Embers: Chapter Twenty, Part II

[masterghandalf]

This is a repost from Das_Sporking2; previous installments of this sporking may be found here.

Warning: This post contains some violence, and discussion of imperialism and genocide.



MG: Well, everyone, it’s time to continue our journey through Vathara’s Embers! Last time, Toph and Zuko teamed up to infiltrate Lake Laogai (and tell each other how awesome they both are) while the rest of the Gaang wandered around Ba Sing Se and got told off by Huojin. Yaaay. Also, the Dai Li got to be evil for once, but, like, not the Dai Li agents we’ve gotten to know, the background Dai Li. And we had yet more complaining about the Siege of the North, including the bizarre idea that Aang should’ve just grabbed Pakku and ran and left the North to its fate. Today, we continue the infiltration, the Gaang bumbles around some more, Katara has one of the first of her really infamous moments in the fic, and important plot points get handled… well, you’ll see. Joining us will be Aang and Katara!

Too many of them, Zuko thought grimly, blasting to pieces the stone glove on the back of Toph's shirt before it could drag her away. Trying not to glance behind him, as Smellerbee and Longshot kept their leader from strangling him.

Katara: *crossly* Okay, I have plenty of reasons to not much like Jet after what he pulled, but I think he’d have enough self-control to wait until after they’d all made it to safety to try and strangle Zuko.

I give up. Jet's not just an idiot. He's insane.

Aang: Oh, look, more Jet-bashing, yaaay. And I don’t think Jet was stupid or crazy? He was more obsessed, and I don’t think that’s really the same thing.

A passing thought, flitting around the taut focus of working with Toph to keep them all alive and free. There were just too many Dai Li….

MG: *rolls their eyes* And clearly Vathara’s narrative priorities lie with “bash Jet” rather than “narrate two of our protagonists in the middle of a tense fight for their lives.” Fun! And sadly, not that surprising.

At least, too many for nonlethal tactics.

I don't want to kill them. I know some of these people. All we want is to get the bison and get out. If we just had some cover….

Katara: *crosses her arms* Oh, now you have qualms about killing, these… nameless, faceless Dai Li agents you apparently met at some point! Who are directly involved in some of the most awful, heinous stuff we saw in the whole war, from any side, all based around keeping Long Feng in power and the city under control? And we know you know about it because you just saw it last time? Really? This is where you’re drawing the line?

He was moving before he could think it through, blades clicking together, free hand diving into his shirt to pull out a bag and scatter its contents in one furious toss.

Dried leaves fluttered. For one instant, he saw Long Feng's startled look.

Aang: Oh, look, Long Feng’s here too! I guess we saw the fight start from his point of view last time, but it might’ve been interesting if we got to see him from Zuko’s side! And, you know, I bet he’d like to make a creepy villain speech, too. He did that a lot! *beat* Long Feng did. Not Zuko. When Zuko was still a bad guy, he mostly just yelled about honor and capturing me a lot.

Burn.

The fire-wind blazed, flames whipping around to block them from the Dai Li's view.

Benders can't hit what they can't see.

Katara: Uh, yes we can! It’s harder to aim if you can’t see – unless you’re Toph – but I can still send a big jet of water in the direction of someone’s voice and be pretty sure I’ll hit! Okay, okay, maybe I’m nitpicking, but I still think the firestorm surprising the Dai Li and making them scatter would be a bigger deal.

Except for Toph, who laughed as the missiles stopped coming and slammed up walls just beyond the fire. Cracked her knuckles, and yanked a square door open in stone. "Come on!"

He dove and rolled, Smellerbee and Longshot yanked Jet through, and Toph slammed the wall behind them.

MG: See how Zuko is better than Aang? In canon, Long Feng killed Jet in this scene, and Aang couldn’t stop him. Zuko, on the other hand, saved Jet even though he hates him. I can’t help but think that contrast is deliberate.

Prince Stuko: 96 (one point for the firestorm, one for saving Jet)

-

We're being stalled, Katara thought darkly, stalking through the pre-dawn twilight toward the Wen house. At least it had better be the Wen house, after the time Luli's husband and his fellow guards had spent denying the Avatar right in front of their faces.

MG: Is it just me, or does “denying the Avatar right in front of their faces” feel kind of… uncomfortably religious in tone to me? Maybe because the wording puts me in mind of Peter denying Jesus three times after his arrest, I don’t know. I guess the point here, since Vathara clearly thinks her OCs are justified in how they treat Aang, would be to portray Katara as being kind of a fanatic, which would be… not inconsistent with some of how she’s going to be characterized? Or maybe I’m reading too much into it. Anyway, do note that Vathara’s OCs seem to have stonewalled the Gaang pretty easily here.

They did it on purpose. They knew who Aang was. Everybody knows!

Aang: Well, don’t forget all those people dressed up as me at the ferry docks – the ticket lady didn’t believe who we were at first, either! But, Huojin clearly does know who we are, so that’s not what’s going on here…

Ooo, she would have liked to freeze them all to the floor. Especially Luli's husband. Something about him just set her teeth on edge.

This had better be it, or I'm freezing people solid.

Beware the Sugar Queen: 20 (one point for Katara being portrayed as automatically hostile towards one of Vathara’s OCs, one point for her immediate desire to jump to violence)

"Maybe Aang should knock on the door," Sokka spoke up behind her.

"Right," Katara bit out. "Because that worked so well last time."

"Okay, maybe I should."

She rounded on him. "Oh, like you did any better, the way those Guards stalled us!"

"They're scared," Aang said quietly.

"That's no excuse! We're trying to help them!"

"And we want them to help us," Sokka pointed out. "They're not going to want to do that if you turn them into ice cubes." Face set, he pushed past her and knocked on the door.

Beware the Sugar Queen: 21 (for Katara being the most unreasonable one…)

A long minute passed. Katara listened hard, catching a murmur that sounded like arguing behind thick wood.

The door opened, and a well-dressed woman about as old as Toph's mother swept a green gaze over them all. "Can I help you?"

Katara: *raises an eyebrow* Okay, why is Toph’s mom, who I met all of once at this point, the first person I thought of here? Does Vathara think she’s the only middle-aged person I know?

"I'm Sokka," her brother smiled, and gestured toward them. "This is my sister Katara, our friend Aang, and Momo-"

The lemur trilled, cocking his head endearingly.

"We're looking for a friend of ours, Toph Bei Fong? She said she was going to see Luli, and we hear she's here. At the Wen house? Unless we have the wrong place, and in that case I'm sorry we woke you up…."

If she hadn't been watching, Katara would never have caught the flicker of the woman's eyes toward the rooftops.

Aang: *confused* Maybe it’s just me, but that sounds kind of obvious?

"I'm Meixiang Wen," the woman stated, standing aside from the doorway. "Luli's still asleep; the children wore her out. But I may be able to answer your questions." A slight smile touched her face. "And my daughter Jia would never forgive me if I let you get away before she's up. You're still the talk of her poetry class."

"Really?" Sokka preened.

Katara: Wow, Vathara’s really not letting that one go, is she?

Boys! Katara fumed. But held her peace until the door was closed behind them. "Look, I'm sure Sokka would love to stick around, but we need to find Toph."

"And Appa," Aang added. "Please, could you just talk to us? Toph could really be in trouble!"

Meixiang looked over them again, and sighed. "She already is." She shook her head. "But she has help. It should be enough. And I know if you go after her, you will likely all be imprisoned. Or worse." She didn't give them time to gasp, green eyes fixing on startled gray. "Avatar Aang. What harm has my family ever done you, that you bring the Dai Li to our door?"

