku nodded as if he’d expected this.

“I thought as much. You sayin’ nothing confirms my suspicions you agreed to let them tag along.” The disappointment ringing through the accusation broke the dam welling up the words in Marcus.

“It wasn’t like that—”

“I don’t wanna hear it, Marcus.” For once, Baku snapped at him. “Lemme say this just one time: you get that supersoft for Blank like you said, no matter what, or you and I are gonna have a problem. Don’t let either of those two get in your way. Got it?”

Taken aback by the ferocity of Baku’s threat, Marcus nodded. “I got it, Boss.” He didn’t use the term often, and so he laid it out now to try and convey how serious he was. Baku had to know that he wouldn’t put a chance to save Blank’s life below whatever moral scruples either Steiner or Dagger might try and convince him of.

Scrutinizing him through narrowed eyes, Baku seemed to accept his answer. “Be ready after sunset. And maybe you’ll get lucky and they won’t show up.”

He vanished through the door at the bottom of the stairs, leaving Marcus to lean on and grip the old banister with one hand, wood creaking beneath his added weight. He wouldn’t pass up a chance to save Blank, even if it put him at odds with Dagger—with the princess. But, she’d been fervent about working together to save him, insisting that she help. She had to understand that doing so might entail less than legal methods. She knew what Tantalus was when she’d planned to run away with them at the start of the whole mess. Marcus was sure that even if she didn’t completely agree with it, she’d see the need for it.

“Dammit,” he swore out loud, realizing he was already assuming she’d come along, even knowing it’d be far better if she didn’t.

Baku knew they would be a liability; he had to push aside the thought of her pleasant company of the last week and remind himself they were, too.

Pushing off the banister, Marcus turned and helped himself to some bread and cheese and wine from the store built into the wall, sitting at the long wooden table beneath it. An open book lay nearby, and he reached out to pull it over and see what it was. The Vole Prince’s Demise, an old play written by a less popular playwright than most knew about, but one Marcus was familiar with; he’d gone through most of the stores of books Tantalus had stashed in various hideouts and safe houses. Now, it provided a short distraction while he ate.

With the shock and elation of knowing now they were so close to obtaining the supersoft wearing off, Marcus’ mind turned to logistics. He finished his meagre meal and set the play book aside. There were a few things he needed to see to now that he had a few hours’ free time—if his falcata’s integrity was compromised from the electrical shock from the black mage being the first and foremost, then he could drop his dirty clothing off with a launderer he knew while he was working that night.

Before he stood to set off to a weaponsmith, Marcus unfolded the piece of paper Baku had given him. It contained an address, scrawled out in Baku’s leaning hand, and Marcus had to take a few minutes, wracking his memory, before he could recall where it was. Satisfied he remembered how to get there via the canals, he refolded and then slipped the paper into a pocket. He had plenty of time before sundown to get everything he needed done.

Marcus went back up the stairs, nodding a farewell to Liado, who waved him off, distracted, and went back out onto the topside walkway around the city. Turning to his left along the stone path, he headed to an old tower that overlooked the silvery Knight’s House quadrant of the city. The weapons shop sat at the bottom of the tower’s stairs, so he descended down to it. Once inside, he meandered, looking at the various swords and daggers in display while the keeper spoke with a pair of customers. His hands found their way to a long dagger with a leaf-shaped blade. It wasn’t the fanciest thing in the shop, far from it, but Marcus found it beautiful with its simple form. Turning it over in his hands, he noticed the pale handle was made of bone and steel, and two small dark red stones were inlaid along the quillon on one side.

Lost in his study of the blade, he didn’t hear the shopkeep approach him until the rough scrape of a throat clearing sounded just over his shoulder. Setting the blade back on its display holder, he turned to face the shopkeep, whose eyebrows lifted as he recognized Marcus.

“Been a spell since you were last here,” he said, walking back to the front counter, Marcus trailing a few steps behind.

“Yeah,” he said, coming to a halt on the nearer side of the counter while the shopkeep went around behind it and leaned forward on his elbows toward Marcus.

“What can I do for you today, then?”

“Well,” Marcus began, reaching down and drawing out his blackened falcata. The shopkeep’s eyes widened at the sight of the blade as it was placed gently on the countertop. “Can you tell if this’s been compromised at all? Or if it’s just marred the surface a bit?”

