Chapter Text
Aang re-tied his ragged cloak over his itchy tunic. He missed his monk robes, but he had long since outgrown them, and hadn’t been able to make new ones. Beneath him, the grumpy camel-lizard he had been riding for the past four hours grunted and spat as it tripped through the underbrush. Not for the first time, Aang wished he was back with the others, riding Appa instead of a grumpy Fire Nation mare.
But Appa was safe back in Ba Sing Se with Momo, and the others were scattered across the Earth Kingdom, helping with the revolution. And he was alone, deep in Fire Nation territory, searching for a Fire Nation rebel camp that he wasn’t even sure existed.
The forest grew thicker, and Aang was forced to dismount, or risk being pulled off by the vines and branches. He had been wandering around the area for days, hesitant to make the final push towards the Western Temple. As far as he had come, it still felt strange to him that he would find it not as haven for female monks, but as a rebel base.
Nevertheless, he had put it off long enough.
In the distance, the mountains towered closer and closer, and the rocks of the forest changed subtly to a more striated pattern, obvious if you knew what to look for. Following the geographical markers, Aang was soon closing in on its position.
The location was hidden well, and Aang was surprised that the rebels had even managed to find it. They must have stumbled across it by accident, because anyone actively searching for the temple was sure to look in the mountain ranges further west or north. Who would look for airbenders underground, in the vast and flat forested foothills of the mountains?
As the area became more familiar, nerves crept up on Aang. The last temple he had been to was the Eastern Temple, and that had not gone well. How much would the Western Temple have changed? When he had visited the Northern Temple some four or so – had it really been four? – years previous, it had been gutted and restructured, and although Aang had long since made peace with it, he couldn’t stand the idea of the same happening to the Western Temple. His memory of the strong and spiritually steadfast monks who guarded the temple, and the women under their care, was too vivid and close to his heart for him to be able to imagine it as a wrecked and empty husk of what it had been. Would it even be recognisable? Without proper maintenance could it have crumbled into the gorge?
Distracted by his own thoughts, he didn't hear or sense the footsteps until he had already been surrounded by a dozen or so people, all wearing cloth to disguise their faces and brandishing weapons. Toph would be disappointed. He could almost feel the phantom bruises where she would have punched him.
One particularly convincing jab of a spear encouraged Aang to raise the hand holding his staff in surrender, the other hand still holding the reigns of his disagreeable – but admirably stoic in the face of an armed squad – lizard-camel. He was sure he could overpower such a small group of people easily, but reminded himself carefully that that was not part of the plan.
“Who are you?” a man asked, taking half a step forward. The way he held himself made it obvious he was the leader. “State your purpose.”
“I’m a botanist,” Aang called back, praying that he could remember the words that Iroh had instructed him to say. “I am looking for a flower.”
“Out here?” one member of the group said disbelievingly, casting his eyes from side to side. He was quickly shushed by the others.
The leader of the band narrowed his eyes. “What kind of flower?”
“The lotus flower,” Aang replied dutifully, hoping the man would pick up the signal. Although he had rehearsed the many call-and-response codes that the Order of the White Lotus commonly used, they were useless if the person he was speaking to didn’t know them.
“The lotus flower does not bloom among strangers,” the leader said tersely.
Aang could have beamed with relief, but schooled his emotions into an admittedly poor mask. “But where it does, one can always find a friend.”
The man opposite seemed to relax his spear for a moment. “Are you sure that you do not search for a magnolia-poppy, my friend?”
“No,” Aang replied, trying not to fumble his line, “for it blooms from, um, tainted soil, and I seek fresh growth.”
The man finally lowered his spear and stepped closer. “I am the Commander,” he said, putting a hand on Aang’s shoulder firmly. “Call me Jee. You will come with us.”
Zuko dragged a hand through his hair, staring at the blurry reports on his desk. He was tired and overworked but refused to rest. In the south, three resistance cells had been demolished, and in the east the rebels had reclaimed another port town.
It was always like this. Tiny victories and crushing defeats, but the resistance struggled on, springing back like cockroach-ants. If the Fire Nation had focussed their efforts, they could have destroyed the internal rebels years ago, but their hubris had allowed the rebels to cling on. Now, with Ba Sing Se reclaimed once more by the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation army was weakened, facing on one front the forces allegedly led by the Avatar, and back home the steadily strengthening resistance headed by the ex-prince.
There was a knock on the wooden window shutters, and Zuko looked up from his papers, calling out for the person to come in. The door of his planning room was little more than a weighted curtain across an open doorframe, so most people knocked on the shutters to announce their presence.
