"I didn't get a chance to say this earlier," Lu Ten said pleasantly as he stood by the rail of the ferry. "Congratulations on your conquest of Ba Sing Se."

Azula smiled pleasantly. "Well there was nothing else for it, cousin. If it had taken any longer then I wouldn't have been able to attend your wedding."

"It wouldn't have been the same without you," the Prince Admiral assured her. "Ty Lee was ecstatic to hear you would make it." Traditional Fire Nation weddings - and as a member of the royal family Lu Ten's wedding had had to be very traditional - had only the immediate families in attendance for the ceremony itself, which was carried out by the bridegroom's immediate feudal lord - in this case the Fire Lord himself. As a result, while Ty Lee's parents and sisters had filled the bride's side of the ceremony entirely, Azula's presence had doubled those on Lu Ten's side.

"Since we're talking business," the princess added, "With all those time-consuming ceremonies, I wasn't able to catch up on your reports from the south. Have any traces of my brother been found?"

Lu Ten shook his head. "There has not been a single sign of him. In fact, the entire Water Tribe appears to have disappeared. We combed the coast of the South Pole from end to end and couldn't find a single village, not even the one where Zhao claimed he had fought Zuko. The only clue we found were traces of some temporary settlements on the islands around the Southern Air Temple."

Azula frowned. "The Water Tribe are much diminished, but I hardly think that they would be so accommodating as to simply disappear."

"That's one reason that I won't be returning to the south immediately," her cousin explained, turning to lean his hips against the wooden rail. "I established a garrison near the southern air temple to alert us if the Water Tribe return there and the same must be done for the other temples. I myself will take my fleet and search the coastline of the North Pole in case the Water Tribe have returned there. They will not stray far from open water, wherever they have settled."

"I see." Azula tapped her chin. "With the fall of Ba Sing Se, the pressure upon our armies in the Earth Kingdom has been reduced. It should be a simple matter to redirect them to search for signs of the Water Tribe, in case they have found refuge there somehow." So once the honeymoon was over, Lu Ten was going to be surrounded by loyal sailors and officers. That would make it significantly more difficult to get an assassin close to him.

Oh well, so much for Ty Lee enjoying the full two weeks of her honeymoon on Ember Island. Azula would have to send for the assassin directly.

"Are you two talking business?" asked Ty Lee, emerging onto the ferry deck, barefoot and wrapped in a light robe. "This is supposed to be our honeymoon, Azula. I'm not going to let you steal Lu Ten away to the war just yet."

The two cousins laughed. "I'm sorry sweetheart," Lu Ten apologised, sweeping her into his arms. "No more talk of the war. Look, isn't that Ember Island up ahead?"

Ty Lee squirmed in her husband's arms, although Azula wasn't sure if she was looking for the famous resort or just rubbing against Lu Ten. Wait a minute, yes she was sure. "I'll leave the two of you alone," she said, retreating towards the door, suddenly grateful for the fact that she would be borrowing the relatively modest cabin used by her teachers Lo and Li, rather than sharing the royal residence with the newlyweds.

.oOo.

Toph was fire bending in the saddle. Mai could tell without even looking back from the saddle, the crackle of the flames something she was hypersensitive to after the encounter with the dragons. Probably that would wear off around the same time as the dreams where the dragon fire had been intended to kill them. She had to admit it though: between the dragons and a few days coaching from the sun warriors, Toph's fire bending had come on by leaps and bounds.

"So, are you a master fire bender now?" she asked, not looking back. Having been burnt by the sun warriors, M Bison was understandably a little concerned about having a fire bender on his back and Mai considered it prudent to keep a very close eye on his more aggressive tendencies.

Toph snorted. "Not even close, Spiky. Ran and Shao pointed me in the right direction but it's going to take a while. Still - it is better. If we can find somewhere I can train, somewhere remote where no one will spot us, I figure I should be passable with fire and water before Sozin's Comet arrives."

"Passable," Mai said thoughtfully. "But only in three elements. How is air coming along?"

"Not well." Toph confessed. She was silent for a long moment and then snuffed out the fire with a click of her fingers. Mai flinched. "It's kind of annoying and reassuring at the same time. I'm proud of how good I am at earth bending. Thinking that that was all being the Avatar would be annoying. But comparing it to air bending... it's not the same. Being Avatar might make me strong... but skill? That takes work."

