Dark Puck - Blood Ties

Kouji had become quite adept at sandbending in the five years he’d lived in the capital of the Fire Nation.  He was currently showing off for the Firelady — Katara and Zuko had finally been wed a year previously — and fussing at her when she wet his sandspout and formed a castle of it.  She merely grinned at him and made more decorative embellishments on the sandcastle.

The two of them were so caught up that it came as a surprise when a deep voice said, “Kouji?  Is that you?”

The young man turned, surprised, and thus caught a faceful of fist.

The source of the deep voice and punch then found himself encased up to his throat in ice.

As Kouji staggered back, his nose bleeding, he stared in shock as a man with dark hair and gold eyes melted off the ice trapping him in place.  “Ichiro?”

The Firelady glared at the stranger. “What the hell was that all about?” she snapped, ready to freeze him again if tried anything else.

‘Ichiro’ ignored her.  All of his attention was on Kouji.  “Finally remembered you had a brother, then?” he demanded of the younger boy, who looked utterly shell-shocked.

Katara just glared at Ichiro and smoothly stepped between him and her husband’s surrogate brother. “Excuse me,” she said, icily. “I would like to know who the hell you are and what you’re doing here. Now.”

“Katara, it’s okay,” Kouji said, touching her shoulder.  He was taller than her by now, matching Zuko for height.

She frowned. “You sure?” she said.

“He’s my brother.”

“Oh, so you do remember you have a family,” snapped Ichiro.  “I’d wondered.”

Katara nodded, and stepped aside, though she didn’t drop out of her combative stance. She was irritated enough as it was, what with being asked every single day — if obliquely — whether or not she’d managed to conceive yet.

Kouji wiped his nose absently and flinched, staring up at his brother.  “What are you doing here, Ichiro?  Is something wrong?”

The taller man rolled his eyes.  “No, I decided to take a three-week trip to the capital city just to punch you in the face.  Of course something’s wrong!”

“You might have presented your problem a little more politely,” the Firelady said, acidly. “Violence never solved anything.”

“No, the punch was for not coming home for five years.”

Kouji coughed and shifted uncomfortably.

“…Didn’t you go home after you broke your arm?” Katara asked, puzzled.

“…uh, no, it didn’t work out.”

“No, but he wrote,” snapped Ichiro.  “‘Hi, Mom.  Just wanted to let you know that I got my arm broke in a riot.  Hope everyone is well!’  What the hell, Kouji.”

Even Katara was giving Kouji a somewhat angry look now. “Kouji.”

“That was not what I wrote!”

“It was close enough.”

“All right, all right, you two can argue about that later,” Katara said, finally. “You said something was wrong, that made you come now? Is it anything other than Kouji never coming home?”

Golden eyes bored into silver.  “Yui’s missing.”

Dead silence from Kouji.

Silence from Katara as well.

Ichiro removed a piece of paper from his pocket and pushed it into Kouji’s hands; without a further word, he turned around and walked away.

Katara couldn’t see what the paper said, but she could see the emblem on the back.  A red flame upside-down on a black background.

“…Oh, no…” she whispered.

Without a word to Katara, Kouji ran to the palace.

Katara hesitated for a long moment, then went after Ichiro.

The tall firebender — only a firebender could have steamed her ice away like that — didn’t slow, or even turn, but he did demand, “What?” when she caught up.

“How long has she been missing?” was all Katara asked.

“Three weeks,” he replied.  “I came here as soon as I found out, and that only because I couldn’t pick up her trail.”  Anger and frustration coloured his voice, though it was tightly controlled.

Katara bowed her head. “I’m sorry…” she whispered.

“It’s the only reason I came for that idiot.  He already showed me what he thought about his blood family.  But they’re twins.  He may be able to track her.”

“Don’t blame him,” Katara said, a little more angrily than she’d intended. “It wasn’t his fault he came here. Or that Zuko seems incapable of remembering to sleep without him.”

“If it had been even a year, I wouldn’t have cared,” snapped Ichiro.  “But it’s been five fucking years since he vanished without a word to anyone.”

“That was our fault!” Katara snapped back. “He wanted to go back to you, but we couldn’t risk him giving away our mission!”

“For five years?”

“If you want to blame anyone for that, blame me,” she replied, coolly. “Like I said before, Zuko grew dependent on Kouji’s help. I’m his wife, I should have been able to at least take care of enough of those problems so that Kouji wouldn’t fear a political crisis if he went home for a couple weeks!”

“I will blame Kouji,” Ichiro said, “because Kouji is clever enough to figure out a way to come home and visit if he wanted.”

She glared at him, but didn’t have much of a response for that.

“I have a sister to get back,” the firebender told her.  “With or without my brother’s help.”

She nodded once, irritably. “Of course.”

 

Kouji grabbed a page as soon as he was inside and sent the kid to inform the Firelord and the General that he was leaving for an unspecified amount of time and would return when he could.  From there, he headed for his rooms and began to pack travelling clothes.

The page carried the messages off as quickly as he could, but neither man managed to find Kouji before he’d gone for Qiang and to leave.  However, the young nobleman had left the note on his desk for the General to look at.

By the time Kouji got to his adolescent dragon, the blood flowing from his nose had stemmed, at least.  “Hey, girl, he addressed her.  Qiang, now at nearly her full length, made her happy growling noise at him, which faded into her concerned growl, when she noticed the dried blood on her human’s face.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” the sixteen-year-old assured her.  “My brother had a point.  I won’t let him do it again.”

She still seemed vaguely annoyed, and, when the two of them caught up with Ichiro, she put her massive head about two inches away from his face and breathed an annoyed smoke ring at him, as if to make him aware of the dangers of assaulting her human ever again.

