Where Words Fail

Book Five: The Invasion of Omashu

Chapter 1: I don't care about imaginary boundaries, but somehow I'm afraid to go over them

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is a fan fiction - nothing more, nothing less. It has been made purely for entertainment purposes, and is not meant for commercial gain. Avatar: The Last Airbender and all characters, places and concepts are copyright of Nickelodeon, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko. All original characters are copyright their respective owners and are used with their permission. The story has been illustrated by the talented and awesome SioUte, and this chapter's cover can be found here:

sioute(dot)deviantart(dot)com/art/WWF-5-1-150282377

SCENE DIVIDE

"Spirits," Bee whispered, the word - and her relation to it - heavy and metallic in Longshot's chest, like an arrowhead lodged against his ribs, scraping the bones. He felt the weight and it took all his power to not curse aloud alongside her.

Omashu had fallen. Oh, Spirits, it had fallen and suddenly things couldn't become any more skewed. Just a few days ago, everything had seemed to have been going so right, but now - flags of black fire on a maroon backdrop were draped across the sloped walls that had at one point kept the Fire Nation from entering, such a familiar, awful sight. By now, he should have been used to it...should have, should have, but Omashu had been their last hope, and Pipsqueak and The Duke were supposed to be here, safe, ready to ride alongside himself and Smellerbee, and the Freedom Fighters were supposed to be one step closer to reuniting, and and and...it just wasn't fair. It wasn't any fair. Couldn't they get a break in this war?

His hands tightened around the leather reins for his ostrich horse, recently (and finally) dubbed Fletcher. Smellerbee must have heard the leather squeal in protest under Longshot's unyielding grasp, because the next thing he realized was that a comforting hand had found its way to his forearm. He turned away from the, the mess, the abomination that the Fire Nation had created, saw Smellerbee staring back at him with eyes narrowed. "You gonna be okay, Longshot?"

He shook his head and closed his eyes. He couldn't tell. This was almost just too much to take in, wasn't it? What could they do now in the face of this? He liked to pride himself on staying level-headed, but this problem just felt - too big. Like he couldn't wrap his mind around it.

"It'll be okay," Smellerbee whispered. She turned back to glance at the city, a determined frown on her curled lips. "The Duke an' Pipsqueak are alright. If they didn't manage to get outta there, they'd hold strong. They're tough cookies. All the same...we should do something about it."

Longshot sighed through his nose and turned his attention to the distant city, its conical, mountain-like shape sending a multitude of spires reaching up for the gloomy sky. Was she suggesting they actually go in there?

"We don't have the manpower to liberate a place the size of Omashu." Smellerbee shook her head, her hair whipping about her face, ruffled by a light breeze tickling past them. "We're going to be stealthy and we're going to search their prison cells. That's all."

Longshot leaned back into Fletcher's saddle and felt a grin forming on his face. That sounded more doable...they hadn't been able to liberate that town with the curved, water-like architecture, and that was a fraction of a fraction of the size of Omashu. Sure, they'd had the Boulder working against them at first, but Longshot figured the Boulder equaled out to a dozen or so Firebenders.

"Exactly," Smellerbee said, flicking back a strand clump of bangs that had gone astray and threatened to get in her eyes. "Let's get back down to the bottom of the hill, leave Surestance 'n Fletcher here with some feed and water. It'll be easier for us to get into Omashu undetected without 'em."

SCENE DIVIDE

Omashu was a city made entirely of vertical cones, the pointed ends scraping against the clouds; there were maybe four or five of these massive spires, all of Omashu's houses and businesses mounted in tiers along the cones, the center one the tallest and sporting Omashu's palace at the very tip. Longshot remembered, very distantly, seeing pictures of buildings with towers similar to, well, all of Omashu. A long time ago, in a vastly different lifetime. (A warm, slender hand tracing lines across the parchment bound together to form a book, an actual book, not just a scroll, while a voice read aloud the characters highlighted by unknown fingertips, so comforting, so familiar, yet so alien because of the yawning, chronological chasm between then and now.) Cast entirely out of the same brown stone made up of the surrounding mountains, a wall - low and not as vast as Ba Sing Se's - had been erected about the city's edge, giving Longshot the strange impression that they existed to prevent any of the buildings from sliding off the conical slopes and vanishing into the abyssal valley forming a ring around Omashu itself.

At one point, he was certain, there had been only stone. But now, buildings with metal fixtures surging out from their bulk had joined those without - the metalwork red or brown or charcoal-gray, billowing plumes of noxious black smoke into the sky, churning out war machines and weaponry. Longshot would have scowled. The Fire Nation had violated poor Omashu with its industrialist ways, converting a place that had once (and maybe still did) serve as a home to innocent bystanders. To the archer, it felt like walking into a rowdy tavern and seeing a waitress being manhandled by a man with more brains below the waist...only now, only now, Longshot wouldn't be able step in to save the victim, none of the three of them would have, and the brute would walk off without anyone raising so much as their voice (let alone a hooked sword, a sinewy dagger, or a nocked bow).

Amidst the houses and the spires, rising above all that had been Omashu's to begin with, stood a statue of a man wearing Fire Nation regalia - robes and armor, together a combination seen only on the highest officers in the military and high nobility of the Fire Nation fighting outside the military's purview (often because of their birth rank). As a Freedom Fighter, Longshot remembered - vividly - putting arrows into the backs of many officers decorated as such, each kill gratifying, almost a high, as if he were sticking it to the Fire Nation personally. But - this statue, there was too much out of place about it. The armor was too extravagant, the robes had more layers to them than an onion, and the ornate mantle holding his topknot in place was so decorative that Longshot had never seen another one like it. The piece looked almost identical to the Fire Nation insignia currently decorating the walls of Omashu.

And then the statue's face - it's face - it bore into you, eyes glaring hatefully, greedily. Even cast in stone, Longshot felt pervaded by it, how it wanted to steal his land, his food, his hope, leave him rotting face-down on the ground with absolutely nothing to his name - and then, after a sufficient amount of suffering had been seen too, it would land the finishing blow, and it would not be a slow death from there, oh no, it would hurt, it would burn, and it would not stop until the man carved of stone allowed the cavalcade of torment crawl to end.

"Yeah," Smellerbee mumbled, shuddering and hugging herself as if a fell chill had passed between them. "I feel it, too. I...I think that's Fire Lord Ozai."

Huh. Longshot supposed it made sense...no other man could be so monstrous to incite such fear, could there be? Of all the Fire Lords to sit on the throne since this war started a hundred years ago, they said Ozai was the cruelest - that he did things to his opponents, even to his own countrymen, his forefathers would never have dreamed of.

It had taken an hour to get this close to the city - it was within zipline distance now, and all Longshot needed to do was stop shaking long enough to hit his damn mark with the arrow.

The sky was overcast, great, big, roiling clouds blocking out the sun - as if foretelling of some kind of omen, as if the Freedom Fighters would not find what they wanted here.

As if they may not walk away alive.