Katara: Sounds like it was Huojin who sent us on to you, so maybe blame him instead? And hey, isn’t your son an apprentice Dai Li agent? Hadn’t Shirong said he sat in on your husband’s classes sometimes? I bet they were watching your house all day a long time before we showed up! But no, it’s our fault!

He Has Much to Learn: 51

"You can't blame Aang for that!" Katara objected.

"They're following us," Sokka pointed out. "She kind of has a point."

Katara: What did I literally just say?

He frowned at Meixiang. "Are you going to be in trouble?"

"My husband is a professor of archaeology, a teacher of history from the time before there were Dai Li. Long before they claimed the reins of power as their own. We live in danger."

MG: …this would be a lot more believable if we hadn’t been following the Wens for a while and seen no real indication they feel like they live under constant threat from the Dai Li. Also, which is it? Did the Gaang bring the Dai Li down on the Wens, or have the Wens always lived under constant surveillance from the Dai Li? *sighs* It’s whichever one makes the Gaang look worse in the moment, isn’t it?

He Has Much to Learn: 52

She looked at Aang again. "I told you, Toph is not here. She found someone who could help her, and she's gone to find something you lost. I suggest you find somewhere Toph can find you, and wait." She frowned.

MG: So, yeah, there you have it – Toph and Zuko get to go off and have cool adventures and rescue Appa, and the rest of the Gaang just need to sit tight and wait patiently like good little kids for them to solve everything for them. Can’t put it much plainer than that!

The Blind Bandit Wins Again: 28

Prince Stuko: 97

"And then I suggest you leave Ba Sing Se, and go where you stand a chance of helping our people."

"I have been helping!" Aang protested. "I'm trying to save the Earth Kingdom! Why do people keep telling me to leave?"

Aang: Yeah, because I actually have top secret information about the war I need to get to the king! That’s why I came here in the first place! Why does Vathara keep forgetting that part?

"You…." Meixiang flung up her hands in frustration, and called upstairs. "Tingzhe!"

MG: And of course, Meixiang not only doesn’t believe Aang has a good reason for being here, the mere suggestion that he does is enough for her to throw up her hands in disgust and call in her husband to deal with him instead. How… utterly unsurprising.

He Has Much to Learn: 53

A startled, graying professor Katara vaguely recognized from the university

Katara: …because we hung around the university long enough for me to remember random professors? The way I remember it, we talked to, like, one student, and then it became obvious we weren’t going to get anything useful with Joo Dee hovering around behind us and left!

appeared at the top of the stairs, still wrapped in sleeping robes. "Meixiang?"

"I need to force-feed this boy a map!"

Aang: *weakly* That’s okay, Sokka’s got plenty of maps, I think I’m good!

He Has Much to Learn: 54

One brow went up, and he peered at Aang. Shook his head, and sighed. "Second set of shelves, two down, right hand side. And try not to scar him before I get there, hmm?"

Katara: *muttering* From the way Vathara’s been writing the Fire Nation, he probably means she’d literally do that…

"Sokka has plenty of maps," Katara started.

"Then he hasn't been looking at them," Meixiang stated, opening the door to a scroll-strewn study.

Sokka: *from offscreen* Hey!

She picked her way down the shelves, took out three scrolls, put one back, and spread a map of the Earth Kingdom on a small table. "Look. We're here." She tapped the massive double oval of walls that marked Ba Sing Se. "The Fire Nation has invaded here-" her hand swept over the western peninsula and coast "-and while no one tells us of the war, they've probably moved to invade the other water route, into Chameleon Bay and the two lakes."

"They're cutting you off," Sokka nodded. "That's why we have to be here."

"No!" Meixiang shot him a look of mingled anger and impatience. "That's why you shouldn't be here!"

Aang: We need to be here because we need to get in to see the Earth King! Why is Vathara having such a hard time with that? Unless the king is hiding somewhere outside the city? Which we know he wasn’t!

He Has Much to Learn: 55 (for ignoring Aang’s reason for being in Ba Sing Se to make him look dumb)

"She's right, you know." Professor Tingzhe walked in behind them, robe tied. "In Chin the Conqueror's time, Ba Sing Se almost fell before Kyoshi defeated him-"

"You mean killed him," Aang said, disgusted.

MG: …if you’ll remember, Aang actually argued to Kyoshi herself that she didn’t kill Chin, since he died because he was too stubborn to get to safety when she split Kyoshi Island from the mainland. It was Kyoshi who retorted that since Chin still died as a direct result of her actions taken against him, she doesn’t see the difference.

"And what would you have had her do? Invite him to a tea ceremony?" Tingzhe regarded Aang with a level look.

He Has Much to Learn: 56 (for the “make the pacifist look naïve” factor)

"The city almost fell, true. But Chin had far more solid a grip on the continent than the Fire Nation has yet managed. And Kyoshi was not within these walls. That led Chin to split his forces, and that itself might have led to his defeat even if she had not acted." His gaze went to Sokka. "I've been told you have some small grasp on tactics… so long as Avatar Aang is inside Ba Sing Se, the Fire Nation can concentrate their forces. Which allows them to develop the simplest and shortest supply lines possible, and…." Seeing their looks of confusion, he grimaced. "Earthbending, Avatar. Think of the Earth Kingdom as a mighty boulder. What is more likely to shatter it? Scattered, small strikes? Or one massive blow?"

Katara: *confused* Okay, that’s great and all, but like Aang said, we didn’t come to Ba Sing Se for no reason, we came because we needed to see the Earth King to tell him about the eclipse and convince him to launch an attack on the Fire Nation. We literally couldn’t do that anywhere else! And honestly, we’d probably have been able to pitch our plan to the king and left the city already if Appa hadn’t been stolen, and then Long Feng kidnapped him to blackmail us with! Just… just why isn’t anyone thinking of all that?

MG: *sighs* Because if we allowed that you guys had actual logic behind what you were doing, that might make you look better, and we clearly can’t have that.

"What are you doing?"

Katara jerked her attention to the aghast teenage boy in the doorway. Taller than Sokka, earth-green eyes, face dark with not-yet-shaved morning stubble. "You can't be talking about this!" the young man went on. "You know what can happen. You know what happened to Bai Xiu!"

All Sporkers: Who!?

"I do know, Min," Tingzhe said soberly. "But I also know to do nothing against evil is not a neutral act." He glanced at Aang. "A mistake your people made, centuries ago. The Earth Kingdom has long memories. It cost you. Dearly."

MG: …stick a pin in this, because we’re coming back to it later.

Detached from Reality: 12

He looked back at his son. "I have done nothing because there was nothing I could do. But the Avatar is here, and our fate is already in the Dai Li's hands."

"Not if I can help it," Meixiang said grimly.

MG: Okay, I know this is supposed to be a badass mama bear (mama dragon?) moment, but I can’t help but think Meixiang is hilariously overestimating her chances against the entirety of the Dai Li.

"This is crazy," Min breathed, looking between his parents. "You're crazy. You can't- you never would have done this before he showed up!"

"Who's he?" Katara pounced. "Lee?"

Katara: Which I guess I just figured out because he’s the main character? Great.

From the flare of anger in Min's eyes, she knew she'd hit home. "Get out," Min snarled at them. "Get out of here, before you get my family killed!"

Aang: *aside, to Katara* Would it be rude to point out that he’s kind of wanting to work for the people who’d be doing the killing?