Ichiro seemed oddly unconcerned about this.  “You have a dragon and you never visited?  For the love of badgermoles, brat!”

Kouji rolled his eyes.  “Just get on,” he snapped.

Qiang gave Kouji a long-suffering look, as if to say Do I have to carry him? but allowed Ichiro to mount with only minimal annoying shifting position.  Kouji leaned forward and scratched her behind an ear before mounting her himself.  Rather than warn Ichiro, he simply chirped to the dragon in the signal to take off.

Which she did, as bumpily as she could.

Ichiro swore and clung grimly on — but hold on he did, and complain he did not.

 

Most of the damage from Firelord Zuko’s brief time as a guest of the Róng Yào five years ago had been healed. He still ached all over whenever he overextended (which was constantly), and, more seriously, his left knee had never healed quite right, giving him a permanent limp.

Having received Kouji’s message, through the page, he had immediately limped off to the boy’s room, to find nothing but a note on his desk, clarifying the situation. Swearing, he collected his cane (which, in addition to being beautifully made, of red wood, decorated with gold leaf, made an excellent bashing weapon) and limped off, intending to try and catch Kouji before he left to at least wish the younger man good luck.

Haru, now a lord-by-marriage, caught Zuko before he could make it out into the gardens.  “It’s too late,” he told the Firelord quietly.  “Qiang’s taken off already.”

“…dammit,” the younger man muttered, running his free hand through his hair. “How long ago?”

“Only just now,” Haru replied, “when I was talking to Katara.  She said something about his brother coming for him?”

Zuko considered for a moment, then showed Haru the note Kouji had left for him.

Green eyes narrowed.  “That sister he mentioned.”

The other nodded. “I don’t like this. Not at all.”

“It’s probably a trap,” Haru pointed out.

“That’s fairly obvious,” Zuko replied dryly.

“Okay, granted. But is the trap for him?  Or for you?”

“That’s part of what bothers me. I can’t tell.”

“Well, we knew they’d make their move eventually,” Haru muttered.  “But not how — did anyone think to get guards on Kouji’s family?”

Zuko shook his head. “Not that I know of. I’ll make sure of it, though.”

“Better late than never,” Haru sighed.  “Damn.  The one thing we didn’t think of.”

The Firelord nodded. “Yeah. Of all the things we could have missed…  I thought it would be smaller than this.”

“We’re all idiots,” the earthbender muttered.  “Should we detail anyone to go after him?”

Zuko considered a minute, frowning. Under normal circumstances, Ty Lee would’ve probably been the best option. But she had a three-month-old baby now, so she was out. Toph had finally gone home to deal with her parents and their mutual issues six weeks ago, so she was, likewise, not an option. A few more minutes thought left him with two names. “Shang or Lady Mai would probably be the best to send after him.”

Haru hesitated.  “Are you and Lady Mai still… ah, in contact?”

“Only officially,” Zuko admitted. “I think Ty Lee’s in better touch, if we want this to be discreet.”

“Kouji’s good, as good as you were at his age… but we don’t know anything about what he’s heading into.  And the brother is an unknown.”  Haru looked frustrated.  “He needs someone after him.  If they can catch a dragon.”

“…Only person who could probably catch up would be the Avatar” — even after all these years, it was hard to refer to Aang by his given name—”and I don’t want to involve him in our internal political squabbles.”

“This is more than a squabble,” Haru pointed out.  “This is a group with a vested interest in restarting the war.”

He sighed, and rubbed at his temples. “You’re right. I’ll send him a message.”

“Do we still want to send Lady Mai?  I can ask Ty Lee to…”

“…yes,” he said, after a moment’s thought.

“All right.  I’ll do that now.”

“Thanks,” Zuko said, meaning it. “I’ll go write that letter.”

Haru bowed and left in search of his wife.  Ty Lee was, at that point, in their room, playing with her daughter.

“There’s a problem,” Haru said, walking into the room.

“Oh?” she asked, sitting up — she’d been lying on her back, with the baby sprawled on her stomach.

“Kouji’s twin sister was taken by the Róng Yào,” he replied.  “Kid’s gone off with his dragon and his blood-brother to get her back.”

“…You’re right,” she said, getting up and giving the baby to her wet-nurse (and oh how she’d fought against that). “We have a problem.”

“Lord Zuko’s writing a letter to the Avatar now — Aang’s the only one who could possibly catch up to Kouji when he’s on Qiang.”

“Good idea.  What does he need me to do?”

“…He’d also like you to ask Lady Mai to accompany Aang.”

Ty Lee tilted her head, considering. “He wants this done quiet-like. Gotcha.”

Haru pulled her close for a kiss.  “Very quiet.”

She kissed back, snaking her arms around him. “I can be quiet.”

“I know.”  He smiled at her and kissed her nose.

She grinned up at him. “…he doesn’t want me to go too, does he?” she asked, her smile fading a bit. She’d go, if it was necessary, but she didn’t want to leave the baby. Or Haru.

“He didn’t say anything about it.”

“…Well, until he does, I’m gonna assume I can stay here.”

“Seems wise,” Haru said.

She smiled again, and kissed him again. “How’s your day been besides that?”

“Largely boring.  Numbers, numbers, numbers.”

“You gonna support Zuzu in his all-consuming desire to outlaw them?” she asked, teasingly.

He laughed.  “Numbers are my bread and water.  I grew up on them.”

“So, that would be a ‘no’?”

“Yes.  That would be a ‘no’.”  He kissed her forehead this time.

“Oh, well,” she said, smiling softly and resting her head on her husband’s shoulder.

He held her close, closing his eyes and inhaling her scent.  The last thing he wanted was another war that could tear his family apart in some way.