But was that the clouds, or the statue? Or was Longshot just being too - too paranoid? Why was he losing his nerve all of a sudden in the face of this adversity? It sucked. It wasn't like him at all.

Smellerbee patted him on the shoulder a couple of times, squeezing gently - encouragement sloshed over him like taking a dip in the lake, and he exhaled the breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. She grinned at him. "It's alright. Just a statue. It's makin' me nervous as all hell, too...but what are the chances that the Fire Lord is in Omashu, you know? I bet he's got his fat, happy ass in the Fire Nation right now just so nobody can pull a Smellerbee 'n Longshot on him."

Longshot's mouth quirked into a half-grin, and he nodded. Tilting the brim of his hat up, he trained his eyes to the top of Omashu's wall - Fire Nation soldiers stood on guard several yards apart, staring outward - armed with pikes - looking bored...ah! He drew Bee's attention by tapping her on the shoulder and pointing. One trooper remained upright only because of the pillar of rock he had slumped up against, partially obscured by a miniature lookout tower. The soldier was low-ranked enough that he didn't have a mask to go with his helmet, and judging by the way his eyes drooped, and the trail of saliva trickling down the side of his mouth...yes. A sleeper! That was their point of entry, and the lookout tower provided a blind spot if the pair were going to ascend the walls of Omashu from beneath it.

That was the only way in. While scouting around the valley, they had found only a sewer drain (impassable for them, given how much sludge and waste flowed from it; they'd need a Waterbender to ascend something that perilous), and the city's main entrance - connected to the mainland by a humungous stone slab bridge, but blockaded by about ten Fire Nation troops all in close proximity of each other.

So. Swallowing the nerves threatening to give out beneath him, Longshot withdrew from his bag of supplies a sturdy length of rope. The coils were rough on his fingertips, but so tightly-wound that they didn't pierce the skin or leave splinters. Eyeballing the distance between their hiding spot just behind a hill and Omashu's wall, he estimated how much rope he'd need to make it the whole distance...hmm. Yeah. Should be enough, with a few feet to spare. That would be plenty. He went to work, tying a solid knot around the arrow's shaft; he knocked it in his bow and drew it back, the tension pulsating in his fingers, his arms, his shoulders - the string smooth, but not slick, in his hand. Aiming - aiming...there! He released, feeling a blast-breeze rushing past his face, left by the arrow's slipstream. The rope hissed as it unraveled beside him, a great big pile unfurling, like noodles - and the distant, satisfying sound of arrow piercing stone. Very distinct, very gratifying, because it was such a solid noise. It connected with the lookout tower, not ten feet out from where the dozing guard stood; his head snapped up for a moment, eyes wide, confused - and when a quick glance around yielded nothing, his head slumped forward again.

Beside him, Smellerbee grinned. "Nice shot."

He beamed back.

SCENE DIVIDE

Jet had been able to climb trees with these swords. She, herself, had used them once in the swamp to pull herself up through a tunnel made mostly of unpacked soil in order to escape that cave Longshot's ZomBee hallucination had taken place in (an exhilarating, satisfying experience)...but now, the crescent-bladed hand guards of Jet's swords would get the opportunity to bite through - from the looks of it - limestone. She didn't know much about it, or rocks in general really (something Mortar would have teased her about: "You're from the Earth Kingdom and you don't have any knowledge on what types of stone there are?" Her mind ignored the mental-Mortar it had erected, and she decided she agreed with herself; she didn't need any of her (even jocular) criticisms right now). But Longshot said Omashu's wall was porous, and his eyes were better than hers - and it wasn't like she had any reason to doubt him.

The swords would catch. She just needed the right momentum and an impact with enough power behind it to connect. Then power up, power up, that's how it always was when it came to climbing with the swords. Every muscle burning, screaming, working - sweat percolating, breath hot and hard and spiny in her throat. But it was fast, and she wouldn't fall and it would be a familiar thing now, not like that time under the swamp, where it was just a test - where she was simply imitating Jet.

As Longshot worked on testing their swing line, Smellerbee fidgeted in her armor, adjusting the straps holding Jet's swords in place. Keeping them crossed over her back, as per usual, was practical for travel purposes, but she'd been finding over the past several battles and sudden confrontations that she struggled to free them with anything resembling efficiency that way. It felt - it felt more natural, much faster and easier, to grab down to her sides and yank them free of their straps. The timing in this little stunt she and Longshot were about to pull off was gonna be so tight that keepin' the damn things on her back was just a mistake waiting to happen; if the swords didn't come free of the snap-restraints the first time she pulled on them, she'd either dislocate her shoulder as only one handle impacted into the stone, or wind up as a flat-chested, boyish smear on the city's walls.

Not pretty, either way, and she hardly wanted to end up as a Smellerbee-shaped stain with so much left to fight for. So with a little bit of manipulating and constructive rebuilding, she managed to secure the slings acting as the swords' sheaths around her waist, like a belt, the hilts of the blades resting on her hips and pointing inward.

It was because of this last fact that Longshot suggested Smellerbee ride the rope above him; she snerked as his face told of his lack of desire to get his rear end gouged out by the diamond-blade pommels on Jet's swords, and all she could do was shake her head and giggle.

"Fine, fine. You're heavier than I am anyway, it'd screw up the momentum for me if you were on top."

Longshot arched a brow, his cheeks scrawled with red; was that an innuendo in Smellerbee's pocket, or was she just happy to see him? Laughing again (because of the nerves? That statue was creepy, and they couldn't be any more out of their depth, Longshot had been right about that much), she tossed her head back like she'd seen the snobby, rich girls do in villages they had visited on their trip to Ba Sing Se, keeping her nose upturned in mockery of their snooty attitudes. "That's hardly befitting for a young lady such as myself."

Ah, yes - but that would imply Smellerbee acted like the traditional young lady in the first place. Longshot's eyes twinkled. He was glad that she didn't.

She grinned. "Besides, there's nothing wrong with me being on top. You'd like it and you know it." As she spoke, she grabbed the remaining coils of rope lying on the grass between them, the green blades poking at her gloved hands. She reeled it in, drawing as much slack out as she could, giving a sharp tug when it had become taut. The arrow stuck firm into the limestone, and she saw, out of the corner of her eye, that Longshot wore a calm grin on his face.

"Excellent shooting, as always," Smellerbee praised, clasping the rope tightly with both hands. "Now grab on so we can do this something proper."

Poised to take off, Smellerbee glanced over the chasm separating the hilltop from Omashu, feeling a warm breeze whistle past. This would be fun. Scary as hell, but fun - her mind meandered back to a simpler time, the scent of honey poignant in the air, laughing, shirtless, soaked to the bone - the lake, sprawling out before her, a massive, silver scale glittering under the open sunlight. Most of the other Freedom Fighters watching as she vaulted away from the tree bark, rough on the soles of her bare feet, grabbing onto the rope swing, and releasing when it arced far enough over the middle so that she could cannonball beneath the lake's surface, letting the cold water suck her in, absorb her.

