Avatar: Reborn in Ice

When we sit around the fire and I eat, the child manages to get at Sokka's boomerang and chew on it. "No! No, bad Fire Nation baby!"

He begins to cry. Katara whacks Sokka over the head. He concedes the point and lets him chew on his weapon. I just hope he doesn't hurt himself. Sokka, that is.

After a while, he crawls back over to me, demanding to be fed with a few articulate "Foo!"s.

"Oh, he's so cute!" Katara exclaims when the baby giggles as a tendril of soup winds its way towards his mouth.

"Sure he's cute now, but when he's older, he'll join the Fire Nation army. You won't think he's so cute then. He'll be a killer," the resistance leader judges. What a grumpy individual he is. If Pakku were pessimistic instead of sarcastic they'd get along great. He's also probably right. Fire Nation groom children to be proud of the nation and believe in a just war. War and pride tend to mean fighting and blindness to the truth of things.

I wriggle my fingers for the soup to go in a spiral and look up at the man who is frowning at the baby. "If you're looking for a killer, you might want to move your eyes up," I say dryly, bending soup into funny shapes, and the tips of his ears redden when he meets my gaze. Katara stiffens and Aang looks sad. "Or maybe, the killer's in the mirror?"

The man's face goes red, then resigned. He's been on an emotional rollercoaster. But some of the defeat in his posture has vanished since our planning session.

Sokka looks like he wants to say something again. I shoot him a wink. Uncomfortable, he turns away. Heh. Whaddaya know, Sokka's still sixteen. He's also been unusually subdued all evening.

"Wa!" the baby demands my attention. I give. What a brat. I'm not doing well, indulging him. Children are cute when they're not yours. But no one is missing a child in camp. There are no children in camp. There are barely any women, even though there's a few in uniform around the fires.

A messenger hawk lands nearby. I wonder how those are trained to find people. That might be useful to know. For when I don't want to be found. Or when I want to find someone. They could be followed, if you're fast enough on the ground. But that's all for another time.

Aang reads the contents of the message. "It's from the Fire Nation governor. He thinks we kidnapped his son. So... he wants to make a trade. His son… for King Bumi."

"Heh, no wonder you're such a brat," I poke his nose. He scrunches it up and opens his mouth in a demand for more food.

"So, obviously, this is a trap," Sokka announces and I nod, even as I twist the soup into a miniature dragon. The baby loves it and readily swallows it down. That'll be a fierce one, I can tell. Fierce soldier with some rank for the Fire Nation. How lovely.

The rebel leader nods, "But we need to free King Bumi, if we can."

Aang nods, determination in his features.

"Well, we'll know where he is. And if he's there, he'll be guarded. And if that's the case, other places will be less guarded, eh? When we spring that trap, we might want to investigate beforehand who is going to be our opposition, so we can judge who to send where," I say in a light voice that has Katara shooting me an irritated look. What it's for this time, I have no clue. Maybe she didn't think I could do childcare. She can suck it, I had to look after my brother's kids so often, I could do this blindly. Besides, in small doses, children are cute. It's only for now.

Sokka strokes his imaginary beard. "Who do you think would be present for the exchange?" he asks the resistance leader.

He shrugs, "The governor himself and his guard detail. Maybe his daughter."

"His daughter?" Katara asks, frowning.

"Yes. Mai. She fights with throwing knifes, stilettos and sai. Has good aim."

Zuko's girlfriend is here. Future girlfriend? Who knows. So, if she's here, how does she end up in Ba Sing Se and then back at the Fire Nation? It doesn't sound like something nobles allow their kids to do without some higher authority's influence. So. Does this mean that Azula shows up here? Or later?

This is such a headache. I got drunk earlier so that I wouldn't feel so heavy. Now it's just a bit more, only there is an energy coursing through me that reminds me of the days before the Invasion. There was so much planning to do, so much to prepare even without the worries about the scarcity of food.

"I think it's safe to assume that there will be more guards hidden around the meeting place. Aang, where does the letter say we should bring the kid?" Sokka asks, hands now on both of his knees. It's a good thing that Sokka's here. He can do all the planning from now on.

"It says to bring Tom to the construction platform for the statue of Ozai at midday tomorrow."

"So it's safe to assume that they'll be hiding below our feet," Sokka surmises. "How would we get a few of the resistance benders inside the city?"

"That's easy, just use the same entrance we used two days ago," Katara suggests. If it hasn't been found out, then yes. She wouldn't suggest it if that were the case.

"But how do we hide them on our way to the meeting place?" Aang asks, then shakes his head, "Right, we can use the mist."

"To make it less suspicious, we might have to begin fogging up the city before sunrise. The Fire Nation can't have been here long and don't know the weather patterns yet," I say and wriggle my fingers in the baby's grasp. It's good when plans come together so easily. But no plan survives contact with the enemy, does it?

Sokka nods.

"We also might want to disguise ourselves," I suggest as the kid climbs into my lap and attempts to scale up my chest. He's too pudgy for it, still too uncoordinated, even if he has the strength in his body. Children's strength is core strength and some leg. They're also really flexible. I'd know, I was one, relatively consciously a few years ago. For my sanity, I pretend not to remember. The lack of autonomy grated most heavily, after the frustrations a small, weak, uncoordinated body brought with it.

"What for?" Aang asks.

I pretend to chase pudgy hands with my mouth, making the child giggle, "For Avatar-related reasons. If possible, you shouldn't bend air until we have what we came for. We don't want them to focus on you too much if we can't defend you properly."

Sokka tilts his head. "Yes. We should've done that at all our fights against the Fire Nation. If they don't know what the Avatar looks like, they can't find him. And if they don't know what the people with Aang look like, they can't find him by proxy."

"But we don't have any masks," Katara says.

"I do."

They look at me strangely. I'm not sure if it's because of the child hanging off of my arm, or because of what I said. This toddler is very active.

"You do?" Aang asks.

"Sure," I tickle the kid and he holds out for about two seconds before letting go of my arm. He lands with a little thump on his bum, but there are no tears because more tendrils of water distract him. "I can hardly be seen going to the market in a Fire Nation-occupied-city, can I?"

"Why? You've only been with us since the North Pole," Katara says.

I hold the kid up by one ankle as he giggles, "Look at me, I'm from the Watertribe. Do my eyes give me away? My clothes? My bearing? I know nothing of Fire Nation customs or culture, aside from the fact that they hate all those who aren't Fire Nation. And let's be honest here, I'd never be mistaken for Earth Kingdom. It's best if they never see my face at all."

Aang nods. "No, you're kind of… flowy and earthbenders are rigid."

"But even so…" Katara interjects before I can comment on the 'flowy' part of that statement.

I shake my head and set the kid down. He crawls towards Sokka and his boomerang again. "I'd have to pretend to be a prisoner or something. And that only works with a guard or two. And a prison. Granted, I'd be fed, but I really don't feel like imprisoning myself just for food. That in itself might not be granted. Then there's the fact that I'm a bender. I'd probably be killed if that was found out."

"Killed?" Katara frowns.

"Sure. What do you think happens to the benders they catch? I had to lead several rescue missions whenever a patrol was overwhelmed. We didn't always make it in time."

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Don't forget to throw some power stones :)

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