Mai chuckled. "You're philosophical today."

"I must have hit my head when they decided to poke around in it."

There was a shuffling as Toph began to work on her air bending katas. Perhaps having evolved for that very purpose, it was actually possible to perform them on the back of a flying sky bison. "Where are we going?"

"Somewhere we can pick up supplies. There aren't many places way out in the middle of nowhere in the Fire Nation," Mai explained. "Most of the islands are too populated for your sort of training to go unnoticed. Volcanoes are rather obvious after all."

"That was just the once. And you didn't need to tell the sun warriors about it." The chief had been very enthusiastic about their need to move on after hearing that story from Mai. "Their island would have been fine for training."

"Not until they invent soap. Anyway, Ember Island isn't all that far."

"Never heard of it," Toph told her. "What's it like?"

Mai shrugged. "A resort town. Lots of brainless boys and girls looking to impress each other. They'll be too absorbed in each other to notice if M Bison landed right on the main beach. My family has a summer house there that we can use while we stay. It's closed up while they're in Omashu."

"Do you miss them?" Toph asked.

"Do you miss your parents?" Mai shot back and regretted it immediately.

"I miss them being my parents, not my jailors," answered Toph, breaking off from her form and climbing forward out of the saddle to stand behind Mai, hands on the older girl's shoulders. "I miss when I didn't know that they never told anyone they had a daughter. When they weren't ashamed of me."

Mai placed one of her hands over Toph's. "I'm sorry."

"Eh, I'm pretty much over it. I've got a sister, right? Who else do I need?"

"Same here. Why would I miss my parents when I've got you?"

M Bison grumped beneath them.

"You don't count," the two girls told him in unison.

.oOo.

"Do you think anyone will recognise you?" Toph asked as M Bison flew over Ember Island late in the evening. Mai had timed the approach carefully, to arrive when the sun was not in the sky and the thousands of lanterns illuminating the town for the revellers would make it almost impossible for them to see anything in the sky above them. Fortunately, the moon was only a crescent, but even so, Mai had picked the route carefully to avoid coming between it and the town as they flew towards her family's summer house.

"It's unlikely," she replied. "There might be a few of my former schoolmates on Ember Island but none of them have seen me for years and I was only close to two of them."

Toph chuckled. "The famous Princess Azula and her ego?"

"I think Azula mostly enjoyed having me around to use against her brother," Mai noted. "I didn't count her ego as a friend. But she doesn't leave the capital often, and then only on missions for the Fire Lord. I can't think of any reason she'd come to Ember Island."

"That's almost a shame," Toph admitted. "You said she was some sort of fire bending prodigy, almost as good at that as I am at earth bending. If we weren't enemies then it would be interesting to meet her."

"If only because the two of you would be enemies within minutes of you talking to her," agreed Mai drily. "If I'd known you were interested, I would have got you one of the propaganda scrolls detailing her many virtues. Of course, then I'd have to read it to you, so perhaps it's best I didn't."

"Your commentary alone would be worth it."

M Bison landed in one of the side yards of the house, one that had doubled as a stable yard at one point and was now serving as storage for anything not likely to be damaged by the weather. Without any significant light to guide her, Mai misjudged the landing slightly and M Bison crushed a table beneath one foot as he landed. She winced at the sound but there was no apparent reaction from the house.

"Well, if anyone is here, I think they would have heard that," Toph told her and slid down M Bison's side, landing on the paving. She rubbed her feet against the ground and shrugged. "No, we're the only ones nearby. The house looks really nice."

"It's terribly gaudy and my mother decorated it in the most extraordinary bad taste," Mai told her, not rising to the joke. "Somehow, I was sure that you'd approve." She rose to her feet and walked back along M Bison to the saddle. "My usual rooms are upstairs, but there's a lounge in the wing on the left with a tiled floor and some couches. The room with the fountain."

"Got it," Toph agreed. "Seems to be some pretty big furniture there - couches?"

Mai unstrapped the bags with their belongings from the saddle. "I'm not as fond of sleeping on bare earth as you are," she explained and slung the bags carefully to the ground. "Take the bags there while I get the saddle off M Bison and then we can get some sleep. We've got a lot to do tomorrow so we'll have to be up at the crack of noon."