"Ahh."

The sigh drew a questioning glance from Longshot as the archer moved into place behind Smellerbee, grasping the rope as well. Smellerbee craned her head back to look at him and said, "You remember the rope swing back in the forest?"

He nodded, unsure of where Smellerbee intended to go with this line of thought; she could see him working to draw the parallels until finally shaking his head and shrugging.

"I hope this doesn't make that not fun anymore." She smirked. "On three?"

Another nod, and Smellerbee began the count, her pulse thick and wild between her ears. Before she could really register it, they had charged off the hill's peak and her feet were peddling the naked air, wind tearing at her face, her eyes going dry, cheeks cold. Her clothes ruffled, the wind howled into her ears, blowing her hair back - it was thrilling, exhilarating, her heart screaming against her ribs - and there was the wall, so close, rising up and ready to pound her unless she -

released

- her arms, already wailing in agony from gripping the rope, surged down to the hilts of Jet's swords, she snapped them free, whipped them around and brought them to bare.

TCHONK!

The golden, glimmering crescents - the hand guards to Jet's swords - buried their teeth into the wall, the impact jarring Smellerbee's entire body, her bones just short of leaping free of her skin. The wind's chill was gone, now, just gentle warmth radiating out of the sunbaked stone, pressing her skin, heating her clothes and armor, and there was no time to stick around here now that she'd connected, use the momentum and climb, climb, climb –

Muscles burned, bones ached, sweat percolated beneath her headband; hauling herself upward with Jet's swords, each breath felt like a plume of smoldering embers billowing through her nostrils, in and out, in and out. The stone's surface crunched underneath the toes of her boots as she pulled one sword free at a time, only to pull it up, over her head, and bury it into the stone again, then to do it with the other arm.

Dust sprinkled down with each one, and Smellerbee kept her head forward. Getting that in her eyes? Bad news, and it helped not knowing how much higher the wall towered above them anyway. Just keep breathing, the sun at her back, its heat from in front, and only the sounds of Jet's swords and her feet and Longshot's feet to keep her company. She didn't keep track of how much time had elapsed, either, because that would be another mistake, a folly that would mean she admitted to her strength giving out, exhaustion setting in -

No! Gritting her teeth and freeing the sword again, bringing it up, over, and down, up, over and down. And then, and then -

- the sword didn't bite, there was only air to greet her, and Smellerbee hurled her arm over the ledge. The top, finally! Her breath became less labored simply by the thought, and she wrestled the rest of her body up and over, rolling off and landing in a crouch. The dozing guard slouched only a few feet away, his helmet bobbing up and down, gentle sighs escaping his lips.

Longshot hauled himself over as well, landing beside Smellerbee; she placed a finger to her lips and cast a sideways glance at him, nodding in the direction of the guard. No time to feel relieved just yet - though solid ground beneath her feet, and the thought of not having to work so hard to move anywhere, made it appealing to not call it a day right here. There might yet be other Freedom Fighters to save.

Standing upright, Smellerbee felt a passing summer breeze waft by and pushed back the growing temptation to close her eyes and succumb to it. With footfalls lighter than a feather (Jet had taught them well, about how the art of stealth could mean a victory against an enemy far more powerful than they were - she always had preferred drawing blood where possible, but their leader had praised her on her sneaking skills), Smellerbee hooked Jet's swords back into place and motioned for Longshot to follow.

The archer glanced at her and nodded, using a few feet of the rope to pluck the arrow free from where it had been lodged; no need to waste good supplies, after all (another valuable lesson). He began to coil it up using his right hand and elbow to support it, tip-toeing past the soldier as he did so.

Smellerbee planted her hands on the wall framing the inside of the city and tried to - to take in the damage, because seeing it up close was a lot different from afar. Outside the city, the alterations the Fire Nation had put in place had looked strictly cultural and nothing more, but that wasn't even the start of it. Entire houses lay as piles of rubble, walls crumbled to bits, the maroon roof tiles cracked and shattered around the remains like flower petals scattered at a funeral. Shops had been shoved aside - how? With machines, no doubt, or thanks to the Dai Li that had allied themselves with the Fire Nation - squashed almost comically, three sides plowed inward while the last would bulge from all the detritus it contained. In their places were iron-laden workshops, also made out of stone, erected directly on top of the fallen homes and businesses of the people that used to (still did?) live here. Creating weapons, no doubt - more ways to kill enemies to the Fire Nation, more ways to oppress those too tenacious to fall.

If Pipsqueak and The Duke were still here, they wouldn't be in very good condition to help Longshot and Smellerbee, let alone escape from this awful place.

Okay. She grit her teeth and narrowed her eyes. There'll be time for that stuff later. Right now, work on a plan.

She glanced at Longshot, but he, too, seemed preoccupied staring at the fallen city; it was almost like being back in Ba Sing Se after leaving that cave at Lake Laogai's edge. How had the Fire Nation managed to take Omashu? Did they prefer the old-fashioned Dragon-of-the-West style siege? (Skillet and Sneers may've been the military history buffs in the Freedom Fighters, but Smellerbee wasn't completely ignorant.) Or were they more fond of Princess Azula's trickery and manipulations? Maybe the hell-bitch had helmed the operation directly, because if she could ninja Ba Sing Se out of Earth Kingdom control, then Omashu'd probably have been a cakewalk. If what Smellerbee had heard about Azula was true, she was a frightening, brilliant military mind.

No, too much distraction. Smellerbee shook her head and cast her eyes downward; the ground was a few stories away, and the nearest rooftop was too far to jump to without the proper momentum, so that was out of the question. The wall dropped down too sharply for the Freedom Fighters to slide down it, too...but that was alright, because Longshot had already readied the arrow with the rope tied around it again, the opposite end of the rope tied around a nearby lantern post. Good. A makeshift zipline beat the hell out of climbing down the wall itself.

SCENE DIVIDE

Mai scoffed, rolling her narrow, amber-tinged eyes. What in the world had she been thinking - what sort of zen yin-yang crap had she let Zuko feed her? She swore, the man had been stuck in exile with his kooky uncle for far too long, because he had absorbed that herbs-and-tea attitude like a sponge and lapsed into it far too often.

"'Visit your family, Mai,'" she echoed, and for all the self-control she exerted over herself, she felt the words slide out like knives, coated in venomous sarcasm. She may as well be speaking out of her sleeve; she could feel the weight of her blades, light but numerous, waiting in the eaves for the proper time to be thrown. Spirits knew it wouldn't come to her in Omashu, though, even with Azula around to stir things up. "'Your family probably misses you, Mai. It'll do you good to see them, Mai.' You're going to be the death of me, Zuko, and it's going to be a long, slow death. I'm going to be bored to death because you're making me play familial politics, while Azula and Ty Lee are out there enjoying themselves."

