Focused Fire (ATLA)

“I still don’t trust him,” Aang said, and Sokka had to agree with him there. This Xing guy was far, far creepier than Zuko and Zhao combined. And there was a sense that getting into a fight with him would be a very different affair to the encounters with the other two.

That Sokka sighed with a relief he didn’t know existed showed just how much presence the guy had. Zuko almost reeked of desperation, while Zhao was arrogant. Xing? Xing was lethal. The kind of lethal that got him dark reputations throughout the Earth Kingdom villages and towns.

And yet…

A nagging thought pestered Sokka. “So, how come they all say he helped the Fire Lord kill the last dragons, if we saw him with two living ones?”

That brought Aang and Katara out of their debate about Xing’s character with Chief Arnook and Master Pakku. The airbender scrunched up in a heavy frown as he mulled it over, while Katara kept opening and closing her mouth like a fish to form answers. Sokka felt the pressure ease off his right arm and glanced to a confused (yet still very lovely) Yue.

“Uh, the guy was supposed to have killed a dragon, and then offered its eggs to the Fire Lord to destroy.”

“And you saw him with live dragons?” Pakku said with an undercurrent of smugness.

“Yeah,” Aang admitted. “But…it’s weird, isn’t it?”

Sadly, Yue fully let go of Sokka as she voiced her thoughts on the matter. “Maybe he was hiding them?”

“But he killed a dragon and stole its eggs!”

“How do you know?” Pakku’s smugness was very much more apparent this time. At the looks from Sokka, his sister and Aang, the master waterbender visibly preened. “Everyone says he did it, but what evidence did Xing give? From what we know, the boy of the 11th has a keen talent for deception. Siku also mentioned that they do not inflict their tactics on villagers and refugees.”

“So he’s lying about all that? Why would he do that?”

Pakku shrugged. “Who knows?”

Sokka found the potential answers disturbing, but he still had his doubts. “So what, he’s a good guy now?”

“Oh no. It’s just that you can probably trust this Xing, this Scorpion, to be competent and stick to a set of rules that you could exploit if you know what they are.”

“What kind of rules?”

Sokka felt the urge to smack Pakku when the waterbender smirked. “Rules of war. Rules of engagement.” At Aang’s repulsed expression, he shook his head. “Xing is right, you need to learn more about the harshness of the world before you can cast judgment as if you know all the details.”

“But…but he’s a killer,” the airbender said weakly.

Chief Arnook stepped in. “And so are we. Aang, what did you think happened when you disabled the Fire Nation ships alone? Did you think we would just leave them there to be retrieved by the rest of their fleet?”

Sokka felt a slight churning in his guts, but Aang and Katara took on greener hues as they digested that fact.

“We killed to protect ourselves from the Fire Nation. Just as the Earth Kingdom does. This is not a bloodless war, Avatar.”

It took several seconds for Aang to close his eyes and calm his nerves to reply. “But…but taking a life is…”

Sokka felt a pang of sympathy for the Avatar, even as he himself came to grips with the fact that he might have to face far more brutal violence out in the world. Zuko’s chase for the Avatar had been tame, Sokka realized. The prince wanted - needed Aang alive, so he had pulled his punches. And it was a mercy that their encounter with Zhao’s had been in an isolated area.

“Taking a life is something that should not be done lightly,” Chief Arnook said softly, “but neither should it be ignored when all other options are proven to be inadequate. The Fire Nation’s invasion does not allow us any other choice but to fight back and end their lives before they do the same to us. In the same vein, Zhao’s madness could only be punished in one way.”

Katara reached out to Aang, who shook his head in full denial and glared at the adults. “I won’t. I can’t.” The glare softened, and his shoulders slumped. “But…but I understand that it…it cannot be avoided sometimes.”

The image of the remains of Aang’s old mentor, Gyatso, surrounded by dozens of Fire Nation corpses came to Sokka, and he briefly wondered what went on in the air nomad’s mind in his last moments before taking those soldiers’ lives with him. Maybe he’ll bring it up later, when Aang isn’t so…stressed.

They all left the Spirit Oasis shortly after to witness the Fire Nation’s retreat. As Chief Arnook declared earlier, the Northern Water Tribe defenders reclaimed the broken walls and went no further, allowing the invaders to flee unmolested. Sokka couldn’t help resting his gaze on the unmoving bodies littering the city streets. 

Blackened husks marked the victims of firebenders. Bodies draped in red and black were crushed into unrecognizable forms under piles of ice. More conventional corpses lay on the ice surrounded by pools of their frozen blood. Out by a junction, a Fire Nation soldier had been torn in half, probably from the tank hatch he was escaping from as a crystalline boulder crushed it.

