Avatar Zuko

Chapter 42

Shortly after she'd awoken back on Ember Island, Azula had hunted down Mai and Ty Lee. The girls hadn't gotten very far, and had been in an easily guessable location- Ty Lee's sister's cottage. They'd fought, sure, but her firebending and the element of surprise quickly beat the two non-benders. Still, even with them unconscious and within her reach, something inside had told her not to finish them off- a strange pull tugging in her chest. She'd pushed it down, but hadn't killed her old allies, opting instead to use them for information.

She gazed at her uncle imploringly, "So, do you recognise this?" Azula brought a small cloth bag out of her pocket, untying the golden string and letting its contents fall onto her palm. She held out a small, circular disc of wood with a white lotus carved onto it, rolling it in between her thumb and forefinger to show Iroh the design.

"It's a pai sho tile," He said without missing a beat. "One of my favourites." The man smiled.

Azula clenched her fists, before throwing the tile at her uncle. He caught it as though it were nothing, before gazing down at it lovingly.

"I will find out what it means." She scowled.

"Then, Azula, you shall be severely disappointed.".

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The newest town they'd come to was just as boring as the last, the thrill of being in enemy territory long since faded. Now their group had to scramble day and night to find things that excited them, and, due to Azula discovering that her brother was alive, they had to be even more careful than before. At least the masses of the Fire Nation didn't seem aware that Zuko was alive.

Aang was practically asleep as he, Toph and Sokka wandered through the market, intent on buying supplies with what little money they had left.

"We have two bronze pieces to buy food for the next week." Sokka told them sullenly, rolling the coins around his knuckles as they walked further down the strip of stalls.

"That much couldn't even feed Momo for a day." Toph rolled her eyes and swung her arm out in front of the non-bender, who seemed to get the message that Aang did not and dropped the money into her palm.

"What are you going to buy?" He asked her curiously, partway concerned that it would be meat.

"Well, Twinkle Toes, I'm going to buy us some more money!" She smirked and gestured across the street, where a man was playing some game by the road.

There seemed to be three cups involved, and a little rock. The man would place the rock underneath one of the cups and then mix them up, and then one of the players would guess which cup had the rock under it. If they were right they gained money, if not, they lost.

"I can use earthbending to tell where they rock is." Toph elaborated as she started moving over, gripping onto Sokka's arm as if she needed to, as well as tripping and hobbling a little bit.

"Isn't that cheating?" Aang fretted quietly as they got closer. Toph didn't reply.

They got into the crowd around the man just before a young guy finished his turn, and the airbender got to watch as he wailed at the lost of his ten gold pieces. The man then looked around the crowd slyly, eyes landing on Toph (who was frowning and facing nowhere in particular, still holding onto Sokka's arm).

"You there, little blind girl!" He caught their attention, gesturing to the earthbender and smiling in mock innocence. "How about you have a go?".

"But how? Like you said, I'm just a blind girl." She shrugged, but walked forwards all the same, still gripping Sokka's sleeve tightly.

"It's not about seeing, it's about feeling! Come on, have a go." He encouraged, so Toph let go and knelt in front of him.