Mai slipped and stumbled through the night air, wheezing and bent almost double, one hand clamped hard on her left side. Slowly, she collapsed, first sinking to one knee before she flopped back and her head hit stone wall, sliding down until she sat, slumped, in the alley. This, she groggily decided, had to be one of the worse days in her recent memory. For one thing, she was pretty sure she'd just been murdered.

"Do we have to do this every time?" Sokka groaned, sitting reluctantly across from the King. Bumi, in response, gave a one-toothed smile.

"If you don't like pai sho, some people might wonder why you decided to join a pai sho club."

"I'm not totally convinced I did any of the deciding. It seems to be one of those things that just happened to me," Sokka replied, wearily. "It was this or argue with Zuko's Uncle until I lost."

"Ha! The Dragon of the West is tenacious, that's for sure. Anyway, it's your move."

Sokka blinked, and stared down at the board. This was just so stupid. Picking a tile, he played a move, and sat back.

"So," he said, as the King of Omashu studied the board. "Hear you've got a murder problem."

Was it, she wondered, as the stars smeared together, technically murder yet? She was.. she was pretty sure she wasn't dead yet. Unless the afterlife had been really talked up.

Sokka narrowed his eyes as he made another move, more or less at random.

"What I don't get is why you need me. You're still King, right? With all the guards and watchmen and watchwomen you could ever tell to go catch a murderer…" Sokka left it hanging, hopefully, but Bumi stayed silent, smiling inscrutably.

Great. So he was going to have to figure it out. What a waste of time.

It probably wasn't! Mai decided, fuzzily, as her vision traced the cracks on the wall opposite. It probably wasn't murder yet, even though she had killed her, because she hadn't been killed yet. If she got arrested now, they'd have to wait a while before they could charge her with anything.

That made sense, sure.

"So," Sokka huffed, pushing a tile across the board just because he could, "what I got told is that there's been a bunch of mysterious disappearances slash almost certainly serial murders in Omashu, and since I was in the area, why don't I drop by? But that makes no sense, does it? That wasn't a rhetorical question, please answer that."

Bumi nodded encouragingly, but stayed silent. Of course.

"I thought 'why would a guy with his own standing army want some Water Tribes guy poking around instead' and the only thing I could come up with was ...you don't think your own guys are up to it. So either you hire total morons, or.. you don't think they'll want this guy caught."

It was, Sokka thought, a pretty good line. It deserved a flash of lightning outside the window, or at least someone gasping in shock.

Bumi just grinned, and waved for him to keep going. Jerk.

It occurred to Mai, in a groggy kind of way, that it was a little gender-essentialist of her to assume that her soon-to-be murderer was a she.

It wasn't like Mai had got a good look at them. They'd been running by the time she'd pulled herself to her feet, and by that time she'd had a choice between going after them or holding her guts in.

She was starting to wonder if she'd made the wrong call on that one.

Sokka glared, and pushed a tile without bothering to check which one it was. He couldn't believe he still had to keep going with this. It wasn't like there was a murderer on the loose or anything.

"Okay, so, why wouldn't your guards want a serial killer off the streets? That's the kind of thing guards are supposed to do. But your guards are all old soldiers, aren't they? Which means," he said, slouching back and steepling his fingers, "the victims are all Fire Nation, right?"

Bumi just beamed indulgently, like Sokka had just passed a test. Which, he guessed, he kind of had.

Sokka rubbed his temples. "I promised myself I'd avoid the political stuff from now on. Fine, okay, I'll do it. Aang's busy at the moment anyway."

"Excellent!" Bumi crowed, and pushed back his chair. "I'll provide you with a letter saying you can do what you want. You've got a place to stay?"

Sokka seesawed his hand. "...Hypothetically?"

"Good enough!" the King replied, sweeping his hand expansively across the table. "And I have to congratulate you on your win! Very unpredictable!"

Sokka blinked, staring, at what remained of the board after his completely random moves. Silently, his lips moved as he tried to work out how hard Bumi had to have worked in order to make sure Sokka won.

"...You are completely terrifying, you know that?"

"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about. Now, off you go, murderers aren't about to catch themselves." He waved a hand in an airy fashion, and an armoured man with a bushy beard materialised at his elbow. "You remember Captain Yung?"

Sokka's brow furrowed with the effort. "...Oh yeah! Pentapox Guy!"

Yung shuddered. "Please don't call me that."

"Yung can show you around if there's anywhere you need to go."

"Great," Sokka said, standing abruptly. "Can you start by showing me where-" he fished in his pocket for a slip of paper, which he squinted at intently "The Four Nations Hostel, No Fleas In Our Beds We Promise is?"

She'd slipped over somehow, the weight of sitting upright too much, and the lance of fire in her side wasn't enough to get her upright again so all she could do was shift a little so the pain was only blinding and keep her hand over the wound.

This, she decided, was probably about right. Gurgling to death in a freezing Omashu alleyway was exactly the point the last couple of years had been building up to.