The water tribe youth took in the sight of war, and contrasted it to the raids - light raids, now that he thought about it - conducted on his own tribe in the past. Losing his mother had been a major tragedy for their whole village. How great must the grieving be here, with the dozens, or even hundreds, of Agna Qel’a’s fallen?

Something wrapped around his hand, and Sokka turned to see Yue’s sad but comforting smile. He returned it as best as it could, and felt the cold void in his core lightening a bit. A glance at Aang and Katara found them in far grimmer states. Tears streamed down the cheeks of Sokka’s sister, while the young airbender was wide-eyed with horror and trembling a little.

“Hey, Aang,” Sokka reached out. “Come on, let’s go get some rest. You too Katara. C’mon.”

As he led them into the far more sterile royal palace. He caught the look of approval from Chief Arnook and Master Pakku, and returned their silent nods with one of his own. Fortunately, Yue followed along, her hand never leaving his. It was probably the one thing giving Sokka any warmth at all as they left the scene of carnage.

They remained in Agna Qel’a for another two weeks, to continue Aang’s waterbending training, as well as allow their young minds to come to terms with the horrors of war. Katara bore both training and trauma with her usual stubborn determination, but Aang still awoke from nightmares occasionally.

As for Sokka, he was glad that he was allowed to officially court Yue, after Hahn’s b- after Hahn’s loss was confirmed by those clearing the city and waters. It allowed him a veil of normalcy, a happy little respite from the ugliness of the world. Yue also showed a hidden strength in her that Sokka quickly relied upon as he faced his inner unease. 

“The war is a horrible thing that forces the best people to do the worst things. I’ve seen the hard decisions my father had to make… I’ll have to make those same decisions someday, and so will you.”

The two of them spent a lot of time in quiet walks or simply sitting by the walls. Sokka would listen to Yue’s comforting words, and he also learned to listen harder to her pearls of wisdom. It hammered home that she was the princess of a whole city, while he was just a chieftain’s son from a small, fragile village. 

She spoke of the long view, and multi-layered intentions. When Sokka recounted his tales with Aang, her probing questions about their actions as well as their enemies’ left his mind roiling with what-ifs and occasional cringing regret.

“Be thankful that Zuko was keen in following Xing’s wishes,” she said about the incident in Kyoshi Island. “The Fire Nation could have simply bombarded the village to flush Aang out, or used the villagers as hostages.”

That particular fact made Sokka squirm. The encounter between Suki and Zuko had implied that the Scorpion had landed on Kyoshi Island before their arrival, and somehow struck a deal with the Kyoshi Warriors. A deal that made Suki and her fellows tense. And then there’s the fact that relentless Zuko actually took the Kyoshi Warrior’s claim seriously.

Sokka didn’t know what the Scorpion Dragon had in store for Aang, but he didn’t trust the shows of respect and consideration given so far. He couldn’t, not after seeing what kind of madness can infect the Fire Nation, like it did to Zhao.

Four days before they left, Chief Arnook had approached Sokka with Yue by his side. The chief wore a smile that was both sad and elated at the same time. “My daughter has persuaded me of the merits of uniting the Northern and Southern Water Tribes, and has volunteered to take the first step in that direction.”

Yue stepped towards Sokka with a coy smile, her brilliant blue eyes fixed on him. His heart began hammering away and he was nodding even before she opened her mouth to offer her proposal.

Their betrothal was announced to the cheers of everyone, even Katara and Aang lit up despite their exhaustion from their training.  Sokka found himself a very, very lucky man when some of the older women teased Yue and she answered by pulling him by the lapel of his coat and pressing her lips against his. His legs almost failed him as the kiss stole away his mind, but Sokka was a brave Water Tribe warrior, and endured the happy little ordeal.

He did not have a stupid smile on his face, contrary to what Katara and Aang accused.

On the day of their departure, Sokka got to enjoy a more passionate, seconds-long kiss before he boarded the ship. “Come back to me, Sokka.”

Yue was strong, she didn’t ask him to stay with her and accepted his place as Aang’s companion. Sokka swore then to do right by her. He held her hands in his, squeezing them gently for every ounce of strength he could loan from her. “I’ll be back, Yue. I promise.”

*****

Within her private quarters in Omashu’s governor’s mansion, Mai took Azula’s change far more…dramatically than Ty Lee had expected her to. Her usual gray apathy turned into shocked surprise when the princess bowed before her and apologized in the same way as she did to Ty Lee.

The former acrobat saw the minute twitches and movements in her friend that made Mai’s gray aura take on more interesting hues, if only for a moment. There were tints of concern at the edges of it, as well as a larger dash of suspicion, but all in all Mai was a roiling swirl of processing emotions.

“And despite all that, as I did with Ty Lee, I’ve come seeking your aid in looking for Zuko’s…attackers.”

