The Warrior's Gambit (Zutara)

XXIII

She knew where that drain went.

After the long tour, the girls were split off with some of the more artistically-talented members in the factory to create little metal coins for each of the remaining girls in the competition. From what they explained, it was Ozai's idea. The girls would receive thirty of these at the start of the masquerade and give them out to whomever they wanted, such as if someone managed to guess their identity beneath the mask.

At that moment, Katara understood what Ozai was doing.

The ball wasn't a scheme to get something in or out of the palace, but rather, it was one big smokescreen. For as much uncertainty as there was surrounding the airbenders, Ozai was throwing this on as a sort of 'look, how could we be near war or a revolution if I'm still throwing balls' sort of action. To give a token would encourage those that wanted to collect. It was just another chance to rub elbows with the truly rich and forget about all the other issues, and they were using the girls as centerpieces.

It wasn't as though that was different from usual, Katara considered.

Still, she was the least excited by this idea. The other girls seemed cautiously optimistic. It was innovative and unique and it gave some amount of power to the girls at the ball. They'd choose who they gave the tokens to, not the other way around.

The girls would sit with an artist and try to come up with tokens for each lady. Then, each of the four designs would be put in front of the one who was making the molds, and he'd choose the best (easiest, Katara understood) one to create. He did have to go about making eighteen of them by the ball's start, which was not that far away.

They were encouraged to think of an animal or a flower or something girly that described each contestant. Sometimes, it was easy for Katara to think of an idea. She may hate the people and the institution making these coins, but for most girls, she wanted them to have a good design. She wanted to honor her friends.

The easiest by far was Toph's, since her family had their own animal.

As the man Katara was bouncing ideas off of began to sketch within the small circle, he cleared his throat.

"Can I ask you a question? Is Lady Bei Fong-"

"No."

"No I can't ask you?" He looked up. "Or no as the answer?"

"Both."

"You don't even know what I was going to ask," he said, scoffing.

"Oh, but I do. It's a no," Katara bit out. She might be a bit annoyed with Toph presently, but she would still defend her honor.

"Hmm," the factory worker said, but Katara got the feeling he did not believe her.

The rest of the day was spent playing board games or playing instruments with the workers again. Katara stayed her time, and tried to be less obvious she was displeased.

As night fell, Jin revealed she was given a bottle of sake by one of the head factory workers and she invited the girls to her room. While part of Katara longed to be able to sit with these women and giggle about their days and get drunk from the sweet intoxications, she had a job to do.

Last night she'd done the easy sort of healing; broken bones, bruised ribs, collapsed lungs. She'd had plenty of practice with those sorts of things before. Plus, to encourage muscle or bones to stitch back together underneath skin, while unpleasant for the receiver, was not a difficult task. She just needed to focus her water there and it was simple.

You know what was harder? Healing illness and fever. There wasn't anything for Katara to latch on to. It was untouchable. Illness was an overall feeling and it was something she was not used to healing. However, this is what ailed most and she'd be a pretty shitty spirit stand-in if she couldn't do that.