"What, first thing in the afternoon?" Toph objected. "That's a bit early isn't it?" Neither of them were particularly early risers by preference, although Mai had been having restless mornings lately.

"Most visitors shop early and then enjoy the beaches during the day," explained Mai. "If we shop during the heat of the afternoon, there won't be so much of a crowd and less chance of running into someone I've met before."

Toph picked up the bags - neither was huge, as the girls hadn't managed to hold onto all that many belongings between the two of them, but in combination they were a hefty load for the twelve year old. "And if you do run into someone you know?"

"Then my name is Kotare, and your name is Ilah and we have no idea who Mai and Toph might be. And then we get off Ember Island fast and I don't care how obvious it is."

.oOo.

Mai groaned and dragged her the cloak she was using as a blanket up over her face as the sun streamed through the gaps between the window shutters. The sun had dragged her awake - why hadn't she remembered that this room faced east? - after only a few hours and since then the fire maiden had been too restless to get back to sleep. She'd heard Toph wake - raised by the sun, as if she were any other fire bender - but the smaller girl had had no difficulty curling up again on the floor in her nest of blankets. Probably because she couldn't see the sunlight.

Later on, Mai blamed lack of sleep on her part and an over-abundance of that on the part of Toph for what happened next.

Which was the sound of the door to the room being pushed open and two small feet pattering inside before closing the door. Mai was sleepily shuffling blankets aside to look at who the feet belonged to before she had fully processed the situation and a shot of adrenaline yanked her awake at about the same moment that she locked eyes with a surprised small child, the toddler's still thin black hair forming a familiar scalp lock.

"Mai!" Tom-Tom declared in delight, beaming at her.

"'s called Kotare an' we're leavin'," Toph mumbled from her blankets and rolled over, without waking.

"Mai!" repeated the girl's infant brother, even louder.

"...wake up," Mai snapped harshly, hoping that her tone would get through to Toph. She was rewarded when the girl stretched, rolled... and kipped to her feet.

Sensitive to the tone of voice, if not the meaning of Mai's words, Tom-Tom stared in confusion at his sister. His chubby cheeks began to redden with emotion and he toddled towards her, tears forming at the corners of his eyes.

Another familiar voice spoke from outside the door. "Tom-Tom! Tom-Tom! Where are you?"

"Are we still sticking with the Ilah and Kotare plan?" Toph asked very quietly, grabbing up her bag.

Before Mai could say anything in response, the door swung open and an immaculately made up Fire Nation noblewoman wearing mourning colours entered, followed by two harried looking servants. The woman's eyes settled first upon Tom-Tom and then, inevitably, upon the focus of the toddler's attention. Her skin, already fashionably creamy, paled further and she visibly swayed, one of servants seizing her elbow to support her. The other pushed past the stricken woman and snatched up a startled Tom-Tom, who objected with a loud wail.

"No," Mai decided regretfully. "...I'm guessing there are a lot more people around us than when we went to bed."

Toph grimaced. "Lots and lots of them. Some of them are heading for where M Bison is sleeping. And now some of them are heading here."

"M-Mai?" asked the woman. "Little Toph? You're alive?"

Mai looked resigned. "Yes mother," she admitted.

Her mother stepped forwards, actually breaking out of the dignified shuffle expected of a highborn woman and threw her arms firmly around her daughter. "Oh thank Agni! You're alive!"

The girl's eyebrows rose and she slowly - reluctantly - returned the embrace, patting her mother gently on the back. That wasn't exactly the reaction that she had anticipated, still less the tears that the woman was shedding.

What followed couldn't be called an awkward silence, given Tom-Tom's cries and his mother's grateful sobbing, but the servants looked unsure of what to do and Toph didn't want to say anything in case she got targeted for a similar hug to the one that Mai was enduring. The impasse was broken when two guards looked cautiously into the room.

"My lady," the older in appearance of the two guards spoke. "There is some great beast within the old stable yard. The servants are afraid to enter the area."

"Just leave him alone and he won't disturb anyone," Toph told the man. "On second thoughts, put a guard there to prevent any children from wandering in. I don't think he eats meat, but he might stand on someone by mistake."

Lady Seung drew back in slight concern as the younger guard left, obedient to his superior's nod. "You brought a monster here?"

"He isn't a monster, mother," Mai explained somewhat wearily, even though she'd barely said anything to the woman yet. "He's just... rather large and inconsiderate."