Gingerly, the shopkeep took the falcata up in his hands, inspecting the blade closely and running his fingers over the flat of it. “I’ll have to do a couple tests,” he begins.

Marcus nodded. “I got time.”

“Okay. Just stick around for a few minutes.”

As the shopkeep vanished into a back room where a small forge was housed, Marcus took the time to meander the store again, eventually finding his way back to the bone and steel-hilted dagger. He hefted it in one hand, spinning it in slow and swift arcs alike to test its balance. It felt good. Simple but functional, and he was drawn to the elegant curve and shape of the blade itself. From the back, there were several minutes of steel hitting steel, interspersed with bouts of quiet and a soft hissing noise. After a time, he heard the shopkeep walk back from the forge rooms to the stop proper, and so set the dagger down once again, moving to meet him at the counter.

Sword in the other man’s hands, Marcus glanced over his face to try and gauge whether he’d be hearing good news or bad. His face remained neutral, though, as if still assessing the situation rather than about to deliver the answer.

“Well,” the shopkeep told him, “the steel’s still good. No loosening at the cross-guard, no weak spots in the blade itself.” Giving Marcus a shrug, he looked up from the sword to his customer. “Far as I can tell it’s just blackened.”

A small winch of tightness unwound within Marcus at the news, one he wasn’t aware was there. It was just a sword, and he could certainly get another just as serviceable, but he rather liked this one, and it’d helped him survive far more than his fair share of fights. Grateful, Marcus picked it up and sheathed it.

“Thanks—how much do I owe you for the once-over of it?”

The shopkeep cocked his head a bit, considering. “You’re a repeat, so say, twenty gil and I’ll call it even.”

“Sure.” Even as he dug into his coin purse for the gil, his thoughts bent back toward the dagger. “And—how much for that dagger over there with the bone hilt?” He motioned in its direction with his head.

Looking past Marcus’ shoulder to search out which dagger he referred to, the shopkeep finally spotted it. “Not looking for something flashy, eh?”

“Wasn’t really looking at all,” was Marcus’ reply. “It just caught my eye.”

“In that case, it’s three hundred gil.” He looked back at Marcus. “You want it?”

Pausing only a moment to consider, Marcus shrugged. “Yeah, I’ll take it.” He set the first twenty gil for inspecting his falcata on the counter, then produced the rest for the dagger.

Sweeping all the gil off the counter and into something hidden from Marcus’ view on the other side, the shopkeep smiled at him. “Thank you—dagger’s all yours.”

Marcus picked it up on his way out, sheathing it and tucking it next to the falcata beneath his belt for the moment. While he can’t succinctly justify the impulse purchase, it’s not like another dagger would be remiss for him to have. Glancing up at the foggy sky and trying to discern the time, he guessed he had a few more hours at least until what passed as true nightfall in this city, when he would be setting off to finally retrieve the supersoft. More than enough time to fashion a proper frog for it before he had to leave.

One more stop before he headed back to the inn to drop off his dirty clothes with a launderer, and then he was on his way back to the inn. In his haste upon hearing the supersoft had been located, he hadn’t changed into a new set of clothes, but it didn’t much matter at this point. He’d wear the same set for a month if it meant being able to save Blank from his stony prison. Though, when he did return, he took a quick partial wash in the hidden set of rooms in the inn below the pub’s main level—the important bits to get the worst of the sweat off. After doing so, he did feel marginally cleaner as he sat down at the long table against the stone pantry to fashion a serviceable frog for his newest dagger.

While he worked, several people came into the building—Jina, the waitress, coming to start her for the evening in pub that operated on the first floor, deftly shuffling around him to fetch this or that to prepare for their patrons; customers themselves coming in, chatting amicably with Liado and Jina. It all became background noise to him after a while as the evening drew near and the pub up the stairs from him filled. In the back of his mind as he sewed leather, Marcus was glad Liado still had good business.

So used to the constant murmur of conversation drifting down the stairs that he stopped picking out individual voices as they rose or fell in excitement or laughter. After a week on the road in relative quiet with only two other companions along with him, Marcus was surprised to discover he missed the enveloping sensation of being near a dozens conversations of a crowd. He’d grown up amid an entire troupe of people who were constantly bantering or bickering, and hearing the cheers and shouts of crowds as they performed. It was a stark contrast to the silence of being on a mission, or the quiet of traveling alone on the road.

