The explosion of fire didn't stop us entirely, although it half-stunned me and I suspect that having me slammed against her by its force did much the same to Mai. It did slow us enough that we didn't sail into what would have been a quite fatal drop – we were still well above the city's buildings and the shallowness of the chute at this point was relative only to that higher up, I'd have guessed at easily a forty-five degree gradient.

Liao and Mai both had the same training in handling a fall, even one resulting from such bizarre circumstances. Fortunately it was a relatively straight section or we might have missed the chute. As it was, I had my doubts about managing the fall without further action and since we didn't have much time before we landed, I acted immediately.

Twisting in mid-air, I grabbed Mai at hip and collar and heaved her upwards. This, of course, slowed her descent very slightly at the expense of accelerating mine by the same degree. And then with considerable effort I forced one last burst of fire out of my depleted chi, kicking it downwards and slowing me further.

My knees protested as I landed, bending them to absorb as much of the impact as possible. I even managed to gallantly catch Mai, bridal style, in my arms and softened her landing. It was only after I'd put her down that I saw Azula. She was only a few yards further down the chute, her posture making it quite clear she'd seen the entire spectacular end to my little sleigh ride. She didn't look happy. Possibly because she didn't have the Avatar captive at her feet, possibly just because she was docking me points for the landing.

"Liao, what have I told you about recklessness!?"

"Not to let it kill me?" I pressed two fingers against my carotid artery (harder than it sounds since my fingers were unsteady for some reason) and checked my pulse. Hmm, quite fast. "I seem to be still alive." In fairness, my legs were still a little shaky and I leant against the side of the chute. I had a feeling that when the adrenaline wore off I'd feel a not insubstantial amount of pain.

Azula didn't seem impressed by my reasoning. "And if you'd blown yourself halfway across the city, do you think that that would be the same? Don't ever do that again!"

My eyes narrowed. "No."

"What!"

I stepped forward, trying not to wobble. "You were chasing the Avatar. Alone. And his friends were closing in to support him. You think I was being reckless?" I pointed ahead to where Appa – now with three visible passengers – was clearing the city wall. "However much confidence I have in you, I will always come for you. It's who I am. And it's not negotiable."

Azula's eyes were wide. She seemed surprised by my words.

"Your boyfriend is insane, Azula." We both turned to look at Mai, who seemed to have recovered her composure. Her eyes flicked to me. "If you try that again, I'll just cut your hamstrings. I'm sure Azula wouldn't mind too much." She looked back at Azula. "Think of how much harder it would be for him to get into trouble if he was confined to a palanquin."

Worryingly, she actually looked tempted.

"I hate to interrupt this touching conversation," I interjected. "But since the Avatar is our only lead towards capturing Zuko and your uncle, perhaps we should mount some sort of pursuit?"

Azula glanced back over her shoulder and then shook her head dismissively. "Perhaps if we had mounts ready we could catch them, but we don't," she decided. "An oversight that will not be repeated. The Avatar is certainly skilled at running away, but he does not impress me as a combatant."

"Hard to catch, easy to bring down."

"Precisely." She smiled. "Since you're so inventive, Liao, perhaps you have an idea of how we can do that?"

I exhaled, hard and then sat down. The adrenaline rush was wearing off and if anything I'd underestimated how much I was going to hurt after pulling that stunt. "The airbender thinks that he's safe in the sky. I believe that War Minister Qin had some plans to take control of that battlefield for the Fire Nation – something called a war balloon. How fast do you think you can get one deployed down here with a crew?"

Azula took the necessary steps up the chute to check my vitals. "A good plan. I'll obtain one. But in the meantime, you're not leaving my sight." She brushed hair back from my face and then peeled back one of my eyelids. I have no idea what she was looking at, but my moment of weakness left me no energy to contest her. "Pushing yourself like that may not have killed you, but how much use do you think you'd have been against the Avatar like this?" She turned her head slightly and fixed Mai with gimlet eyes. "Are you injured?"

After a moment of self-assessment Mai returned the look. "Only bruised." One of her sleeves had been half-torn away and her long hair was a mess, but I'd guess that her assessment was correct.

"Good. And Ty Lee?"

Mai shrugged and I cleared my throat. "I left her some loose ends to clear up at the top."

"Next time, let me do that and take her with you when you do something insanely dangerous."