"You almost sound fond of him, Spiky."

"He's the most dangerous animal I've ever seen, little sister - which is quite impressive. Of course I like him." Mai tried to subtly break her mother's grip, with no success.

"D-dangerous animals?" Seung asked tremulously tremulously. "Oh Mai! What have you been doing? And how could you worry us so? We all thought..." She sobbed slightly and drew Mai closer with one arm before letting go with the other to try to pull Toph into her embrace. "Thought you had both been killed."

Toph backed up. "No hugging," she warned.

Seung gave her a motherly look. "It's alright Toph. I know you must have had a frightening time but you're safe now. Your parents will be so proud of you. They were beside themselves with grief when they came to Omashu."

The girl's lips parted but no noise came out at first, her distraction testified to by the fact that she was firmly entrapped in the hug before she could gather her wits. "They went to Omashu?" she gasped out as Mai's mother squeezed her.

"Of course," Mai's mother confirmed. "Your father wanted to know everything about your time living with us. He couldn't believe at first that you had been - are - a fire bender. The two of you must be very close. He'll probably come all the way here when I tell him you're alive."

Toph's eyes went wide in absolute terror and Mai quickly locked her own free arm around the younger girl and lifted her off the ground before she could start earth bending. "Let's all sit down," she suggested firmly and pulled deliberately back from her mother, forcing Toph to take a seat next to her. "We can have tea and you can tell me all about what you've been doing since I last saw you."

"What a wonderful idea," Seung agreed decorously and beckoned imperiously for the servant to hand over Tom-Tom. She seated him in her lap as she settled onto the opposite couch, cooing over her 'brave little soldier boy' until he stopped crying. "After you..." she paused and dabbed gently at her eyes with a handkerchief, "...after you vanished, your father decided that Tom-Tom and I should live somewhere safer than Omashu."

"And you came here, rather than the capital?"

Seung lowered her face. "I persuaded your father than Ember Island would be safer. Prince Zuko's disappearance left our family open to criticism within the court." She sighed. "I only returned to visit the capital a few days ago, for the royal wedding."

Mai raised her eyebrows. "The royal wedding? Don't tell me that Azula found a man who could put up with her?"

"Not Princess Azula, dear. Prince Lu Ten and your old friend Ty Lee. She was such an adorable bride and he looked so handsome." Seung sighed. "Just think, if Prince Zuko hadn't vanished, you could also be joining the royal family."

"I didn't feel that way about Zuko," Mai said straightfacedly. She wasn't even lying any more. "Is he dead do you think or just missing?"

Seung shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry Mai, I know that you're very fond of him but as he hasn't reappeared by now the consensus is that he's dead. It's only to spare Lady Ursa's feelings that no funeral has been held yet. The poor woman is a wreck, only Princess Azula was able to bring her out of her shell when she returned home for the wedding. Goodness knows how she's doing now that Azula has come here."

Mai's heart almost stopped beating. "Azula's here?"

"Why yes, dear. She was travelling with the happy couple when they set out on the honeymoon so she'll have been here for a few days now. The Fire Lord sent her here to rest after having to spend so long in Ba Sing Se, she must be exhausted." Mai's mother brightened. "We can invite them all to a dinner! Your friends will be so glad to find that you're alive, and its years since you've seen Prince Lu Ten. We can write the invitations as soon as I've written to your father and to Toph's parents." She turned to Toph. "You'll adore Azula, everyone does."

Toph lowered her face demurely. "I'm sure that the Princess and I could be great friends." Butter would not have melted in her mouth. "But would it not be insensitive to celebrate our return when her own brother remains missing?"

Oh, that was a good try, Mai noted. Although knowing her mother...

With a wave of her hand, Seung dismissed the objection. "Nonsense, Toph. Good news like this will surely lift her mood. Now, you'll have to tell me where you've been and what possessed you to let your hair down like that. It's a terribly daring style."

She didn't ask why we left, Mai noted in surprise. Why not? "It makes us less likely to be identified," she said. "What Toph is trying to avoid discussing is that we are facing a political problem."

Seung paled. "Oh Mai, I thought I taught you better than that. Politics is for men, dear. We shouldn't get involved in that sort of thing."