“There you are!”

The lone, emphatic voice came out of nowhere, reaching through the rest of the pub’s conversations down to Marcus. He looked up from the nearly finished frog in his hands to see Dagger descending the stairs, a smile on her face.

“Have they learned anything about the supersoft here?” she asked him once she joined him at the bottom of the stairs.

He didn’t answer right away, choosing instead to finish sewing up and knotting off the frog for his new dagger. Once he was satisfied, he let out a breath. “So you’re still set on coming along.” It wasn’t quite a question, but not entirely a flat statement, either.

Instantly, Dagger’s eyebrows went up and her eyes widened. She leaned in close to him and whispered excitedly, “So you found it! We can finally save Blank! When do we leave?”

Marcus did his best to ignore her proximity, and a corner of his mouth twitched downward. “I will be leaving sometime after sundown tonight.”

Of course, she noticed this and her look of excitement turned to an alarmingly coquettish one. “When do we leave?” she repeated, mirroring his emphasis.

Consenting to defeat in this, Marcus shook his head. “We can leave right away, now,” he groused. “Unless you’re not ready to go—I can’t sit around waiting all night.” One last attempt to dissuade her, though even he had to admit it was a halfhearted one. But, Marcus did promise Baku he wouldn’t let them get in the way—nor did he want them to, not when Blank’s life was on the line—and the easiest way was if they weren’t there at all.

She laughed at him, the sound warm and musical and he instantly regretted how much he enjoyed hearing it. “Don’t be silly. I’m ready to go right now.”

With a resigned nod, Marcus attached the new frog to the bone-hilted dagger, then clipped the whole thing to his belt. It balanced nicely against his falcata, doubling against it in a way he decided he liked. “Boss’s waiting at the dock, then.”

He turned to head down the second set of stairs, not waiting for her, but she was right in step with him at his elbow, the space she’d frequented during their journey across the plains of the Bentini Heights. A loud clatter of steel plates banging against one another came from behind them, heralding Steiner’s approach.

“Princess!” he called, receiving a sudden hush in several conversations of the patrons on the pub floor and an icy glare from Dagger herself. “Princess,” he said again, in a fiercely loud whisper, “please wait!”

Marcus didn’t stop. “I understand if you need to stay here and calm your knight down.”

Transferring her glare from Steiner to Marcus, Dagger shouldered past him, her slim frame pushing his aside. “We’d best be off,” was all she said, her tone brusque as she reached the bottom of the stairs before him and left out the door they led to.

Steiner caught up to Marcus by the time he reached the next level, and he didn’t stop the knight from barreling in front of him to go through the door Dagger had vanished through a few moments before.

“Princess, please wait! It may be a trap!” he heard Steiner saying as he followed the knight out. “You cannot trust criminals—think of the consequences! You are a princess, and if the queen hears about this…”

Dagger had come to a halt before Baku, who towered a good few head and shoulders above her, and only then finally looked back at them. Her dark eyebrows were furrowed toward one another, and her mouth turned down just slightly at the corners. It was the disapproving look of someone well schooled in giving such looks, and Steiner stopped in his tracks and even looked mildly ashamed under her scrutiny.

“Steiner,” she snapped, anger making the amber in her eyes flash. “If my mother hears about this and condemns me for doing what was needed to save the life of someone who put his own on the line to save mine, then she’s more than welcome to. I’m tired of this blind faith that my mother knows best—she doesn’t, and that’s exactly why I’m helping do this and going back to try and talk to her about what’s been going on.”

Behind her, Marcus watched Baku’s eyebrows go higher than he’d ever seen them before in startled appreciation. Steiner himself, to whom her anger was directed, could only stand speechless for several moments. Marcus felt an urge to smile tug at his own mouth, but he resisted it, scraping his tongue lightly against his teeth instead.

A gentle tapping was the only sound that broke the silence, coming from the boat that was moored in the water a floor below them bouncing off a post. Baku cleared his throat.

“Princess,” he started, his tone inscrutable, “you do know that breakin’ and enterin’ is a crime?”

She turned her back to both Marcus and Steiner to look Baku up in the face, meeting his gaze with steely resolve that Marcus could see in her spine. “I am well aware of what we’re doing,” she said, the weight of each of those words sinking through the air almost like stones would in the water beneath the dock.