Zuko smirked, and Mai found herself quashing the urge to argue with his smarminess. It wasn't hard. She had a lot of training, keeping things bottled up. Growing up in a noble family did that to you - be seen, not heard, et cetera, et cetera. She could express herself in front of Zuko, but...but sitting in formal attire, legs folded beneath her, with Zuko seated beside her, his official Fire Nation armor and robes donned...not here. Just keep your arms at your sides, clench your fists if you have to - you could get away with that sort of stuff. Nobody ever noticed, since the only thing other nobles pretended to pay attention to was your face.

It'd been a while since she'd been to Omashu-slash-New Ozai (she preferred 'Omashu' because it was far less tacky) - she'd left at Azula's behest to hunt down the then-fugitive Zuko and his uncle, Iroh. And that had been genuinely fun, although heaven forbid she let either Azula or Ty Lee see her crack a smile. She was out of her parents' oppressive purview, free to do and say as she pleased, when she pleased (which was rarely; old habits and all that). But time did little to make this place any more interesting. In this particular office in the city's palace, the beige stone walls had not changed - they were still plain, flat, uninteresting even when obscured by the maroon and black colors of the Fire Nation's finest furnishings. Tapestries, obnoxious, gaudy vases perched on glossy, wooden tables that screeched more than boasted the elitist atmosphere of the place, and those changing screens with the paper that was thick enough to keep you decent, but cast a very clear silhouette of your body. Mai hated those screens; it wasn't like you'd use one in this room for anything other than showing off the fact that you had it. This was a public place, a place of meeting, of keeping (seen but not heard) for the other nobles to fawn over you.

(Thinking about that time also made her think about Ba Sing Se. When Zuko saw sense, came back to the Fire Nation at the end of the Ba Sing Se invasion, things just seemed, felt, right to Mai; Zuko, at least, was someone she didn't hate in the world.)

(Mai wondered, idly, if there was a psychiatrist out there willing to examine just how messed up her relationship with the Fire Prince was. She imagined the bill could only have been footed by the Fire Lord himself, if that were the case.)

Sitting at a broad, square table set low to the floor, a rough carpet baring the black flame representing the Fire Nation pressing into their shins, Mai crossed her arms over her chest and glowered. "Zuko, seriously. Was the capital getting too boring for you that you needed to see New Ozai for yourself? It's just another miserable little Earth Kingdom city."

"I've seen a lot of miserable Earth Kingdom towns," Zuko murmured, his eyes flickering downward for a moment. Sitting to his right, Mai could only see the unscarred half of his face; with his hair pulled back into a topknot held in place with a flame-shaped crest, she could clearly see the golden orb that was his eye harden for a moment - but only briefly, before softening again, as if shame burdened him down (and oh, how she knew it did, that boy was nothing but a walking guilty conscience, if their time at Ember Island taught her anything). "Oma - New Ozai, at least, looks like it was a grand place once. There are many others out there that may as well be ghost towns with impoverished spirits floating around."

Mai sighed again. She wasn't very much into the analytical stuff; it was easier to just accept the fact that things were the way they were without having to know why. The grass grew, the wind billowed, the Fire Nation was great, all of that stuff - just givens. Zuko being angsty? Another fact of life that she couldn't help. It's not like the man didn't have his reasons (the burn scar on the left side of his face, surrounding his eye, was tribute enough of that), but Zuko's problems were ones he could only sort out on his own volition.

Still, helping him with them while waiting for her parents and obnoxious brother to arrive would at least pass the time. Wasn't the best idea in the world, but with an indifferent, mental shrug, it was better than just sitting on her ass. Besides...she did kind of want to know about his time as a fugitive. He rarely opened up about those months, and Mai only knew so much.

"Do you, um...do you want to talk about it?"

Zuko paused. Mai cast him a sideways glance, saw his head bow slightly; his eyelids slid closed and he looked, so much so, like he had just started to doze - dressed up in his Prince's robes and all. It was kind of...ugh, kind of cute. She felt a smile threatening to pull at the corner of her mouth despite herself. Still, as silly as it was, the offer had been put out on the table; if living as the daughter of a noble had taught her anything else, it was not to withdraw your hand until the person you bargained with shook it or turned away.

"There was a time, early in my travels with Uncle, that we parted ways." Opening his eyes again, Zuko glanced upward at the ceiling, his voice low and quiet. "I traveled alone for a while. During that time, I stayed a night in an Earth Kingdom town that had been emptied of most of the young men and women so they could fight in the war; those that remained were either too young or too old, and the only law was enforced by a greedy, cowardly group of bullies that needed to be set straight."

"Hah. You, showing mercy on an Earth Kingdom town? Doesn't seem like your style."

"Hey, you asked, didn't you?" Zuko frowned. "I can stop, or I can keep going."

"No, no, I'm sorry." Mai waved a dismissive hand, humor dry as fire kindling. "I'll hear you out a little longer."

Zuko grinned. "There was a little boy there, whose older brother was a soldier. I like to think we bonded, but...well, I had to Firebend to stop the ringleader of those bullies I mentioned earlier, and he didn't take too kindly to that."

"Ungrateful snot."

"Maybe. Spending the night with them...living on the road, alone or with Uncle, I think I learned a few things about the people of the Earth Kingdom." Zuko's voice picked up - a lighter tone, one that Mai associated with Zuko hitting a revelation of some sort. "Even if that boy never forgives me, at least I know I did the right thing."

Mai laid a hand on Zuko's shoulderpad, finally making him turn his head towards her. Now she could see the scar - red and pink and shaped like a wave of superheated flame, surrounding his left eye and reaching back past his ear (atrophied and wrinkled) and partway up his scalp. His scar didn't scare her, it didn't make her queasy or curl her toes; if anything, it was a mark of progress, a footnote speaking of the person he had become, of the person he would be. If anything - Mai felt unease welling up inside her for thinking such, such corny thoughts - the scar was more attractive because of the tribulations that Zuko had endured following it. He wasn't ugly for having it.

It was actually kind of...sexy.

She realized, fleetingly, that her heartbeat had jumped into her throat, that it felt so strong as if her veins would burst out of her skin. This sensation of almost overflowing was familiar, it was - it was passion, it was a moment, oh Spirits, they were having a moment and her parents would walk into the room any second now and they would be mortified to find their daughter sucking face with the Fire Prince but it would serve them right and Mai would show them just how daring she could get -

Zuko's lips were always hot when they brushed against hers - he was a Firebender after all, and not just any Firebender but the son of the Fire Lord - and this time was no different as the boredom slipped away from her like clothing from porcelain skin behind the changing screen.

SCENE DIVIDE

Pressing further into Omashu only became more complex the longer they stayed in the city, and Longshot was beginning to feel cornered. He hated the sensation; in any given circumstance, he could at least pull out his bow and let fly an arrow or two (this, of course, being metaphorically or literally), but the Fire Nation troops patrolling the streets moved quickly and with purposeful intent. Something had set them on edge.

"We really should have staked this place out, I think," Smellerbee whispered.