The mention of Zuko unsurprisingly made Mai tense just a little, giving her aura a flash of an angry pink-orange. Anger, and the reignited sparks of an old crush. “Count me in. Anything to get me out of this place.” For how bland Mai managed to sound, Ty Lee saw rather than hear how the words were only half-honest. Her friend’s subtle twitches kept sparking her aura.

Mai was really out for blood.

Azula decided to spend the night in Omashu before heading to Hai Sin. Ty Lee found that the princess was surprisingly courteous to Mai’s parents, considering her father’s position as governor of Omashu. The tales that managed to seep out to the circus emphasized Azula’s contempt for the colonies and the way it was run, which was why she got fed up with it and decided to seize the reigns of Colonial Minister herself.

But those same rumors couldn’t decide whether she was picking up the ostracized and shamed to work in the colonies out of mercy or spite. Some said she was giving disgraced officials and nobles another chance at proving themselves, others that she was clearing the more prestigious home islands’ posts of deadwood by transferring them out to the boonies.

Even as she saw the changes to the princess, Ty Lee couldn’t be sure which version held true. Azula was still sharp and cunning as ever, with an eye for detail that made her verbally flay the dockmaster for his incompetence back when they were departing the capital. 

And yet this was the same Azula that stopped for a moment to crouch by a squealing Tom-Tom running by and produced a handkerchief from under her robes to gently wipe away his drool, tutting with disapproval as she did so. The toddler actually stopped to let her do it too, after she whispered some noises to calm him down. The princess seemed nonchalant about it, ignoring Ty Lee’s and Mai’s stares as she got up and ignited the stained cloth as she tossed it over her shoulder. 

“My regiment’s training captain has a brat like that,” she provided as if it explained everything. “Of course, being raised in a training yard, Fan’s more well behaved.” Ty Lee noted how her royal friend practically preened like a proud cousin, the quirk of her mouth and the fondness in her eyes making Azula’s aura feel a softer shade of red. “Still a snot-dribbling and noisy thing, but at least she knows how to follow drill orders. Heh, she put a lot of the new recruits to shame too.”

Ty Lee was so tempted to reach a hand out to Mai to help lift her hanging jaw back then.

“That’s…that’s Azula, right?” the usually dour girl asked as Azula walked out of earshot.

Ty Lee nodded. “It could be because of the soldiers she picked up.”

Apparently Mai had heard of the Princess’ Royal Regiment as well. “How does investing in a group of bloodthirsty psychopaths make her this…relaxed? Wait, on second thought, it makes too much sense…”

Ah, so she’s heard of the regiment, but not the scandalous suggestions that trailed after it. Of the ruthless Scorpion that caught the crown princess’ eye, and then her heart. Of the favors he did (allegedly) to ensure his place by her side.

The…unwiser ones dared to suggest Azula to no longer be a virgin after her adoption of the 11th. Ty Lee never saw those people again. And she didn’t believe their claims. Seeing Azula as she is now, Ty Lee was sure that her friend hadn’t done anything yet, assuming there was anything to do.

Azula would’ve probably proclaimed herself the best at losing her virginity if that were the case, making it another show of her greatness.

Though admittedly this new version of her didn’t seem to be that competitive.

They were preparing to leave Omashu when a messenger hawk flew in, trailing red and black ribbons. An urgent message meant for Azula specifically. The message was hurriedly sent to her, and Ty Lee watched as the crown princess read through the scroll in silence. The way her eyebrows twitched as her eyes moved back and forth, the way her pose tensed and then relaxed…it was good news overall, good enough to make Azula’s red turn vibrant and radiant.

“It seems my brother is more resilient than everyone gave him credit for.” Mai’s eyes shot towards Azula immediately as the princess delivered the news. “Zuko’s alive, freed from the clutches of the Northern Water Tribe.” She clenched the scroll in her hands and set it alight. “How he got there though is a puzzle I’ll have to decipher, along with who tried to blow him up in the first place.”

Azula turned to Ty Lee, and then Mai. “Would you both still be amenable in following me?”

“Of course, Azula!” Ty Lee eagerly said. She wanted to know more of this new Azula.

“I’m still in,” Mai said, trying to keep a bored drawl. She was still eager to hunt down her crush’s attackers.

The princess gave a resolute nod. “Thank you. We’ll stop by Zilang first. Zuko’s being dropped off there, so I’ll be able to question him there.”

Oh, how Mai’s aura turned pink at the edges. It clashed badly with gray, but at least it broke the bland monochrome.

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Author's notes: My take on Ty Lee is that she perceives people very well, and associates their moods to colors, something like synesthesia. Makes her a scary good truthsayer if she decides to be serious about it.