Dark Puck - Once more, with feeling.

Yui woke at dawn, but Mikoto did not. Rather than wake the child, she hoisted him onto her back and carried him until she was able to find a town. She’d be able to sell the coat — and a fine garment it was, too — and purchase second-hand clothing for the two of them, then sell their old clothes for food money, at the very least.

He woke up about an hour after they started moving.

“Good morning, Mito,” she told him, somewhat relieved — five-year-olds were heavy.

“Morning,” he said, sliding down off her back and rubbing at his eyes.

“How’re you feeling?”

“Hungry,” he replied.

“Well, hold out just a little longer? We’ll get some food when we get to town.”

“‘Kay,” he said.

She ruffled his hair and took his hand, hoping that there was a town close by.

Luckily for the two of them, there was — it wasn’t a very large town, but it wasn’t so tiny that a pair of travellers drew undue attention. Luckily for Mitoko, Yui was not a lazy shopper by any means — she sold the coat quickly, got new clothes for them both, sold the old ones, and was treating the boy to breakfast in half an hour.

He ate the way only small boys eat — rapidly and messily. Yui laughed and cleaned him up when he was finished. “Feel better?”

He nodded, and grinned up at her.

“Good. I’m gonna get some more supplies, and then we’ll head out again. And if anyone asks, you’re my brother, right?”

“Okay!” he said, and slid off his chair, ready to get moving now that he’d been fed.

The teenager ruffled his hair affectionately and paid for their meal. “C’mon, Mito.” He nodded, and followed where she led.

They weren’t long out of town when Yui realised that they were being followed. Amber eyes narrowed. Mikoto, however, was blissfully ignorant of their pursuers, and Yui intended to keep it that way as long as she could. However, she did move them deeper into the woods.

And that was when the pursuers caught up with them. There were four of them, all armed.

“…who are you?” Yui demanded, pulling Mikoto close.

“Let go of the boy,” one of them said, by way of response.

“What do you want with him?

“Not your business,” he shot back, one hand drifting towards his knife.

“You can’t have him.”

Then the four of them rushed at her and Mikoto. The boy cried out in panic and accidentally set the grass on fire. Yui snatched him up in her arms, holding him close to her as she fled from the pursuers. The four of them ran after Yui and Mikoto, only to be abruptly shot down — literally, in two cases — by unseen assailants in the trees.

“What—?” Yui didn’t question her good fortune; she put on another burst of speed and fled further in.

A boy a few years younger than her dropped out of the trees. “Are you two okay?” he asked.

“Y-yeah,” she panted. “Fine. Who are you?”

“I’m the Duke,” he said, cheerfully.

“Yui. This is Mito.”

“Nice to meet you. Hi there, Mito!”

The smaller boy pulled back, a little wary, and looked up at Yui, unsure.

Another boy dropped down beside the Duke, this one closer to Ichiro in age than Yui. There was a bow hanging off one shoulder and a quiver of arrows on his back. He didn’t speak, simply tapped the Duke on the shoulder with four fingers.

“Longshot says the people chasing you have all been taken care of,” the Duke reported.

“Thank you,” said Yui politely, frowning. “I wish I knew what they’d wanted…”

“Welcome!” the boy replied, grinning at her. “And I couldn’t say. They were a little too organized to be regular bandits…”

“That’s what bothers me,” Yui replied. “Especially because Mito and I got away from some kidnappers yesterday.”

“You don’t think the people chasing you were with the kidnappers?” the Duke asked, a little worried.

“…I don’t know. The guys who took me carried an emblem on them — like the Fire Nation flag, only red on black, and the flame is upside down.”

Longshot promptly shook his head.

“Okay, so not the same people. And…” the Duke frowned. “I think I’ve seen that emblem before, somewhere…”

“Really? Where?” Yui wanted to know.

“A few weeks ago, maybe a mile from here?” He looked at Longshot for confirmation. The older man nodded, and pointed.

“Odd. What was it on, do you remember?”

“A belt, I think,” the Duke said after a moment’s thought.

Yui scowled, holding Mikoto close to her. “I don’t like them. I don’t know what they want, but I don’t like them.”

“The guards wear that picture,” the little boy piped up. “The ones who told me all that stuff we talked about last night.”

“…now I really don’t like the sound of that,” Yui said. “That, and me being bait for Kouji…”

“…You know Kouji?” the Duke said excitedly. “It’s been ages since we heard from him, how is he?”

“I don’t know,” Yui replied. “I haven’t seen him in five years — Kouji’s my twin.”