"Min!" Tingzhe said sternly. "You will not behave so to guests. Even uninvited ones."

"Nobody's going to be killed," Aang said stubbornly. "Just tell me how I can help. I'm the Avatar. Helping people is what I do."

"You can't help," Min growled, turning on his heel and stomping off.

MG: …I know Min is supposed to be selfish, short-tempered and kind of a brat, but in this case, he’s not sounding any different from the characters Vathara actually expects us to like.

"Min, wait," Katara said impulsively, running after him to the foot of the stairs. "If your family's in trouble, we can do something!"

"You're kids," Min said dismissively.

Aang: …so are you?

"What are you going to do, hold off a thousand Dai Li single-handed?

MG: Well, at this point in the story the actual Aang, Katara and Sokka had broken into Lake Laogai and were in the process of fighting their way out again, before launching an all-out assault on the Earth King’s palace and successfully managing to fight their way to the king. So… I wouldn’t say their odds are bad. But that’s the canon Gaang. Around here, apparently only Zuko and Toph are allowed to be badasses.

I don't even know why Mom let you in! She knows what this could do to us, what this could do to my brother and sisters. And Dad's helping her…." Fists clenched, he shook his head. "Go. Just - go."

MG: …again, all of this is kind of weird coming from the character who is desperately trying to join the very organization he apparently thinks is a hairsbreadth away form having his family disappeared.

"You can't give up," Katara said, determined. "Maybe we're strangers here. Maybe we can't do anything. But they're your family! There's got to be something you can do."

"Yeah," Min said, half to himself, eyes dark. "I guess there is."

Beware the Sugar Queen: 22 (another point for Katara being ineffective, and apparently giving Min ideas)

-

They could have used the door, Zuko reflected. But Toph was having way too much fun.

Bits of rock crumbling in every direction, they tumbled into a chamber that smelled like hay and thick fur and outside. Chains clinked, and he looked up at a massive shape of white and tan and sharp black horns-

"Appa! Hey, fuzzy!" Toph ran straight for a furry foreleg. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…."

Are you crazy? Zuko spun and leaped, trying to get between her and furry death. That thing is-

Aang: It’s great that Zuko’s protective of Toph and all, but shouldn’t he have put together that Toph knows Appa and that he won’t hurt her? And I never thought Zuko was scared of Appa like that, anyway?

His glove touched an arrow of fur, and the world wavered.

Half-light of dawn fell over a grassy mountain meadow, and Aang was chuckling as he scratched under dark horns. "Don't worry. Appa's a vegetarian."

The firebender snorted. "You've never seen komodo-rhino calves born, have you?"

Aang: …I guess that’s Kuzon’s memory (though I don’t remember this happening either…)? Wow, even in a memory from one of my best friends, I’m getting told off about something!

He Has Much to Learn: 57

Dawn went out like a candle, and Zuko took a hasty half-step sideways to keep from staggering. What was that?

That never happened. I know it never happened.

So why did it feel real?

Katara: *crosses her arms* Sounds to me like it did happen… it just happened to someone else.

"Appa?" Jet finally quit fighting his friends, though he glared at Zuko. "The Dai Li had the Avatar's bison?"

Still have. Unless we move. Zuko tapped Toph on the shoulder while she was wiping her eyes, pointed up to the grate closing off the skylight. It'll be tight, but it's big enough to fly out.

"Right!" Straightening, Toph waved to the freedom fighters. "Climb on!" Dropped her voice to a whisper. "Um. Can't see in the air, how are we going to-?"

"You know how many times I've watched Aang fly away?" Zuko murmured back, unlocking the first massive manacle. "We can do this."

Toph scooted around to hit the locks on the other side, and Appa's wide head moved back and forth to watch them both. Turned toward Zuko again as he reached for the last metal twist-key-

Sucked in a breath that spiraled, lifting the key half clear.

Aang: …well, at least Appa gets to do something clever? That counts for something, right?

"Smart," Zuko whispered to the bison, untwisting it the rest of the way. "Don't get caught this way twice." He leapt up to perch on the back of the furry neck, and latched onto Toph's hand, pulling her up-

Rock surged, sucking in the bison's feet. Appa bellowed, tail flailing with a mighty wind.

"Struggle all you like." Long Feng advanced through the open door, ranks of Dai Li behind him. "You're going-"

"Trust me!" Zuko hissed, and swung Toph down.

Her feet hit rock, and she twisted her toes, stone dissolving into sand. "Yip yip!"

Zuko pulled even as Appa launched, a solid lump of earthbender driving the breath from him in the wake of Appa's wind.

Grate's coming up awfully fast-

Toph punched, and they soared free into dawn.

MG: Okay, I’ll admit, that was a pretty good moment. Too bad it comes in the context of, again, Zuko and Toph being the only characters allowed to actually do something cool while the Gaang are just wandering around Ba Sing Se, accomplishing nothing and making things worse for the people they meet (and though the fic doesn’t point it out, don’t think I haven’t noticed that the two nobles in the main cast are the ones who get to do important stuff here, while the monk and two commoners are the ones who fail to accomplish anything worthwhile).

"Yes!" Smellerbee caterwauled, dour face stretched in an incredulous grin.

"Why?" Jet demanded, voice full of hate. "You're a firebender. Why are you doing this?"

Katara: Okay, I’ll give Vathara that one. That’s probably what Jet would be saying right now.

"Because not everybody in the Fire Nation's crazy, you blockhead!" Toph yanked off her mask. "I'm Aang's earthbending teacher. And he's a friend."

"A friend?"

Agni. Longshot can talk.

MG: …okay, Longshot getting his first line of dialogue in the whole show in “Lake Laogai” was kind of a big moment too, but there’s something about Zuko’s reaction here that’s kind of funny, like he’s as surprised by this as if Appa had been the one to start talking. I also kind of have to side-eye the context – in canon, it was the impending death of Jet, his leader and friend, that motivated Longshot to actually talk. Here, it’s… amazement at Zuko. I kind of think that’s yet another bit that’s telling about Vathara’s priorities.

"Yeah. And he can't get caught." Toph leaned back next to Zuko. "Now what?"

"Follow what I do," Zuko murmured. "The Nomads didn't always use reins." Taking her hand in his own, he pressed near Appa's left horn. The bison obligingly banked.

Prince Stuko: 98 (of course Zuko knows how to fly a sky bison)

I wish we could go slower. But there's no time.

He urged Appa up and over the Outer Wall, dodging blocks of stone hefted by started guards. "Now, that's just rude," Toph complained.

Zuko snorted, guiding Appa down at least an hour's ride outside the Wall. Pointed at the freedom fighters, and swept a hand toward the ground.

Aang: *raising his hand* An hour’s ride on what, exactly? On Appa? On an ostrich-horse? On a Komodo-rhino? Just curious!

"You're just going to leave us here?" Jet burst out. "We've got nothing!"

"We're out of Ba Sing Se," Smellerbee shot back, jumping down. "That's not nothing."

MG: I mean, being stranded without supplies in the middle of nowhere and nowhere nearby to get them except the authoritarian city you just escaped isn’t exactly a walk in the park…

Silent again, Longshot yanked Jet off.

"Here!" Toph tossed a coin-string Smellerbee's general direction. "I'm Toph Bei Fong. And one of these days, you're going to pay me back!" She patted Appa's head. "Yip yip!"