Her voice came from inside an empty barrel to Longshot's right, reverberating off the inside; he glanced over to it, and saw one of her large, mascara-lined eyes peering out from the hole in the side, blinking occasionally in the depths of shade. She spoke so lightly that it was almost - almost - hard to hear her. Pressing his back even further into the stone wall of the building they hid against, drawing his knees a little tighter to his chest, the archer fixed Smellerbee with an inquisitive look.

"You know what I mean," replied the barrel, her tone more self-deprecating than biting. "Jet always had us staking out places we planned to hit. This one shouldn'ta been any different; we should have waited a day or two and gotten their patterns down before entering the city. Now the soldiers are on alert and it's most likely our fault - my fault - for jumping in so recklessly."

Longshot shrugged at her. Yeah, in hindsight, it made a lot of sense, but the archer hadn't thought of observing their enemy's habits either. Pipsqueak and The Duke had been first and foremost on both of their minds, and after spending the last few weeks questing to Omashu in search of their allies, the leap to action could at least be justified. They shared equal blame in the lack of forethought, and the only thing to do now was to push forward, Freedom Fighter style.

The corner of Smellerbee's eye wrinkled, and Longshot could tell a grin had split her face. "You're right, of course. You always are."

He shrugged again: not always, but often enough where it counted. His lips curled into a mock-boasting smirk that would have done Sneers proud.

"Hey! You there!"

The voice rang out loud through the alley, and both Freedom Fighters were up and moving before Longshot even had the chance to realize it, the wind at their faces, the impact from each step jarring up his legs. Smellerbee clutched the barrel's lid tightly in her hands, pressing it down against her skull, flattening the giant ball of fuzz that was her hair. The soldiers didn't wait for the Freedom Fighters, though, fire licked at their heels, and Longshot unslung his bow from his torso, reaching over for three arrows - he thought he'd heard three people anyway -

Clattering footsteps charged after them, the soldiers yelling for back-up as they ran, and - yeah, that would bring down more of them, and there went the element of surprise the Freedom Fighters had been clinging on to. Longshot skipped off the cobblestone alleyway, planting his feet on the side of the nearest house; he vaulted off, out into the main street ahead of Smellerbee, nocking the arrows he'd drawn. He could see the soldiers that pursued them - mostly in their thirties, two with impressive amounts of facial hair and one with a nose ring - and felt a small twitch of smugness overcome him, because there had been three of them. He aimed, adjusted the arrows as he flipped through the air, and released, each one finding its mark and sending the soldiers sprawling.

He landed, splaying one leg out to keep from stumbling. Smellerbee charged past him, her slipstream sending a cold breeze past his face; she whooped, and he felt her energy flowing as if it were a contagion, spilling out, sloshing the ground and those about her (himself included). He reached over his shoulder for another arrow and charged after his leader-and-friend-and-more's receding back.

They had no direction – no idea of knowing where any of Omashu's dungeons were. But before, they'd also been operating with much more discretion, and no opportunity to capture/question a guard presented itself, due to the misfortune of the foot soldiers traveling in groups of threes or fours. It wouldn't be an issue now that the hackles had been raised, and Longshot fought the urge to grin as he heard a distant horn yowl up, out, blanketing the city. It'd be a lot easier to secure an 'informant' now.

Ahead of them, two groups of soldiers converged and started to fling fireballs their way; Smellerbee leapt into the air, twisted, and threw the barrel lid with enough force that it impacted in one soldier's stomach and sent him bowling backwards into another. She landed, flames exploding all around her, and rolled out of the way to avoid another incoming volley.

Longshot nocked another arrow as he ran, taking careful aim; at least two of the remaining soldiers had their attention on him, and while one reached for a mace slung across his back, the other had his fists clenched in front of him, feet planted apart. He prepared himself to attack with more natural weapons, and the archer could only oblige him.

Now, he had only successfully done this trick twice in the past, and for a variety of different reasons. The circumstances had to be very particular: he needed clean line of sight on his target, who, conversely, needed to be aiming directly at him. It was risky, but Bee had the remaining troops in hand, and Longshot really wanted to bump that number up to three. Besides, even though they needed to capture and lightning-interrogate one a soldier, this group was too big to pluck one from.

The soldier (his form clumsy, stiff, despite his age – not very good at the whole bending thing, Longshot supposed) slammed a fist hard into the air, a ball of fire erupting from his knuckles, scorching the air as it caterwauled towards the mute archer. He released his hold on the arrow and dove out of the fireball's path in quick succession, the ground slamming into his ribs and knees and threatening to knock the breath clean from him, but he craned his neck back before landing - saw the arrow pierce the heart of fireball, which blistered past Longshot's head, searing his back. The arrow itself – now enveloped by the blaze onset by the soldier – soared through the air and lodged itself in a chink in the man's greaves. The soldier's mouth became a big, dark red circle as he howled in pain, throwing himself backwards, accidentally bowling over his friend with the mace.

Longshot smirked. The mark had been raised to three. Clambering to his feet, the stone rough on his bare fingertips, he reached over his shoulder for another arrow, charging down the street once again now that Bee had dispatched the remaining soldiers in the group.

SCENE DIVIDE

Zuko, if for nothing else other than the fact that he was too prideful to concede to his flaws so easily, would have a hard time admitting that he was terrible with the romantic side of a relationship. Well, the wordy part of it, anyway. Mai, though - Mai was easy to talk to, and the prince of the Fire Nation couldn't have been happier with having her as his girlfriend. She was gloomy, and she didn't express herself much, yeah, but that meant small talk stayed at a minimum, and flirting came easier than a greased eel roach slipping beneath the cracks in your doors. Their shared, overall negative view on things was a blessing more than a curse.

Besides, pessimism sans misery had a certain appeal to it, and a girl who was willing to make out with you despite the potential noble faux-paz ready to drop down in their laps was unique. Zuko liked unique.

His breath came out hot from his nostrils, as he and Mai kept their lips locked, their tongues searching, probing each other - he could keep going like this for a long, long time, and he wouldn't mind it, either. But there were always limits, and - through the thick haze of love and dizziness racking his mind - Zuko heard an alarm horn being sounded, followed by a klaxon.

Ugh. Bad news followed him wherever it went, didn't it?

Zuko pulled away from Mai, her taste still lingering on her lips, taboo and mysterious like a black-petaled lotus, and equally as gothic. Her eyes hung half-open, but if she felt any sort of affrontation from the break, it remained well masked behind her usual expression of indifference.

"Sounds like there's some trouble," Zuko murmured, short of breath and yearning for more. He'd be lying if he said that it was easy to quelch that desire. "I thought all the natives left had escaped?"

"They did," Mai said, casting a wistless glance at the table set before them. "There's nobody here anymore except people of the Fire Nation. All of Omashu's original citizens either fled, or got killed when we took the place. Except for their lunatic king, we keep him locked in an iron coffin near the statue of your father."