I wasn't too tired to smirk. "I thought that you were bored and wanted some excitement to spice up your life. Besides, if Ty Lee had been hanging off me, I think she'd have battered me to a pulp on the way down."

"Proving that she's wiser than most believe," Mai muttered under her breath.

.oOo.

On Azula's insistence I was provided with a high-backed armchair and servants to carry it everywhere for the next day. And two muscular guards to ensure I didn't leave my seat unless it was absolutely vital (1). For some inexplicable reason she was of the opinion that I would manage to kill myself if I didn't sit back and rest. Being hauled around on the chair made me sick to my stomach, not out of any anachronistic objections to having servants carry out menial tasks (someone had to and at least they weren't slaves) but due to the rocking motion of the chair as I was moved.

As a result, I had had myself placed at one end of a courtyard and – obedient to other, earlier commands from my princess – was supervising at some distance as the servants used two millstones to grind the little cakes of gunpowder back into dust again. I should mention, before anyone suggests that I was merely being reckless with their lives rather than my own, that the cakes had been gently broken into smaller sections not much larger than a coin before doing so. If one of them did spark up then the risk to those doing the grinding was marginal.

A disturbance at the doorway drew my attention away from the scroll I was reading. Mai's father walked in, his face less troubled than it had been at our earlier meeting. "Lord Seung. I would have thought you would be with your family."

He smiled slightly. "I was. My daughter had quite a lot to say about you."

"I doubt that."

"Well, as her father I do have some ability to read between the lines." The governor looked over at the grindstones. "I suspect that asking what you're having them do would be a mistake."

"Knowledge is power, sir. I'm sure you know how little men and women enjoy sharing power with others."

"Ah yes." He frowned. "Mai has given me a rather mixed impression of you, one that raises questions in my mind since she will be travelling in your company on the Princess' mission. On the one hand, you rescued my son from the kidnappers and quite probably saved my daughter considerable difficulty at the hands of the waterbender. On the other, my own feeling is that she was very nearly killed racing down those chutes with you."

I nodded. "The latter is an accurate statement." I imagined that he would be quite upset about that but the expression on his face was simply regretful.

"I haven't spent as much time with her as I could have. And when I did, my attention was almost always on someone or something else. You and Princess Azula are taking her away now and I have to wonder when Mai grew up."

There was an awkward silence as I tried to find the words. "With the greatest of respect, Lord Seung, why are you saying this to me and not to Mai?"

He harrumphed. "There are some things that are hard to say. Most of all those that you..." He swallowed. "I imagine that one day, should your relationship with Princess Azula come to its fruition then you will understand. What I am hoping is that while she is in your care, you will treat Mai the way that you did when you fought the waterbender together... and not as you did in the chute."

"You want me to look after your little girl."

Lord Seung hesitated before nodding. "I ask this of you in my family's name."

Ouch, formal phrasing. Implying an incurred obligation towards me in return for that favour. "Sir... we're chasing after the Avatar and the Dragon of the West and the Fire Lord's son. None of that is going to be safe for any of us and since we're being totally honest here, my first priority is going to be watching the Princess' back." And her front along with any other angles that might present themselves. "So I can't promise you that."

His face fell. "Lieutenant..."

"Governor, I'll do my best to keep Mai alive. She's a..." Nice girl? Hardly. Homicidal maniac who's already threatened to cripple me? Accurate, but not suitable for poor sheltered parents. "...friend. I'd do that whatever you said."

"Thank you. I know you refused the favour, but if there is anything I can do."

"Actually..." I'd been meaning to do this myself, but I was currently trapped in this damn chair and Azula probably wouldn't let me out of it for the rest of the day. "I was meaning to get some brasswork done for my little project, but since we'll be moving fast I don't think I can stay around while the work is done. If I leave instructions with a smith here, would you mind shipping my order after me?"

He took being asked to play deliveryman quite well and I did thank him very politely. Of course, that probably meant that he thought I owed him a favour. Politics!

.oOo.

I'd underestimated Azula's resolve over keeping me out of trouble. She didn't let me out of the chair except to sleep until the war balloon arrived (2). Given that it was about the same as the Mechanist's prototype and Zuko's later acquisition, there wasn't going to be room for the four of us and a crew, which meant that Mai, Ty Lee and I got to learn the ropes while Azula dealt with the ceremony of renaming Omashu as New Ozai. I have to wonder how 'old' Ozai felt about it.