MG: Toph is the heir to one of the richest families in the Earth Kingdom; Smellerbee is a penniless resistance fighter. Something about Toph demanding Smellerbee pay her back isn’t exactly a good look, is it? And I have a hard time imagining canon!Toph getting that worked up about it.

"Can you afford that?" Zuko asked, keeping his voice low as they climbed skyward. "You're going to need to run-"

Toph waved it off. "Hello? Earth Rumble champion? I'm good. Besides, people give Aang stuff. We'll be fine."

MG: …and Toph is, again, rich, even outside of the whole “Earth Rumble Champion” thing. Not sure how much money she grabbed before running away from home, admittedly, but it probably wasn’t nothing. And in any case, she is willing to use the family name to get what she wants if nothing else is working (see again, the ticket lady at the docks).

"Like Azula," Zuko muttered under his breath.

Toph frowned. "Um, Sparky? She's almost as short and bouncy, I'll give you that. But why would you think Aang's anything like her?"

"Everything's easy for her." Heading back over the wall too high for boulders, Zuko swallowed hard. "Look at him. Twelve years old, and he's a master. A few months, and he could waterbend. Don't tell me he's not getting in days what took you years." He looked aside. "And everyone helps him. Everyone says he's doing the right thing. Agni, even the spirits want him to win."

MG: Honestly, I’ve always found Aang and Azula interesting as foils, even though the show doesn’t do much with it (Azula is mostly presented as a foil for Zuko, and to a certain extent Katara). But seriously, they’re both extremely gifted, talented children who had the weight of the world put on their shoulders from a very early age… and carrying that weight profoundly affected who they became in very, very different ways. There’s good stuff to work with there, if you choose to. Of course in this case, the Aang-Azual parallels mostly seem to serve to make Aang look bad, and Zuko more sympathetic in comparison to both of them.

"I kind of want him to win too, Sparky."

"At least you're honest about it," Zuko said tiredly.

Katara: As opposed to… who who’s not been honest about it, efxactly?

"I wish I could stop the war, Toph. I really wish I could. But I can't. Because you know what will happen if it stops? They'll come for us. The Earth Kingdom, the Water Tribes… you have no idea how much they hate us. They'll come. And what will the Avatar do then?"

MG: So there you have it, folks – the Fire Nation is continuing the war because if they stop fighting, everyone else will just gang up on them and serve to them what they’ve been doing to everyone else! It’s imperialism as self-defense, get it? *gag* I feel filthy just for typing that…

The Real Victims: 36

"…Aang wouldn't let that happen. Not to anybody."

"Don't lie to me, Toph," Zuko said angrily. "Sozin destroyed everything Aang knew. Everything. You haven't been to the Air Temples. I have. I've seen them all." Taking her mask and his own, he threw them into Lake Laogai. "The North Pole was just a warm-up!"

Aang: *hurt and confused* No, I wouldn’t? I don’t want to hurt anybody, even I the Fire Nation! I’ll fight if I have to, to protect people, but I don’t like it, and I was raised to believe that you the answer to violence can’t be more violence – and I do believe that! I wanted to stop the Fire Nation because they were hurting innocent people, but if I could’ve found a way to do that without causing more violence, I would’ve done that. And even if I did believe in revenge, Sozin and all the soldiers who killed the Air Nomads are dead – getting revenge on their descendants wouldn’t fix anything. The North Pole happened because Zhao killed the Moon Spirit and the Ocean Spirit hit him back, not because I just really, really want to kill lots of Fire Nation people deep down! *he sighs sadly* I just… I thought Zuko understood me better than this, even where we are now!

MG: …well, Zuko might, but I don’t think Vathara does, and even though Zuko isn’t right here about how the war is going to end, I think she does mean us to see this as a reasonable fear. And, ugh. It feels like we’re almost in Last Ringbearer “the elves and the White Council started the War of the Ring for the express purpose of genociding Mordor” territory here.

Also, something I do want to point out is that in the show, Zuko tossing the Blue Spirit’s mask into Lake Laogai, at Iroh’s urging, marked an important turning point for the character – the point where he no longer needs the persona of the Blue Spirit and leaves it behind as he prepares to, as Iroh describes it, start asking himself the big questions of who he is and what he wants. Here… it’s just tossed in as an afterthought (alongside disposing of Toph’s mask, which has no narrative significance and I don’t think is ever even described). What a waste.

He Has Much to Learn: 58

The Real Victims: 37

"Zuko-"

"Just get them out, Toph. Get them out." He took the cloak off her shoulders, preparing to reverse it from dark to a pale green to hide the Blue Spirit's outfit. "Drop me in the Upper Ring. I'll tell you where. And then, this is what you do…."

Katara: Well, that all came out of nowhere! Is this scene finally over? I think it is! *she looks down* but it looks like it’s more of us next… this isn’t going to be fun…

MG: And I’ll also add that while we’ve not seen the last of the Freedom Fighters in the fic, they have dropped out of the story for a while and we won’t pick back up with them again for some time… though honestly, considering how much their story will end up just sort of fizzling out, it might’ve been for the best if this was the last we saw of them. In any case, Zuko did what Aang failed to do and rescued Jet, as noted previously. And that feels very deliberate to me, I can’t lie.

-

"Sokka, we've got to go back and help them!"

Keeping a good grip on yellow and orange, Sokka kept walking. "I think we've helped them enough, Aang."

MG: Am I the only one here who thinks the subtext of “Aang is naïve for wanting to help people and too immature to realize he’s only making things worse” is… pretty much text, at this point? Spoilers: this will be a continuing trend.

He Has Much to Learn: 59

Hit the Fire Nation from behind. Like sending a decoy hunter to strike the tiger-seals, and drive them the way you want them to go. I should have thought of that. Why didn't I think of that?

I got caught up in "I must defeat the Fire Lord", that's why. And maybe the spirits do want Aang to take him one-on-one. Crazy as that sounds. But big and evil as he is, Fire Lord Ozai's just one guy. We've got whole armies to worry about.

Aang: Which is why we were in Ba Sing Se. To talk to the Earth King so we could get an army to fight the Fire Nation’s armies. Why is this so hard? *beat* And I don’t think the spirits cared that I fought Ozai one-on-one? I don’t think most spirits care much about human wars at all, unless they have to? It was mostly other people who wanted me to face Ozai, unless you count Roku as a spirit too?

Still. The Wens didn't know about the eclipse. They had a chance to knock out the Fire Lord and his main guys in the Fire Nation. They had to take it. But in order to do that, they had to see the Earth King, and get the generals on their side.

Aang: …oh. So Vathara does remember that part. *beat* Then why does she keep acting like we just showed up in Ba Sing Se and hung around for fun? Because let me tell you, I’ve been tons of places that were a lot more fun to hang out than Ba Sing Se.

And for that, we need Toph. I hate to say it, but it looks like the only way we're going to get anywhere is start knocking down walls-

Katara: And we knew we were going to have to fight the Dai Li at some point, the only reason we hadn’t yet is because they had Appa!

"Sokka!" Katara grabbed his wrist, startling him into letting go of Aang. "Look!"

Sokka's jaw dropped. White and brown with a patch of green clinging for dear life, flying north, then east, south, west, and back around the rough square-

"Appa!" Snapping his glider open, Aang hurtled into the air.

MG: So… yeah. As this sub-section of the story ends, we can now officially confirm that Zuko and Toph broke into Lake Laogai, rescued Appa, and now Toph is returning him to Aang, all while the Gaang wandered around accomplishing exactly nothing except getting chewed out by Vathara’s OCs for how stupid they were being. *beat* Yaaaay.