“I travelled with him the last couple months of the war,” the thirteen-year-old told her.

“Really? That’s when he vanished!”

“Well, we had to take him with us, ‘cause of Aang and Zuko, they’re too easy to recognize, and we were trying to be sneaky.”

“Oh, so that’s what happened,” Yui said thoughtfully. “No wonder I had dreams of flying.”

“You dream what he’s doing? Neat!”

“Well, only sometimes,” Yui remarked. “I think it’s because we’re twins.”

Longshot, meanwhile, had crouched down to Mikoto’s height and was making silly faces at the boy. Mikoto was giggling, his worry and fear at being chased completely forgotten. Longshot grinned at the little boy and offered him a hand, pointing up. Mikoto took the tall, silent boy’s hand, and the Duke said, “Yeah, good idea. Here, hold onto this,” he said to Yui, handing her a rope.

Yui nodded, wrapping it around her hand and wrist as Longshot pulled Mikoto up to hold onto his back while he grabbed another rope. On some sort of signal, the ropes pulled them up to a minicity made of treehouses, much to Mikoto’s delight, and Yui’s. She let Longshot give the boy a tour while she talked to the Duke about goings-on in the Earth Kingdom, especially with regards to the red-flame people.

* * *

“No. Absolutely not,” Firelord Zuko snapped at Sergeant Li Shang for what felt like the millionth time since Kouji had left — it seemed they argued several times a day about security. “There is no need for a food-taster, and, even if there were, I’m not ordering, or even asking anyone to do that. It’s cruel.”

“It’s sensible,” the sergeant, now in charge of the Firelord’s security detail, replied. “Steps were taken to separate you from Kouji. If that’s not a hint of bad things coming, I don’t know what is.”

Zuko folded his arms and glared at the other man. “Find another way, then.”

Shang made an annoyed noise. “Like making your food myself, you mean?”

“If that’s what you think it’ll take, fine.”

“Then I will,” snapped the soldier, eyes blazing. To his mind, the Firelord didn’t consider his own safety nearly as much as he should have.

“Fine,” the Firelord snapped back.

“And Lady Katara’s as well.”

He nodded. “Good.”

“And you pay attention to the people around you,” instructed the soldier bluntly. “We can’t know who’s involved in this.”

“I will,” Zuko agreed. Whatever Shang thought, he wasn’t blind to the risks — the last five years had been entirely too quiet, the quietest in his life, and he didn’t entirely trust that. However, given the fact that he had no heir, he doubted anyone would be stupid enough to actually assassinate him, risking a civil war.

“Good,” the younger man replied, then fell silent.

“Anything else you wanted to discuss?” the Firelord asked, abruptly, after a moment.

“No, that’s it.”

“Then I have a meeting to get to. If anything else comes up, you’ll let me know?”

“Of course.”

Zuko nodded, levered himself out of his chair, and limped off to attend to the business of the realm.

Haru returned to the palace wondering why whatever sweetie his wife craved was always the one hardest to find in the entire capital. Did she know when they were rare, or was it just bad timing?

He ran into the Firelord — almost literally — as the younger man came out of his last meeting for that morning. “Morning, Haru,” he said.

“Hey, Lord Sparky,” the earthbender grinned at him. “How’s the world of nation-running?”

“Same as always,” ‘Lord Sparky’ replied, absently rubbing at the back of his neck with a little frown.

“Boring as hell, huh? Sounds like the world of finance.”

“Something like,” he said, still frowning. He hadn’t noticed quite yet, but his hands seemed to be shaking.

“Zuko, you okay?” Haru asked him.

“Yeah, of—” His bad knee gave out, left leg twitching. “What the hell… ?” Other muscles were starting to spasm as well.

Green eyes went wide. “I’ll get Leilani.”

The younger man started to answer, but the spasms were spreading, and progressing to full-on convulsions. His head cracked back against the wall, and he saw stars.

“Shit!” Haru caught him, holding him just lightly enough to keep him from hitting his head again. “Someone get Leilani!” he roared, trying to keep from hurting the Firelord. A page heard Haru shouting and ran for the healer. Zuko just kept convulsing — he also seemed to be having some difficulty breathing.

Supporting Zuko with his body, Haru sank down to the ground; within moments Leilani came running. The Firelord was still convulsing, and they were getting worse. Immediately the girl spread her hands and bent the water in the Firelord’s body, holding him utterly still. “Get Doctor Chang!” she snapped at the page. “Tell him to bring dantrolene sodium and an anti-convulsant! GO!”