A man entered, bowing as he did so, and placed a bowl of rice onto Zuko's desk. Zuko thanked him, and gave his best smile, although he didn't at all feel like smiling in that moment. The man beamed back with twice the energy, and bowed again as he shuffled out backwards.
Zuko allowed the smile to drop.
In front of him, the bowl of rice was perfectly white and fluffy, and he could smell how well-seasoned it was, far more tasteful than anything the other rebels would receive. In another life he would have scarfed it down. Now, it only made him feel vaguely queasy. He set it to the side, hoping to hand it off to one of the children when nobody was watching, and returned to squinting at his scrolls.
He managed to get half-way to the end of the report before he was disturbed by another knock to his shutters, this time by a soldier in leather armour.
“Your Highness, Commander Jee has returned with the sentry group,” the soldier said, bowing crisply with the symbol of the flame in his hands, before standing upright at attention, staring at a spot to the side of Zuko’s head. It was clear he had been a Fire Nation soldier before defecting.
“Any news?” Zuko asked, desperately hoping that the answer would be, as it usually was, none.
“They have found a man wandering the woods, Your Highness. The Commander is holding him in the main courtyard, and requests your presence.”
Zuko nodded, getting to his feet. “Thank you.”
The man bowed again, and backed out of the room. Taking a fortifying breath, Zuko followed, failing to repress his flinch at stepping out into bright sunlight. The two guards stationed outside his door tensed up, and one of them moved to flank him. The other would stay to ensure nobody snooped around his office.
The room that served as his office was really just a dark storeroom some way along the exposed promenade, only big enough for a desk, a couple of chairs, and some cupboards. The air temple was well designed to get sunlight, but this room had only one shuttered window and one door, veiled by cloth. It was dark, but it was at least dry, and whenever he was inside Zuko kept the desk lit enough by torches mounted on the walls.
Along the wide walkway outside, affectionately called the promenade, were cubby holes and benches and little courtyards, and corridors leading away to other parts of the temple. The promenade was always well-populated, as it was well-designed to have both areas of shade and areas of sunlight. As always, everyone bowed their heads as he passed, pausing in eating their mid-day meals until he had gone.
At the archway leading to the main courtyard, Jee was waiting, looking impatient.
“Took your time,” Jee snapped. Zuko smiled at that, making Jee scowl harder. Jee was Zuko’s favourite commander, one of the only ones who had no qualms about giving Zuko a piece of his mind if he deserved it.
“Sorry,” Zuko replied, peering through the arch into the courtyard. He could hear, as well as see, the large and grumpy camel-lizard. “Is that a camel-lizard?” he asked, regardless.
“What does it look like? It won’t shut up, but it seems healthy and well-cared for.”
As if on cue, the camel-lizard hissed, then launched into obnoxious screaming grunts.
“Can we get that to the stables?” Zuko asked, wincing.
“Get that thing to the stables!” Jee shouted to the men holding the reigns.
“She’s just hungry!” A voice piped up from within the courtyard, as the soldiers led the camel-lizard away. “She like hay and insects! Also mice, and nuts if you have any!”
Without the grumpy mare taking up a large chunk of the courtyard, Zuko could see the stranger who had called out, surrounded by members of the sentry party, and clearly preoccupied with calling out instructions of care for his steed. He was young, and not particularly tall, but certainly not a boy, despite being beardless. His sleeves stretched over his hands, the ends tied around his middle finger, and he wore a headscarf and socks, even in this heat where most people wore sandals or went barefoot.
“Is that your prisoner?” Zuko asked, studying the stranger.
“Perhaps not,” Jee answered, in a low voice, “I believe he may be affiliated with the Order. Claimed he was a botanist, although he has no samples on him.”
At that, Zuko glanced sharply at Jee. He hadn’t heard from Jeong Jeong or his uncle in far too long, not since the brief message that Ba Sing Se had been recaptured and the Avatar purportedly seen. “A messenger?”
“Maybe.”
“Have you questioned him?”
“Not with the others around. He could be carrying sensitive information.”
Zuko nodded and squared his shoulders. Entering the courtyard made people go silent. Some bowed, some tensed up, and Zuko fought against his internal awkwardness, even after all this time.
The stranger noticed his guard go silent, and scanned the courtyard until his eyes landed on Zuko. Rather than bow, or flinch at his scar, or spit in his face, or the million other ways that people had reacted to meeting him over the years, the man seemed to perk up, even look relieved.
Zuko opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, the stranger spoke first.
"My name is Pippin," the stranger said. "I've been searching for the resistance for weeks. You're Prince Zuko, aren't you?"