"Oh, boy," Sokka breathed, pulling out his boomerang as Katara flicked open her waterskin. The green shadows on the roofs were heading for the streets, and the moment those stone shoes touched earth-

Appa swooped down, Aang holding his staff out so they could grab on, sucking them up with a friendly wind.

Stone gloves crashed through empty air, and they were flying.

Aang: …why did the Dai Li who were watching us think attacking us and Appa right in the middle of the street was a good idea? They were normally smarter than that!

"Appa!" Aang was clinging to the bison's head, tears running. "Oh, I missed you, buddy…."

MG: …this was a lot more heartwarming in the original show where, you know, Aang and Appa’s bond was actually developed and all.

"Toph!" Katara grabbed the white-faced earthbender, pulled her back to anchor between the two of them. "You're all right!"

"Hey," Toph said breathlessly. "Hope you didn't leave anything you can't live without in the mansion. I just took out a dozen Dai Li, and boy are they mad."

"The Dai Li had Appa?" Aang yelped.

Aang: *stunned* We. Knew. That! Long Feng threatened Appa the night we met! We knew the Dai Li either had Appa, or at least he was somewhere they knew where he was and where they could get to him! This isn’t hard!

He Has Much to Learn: 60

"It gets a lot worse than that, Twinkletoes." Toph tried to put on a brave face, but she was shivering.

She can't see anything, and we don't even have a saddle to grab onto. Sokka hand-walked a few inches closer, making sure Toph was wedged up against Katara. "Let's land somewhere and talk."

"Not in the city!" Toph gulped, and clung tighter. "There's an island. Out in the lake. Should be safe for a while."

Katara: …and somehow we end up on the same island we were on when this really happened, except there we’d all just escaped from the Dai Li base and now we’re just… going there instead of literally anywhere else, for some reason, I guess?

Stations of the Canon: 33

"Toph," Katara said, worried, "how do you know there's an island over there?"

"Lee told me," Toph said practically. "He gave me a letter for you, Sokka. You better read it."

Sokka traded a glance with Aang. The airbender looked ahead, and nodded. "One island, coming up!"

They tumbled off Appa's back onto gritty sand, and Toph shook out cramped fingers. Grimly, she drew folded paper out of her robes. "Here." She whipped a finger toward Katara before his sister could speak. "And no questions! Not until after Sokka reads it."

Aang: It’d be kind of embarrassing if Zuko messed up and gave Toph his shopping list or something, and she had no way of knowing it until Sokka read it. And why does Sokka have to read it, anyway? Why not write to all of us? *beat* Does… does Zuko think Sokka is the only one of us who can read?

Katara: …from what I’ve seen so far of this story, that wouldn’t surprise me.

"Okay," Katara said, one brow raised dubiously. "Sokka?"

Sokka unfolded neat creases, and even Aang stopped scratching Appa to listen.

Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe, neatly inked characters read.

Katara: Why am I not surprised that Vathara wants to make sure we know that Zuko has nice handwriting too?

If Toph hasn't already convinced you to get out of Ba Sing Se, leave. Now.

Aang: *sigh* I’d say we were in the city for a reason, but… I think at this point, I’m kind of giving up.

This isn't Omashu, or any of the other places you've been. The Earth King is a figurehead; a political center everyone can refer to as the ultimate authority, even though they know he's nothing of the kind. The real power in Ba Sing Se is the Grand Secretariat, Long Feng, head of the Dai Li.

Katara: Which we knew. Because Long Feng explained all of that to us himself to intimidate us. I was there – I remember!

The generals know this, and are in willing collusion with him.

MG: Actually, I don’t think this is quite true, considering the generals side with the Earth King against the Dai Li in, well, “The Earth King” when the wheels come off the whole conspiracy, and they seem to do so very readily and without much doubt of who’s side they’re on. The understanding I always got was that the generals took their orders from Long Feng, because as Grand Secretariat he was ultimately in charge of the military and their immediate superior n the chain of command, but their ultimate loyalty was to the Earth King, and they weren’t aware of the extent to which he was manipulating the king and keeping him in the dark so he could control things himself. Admittedly the show doesn’t spell this out directly, but I think it makes most sense with the actions of everyone involved.

They know what the Dai Li do, but they rely on them to keep order in the city while they battle the Fire Nation. By any means necessary. They know the Dai Li warp people's minds. They know the Dai Li make some people disappear. They know, and they permit it to go on.

MG: Again, I don’t think we’re ever told how much the generals know, but it certainly seemed to me that they weren’t all-in on the Dai Li’s conspiracy like this at all.

Ba Sing Se is a trap.

Refugees are drawn here by the hope of escaping the war. Once inside, they are told there is no war in Ba Sing Se. Those who cannot accept this, disappear. Those who can and are not broken usually fight on the Wall. Those who break - and many do - work in Ba Sing Se, living a lie. Whatever the original purpose behind this policy, it drains the countryside of potential pockets of resistance, keeps the city itself controlled by fear, and fosters an enduring - and because it is unspoken, irrational - hate of the Fire Nation. I'm sure Fire Lord Ozai would approve.

Aang: I don’t really think “irrational hate of the Fire Nation” was something we saw a lot of in Ba Sing Se? People were mostly just trying to live their lives and keep their heads down so the Dai Li wouldn’t hurt them?

Katara: And this is all pretty rich coming from Zuko, who’s been working with the Dai Li, making friends with some of them, and whose new mentor is apparently a long-standing “asset” of theirs. Seriously, Vathara, pick a side! *beat* And how does Zuko know all this, anyway? He’s interacted with the Dai Li, but he’s not even met any of the generals. How does he know what they think about all this?

People who use these tactics are not your allies.

Aang: Uh, yeah. We know that. It was pretty clear the night we met Long Feng that he was a bad guy and wouldn’t be our friend! We didn’t need Zuko to tell us that!

If none of this convinces you, consider why Long Feng had the bison. He has reports from General Fong on the Avatar State. He knows the Fire Navy was shattered at the North Pole. He, or the generals, have decided this is a viable tactic to wreak destruction on the Fire Nation.

Katara: No, General Fong thought that, and it blew up in his face when he tried it. Long Feng mostly just wanted to keep Aang out of his way. Totally different guys, totally different plans!

The philosophy of the airbenders was that all life is precious. If you want your friend to be himself, and not a living weapon - get out.

Katara: Again, we weren’t trying to get out! Now that we had Appa, our next goal was to topple the Dai Li so we could get the king on our side, because we needed his armies to attack the Fire Nation! Maybe Vathara doesn’t believe it, but we actually did have a plan here!

It wasn't signed.

It was weird, though. Something about the words was familiar. Like Sokka could almost hear the voice to match them, if he just remembered-

Sokka: *sticking his head in* Right because when I read “complicated analysis of the political situation in Ba Sing Se and advice based on that” I think “the angry jerk who chases us around the world and shouts about needing to restore his honor all the time,” because that’s basically who Zuko was to us at the time.

"Lee gave you this?" Katara said skeptically. "Why didn't he just tell us?"

Katara: I don’t know, maybe he didn’t want to be seen with us because he was just writing about how the Dai Li are so powerful and control everything and fighting them is pointless?

"That does seem weird." Aang scratched the back of his neck. "I mean, Monk Gyatso always said the Water Tribes weren't great letter writers… not that that's a bad thing! It's great that you like to talk to people face to face. But you can kind of lose track of someone if they don't visit."