The page nodded, and scrambled off, returning with the doctor in moments.

“He’s been poisoned,” Leilani reported, sweating from the strain of what she was doing. “He was convulsing before I immobilised him.” Chang swore under his breath, and carefully gave Zuko the medications he’d brought.

Leilani watched him carefully, biting her lip. As the medication started to take effect, it grew to be less of a strain for her to hold him still. Finally she was able to release him completely, and she sank against the wall.

Chang gave quick instructions for the Firelord to be transported to the infirmary — in case the convulsions started again — and then knelt next to Leilani. “Are you all right?”

She nodded. “Had to… bend the water inside,” she whispered. “Hard.”

“…You should sleep,” he told her, and offered her a hand up.

“Food first. Then sleep,” she replied, taking his hand.

He nodded. “Of course,” he said, and helped her to where both could be procured. He then went to report the incident to Sergeant Li.

To say that Li Shang reacted poorly to the news of the poisoning would be an understatement of epic proportions; he only stopped his litany of curses when he began to repeat himself. He then turned and barked orders to a number of soldiers, who promptly vacated the room to do his bidding.

The source of the poison proved to be, after investigation, to be in the water the Firelord had drunk during his last meeting that morning. Shang issued more orders, trying to ascertain where that water had come from and to see if anyone else had fallen ill.

No one else seemed to have suffered the same convulsions as the Firelord, and attempts to determine where the water had come from proved to be dead ends, one and all. Swearing, Shang then steeled himself for possibly the most harrowing ordeal of the day — informing the Firelady.

She was, as was her habit, out on the grounds, practicing near the turtleduck pond.

“Lady Katara?” he said softly. He only called her ‘lady’ now when there was a problem.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, dropping the water she’d been working with and turning to face him.

“Zuko’s in the infirmary,” Shang told her. “Someone poisoned him.”

“Who? When? What — is he all right?” she asked.

“We don’t know, at some point before his last meeting, and yes. Leilani and Doctor Chang took care of it. He may be some time in recovering.”

Without saying anything else, she gathered up her skirt and ran off toward the infirmary. He went after her — with the game at this stage, he’d be issuing orders that neither of the monarchs were to be without guard. When they got to the infirmary, they found Zuko asleep. Every so often, one of his hands would twitch slightly, but the drug Chang had given him had stilled most of the convulsions.

While waiting with Katara, Li Shang sent for his second-in-command and issued more orders quietly, then grabbed a page and sent the lass to General Iroh with a request for an audience. By the time she came back — with a message that the general would see him at his convenience — the Firelord was starting to stir a little.

Shang detailed one of his men to take his place and went to report.

“What happened?” Iroh greeted him, having already heard a somewhat garbled version from various sources in the palace.

The young soldier reported as succinctly as he could, giving Iroh every detail — including how the Firelord had been poisoned to start with. He looked furious that he’d overlooked even a single detail.

The old man looked just as furious, and swore creatively. “They know something we don’t. Otherwise, they wouldn’t risk this.”

“With your permission, I’d like to send a message to the Avatar and Lady Mai,” Shang said. “They might have heard something.”

“Yes, do that.”

The sergeant nodded. “I’ll do my best to keep this from happening again, sir.”

The general nodded as well. “Yes, of course.”

Shang bowed and excused himself to see if there were any results on locating the poisoner.

“We think we found her, sir,” one of his subordinates said, grimly.

“Good. Do you have her in custody?”

“Not exactly, sir.”

“…explain.”

He was led to a room, where the woman’s body was, throat cut. “Near as we can tell, sir, they shut her up as soon as it was clear His Lordship was going to survive.”

“Fuck,” breathed Shang. “This means that they’ve got someone in the palace.”

“That does seem likely, sir.”

“Don’t let anyone near the body. In fact, don’t tell anyone else we have a body until I get back.”

He nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said, and saluted.

Shang returned the salute and got his message sent — it was short and terse, but Lady Mai would be able to read between the lines — and returned to the general.

“You found the poisoner?” Iroh asked, immediately.

“Her body, at any rate,” Shang said grimly.

The old man swore again.

“Orders, sir?”

“Keep this as quiet as possible. Tighten security around Zuko and Katara as much as possible.”

“And the body?”

“Search her and then take care of her as discreetly as possible.” No need for the entire palace to know how deeply it had been compromised.

“Sir.” Shang saluted and went to take care of it.

located: my bed

feeling: cheerful