How exactly had it ended up like this?
A few months ago he'd been righteously pursuing The Avatar around the globe, slowly but surely tracking his quarry and wearing him down. Yet now here he was, hidden behind a mask and leaping from rooftop to rooftop as he escorted one of The Avatar's friends on a mission against his own nation! Where had it all gone wrong?
Zuko didn't understand why The Avatar hadn't told his friends about his secret identity after the Yuyan archers incident, or why he hadn't exposed him on the spot back at the restaurant.
Was this some convoluted attempt at trying to befriend him? Did he think Zuko had forsaken his loyalty to his nation because of what happened at the North Pole? If so he was wrong: Zuko loved his nation and believed in their cause, he'd just objected to Tanya's methods.
The only reason he hadn't grabbed The Avatar and dragged him to the nearest guard patrol at the first opportunity was because Tanya had taken control of the city. He had no guarantee that if Tanya got her hands on The Avatar she wouldn't have them both executed on the spot.
That meant, as strange as it sounded, that in order to make sure he was the one who captured The Avatar in the end, he'd have to help him escape from Omashu.
His feet made no sound as they brushed across the roof tiles, stalking through the shadows cast by the setting sun without a trace. The same could not be said for his bumbling tag-along, who's armour rattled and clinked heavily with each leap.
After one particularly loud clunk, Zuko could no longer fight the urge to whirl around and press a single finger to the lips of his mask in the universal gesture for silence.
"Sorry." Whispered Sokka between gaps and pants. "Jumping around in armour isn't easy you know."
That was true, but fortunately it wouldn't be a problem any longer. They were a single building away from the governor's palace now, which meant it was time for Sokka to stop scrambling around rooftops and trust in his disguise to take him further.
Zuko led the way to the edge of the roof and helped Sokka lower himself down to the pavement, then with feline grace pounced down in one easy movement.
"Showoff." Sokka muttered, before slinging a satchel off his shoulder and unpacking its contents. He cracked open a jar of some kind of clear paste, and Zuko tilted his head to the side in a gesture of curiosity as he began smearing it across his chin.
"It's all part of the disguise." Sokka explained, wiping his hands clean and then picking out clumps of what looked to be long, brown hairs. "Tanya saw my face during the siege of the north, and while I was never the subject of her attention there's a chance she may recognise me. Luckily a little bit of glue and some hair can fix that. Say goodbye to Sokka-…"
He straightened out the hair now stuck to his chin with a comb, straightening it into a long and, admittedly realistic looking, beard. "… and hello to Wang Fire!"
Zuko's hand collided with wood as he instinctively tried to facepalm himself.
But Sokka was undeterred. With a swagger that was far too exaggerated to be natural he strode off towards the governor's palace, ignoring or not seeing Zuko's frantic gestures to come back. The moment the sentries at the door saw him it was too late to stop.
"Good day fellow guardsmen." Sokka greeted boisterously, his voice deliberately deeper than normal. "My, what a fine day it's been for conquest and subjugation, right?"
Zuko was glad that his mask was made of wood. It protected his head when he started banging it against the wall.
The guard on the left chuckled good-naturedly. "Yeah, I hear you buddy. All finished patrolling for the day?"
"Indeed." Sokka replied. "Though unfortunately I've made a bit of a mistake. I used to be stationed in the palace, and seem to have forgotten my pass."
The left guard sighted heavily. "Ugh, you and half the garrison. Job was nice and easy until little miss golden child showed up and started restructuring everything. Don't worry, we'll let you sneak in this once."
The left guard moved to let Sokka pass, until the guard on the right suddenly lowered his spear down to block his path. "Hold on a minute." He growled.
Sokka tensed, and Zuko's hands drifted to the hilt of his swords.
"I can't help but notice that your skin's mighty dark for a citizen of the Fire Nation." The right guard continued, his voice laced with suspicion. "Downright water tribe, I would say."
Silently Zuko began to pull his blades from their sheath, his body crouching in preparation to sprint forwards.
Until the left guard let out an exasperated sigh. "By Agni, not this again. Kang, how many more times, you've got to stop judging people on the colour of their skin! This is the colonies, there're plenty of soldiers with mixed heritage."
The right guard huffed irritably. "It ain't right. Fire nation blood ought to stay pure."
The left guard shook his head and turned back to Sokka. "Sorry about him. Came here straight from the homeland." He said apologetically, as if that explained everything. "Come on in."