MG: …and of course, it randomly turns into Water Tribe bashing. Because it’s not like “Lee,” if he really was Water Tribe, wouldn’t have been living a big city where people do write letters or anything…

Simple Rubes from the Water Tribes: 36

And we couldn't visit the Northern Tribe, being raided all the time, Sokka realized. They just… stopped coming. We got raided for years, and they never sent help. Until Aang broke the Fire Navy for them.

They had reasons. He was sure. But-

Katara: *flatly* They were all the way on the other side of the planet, and there was a war on. We knew why we lost contact, thanks.

Simple Rubes from the Water Tribes: 37

"Three reasons," Toph said bluntly, shaking him out of his grim thoughts. "One, we were being watched. Two, we had to go in to get Appa, fast, and I think he was worried he wouldn't get back out. He hasn't been waterbending that long, and he couldn't under the lake, or the Dai Li would know who he was. Three… he didn't want you guys to see him because he didn't want to wind up full of icicles."

"What?" Katara said in disbelief.

Sokka looked at the letter, and the phrasing, and winced. "Lee's not Water Tribe."

Aang: Because he couldn’t possibly have adopted different customs because he was living in the Earth Kingdom? We just met the Swamp Tribe not long ago, too – and they were very different from the other Water Tribes!

Elemental Determinism: 52

"But he's a waterbender," Katara started.

"He's Fire Nation." Toph angled her head toward Aang. "He wanted to help, but he was scared. He's heard about the North Pole. A lot of people have."

Katara: *tearing at her hair* Why do we keep having to hear about the North Pole? The Fire Nation attacked the Water Tribe, and they lost, and the Ocean Spirit wiped out their fleet, mostly. But it was a battle, it’s not like we massacred a Fire Nation city full of civilians or something! Why do we keep acting like we did? And why did Toph think it was a good idea to just admit “Lee” was from the Fire Nation, instead of just saying he had Water Tribe heritage but grew up in the Earth Kingdom? Those sorts of things happen!

"A Fire Nation waterbender?" Katara looked like someone had slapped her with a saw-dogfish.

Aang: …ouch?

"He said something about being from the colonies." Toph didn't take her ears off Aang.

The airbender seemed to shrink in on himself. "I didn't mean to do… that." He tried to smile. "He's really Fire Nation? Wow, that must be weird-"

Aang: Yes, I felt guilty about what the Ocean Spirit and I did – I had nightmares about it! But that’s because it scares me that I could do something like that, and because I don’t believe in that sort of violence when I’m, well, me. But it kind of sounds like here even I think everyone from the Fire Nation ought to hate me over the North Pole? Huh?

"You don't get to dodge this one, Twinkletoes." Toph crossed her arms, immovable as granite. "Maybe you didn't want to. Maybe you didn't mean to. But you did it.

Aang: Technically, the Ocean Spirit did it? It wouldn’t have been able to do it without me, but I… wasn’t really in control of myself when that happened. And it wouldn’t have happened at all if Zhao hadn’t killed the Moon and made the spirits angry in the first place. Maybe that’s “dodging,” but it’s also literally what happened!

And everybody thinks you're going to do it again.

Katara: *flatly* Let’s all just agree that nobody should try to kill the moon again, and then we won’t have to test that, okay?

Long Feng. The generals. The whole Fire Nation." She shook her head. "You should have heard Lee. He felt awful. Here he is, with the only waterbender he can find who doesn't care where he came from - and you show up. If he doesn't get you out of here, the Fire Nation smashes Ba Sing Se to bits and he's got nowhere left to go. If he does get you out, he's helping the guy who killed thousands of his people. Talk about a rock and a hard place!"

MG: Okay, okay, I know we all keep coming back to this, but still – everyone is acting like Aang just massacred thousands of random Fire Nationals because they were Fire Nation, not that Aang and the Ocean Spirit routed an invading army. The context here is kind of important! And it makes the idea that the entire Fire Nation is so horrified by it feel less like the problem is the deaths themselves and more that they’re all traumatized that their imperial war machine actually lost a battle. Seriously, the context here is actually very important! Let me repeat that, Vathara is fundamentally acting like the entire Fire Nation is traumatized because they lost a battle, and that’s what happened, with or without Koizilla. Just… just so we’re clear, here.

The Real Victims: 38

"Well he should feel awful!" Katara flared. "After everything the Fire Nation's done to the world? To us? To Aang? He should feel so horrible he should just - just crawl away and die!"

Aang: *stunned* WHAT!? *to Katara* Where did that come from!?

Katara: *also stunned* I don’t know, but it sure didn’t come from me!? When did I ever think anything like that? Why would I ever think anything like that? Yes, I’ve hated the Fire Nation for what they’ve done to the world in general and to my tribe in particular, but I also know that it was the Fire Nation’s rulers and it’s military that did those things – when did I ever give any indication I thought random people should die just because they had Fire Nation heritage? I went out of my way to help some of the people we met when we were traveling through the Fire Nation, because I knew that they were just normal people and not responsible for the war and Ozai was hurting them too (I’m not looking forward to where Vathara goes with that…). And I certainly wouldn’t wish for someone to kill themselves for being Fire Nation, if that’s what Vathara is implying here! Maybe if I knew there was a waterbender who’d sold out the Water Tribes to the Fire Nation and was actively working for the Fire Lord and helping him commit his crimes, I might want that person, specifically to die, or at least answer for being a traitor, but that’s not what’s going on with “Lee” and even so I still wouldn’t say it like that! *still stunned* Is… is this really what Vathara thinks I am? No wonder she hates me!

MG: I think I know what the problem here is, actually. I think that Vathara has taken a particular point of Katara’s characterization – her mid-Book Three hostility to Zuko after he joins the Gaang – and extrapolated it as if it’s her baseline attitude not only towards Zuko himself, but to the entire Fire Nation as a whole. Which, again, ignores the context. Namely, that when Katara and Zuko got locked up together in “Crossroads of Destiny,” Katara was actually the first of the Gaang to try and trust him (admittedly, after her initial anger at him because she thought he was part of the infiltration of the city) and hold out a hand to him… and he slapped it away in the worst way possible, by siding with Azula in the battle that led to the fall of the Earth Kingdom and Aang actually dying (temporarily, but still). Katara herself spells this out explicitly – it’s not hard. She trusted Zuko and got burned, and thus she refused to trust him again until he finally proved himself to her by helping her hunt down her mother’s killer. But that context as a whole makes Zuko look bad, so clearly we can’t actually engage with it, and instead Katara just… hates Fire Nationals in general and Zuko in particular irrationally. And if it’s not clear, I really, really hate it, and think it’s the basis for some of the fic’s worst choices and most notorious elements.

Beware the Sugar Queen: 23

What the heck is with- oh. Sokka saw her fingers touch her necklace, and grimaced. It's that time of year again. When we lost Mom.

Katara: *grating* Which I knew better than to blame random people for.

Beware the Sugar Queen: 24

"Katara," Aang started patiently.

"You take that back!" Toph's fists clenched, sand hardening under her feet into solid stone. "Lots of people help us because they want to. Because they know Aang's the Avatar, and they think he's gonna stomp the Fire Nation and stop the war. Lee didn't! Lee doesn't like Aang! He doesn't want anything to do with Aang. He helped get Appa back because it was the right thing to do. Because he doesn't want Aang to ever hurt the way he did at the North Pole again! You take that back!"