"We haven't been given the choice in that," said Mai bluntly. "If we're found, we will be killed. If it is learned that you know that we are alive then you -" she looked at the servants and the remaining guard "- all of you will probably be killed. Including Tom-Tom."

Her mother gasped and drew the little boy closer. "Mai!"

"So you see, it would be best not to invite old friends - old friends who are highly connected and would draw all sorts of attention."

"But surely they would help you," offered Seung hopefully. "You know Princess Azula has her father's ear and the Prince Admiral is also highly influential. Whoever your enemies are..."

Mai thought quickly. "I don't think that you understand how highly placed these enemies are, mother. The entire incident at Omashu was a trap for Prince Zuko, arranged by elements inside the Fire Nation who wanted to remove him from the succession," she lied. "There are two obvious people who could benefit from that, and whichever of them it is, they must be aware that the Fire Lord would never tolerate that level of infighting within the royal family." Another lie, this one so ridiculous that only someone so determinedly averse to politics as her mother would believe the facade of unity within the royal family that Ozai went to pains to present.

"You -" Seung almost squeaked. "You can't possibly be saying that Princess Azula or Prince Lu Ten would conspire to murder Prince Zuko?"

"What's not to believe?" Toph asked bluntly. "When Sozin's Comet comes back, the Fire Nation will win the war. Whoever rules the Fire Nation at that point will be the most powerful person alive. In political terms, that's about the highest prize that exists. You think people wouldn't fight for it?"

Seung sighed and looked away, wrapping her hands around her son's small fingers. "That's not something that's ever spoken of," she said after a moment and then turned to the servants, both pale-faced, and the guard, who was staring into the middle distance, apparently pretending that he had heard none of the conversation. "It is not something that has been spoken of today," she told them in a commanding tone that Mai had virtually never heard her use. "Because my daughter... my daughters are not here and this conversation did not happen. Please ensure that my son and I are not disturbed in this wing."

The functionaries mumbled understanding and retreated gratefully from the room, leaving near silence that Tom-Tom filled with cooing towards his sister.

"He missed you," Seung said sadly. "So did I. And we're going to miss you again, aren't we. Since you aren't staying?"

"We'll be quiet about leaving," Mai said, somewhat caustically. She wasn't quite as surprised by the flood of tears this time.

.oOo.

"What do you think of this?" Ty Lee asked, picking up an ornamental tea pot from a market stall and showing it to her husband. It was bronze and heavier than it looked, but the extensive ornamentation suggested that it wasn't intended for its ostensible purpose anyway.

Lu Ten ran one callused hand across the ornamentation. "It's excellent workmanship," he approved, "And from what you have said, Lady Seung would be pleased with it. But you said that she has a young son?"

"Yes, he must be two years old by now. I bet he's adorable," confirmed Ty Lee.

"No doubt. But the ornamentation on this is sharp edged," the prince warned. "If he got his hands on this, he might hurt himself." Lu Ten replaced the tea pot on the stall and lifted another, this one with less prominent ornamentation and some brass fittings. "How about this one?"

His bride clapped her hands together. "It's perfect!" Then her eyes narrowed. "But we should get a present for the little boy as well! How could I have forgotten? What do little boys like?"

Lu Ten grinned and swept her up in a hug. "Much the same as larger boys," he told her giving her a discreet squeeze.

She squealed but did not resist instead teasing her husband. "Well perhaps I should let him have a play then."

"Ah no," he said hastily. "I'm going to have to exert my jealous husband privileges. Perhaps give him a stuffed toy - a rabbit monkey or the like perhaps."

"That would be so adorable!"

Yes, Lu Ten noted to himself, he was a tactical genius. Ty Lee would buy a cute stuffed rabbit monkey - perhaps two, one for herself and one for her dead friend's baby brother - and then the shopping would be over and they could go back to the mansion to freshen up before visiting Lady Seung. And before they freshened up, they might get a little sweatier. I love this girl, he admitted. She makes me feel sixteen again.

They were examining a stall of stuffed rabbit monkeys and Ty Lee was apparently intent on testing each and every one of them for cuddliness when a shadow passed across her eyes. If Lu Ten hadn't been studying her face affectionately then he would have missed it, but he was and he had to force down instinctive reaction to what it meant.

Danger.