Unbelievable. That actually worked. Zuko wasn't sure whether he should be cheerful or dismayed at how such a ridiculous disguise could fool his nation's men. A second later he caught himself; there was no time to waste. The sooner he could confirm that the escape tunnel was still undiscovered, the better. Silently he stalked back into the shadows, searching for another entry point.
...
It wasn't too long ago that Sokka had walked down these very halls with Aang, back when King Bumi was still in charge. The palace had that grand and powerful atmosphere, as any palace should, but hadn't struck Sokka as pointlessly extravagant.
The paintings and other artworks on display had been reflections of Omashu's history and culture, meant to educate and remind visitors what principles Omashu had built itself up from a pair of small tribes into the second largest city in the kingdom upon.
That wasn't the case any longer. Green and stone grey had been replaced by red and gold. Portraits of past kings and queens had been swapped for unrealistically beautiful renditions of Fire Nation people Sokka didn't recognise. Sculptures made by local craftsmen were switched for gaudy trinkets caked with unnecessary gemstones.
Tapestries of the city's history had been covered up with the red and black banner of the Fire Nation. Now it was just another place for a rich man to display his wealth, and Sokka mourned Omashu's loss.
But there was no time to wallow in his thoughts. He needed to find King Bumi, the sooner the better. Thankfully his uniform was enough to merit him no more than a passing glance from the soldiers and palace servants as he walked by.
"Now if I wanted to confine an important prisoner, where would I do it?" He muttered to himself. Some deep, dark underground dungeon would be his first guess, but that was a terrible idea if said prisoner was a powerful earthbender. "Somewhere with lots of metal probably. And as far away from the earth as possible."
His eyes trailed upwards, recalling that he'd seen some scaffolding on the palace roof during the journey over. He'd probably have more luck starting his search on the top floor and making his way down.
One long and tiring walk all the way up flights of stairs later, Sokka had reached the top floor. The spiral staircase and the round layout of the top floor made him guess that it had once been an observatory, or some similar purpose that involved looking at the sky. Now however every square inch of the floor had been covered in plain iron, and there was a suspiciously high concentration of guards hanging around.
Jackpot.
He took a few steps forward, and was immediately intercepted by another guard. "State your business." The woman said, her lacklustre tone suggesting that she wasn't expecting any real trouble, just going through the motions her duty required of her.
"I'm-… eer-…" Sokka raced to think of an acceptable excuse. "… here to empty the prisoner's chamberpot."
"Ah, you're the new poor sod stuck on waste duty." She stepped aside and nodded towards a hallway with a large iron door at the other end, and two soldiers chatting idly in front of it. "Go ahead."
Sokka nodded a silent thanks and headed towards the door, hoping that these next soldiers would be as easily deceived as the previous two. His hopes sank when, as he drew closer, the soldiers looked over to him and their eyes widened in alarm.
They suddenly stood ramrod straight, becoming picture perfect images of the attentive guards, and the air around them became charged with a tense anticipation that felt far too much for their task. What was going on?
"Hello." He said as he came to a stop in front of them, hoping a disarming smile would get them to loosen up. "I'm here to empty the prisoner's chamberpot."
The soldiers didn't react to him, didn't so much as twitch. Now that he was closer he could see that the soldiers weren't there actually looking at him, but something behind him. "Umm…hello?"
"At ease."
A trickle of ice-cold dread ran down Sokka's spine as a voice he recognised all too well sounded behind him. Now that he was not moving himself, he could hear the sound of a pair of smaller, lighter footsteps following down the hallway behind him. Slowly he turned around, hoping desperately that he'd misheard.
Sunlight golden hair greeted his gaze.
Admiral Tanya, the infamous Moonslayer, walked purposefully towards him. Sokka wished he could have said that his first reaction was righteous fury for all she'd done in the north, for what she'd done to Yue, but that would have been a lie.
His first gut instinct was a deep, primal dread that made him want to run for his life. Despite her deceptively small and innocent appearance, he knew that this girl was a stone-cold killer: a psychopath in a uniform. And if his disguise didn't hold, torture or outright execution awaited.
In a panic he threw up a quick, shoddy salute, and dropped it again just as quickly when he noticed that the guards had returned to standing at ease in her order. His antics seemed to draw a half-amused, half-exasperated smile from Tanya.
...
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