Zuko frowned. "Then I wonder why they raised the alarm..." He stood up and wandered over to the open-air balcony attached to the room and overlooking the partially converted city of New Ozai, formerly Omashu. Seeing the place in such ruins...seeing the nigh-plaguelike invasion of industrial warehouses and workshops overrunning the city, Zuko felt...guilt? It couldn't have been, New Ozai had been captured while he and Uncle were lost at sea following the failed siege of the Northern Water Tribe. He'd had nothing to do with Omashu's fall. He tried to put this sensation out as well, but it was almost as difficult to shut away as wanting to have more intimate time with Mai. He could only imagine what sort of inside-outward, philosophic jargon Iroh would say - something about how it isn't the Fire Nation's place to destroy entire civilizations and cultures like this, how one beauty (the Fire Nation's) should not be imposed over another's (the Earth Kingdom's) for the sake of this war. And Zuko would scoff, tell him to stop acting foolish, or admonish him for wasting time on silly proverbs when they needed to keep moving, or, or...

Or something else cruel like that. Zuko clenched his eyes shut to try and drown out the black thoughts - failed, of course, but let it never be said he didn't give it his best shot. Uncle had done nothing but watch over Zuko - had been a better father figure than his own, natural one. All Zuko had done in return was throw that care back at Uncle Iroh's face.

The Fire Prince leaned forward on the balcony, his palms, his fingertips digging into the rough, carved granite. Mai must have - must have seen him, he guessed - or maybe she was just worried on her own volition - because he caught sight of her standing to his left, out of the blurred peripheral vision in his scarred eye. Wordlessly, she wrapped her hands around his arm, intertwining her limbs amongst his, and leaned into him, her head coming to rest on his shoulder guard. He felt her onyx hair brush his cheek and sighed, feeling his worry, his angst, slipping away.

He'd done the right thing. He'd protected his country by betraying Uncle in Ba Sing Se, by helping Azula conquer it. Soon the entire world would know the Fire Nation's greatness, firsthand.

Behind the pair, from the opposite side of the room they had just left, the door swung open with enough force to clatter into the stone wall framing it; shaken from his reverie, from Mai's silent comfort zone, the Fire Prince and his girlfriend turned to see not Mai's parents, but a soldier of high rank serving as their body guard, framed in the doorway, his chest heaving.

"Prince Zuko! Lady Mai! Thank the Spirits you're safe!"

"Uh, yeah, we're safe." Mai spoke so dryly that Zuko could hear the disdainful frown on her face without having to actually look at her, and he resisted the urge to smirk in turn. "We're not exactly helpless, you know. Whatever's going on down there won't hurt us."

"So, you're aware of the situation?" The soldier asked, his voice probing with a pinch of fright mingled in; Zuko narrowed his eyes at the soldier, examining him, sizing the man up. He stood at average height, a little on the tubby side - certainly not large enough to make Uncle, in his, uh, girth, blush with envy, but the man definitely kept himself well-fed.

"All we know is the klaxons are going off, nobody came in here to tell us anything," Zuko replied. "Are you going to enlighten us, or are you just going to stand there all morning?"

The soldier flinched, his flame-emblazoned helmet stuck snugly to his head. Regaining his posture with hesitation that would make even the least militant of officers feel like cracking a whip over the man's head, he stumbled over the continued delivery of his message. "I, uh, that is to say - um - a pair of Earth Kingdom bandits have broken into the city, matching the description of wanted posters issued by an eastern-bound branch of the military in an occupied Earth Kingdom town. We're unsure of their motives, but the pair have already harmed and killed a handful of our troops in their invasion."

"Hmph," Mai snorted, crossing her arms over her chest and sticking her lower lip out in disgust. "Looks like there's something for us to do after all, Zuko."

"Yeah," he murmured, casting a glance at the carpet beneath his sharp, pointy-toed, maroon boots. Half to himself, he added, "Two is too few to mount a proper invasion. I think they were trying to slip in and out unnoticed..."

"Precisely what the Lord and Lady had thought, once we were made aware," the soldier said, quick to jump into the Fire Prince's musings, referring to Mai's mother and father. "Fear of an assassination attempt has forced them to postpone your meeting, regrettably. They have summoned me to fetch your highness and your ladyship so that you may join them and the young lord Tom-Tom in the sanctuary beneath the capital building."

Zuko snorted on instinct, and for the first time, Mai's attention fell on the soldier himself. "That's fine for them, but they're too paranoid. I can stand up for myself."

"She can, too," Zuko pointed out, smirking.

"But, Prince Zuko - "

Turning on the ball of his foot, Zuko marched over to the balcony one last time, Mai at his side. The pair exchanged a quick glance, and Zuko found himself basking in the presence of a very, very rare treat; Mai, fixing him with a faint smile that almost pierced the barricade of cold gloom she called refuge.

It was close enough to a loving smile that she could muster, and Zuko was fine with it.

The soldier protested, vocally and incoherently, but even though he was in the room behind them, they were already beyond his range of effect. Zuko vaulted, kicking his feet up, over the banister's railing, the wind tearing at his robes, his armor pulling him towards the ground at a wicked pace, his face going dry from the friction. The side of the building rushed up beside him, the conical shape bulging out; Zuko caught the passing stone with one hand, kicking at it and digging the pointed toe of his boot into the porous rock, the metal leaving a darkened streak in his wake, shooting up a spray of sparks. Control your momentum, Zuko - capitalize on it, use it to your advantage, and beside him he saw a blur of flowing maroon and black as Mai charged down the rock, her arms spread back behind him.

It wasn't that long to the ground, really. Why take the stairs when this was more exhilarating?

SCENE DIVIDE

Smellerbee pushed the soldier up against the adobe kiln, the impact strong enough to jar up through her elbow; pulling her dagger free of its sheath at the small of her back, she pressed the blade against the tender flesh of the Firebender's neck.

The troop's breath came out low and quick - hyperventilating. Or scared, maybe. Tired? Who knew, who cared? There was something weird about this one, though, because - Smellerbee and Longshot ran into her while she was alone, and she had put up a little bit of a fight, but it still felt like she'd thrown in the towel - given herself to the Freedom Fighters. Smellerbee didn't like it. It left her feeling uneasy, and something about their prisoner's eyes - cold and amber and...

Around the Freedom Fighters and their captive, the house - because it was a house, one of the few left standing after the Fire Nation's renovation of Omashu - remained bathed in an umbra as thick and cloudy as canary squid ink. The kiln, made of a sturdy, dried, pressed clay, was fat and wide, hunkering in one corner of the combined kitchen and dining room; inside the kiln's cavernous firepit, the Freedom Fighter could made out the remains of either a half-cooked meal long since abandoned, or some bit of artisan craft - difficult to tell, because who knew how long this place had been abandoned? (She was a realist above all else, though, so she was inclined to think it was the former of the two ideas.)