She's crying? Sokka realized, jaw dropping. Toph was too tough to cry.

MG: *sigh* And of course Katara is acting terrible so Toph has an excuse to leap valiantly to Zuko’s defense. And seeing that rather calculated undercurrent here makes it really hard to appreciate what ought to be a heartfelt and rather moving moment.

"Toph." The rage faded off Katara's face, swept away by worry. "What's wrong?"

"Lee told me," Toph said, voice thick with angry tears. "He told me, and I didn't want to believe him. He said even if the Fire Nation stopped the war, you'd bring it right back to them. That I didn't know how much the Water Tribes hated the Fire Nation. He helped me, he's a waterbender, and all you want him to do is die?" She swallowed hard. "Aang, how are you going to stop the war?"

MG: …and of course it’s used to vindicate Zuko’s earlier analysis. *sighs heavily*

The Real Victims: 39

Simple Rubes from the Water Tribes: 38

Aang paled. Gulped. Gripped his staff, and shook his head. "I'm going to defeat the Fire Lord, Toph. You know that already."

Aang: …okay, I guess at this point I hadn’t really thought about what would happen after I defeated Ozai. I guess we kind of thought that whoever took over after him would see what happened to him and back down? *sheepish* Guess that is one way it’s a really good thing Zuko ended up teaming up with us.

He Has Much to Learn: 61

"And then what?" Toph demanded. "We're going to use the eclipse. We're going to kick Fire Lord butt. But you're going to need more than us to do it! Earth Kingdom, Water Tribes - and there they're gonna be, right in the middle of the people they hate! Then what?"

MG: I mean, to a certain extent this is probably true. If the Earth Kingdom or Water Tribes occupied the Fire Nation capital, they probably wouldn’t be much inclined to be merciful. On the other hand, it’s not like this war was some sort of feud where both sides to blame – it was very, very much a Fire Nation war of aggression where the other nations were defending themselves. And, like, this is heavier stuff than what the show really wanted to get into, or what I want to get into in this spork, but still… war is hell (and A:TLA leans on that as much as a kid’s show can get away with), and even in a just war all sides are going to be driven to do terrible things. But it was still a war of imperialism the Fire Nation started, and I don’t think we should lose sight of that fact.

The Blind Bandit Wins Again: 30 (giving a couple of points for Vathara clearly wanting us to see Toph as right and the others wrong in this scene)

The Real Victims: 40

"We'll figure it out after we get the Fire Lord," Sokka said forcefully, as Aang wavered. "Aang's the Avatar. People will listen to him. Right now, we need to figure out what we're going to do now."

MG: …honestly, probably the best course of action. The Dai Li are the enemies at the moment, not the Fire Nation. Long Feng now, Ozai later.

Katara bit her lip. "Sokka, if Lee's telling the truth-"

"He is!" Toph stomped a foot.

Katara: *waspishly* Sorry I impugned the honor of the Great Zuko, Toph! Even when I was trying to agree with him!

"-Then what we saw at the party, all these weeks of trouble…. Long Feng is in control of the city. I think we should just keep flying and leave this horrible place behind us."

"I'm with Sweetness!" Toph chimed in, relieved. "I've seen enough of Ba Sing Se, and I can't even see!"

"But we escaped from the Dai Li. And we got Appa back. We're on a roll," Sokka said confidently. "We should go to the Earth King now and tell him our plan. Before Long Feng can get to him."

MG: …this conversation is basically straight from the show, except there the Gaang had actually just fought the Dai Li on their own turf and won. They really were on a roll. Here, Zuko and Toph did everything and Aang, Katara and Sokka sort of just… did random stuff until Appa fell out of the sky on them. It’s kind of a different situation.

"Maybe Long Feng already got to him," Toph objected. "I heard them making Joo Dees under the lake. They just… make these ladies so they'll say what the Dai Li want them to say! What if they did that to the Earth King, too?"

MG: To be fair, the Joo Dees are deep in the uncanny valley, which is probably an inevitable side-effect of that level of brainwashing. Kuei seems like he was meant to be a rather personable and inoffensive figurehead. Long Feng probably could have brainwashed him if he wanted to, but I have a feeling he thought Kuei would serve better in his role as himself. I’m reminded of a bit in the Foundation books, actually, where the Mule – the major antagonist of the back half of the original trilogy, a galactic warlord with telepathic powers – explicitly notes that while he can brainwash anyone onto his side, he prefers to win their loyalty the old fashioned way when he can, because people under that level of mind-control lose something of themselves and will never be as effective, creative or motivated as if they’d been working under their own free will.

"Then we have to go to him, so Katara can heal him." Aang looked between them all, full of that sureness that everything in the world could be fixed if they just tried. "If he knows the truth about the Dai Li and the war, I know he'll help! It's the right thing to do." He glanced up suddenly, and raced to the lakeshore.

"Aang, what's-" Sokka looked out into the water. Earth Kingdom ships. "Um… how many Dai Li did you say you squashed?"

"There were a lot of them." Toph touched a toe to the water, obviously unhappy. "They're out there?"

"Probably. So…." Sokka turned to Katara, sure of what she'd say. Mention healing, and she was all over the situation.

Katara nodded once. "Let's fly!"

MG: …and if you’re expecting an actual climactic confrontation… well, prepare to be disappointed. But more on that in a moment…

-

Too close.

Iroh sat in their new apartment with a cup of fragrant jasmine tea, watching his nephew sleep the sleep of an exhausted infiltrator.

Aang: As opposed to any other sort of sleep? Does it look different? Maybe he’s still muttering about fighting Dai Li?

But only sleep. No sign of the deadly fever that would mark a break of his father's loyalty. Not yet.

But it will come, Iroh reflected grimly. I have tried to balance him on a knife's edge… and he is slipping.

MG: And it is coming, fairly soon. Just not right at this moment.

The Avatar. Why here? Why now? Was the spirits' plan so desperate it could not have waited another month? Even another week?

Katara: Okay, the spirits didn’t have anything to do with us being in Ba Sing Se. *beat* Except Wan Shi Tong. Who wasn’t very happy with us…

Our flight weakened us. Amaya and I have done what we can… but I do not know if he is strong enough to survive. If his loyalty breaks now….

Fingers wrapped around his tea, Iroh tried to hold onto hope.

It slipped through his grasp like ashes.

MG: Again, all of this is kind of darkly hilarious in hindsight, when every major character in this fic who breaks loyalty is going to end up surviving it. Dying of loyalty sickness is for nameless background extras who don’t matter, apparently (just as being evil is mostly for background Dai Li extras, come to think)!

-

"…The Council of Five and the military are loyal to the Earth King, but the Dai Li remain loyal to you, Long Feng, sir."

Katara: But we were just told that the generals – and that’s who the Council of Five are! - were working with the Dai Li! Maybe Zuko was, gasp, wrong! *beat* And, wait a minute. Is Long Feng in prison already!? Did… did we just skip the whole part where we had to break into the palace and convince the Earth King and got him arrested and… everything?