Instead of sweeping her up and throwing her to safety behind the stall before turning to confront whatever threat was behind his back, the Prince Admiral took a measured step forwards and rested one hand upon his wife's shoulder. With his other hand he scooped up the stuffed toy that to his eye had received the most positive response from Ty Lee. "I think this one is the best," he suggested firmly and then lowered his lips to her ear, whispering: "What's the matter?" so softly that even the shopkeeper wouldn't be able to overhear.

The girl clutched the toy with ostensible agreement and reached for her coin bag, her face innocent of anything but pleasure at her husband's attention. "The man with a tattoo on his forehead," she whispered.

Lu Ten's lowered face would make it hard for anyone to see that his eyes flicked around to check the area in front of him. No such tattoos were in evidence, so whoever the man was, he was behind the prince. Between them and the royal holiday home.

"He's an assassin," Ty Lee whispered, very careful not to let the shopkeeper hear her.

Lu Ten stepped back from her and half turned, apparently casually looking around. "We should clean up before dinner," he suggested. There – a bald, broad-shouldered man with a stylized eye marked above his nose. For a moment the young Admiral wished that his training had entailed avoiding assassins, it would make it easier to keep Ty Lee safe. But his uncle's teachings were straightforward: the best way to handle an assassin was to eliminate him, ensuring that others would fear to attack you.

Ty Lee nodded enthusiastically and rubbed her face against the toy rabbit monkey before tucking it into her satchel and seizing Lu Ten's elbow. Her face betrayed no trace of fear and he reflected for a moment on his good fortune. But that was a distraction and he set that thought aside as they wove through the crowded street towards their temporary home and the man in their path.

He watched the assassin only out of the corner of his eye. Timing would be everything here. Giving the man advance warning would almost certainly lead to his death.

The two were still outside optimal range for a sudden firebending strike when Lu Ten saw the assassin's real eyes lock onto his. Damn. He knows that I know he's...

There was a crack like thunder as ki ripped across the street towards the Prince Admiral.

.oOo.

To Azula's annoyance the crowd responded to the sudden display of firebending, albeit the unusual form used by this assassin, by feeling like panicked sheep. For once the concern was less national pride (the Fire Nation were a nation of warriors, by Agni!) and more to do with the fact that she was jostled and her view of her cousin blocked at the critical moment.

By the time that she had managed to discreetly convince the fleeing shoppers that she should not be jostled - and three of them were limping as reminders to be more courteous to incognito princesses in the future - Lu Ten lay on the floor, Ty Lee apparently pinned to the ground by her husband's body across her legs. It was ridiculous to think that someone as agile would have been caught like that unless she had deliberately been tangling her feet with Lu Ten's, which meant...

Either Lu Ten had avoided the attack and Ty Lee had loyally tripped him to leave Azula's rival open to a second attack or Ty Lee had pre-emptively tripped Lu Ten to move him out of the path of the attack. Either way, Lu Ten was not dead yet. Azula's lips curled. Was she going to have to take care of this personally? No, wait, the assassin was moving in for a certain kill.

Of course, by doing so, the man was abandoning his advantage of greater range and the instant that he was inside Lu Ten's range Azula's cousin sprang to his feet, his dynamism such that Azula could almost feel his ki. He was impressive, she admitted. If he hadn't been close kin, hadn't been as ambitious as she... The smirk on her lips could have been for the irony of the thought or more probably at the startled expression that crossed his face as flames failed to rush at the assassin, or to manifest at all. It would seem that Ty Lee had come through after all.

Turning away, the princess ran for the nearest side street. It simply wouldn't do to be spotted on the scene of her cousin's oh-so-tragic demise. While dramatically appearing to strike down the assassin would clean up several loose ends, it would also arouse suspicion. No, better to tidy matters up out of sight and to leave no sign that she was ever anywhere near the scene of the crime.

She was at the corner before she registered that there had not been the sizzling report of the killing attack upon her defenseless cousin. Half-turning she saw Lu Ten slam a kick into the assassin, the larger man blocking with his forearms and then striking down at the shorter prince with one metal-clad fist. What was that idiot doing! Why wasn't he... Why was it suddenly so dark? Worse than having a cloud pass in front of the sun.

Glancing skyward, Azula saw a dark disc across the face of the sun.

When she looked down again, mind furiously calculating the consequences and likely outcome, she was looking straight into Ty Lee's eyes.