A table squatted close to the ground behind her, wide, broad - a slab of rock decorated with shining, multicolored stones that had been exquisitely polished at some point, but dust had long since settled in place, obscuring the luster. On several nearby counters idled clay-sculpting tools and decorative plates, also turned foggy with neglect, and the only source of light came from a window, casting a silver rectangle across the floor and table. Perhaps most disturbing, though, was the half-drained bowl of soup abandoned haphazardly on the side of the table closest to the kiln; as if everything else hadn't spoken enough volumes, a thin film of skin that had formed over the soup's surface, and the greasy, stained ends of the chopsticks abandoned beside it, yowled a testament to how long ago this place had been abandoned, a spooky reminder to how suddenly the lives of these people had been uprooted by the war. (It also furthered Smellerbee's opinion that the lump of something in the kiln had been edible at some point.)

Longshot remained close by, his bow drawn taut, an arrow nocked. He kept his aim at the window, in case anybody peered in, saw them, but the pair had been running for close to an hour since their initial discovery and had found themselves on the opposite side of the grand hill that comprised Omashu's central spire. After capturing this person who wore the armor of a soldier but had a much more dangerous air about her, they'd hauled to the nearest, safest place they could - here - and had set up this little meeting. Smellerbee's feet and ankles were sore from all the running, but her throat had long since stopped being tight and tingly and raw.

"Here's the deal," Smellerbee hissed, her voice so low that it fit much better the description she had given Jet shortly after their first meeting - that of a spider-snake choking on a baby rattle. From underneath the maroon-rimmed, flame-patterned helmet, the soldier - whose rounder chin and gentler, lashed eyes, slighter frame and the subtle swelling in her chest plate contributed to the proof that she was, indeed, female - raised her eyebrows, as if unsure of where, exactly, Smellerbee intended on going. She was playing dumb.

Longshot flicked his head in their direction, only for a split second, and even in her peripheral vision the meaning was clearer than crystal - be careful. This bender seemed slick, and Smellerbee had a hard time dispelling the sensation of a masked aura of cleverity about her.

"You give us the information we need, quietly." The Freedom Fighter hunched down a bit, bringing the blade's edge up - not enough so that it bit into the skin, but just right so that the soldier would feel its cold edge ready to sever flesh and spill blood. "You cooperate, and you'll get to see the sun rise another day. Give us trouble, and...well, I get shaky when people don't cooperate. I wouldn't want there to be any unfortunate accidents."

"Fair enough," the soldier consented, her hazel eyes sharpening as they met Smellerbee's gaze. In the young Freedom Fighters' experience, women rarely found themselves serving as low-ranked members of the military, so finding this one had taken her off guard, at first – especially given how, well, young this girl was. Probably no older than sixteen. She knew that there existed several elite troops – somewhere out there, with only Jet's experiences to serve as proof – among which females made up the majority, and given how the most ruthless person in the Fire Nation's military ranks short of the Fire Lord himself was his own daughter…

"Okay, I'm glad we've come to an understanding." Smellerbee tilted her head and scowled. "First things first: what happened to this city?"

"Hmph. " The soldier rolled her eyes. "It's not clear enough?"

"I'm the one holding the knife, and I don't think it's as simple as you're making it out to be."

"Almost." Clank, clank, clank – every time she shifted her weight, her armor rattled, and she'd been doing it a lot since coming here. The noise unsettled Smellerbee, and she applied just a hair's more pressure on the knife. The soldier flinched and relented with, "Ack, okay, okay! When the Fire Nation came to invade Omashu, we were ready for a long stake-out. We'd heard that the king here was eccentric and a notorious war veteran – over a hundred years old – and we were going to approach the invasion with as much caution as possible, but the old geezer was too eccentric. Before we could even start the invasion properly, he surrendered. I don't know what happened to the civilians, they must have been evacuated somehow, but the only entrance to the city is that one bridge." Her voice sped up, as if panicking that her lack of knowledge might land her in hot water. It seemed genuine, but Smellerbee had been wronged enough times by these people to know better than to let her guard down. "The general opinion of the Fire Nation army is that they were escorted to safety by Earthbenders in the opposite direction, where none of our forces had been located."

"What about the warriors?" Smellerbee demanded, eyes narrowing. "Omashu had an army. Where are they?"

"They – they stayed behind." Her lips curled into a frown, and she glanced to the side. "They formed a group of freedom fighters that attempted to fell the new power here, but eventually the Avatar and his friends helped them escape, too – without spilling a drop of blood, I might add. Quite impressive, don't you think?"

Smellerbee - and yes, she'd noticed the soldier's choice of words, but chose not to comment (it had just been a coincidence after all) didn't like the cold turn their captive's voice had taken, and felt bogged down with the sensation that their time together was quickly drawing to an end. Only time enough for one more question – the important one. "Where are the city's dungeons? Is there anyone else left in them?"

"No. Whichever humanitarian had saved the civilians also deigned to save the city's criminals." The soldier put on a wicked grin, her eyes becoming like a snake's fangs ready to plunge into Smellerbee's arm, were she not careful - and if she drew back too soon, the venom would be twice as potent. The tension between herself and the soldier grew thick – like the skin on that soup – and Smellerbee narrowed her eyes, the fingers on her free hand flexing slowly near her hip, where Jet's sword still hung. "We could never successfully capture any member of the resistance, so the only people there now are criminals to the Fire Nation…and they never stay there for very long – "

NOW!

Smellerbee withdrew her arm, not bothering to slice with the dagger, as the soldier pushed back against the kiln and kicked up with her feet; a crescent of blue fire (blue fire!) arced out, slicing through the room and highlighting it with sapphire, flickering light. The flames came so close that she could feel its blistering rage against her stomach, chest, and thighs.

A strong hand wrapped itself around her arm – Smellerbee caught sight of Longshot's gauntlet out of the corner of her eye – and before she knew it she scrabbled for purchase along the ground, dodging out of the building, more lashes and blasts of cobalt fire chasing them out.

"That's no ordinary soldier!" Smellerbee yelled, sliding her dagger away as they ran. Behind them, the sound of exploding stone roared up behind them, like a strong wave in the middle of high tide, spraying them with scorching heat and pebbles instead of cold, salty water. She chanced a look over her shoulder, and caught a glimpse of their former hostage leaping free from the ruined side of the house, tossing away her helmet and landing with her feet planted apart, skidding across the ground.

Although not the clearest view, she could see the blue fire forming before it took the form of a solid attack; Smellerbee dove, dragging Longshot down with her, her elbows and knees impacting hard enough to cause wet, sticky, throbbing sensations at the joints. Another wave of blue fire passed directly overhead, dry and hot as a desert wind, and the smell of singed hair wafted into Smellerbee's nostrils.

Longshot groaned beside her, and from her peripheral vision, she saw him wincing and clutching his solarplexus with one hand. He didn't draw the deep, larynx-scraping breaths of a man whose wind had left him, but Smellerbee could tell the same had happened anyway, and that his silent nature just happened to carry over.

She helped him to his feet before their assailant could dole out another attack and began running, her lungs, her skin, her hair burning – oh, Spirits, she wouldn't be able to keep running like this, she could feel herself trembling, ready to give out, they'd already overexerted themselves! It was like fighting the Dai Li all over again, only this time it was multiple events and a single person conspiring to exhaust the two Freedom Fighters.