Marcus slipped past Steiner to walk up to where Dagger and Baku stood and looked up at the Tantalus leader. “Let’s go,” he said.

Baku nodded and turned, leading them down the wooden stairs to where the boat was moored. Behind them, Steiner surged into motion, cursing.

“I cannot condone going along with this—breaking and entering and stealing!” Every step down carried a complaint with it.

Thinking that such willful blindsight about Alexandria’s Queen was a far worse kind of bad influence than he could possibly show Dagger in an entire lifetime, Marcus said, “Do whatever you want. I’m going to get this supersoft for Blank no matter who does or does not come along for whatever reason.”

He moved through them all to the edge of the dock, frustrated that he couldn’t just leave right now, that it had to be made into a conflict. Even if it was just Dagger who insisted on coming along, at least she could do so quietly and wouldn’t make a commotion about it. Without waiting for any more arguments to be brought up, preventing him from leaving on this mission for even longer, Marcus got into the boat.

“Dammit, I am coming along. It’s my duty to protect the princess from bad influences,” Steiner huffed as he caught up to them.

Baku turned, hands akimbo on his hips, staring back at the trailing knight. “Always talkin’ about your ‘duty this’ and ‘duty that’. Ain’t you got thoughts of your own?”

Marcus knew well the irritated tone that wove its way through Baku’s words now. He caught a particular glare that was sent at nobody else but him, and it drew a frustrated breath from his lips. Marcus would surely be hearing about this later, but there wasn’t much he could do about it now. It wasn’t as if he could simply dump them off the side of the boat en route, no matter how much he was sure Baku might want him to.

“Watch your tongue—I’m escorting the princess to ensure her safety—”

Baku rolled his eyes, very obviously. “I thought you might’ve changed after travelin’ around with Zidane for a while, but…” He shrugged, giving off the impression of being both completely uncaring and also monumentally disappointed. It was one of the things Marcus had never seen anyone else do quite so well as Baku, and this time was no different. “I can see you haven’t changed one bit. Do you even know why you’re here?”

“What do you mean?” Steiner shot back, only to receive a withering look and a shake of Baku’s head in reply.

Something in the the last question Baku threw at Steiner struck Marcus as an odd thing to ask—unless the answer wasn’t as straightforward as simply retrieving the supersoft. He peered up at Baku, keeping his expression carefully neutral, sifting through the different pieces of information he knew to try and put the puzzle together differently, to try and see if he could make that questions make more sense in this context.

Dagger’s words, flat and cold, cut through his thoughts for the moment. “Let’s just go.”

Much the same as he had done only moments ago, she climbed into the boat with Marcus, who automatically held up a hand to help her in, which she very pointedly ignored. Well, Marcus thought, this mission was off to a stellar start already.

“Dammit!” the knight swore again, coming up to the end of the dock as well. Baku blocked his path. “Now, see here—”

“I won’t stop you.” Baku dismissed Steiner with a wave of his hand, then folded his arms across his chest and leaned down to look the knight straight in the face. “But listen. You get in the way of us gettin’ this supersoft to save our boy Blank, and you’ll have a lot more to worry about than just watchin’ over a princess.”

Blustering angrily, Steiner retorted, “Are you threatening—?!”

Baku clapped a thick hand on Steiner’s back, said, “I sure am!” and without any further warning, shoved him forward off the edge of the dock and into the boat with Dagger and Marcus.

Seeing this at only the last moment, Marcus grabbed one of Dagger’s wrists and yanked her out of the way, toward him. She slammed into his chest as Steiner crashed down into the bottom of the boat, rocking it severely and nearly knocking the two of them off their feet as well. It was only Marcus’s wide stance and solid footing that preserved them from all ending up in a heap. Once the rocking subsided to a manageable amount, he released Dagger and shifted to untie the boat from its mooring.

Baku bent down and shooed his hands away. “Don’t let them stop you,” he reminded Marcus once again in a low voice, who nodded back his affirmation.

As Dagger helped Steiner up to a sitting position in the boat, Baku finished untying the boat and tossed the rope in with Marcus, then placed his boot on the edge and gave a great shove. Quickly, Marcus sat and used the oars to right them onto the proper course. He took a moment to glance back at the slowly receding Baku, giving him a nod and another promise under his breath.