Sokka trotted at a brisk pace through the streets, following after Yung and not thinking much further than the promise of flea-free sheets, and vaguely noticed that, as they got further and further down the city, closer to the gorge, there seemed to be less and less to recommend the place. Houses got shorter, and shabbier. People shut their windows as the two passed them. The streets got narrower. Sokka was just starting to wonder what this meant for that promise of a complete absence of fleas when the earthbender suddenly froze. Sokka nearly collided with him, but pulled himself short just in time to see what the man had noticed.

After a moment, Sokka found his voice.

"That's probably a bad sign, right? Blood in the streets? And not, you know, in a metaphor for civil unrest way, an actual puddle?"

Yung nodded, and was already scanning the streets by the time Sokka squatted down at the dark stain on the flagstones.

"This would be so much easier if we weren't on stone," Sokka complained indistinctly, as he stared down into the gloom. "Still… I guess Bleed Guy went that way?" He gestured down one of the roads. "Come on, can't leave guys to bleed all over the street, it's not tidy."

"I suppose not," sighed Yung, and the two trotted into the gloom.

It wasn't so cold any more, she thought, through the haze. That was good. As long as she stayed still it'd all be okay.

The wall across had about a two-foot sliver of moonlight across it, in the sliver she could see a long lightning-bolt of cracks, thin and jagged, where it looked like something'd hit the wall high up a long time ago and nobody had fixed it.

"Well," Sokka sighed, pushing himself up, "I guess we can stop hurrying. Whoever we're chasing's left pretty much all their blood across the road. If they're not dead yet I'd kinda like to know the reason why."

"Cheerful thought," Yung observed, while privately noting that Sokka had not in fact slowed down.

"I'm not a healer, but I know that if more of your blood is outside of you than in it's usually a bad sign," Sokka replied, with a shuttered sigh. "Still, they've covered a fair amount of ground, so they must have been pretty tough."

The pair turned a corner into an alley, and Sokka froze.

"Tadah," he said, wearily, gesturing to an indistinct black shape, slumped in the dirt. Yung's eyes widened in the gloom as the figure swam into focus.

There was a sharp intake of breath as Sokka stepped uncertainly forward.

"What the crap?" he murmured. "Mai?"

The sixth crack went diagonally to the left and then the light was gone she couldn't see what had happened where was she?

She was here it was cold and she had to stay still… where was she?

Sokka leaned closer to the figure, and squinted.

"She's alive!" he squeaked, looking her up and down, as Yung let out a breath he didn't realise he'd been holding. "Clammy skin, pale- paler than usual, she's conscious but I think she's in shock, let's have a look-" he reached down to where Yung could see Mai's hand, stained black with blood, covering the wound in her side.

No! Stay still!

Sokka sat back on his haunches after the unsuccessful attempt to move the girl's arm, and pulled a blue shirt from his small knapsack. He quickly tore a long strip from it, and, with some delicate wrestling, managed to slip it between Mai's hand and her injury. That accomplished, he put a hand to her forehead, and frowned.

"Yung," he said, smooth and businesslike, "you know any healers in this part of town? Waterbender ones, if possible."

Yung's brow furrowed. "...Yes. A woman by the name of Ikka. Arrived about a year ago. Specialises in diseases of the wealthy." He didn't bother to flatten the disdain in his voice.

"Perfect. Go get her. Mai's rich. Or was? Never mind. Go now, I'll stay here."

Shaking his head, Yung took off at a run.

The strain of fighting was too much. Too tiring, her arms were so heavy, she couldn't-

With only the barest twinge of frustration, Mai slipped into darkness.

Scowling, Sokka checked her temperature, and didn't much care for what he found. He rummaged through his pack until he found a dark poncho, and draped it over her. If she appreciated it, she didn't say so.

"You realise this makes us even, right?" he said, gently easing Mai onto her back, sitting cross-legged on the ground at her feet, and propping her heels up onto his folded knees. "You save me at Boiling Rock, I save you at Omashu. Actually I don't think you even meant to save me, so does this mean I'm ahead?"

She looked… well it probably wasn't going to be a fair assessment right now, Sokka conceded. In his experience, people rarely looked their best when they'd just been stabbed. Still, she looked pretty rough. Probably fairer to save a more detailed analysis for when she wasn't lying in an alley in the middle of the night.

"What happened to you?" Sokka wondered aloud. "Last I saw you, you were… still with Zuko, right? Must've been a couple of years ago now, right after that whole Zuko's Mom thing. That was such a weird time. I'd heard you guys'd broke up, and that you'd kind of vanished, but that was kind of it? In my defence I've been busy. If anyone knew where you'd gone, I missed it." His brow screwed up with the effort of dredging up years-old memories. "There was… something about a letter? Or was that back during the war? I'm definitely sure I remember Zuko talking about a letter more than once."

Mai lay still and silent. Sokka frowned, and tried to listen out for any sign that Yung had found the healer.

"I hope you don't die," Sokka said, to the mist. "I'm pretty sure you can help me with my inquiries, for one thing."