MG: *brightly* We did! And it’s extremely jarring because, honestly, Long Feng has probably been the most prominent villain in this fic so far, softening of certain other Dai Li aside. Azula’s only appeared in one scene (though we’ll be seeing more of her soon), Ozai has mostly been a backstory element rather than an active antagonist, and we’re still a ways off from the other two big bads being properly introduced (by my estimate, if I maintain my current schedule we should be officially introduced to one of them in June and the other in July, IRL, after the Ba Sing Se and Beach arcs wrap up) and the haima jiao was only a monster of the week for a couple of chapters. And Long Feng just goes from being the de facto dictator of the Earth Kingdom to being in prison randomly between scenes. It’s incredibly jarring, and a big part of why I think this fic really cannot be read as something entirely separate from canon – because there are important parts of it where, without canon to fill in the gaps, it literally doesn’t make sense. This is one of the more blatant examples of that, though not the only one we’ve seen so far (I still remember the hatchet job Chapter Three made of “Zuko Alone”). Sigh.

Stations of the Canon: 34

Long Feng smiled behind walls sheathed in steel, considering plots upon plots and options the Avatar's little group of troublemakers had never dreamed of. So the Earth King had proved easily swayed? Then he would be as swiftly swayed back, once given information that rather than fighting against the Fire Nation, the Avatar's allies were agents of the Fire Lord himself.

MG: …admittedly, I can believe that. Kuei was a decent guy, but not especially discerning or strong willed, and Long Feng basically raised him and knows how to push his buttons.

Poor little Bei Fong, by now trapped and unable to dispute his Dai Li's evidence… especially given her little friends were now scattered to the winds, save for one overconfident waterbender. He'd seen benders puffed up with their supposed mastery before.

Katara: Pretty rich coming from a guy puffed up with his supposed mastery…

Katara could easily be neutralized. The Kyoshi Warriors were a less predictable factor… but they'd offered their services to Full Moon Bay to fight in the war. They should be easily convinced it didn't matter who was in charge in Ba Sing Se.

And once Lee had given up his firebender contact - and been convinced to give evidence of his conspiracy with the Fire Nation and Shirong, so the Earth King would see only a rogue Dai Li at fault and not his most trusted advisor - these steel bars would be but a memory.

MG: Shirong, the Dai Li agent who seems to have bumbled into going rogue by accident because he doesn’t seem to have realized maybe he should have actually been spying on the deeply suspicious people he’d befriended…

Min Wen will make a fine agent, indeed.

Aang: …okay, not really sure what Min has to do with any of this, but I’m sure it’ll make sense eventually!

MG: But the good news is, we’re now done with the chapter! We just have the AN left to deal with, so… onward.

A/N: Okay, did anybody else look at what was found in Long Feng's office and think, "Trap!"

We know Long Feng's a plotter, and has been for decades. Information related to the Gaang, that those generals could find in his office? That just happens to get his latest enemies-slash-annoyances scattered to the four winds, with two of the three powerful benders out of the city entirely?

Right. Trap.

MG: I think there’s some truth to this… to a point, but I think Vathara takes it a hair too far. I absolutely think Long Feng gathered all that stuff planning to use it for manipulation or blackmail. But I don’t think he planned exactly what happened in canon, because he clearly wasn’t planning to be driven from power, and if he wasn’t driven from power, he wouldn’t have needed that setup. Beyond that, all the stuff he had was real (except the letter from Toph’s mom, which was faked by Master Yu and Xin Fu, not by him). That the Water Tribes and Guru Pathik were where they were or Pathik sending his letter when he did, and that the Gaang would have to split up to cover all that ground, may have worked out conveniently for him, but he didn’t plan for it specifically, and much of it happened entirely beyond his control.

Azula piggy-backing on the opportunity to get in was probably the one thing Long Feng didn't see coming. But then, she was born lucky.

MG: *winces* Well, we’ll see how Azula subverts the Dai Li in Embers-verse, and an “l” word is involved, but it’s not lucky…

Assume most of "The Earth King" happened as canon, minus Appa's tooth-marks and Zuko's hallucinations. Poor guy. He'd probably prefer the hallucinations, compared to what's coming.

MG: I’ll note that in canon, Appa having bitten Long Feng’s leg was a big deal, because the bite marks on Long Feng’s leg matching Appa’s teeth was one of the most important moments in convincing the Earth King that the Gaang were telling the truth and Long Feng wasn’t. But honestly, while I understand skipping canon scenes that wouldn’t be changed much by an AU, I’m still just seeing more authorial favoritism in this choice. Toph and Zuko get to do cool stuff, but the Gaang’s big moment of invading the palace and overthrowing Long Feng gets relegated to being entirely off page. And despite how much the context around it has changed, Vathara clearly has no interest in exploring how the event itself might have been affected in this AU. It just feels very lazy, and very telling that, at least at this point, she just doesn’t have much interest in telling the Gaang’s story when Zuko isn’t around (now, we’re on the cusp of the Gaang taking over as the fic’s deuteragonists full-time, with their plotline running in parallel to Zuko’s… which makes the omission all the more jarring).

And unfortunately, this is the last of my already-written chapters. I'm working on chapters 21 and 22, and hope to have 21 up sometime next week. Unless Murphy's Law kicks in. Given this is Zuko... well.

MG: Well, I can’t hold that against Vathara, and in any case like most of the updates on the fic’s status it’s well in the past and therefore doesn’t impact this sporking.

Anyway, if this half-a-chapter really shows anything to me, it’s Vathara taking her biases that we already knew she had, and just plain making them the text of the story. Zuko and Toph get to be awesome, fighting the Dai Li, escaping Long Feng and rescuing the Freedom Fighters and Appa. The Gaang get to, once again, be a bunch of stupid kids who wander around Ba Sing Se getting told off by the adults and supposedly putting the Wens in danger by their presence (though how they’re doing so isn’t really specified). In addition to the continuing to beat the Koizilla was the Worst drum, we also get Zuko suggesting – not without reason, in Vathara’s view – that the war will only end with the Water Tribes and Earth Kingdom ganging up on the Fire Nation and doing to them as they did to the other nations, which is a terrible fate to be avoided at all costs (so the conclusion is – defeating the Fire Nation on the field of battle when they attack you is bad, and attacking the Fire Nation homeland in retaliation is also bad – it’s like the other nations can’t win at all, can they!). Meanwhile, among the Gaang Aang continues to be a naïve kid who doesn’t know what he’s doing, while Sokka is the only one with a halfway decent head on his shoulders. And then there’s Katara… poor Katara, with her random declaration that “Lee” deserves to die for the crime of daring to be a waterbender of Fire Nation heritage (again, she has no idea who he even is at this point!) we get our first real taste of just where Vathara is going to be taking her characterization over the next few arcs (until she decides she’s had enough and switches over mostly to Aang bashing instead). Just… what did this character do to you, Vathara? And, of course, we have the entire “invading the palace” sequence – one of the Gaang’s most epic moments, and the climax of the Dai Li arc – entirely brushed over as unimportant. Oh, no, no authorial biases here… *rolls eyes*.

Anyway, that’s all for today! Next time, Azula arrives in Ba Sing Se, revelations are had, canon ships are sunk, and Vathara doesn’t know the difference between Incas and Aztecs. We’ll see you then! Our counts stand at:

Beware the Sugar Queen: 24

The Blind Bandit Wins Again: 30

The Deadly Depths: 29

Detached from Reality: 12

Divine Right to Rule: 51

Elemental Determinism: 52

He Has Much to Learn: 61

Prince Stuko: 100 (giving a couple more points for Zuko having to explain things to the Gaang that they already knew in canon)

Protectors of our Cultural Heritage: 44

The Real Victims: 40

Roads to Nowhere: 1

Simple Rubes from the Water Tribes: 38

Stations of the Canon: 34

The Superior Element: 56

True Guardians of Balance: 1

The Ultimate Firebenders: 23