They needed – they needed to hide, for now. There was no way they'd escape Omashu altogether, not right away, and this demon woman would likely kill them instead of capturing them. And Smellerbee had to admit, slogging up the tricky slopes to Omashu's center, something about the Firebender was eerily…familiar, and unsettling enough to continually throw her focus.

Every breath Smellerbee drew burned. Longshot wasn't that much larger than she, but his weight was enough to slow her down substantially – to tax her of her full running speed – but she refused to even think of abandoning him, because she'd promised she never would, not after Lake Laogai. She made as sharp a turn as their combined, stumbling feet would allow, disappearing between a pair of forlorn industrialized smithy buildings. Another fatal wave of fire rushed past where they had been standing moments before, the intensity so high that it splashed the entire alley with its castoff azure.

Smellerbee had spent most of her life fighting Firebenders in one way or another, and as rare as low-ranked female soldiers came, Firebenders with blue freakin' fire was a new one on her. The combination of the two must have been enough to make that woman as dangerous as she was.

The swordswoman led Longshot down another alley, going downhill this time – back in the general direction of the soldier – before taking another left turn. It wasn't a maze of buildings like Ba Sing Se, but the houses and buildings and shops here were more numerous than that city where the buildings had been carved to look like water. Losing the trail of the Firebender should have been easy enough –

- and then, panic clawed at Smellerbee's heart and stomach as there was no ground beneath them, and for a split second they were freefalling, as if the stone had simply chosen to pitch them off the spire. She felt a scream welling up in her throat, too tired to keep it in, ready to overflow, they were so high up and Longshot couldn't save himself and she didn't have the strength or sense of mind to reach for Jet's sword and dig it into the rock again, and she wouldn't be strong enough to keep herself anchored and him on her shoulder, and and and the ground was so far away as time turned to molasses –

The stone basin rushed underneath them so fast that Smellerbee didn't properly have time to register it – and then, impact, she didn't scream but she felt her shoulder popping and felt the stone scraping the side of her face, and they fell no more.

SCENE DIVIDE

Omashu had been well-known (even amongst the Freedom Fighters) for its unique cultural architecture. While the entire city rose up from the center of a canyon, looking like a series of spires clawing at the sky at all times, what couldn't be seen from a distance was the city's fascinating mail and product delivery system.

Longshot had done extensive research on it once, with Mortar and Pestle - architecture wasn't really his bag of cheese, but he'd be lying if he said the stone trolleys hadn't intrigued him. Several hours of downtime had been spent studying the construction and use of the thing, and he found the Spirit of Irony riding beside himself and Smellerbee as they found an impromptu escape plan utilizing this very system.

Conceptualized several centuries ago by Omashu's then-King Zhu, the delivery system utilized wide, stone basins that had enough space in them to hold bulk loads of mail for personal delivery, large quantities of food or raw materials for the workers, or – conveniently – two people trying to escape a Firebender more than ready to and fully capable of killing them.

The basins traveled along wide rails, also made of stone, the weight and aerodynamics of the basins allowing them to slide down at an incredible speed. Earthbenders would stop and redirect the basins as needed, sending them to the proper districts and ensuring that the entire process ran smoothly.

(Some say that the most recent king, King Bumi, had often used these as slides as a youth. The sort of eccentricity matched the profile of the king the Firebender had described to the Freedom Fighters, and Longshot could draw from that two conclusions: either King Bumi was still alive, or had only recently been killed. A grim prospect, indeed.)

Without civilians left in Omashu, mail delivery had clearly come to a halt, and without Earthbenders to properly operate the system, Longshot wondered both how and why the trolleys moved in the first place. Maybe the Fire Nation actually found it useful and, rather than destroying this cultural gem, they just mutilated it for their own purposes. Landing in the stone basin as it slid along the tracks leading downward, towards what Longshot figured was, at one point, Omashu's business district, had been a fluke and nothing more...though he wouldn't be surprised if the Spirits had had a hand in it somehow.

Even though his breath still came in hot, stabbing daggers, even though landing had hurt, his concern instead turned to Smellerbee, laid in a heap beside him, clutching her right shoulder and biting down on her lower lip. Her face was pinched, she'd really gotten hurt from the fall, and as the wind whipped at them, he could see tears streaming down her cheeks. He couldn't tell if she'd dislocated or broken something, but he hoped that – whatever it was – it wasn't the latter. Escape would be impossible if it were, and already things were looking pretty bad for their sorry-ass hides.

He glanced back upward, but did not see the Firebender following them as the section of the city they'd just fallen from grew more and more distant. Only the sound of the blustering wind and the basin grinding against the stone rail accompanied them in the trip. He let out a sigh, felt tension start to unknot himself in his chest -

"Well, hi there!"

Longshot whirled around, craning his neck back and squinting against the sun; another girl (not the Firebender, but wearing pink and rose-colored clothes befitting of a member of the Fire Nation), with a rounder and decidably more affable face. With sparkling eyes, she grinned and kept her hands on her hips, her feet planted wide on the brim of the basin. Her hair - the color of tree bark - hung loose off her scalp, but had been tied back into an impressive braid that hung down past her waist, whipping around, beyond her, threatening to take a nip out of Longshot's nose. Her clothes were - unusual, a puffy set of pantaloons in tandem with a roomy shirt that boasted a large collar that settled down around her neck rather than rising up behind it. Both articles conspired to reveal an exposed navel and a pinched waist, and even the spare room in her shirt failed to hide the swell of her breasts.

When Longshot said nothing, the girl tilted her head to the side, her smile melting into a curious frown. "What, are you giving me the silent treatment? That's kinda mean. I mean, Azula was right, you're the two people on those wanted posters and I have to chase you down, but that doesn't mean we can't be friendly. I'm Ty Lee - what's your name?"

Well.

Let it never be said he wasn't a gentlemen. He extended two fingers on one hand and tapped his throat, just over his adams' apple, hiking one eyebrow.

Ty Lee's expression brightened again. "Oh! You can't talk? That's okay. I was looking forward to having a conversation, but we'll manage I'm sure - "

If Ty Lee intended to attack first (had she mentioned the name 'Azula?' Surely, not the daughter of the Fire Lord - if that were true, then he and Bee were boned so much harder than before), she hid the signs very well - and this ride on the mail delivery system wouldn't last forever. The Freedom Fighter didn't spot any weapons on her, but she balanced with almost acrobatic grace on the careening trolley, and she'd pretty much admitted to being Fire Nation, and...oh, balls.

He felt the fingers on his fists curling tight, but his bow wouldn't be effective at this range - he could use it as a bludgeoning weapon if really necessary, but it wasn't meant for that sort of thing and risked breaking, and if his bow broke, then he'd truly be useless to Smellerbee. Drawing a deep breath (throat still tingling), he prepared to do something he'd never done before.

He'd always been terrible at close-combat fighting.