"It'll be interesting to see Zuko again, won't it Mai?" Ty Lee asked while we were practising our new skills, provoking a slight smile from the other girl. Mai was certainly feline in certain ways, I had come to notice.

"Oh that's right. You knew him, didn't you?" I knew, of course.

Ty Lee nodded enthusiastically. "Back when we were all children Lady Ursa brought him with her when she visited the Academy. Mai was very fond of him."

"..."

I sighed and adjusted course again. All we were doing was circling Omashu at the moment. Our first 'solo' flight without having some of the crew who'd brought it here aboard to instruct us. "What was he like back then? I have trouble seeing him as a little kid, the way he was when I met him."

"You met him?"

Glancing back, I saw them both staring at me in surprise. I hadn't recounted the one encounter I'd had so far with Zuko yet and I suppose Azula wasn't keen to admit that Zuko had gotten away, even if it was with Iroh's help. "Once or twice. We tried taking him into custody the easy way. Told him that Ozai wanted his family close and he was walking right into a cage when some idiot ran his mouth off and gave the game away."

"Oo! Was that when Iroh threw you into the sea?"

"That's right."

Mai looked out over the mountains surrounding Omashu. "What was he like?"

"Iroh?" I asked her.

She just shot me a withering look. Like she was interested in the wellbeing of a man old enough to be her grandfather.

"He's angry, impatient and doesn't seem to care about much of anything except getting back into his Daddy's good graces. Of course, a week or two on the run may have changed him. I have to wonder if his father was like that when Iroh was heir." Which was an interesting question to ponder at a later time.

Ty Lee scrunched up her brow. "That doesn't sound like Zuko. He was pretty nice. For a boy."

"I know it sounds strange, given we're about the same age, but he really needs to grow up." I shrugged. "There are usually a few officers a bit like him in the frontline corps. Mostly they die or get career ending wounds before long. If they're lucky, it's the Earth Kingdom that does it."

Okay, that was probably a touch cynical to say to a pair of semi-sheltered rich girls, but what the hell? It wasn't as if they weren't used to Azula's low opinion of her brother. "Don't get me wrong – he seems to be a decent bender, better than me when you come down to it, and he managed to hound the Avatar from one end of the world to the other – but he's not the sort of person I'd want backing me up in a tight spot."

I could see Mai's fingers tighten around the edge of the basket. Silly name for it, given it's made of metal, but that's the technical term. I suppose that using something as flammable as wicker would be foolish around firebenders.

"Now you could say that there are reasons for that and I would agree with you," I added. "My father never burned my face half off, so I wouldn't really know. Because right now, that nice boy you mentioned is buried under a ton of resentment against just about everyone in the world. And if either of you lets your guard down, that nice boy might just put you down. Hard." I smiled thinly. "So don't lower your guard because you think you know him."

.oOo.

And so the five of us took flight in the our war balloon, heading south in pursuit of Appa's last known sighting. Five? Yes, because Azula had decided to bring her puppy with her. The little beast had grown almost visibly since I gave it to her and appeals from Ty Lee (who thought he was adorable) had persuaded Azula she should select a name.

"Snuggles!" Ty Lee offered, having been delegated the extremely important job of holding the sheep-dog as Azula waved imperiously to the parade of soldiers seeing us off (3) and hung off my arm. This of course left Mai doing most of the actual work which she didn't seem to be ecstatic about.

"No!" The disagreement was unanimous amongst the rest of us.

She pouted. "But he's so adorable. Don't you just want to..."

Azula glared at her, shutting her up. "No," she repeated firmly.

"Zizi," I suggested. "You already have a Zuzu."

Ty Lee giggled.

" 'Zizi' ?" Azula asked me as if the word itself was distasteful.

"Short for Aziraphael," I improvised. "He was a mythical warrior with a fiery sword." Fortunately there was little to no chance of her finding out where I was getting the name from.

She nodded. "Aziraphael it is then. Not 'Zizi'." I wouldn't have been surprised if she started cooing over the newly christened sheep-dog but instead she simply relinquished my arm and retrieved him from Ty Lee, sitting regally in the small bench that really was the only seating inside the basket while I turned my attention to maintaining the heat necessary for us to stay airborne.

Beneath us was the majestic sweep of the mountains, but from this height the barest hint of green could be seen ahead. "I suppose that that's the swamp." I brushed sweat from my forehead. "It has an unhealthy reputation – your uncle might go to ground there – rooting him out would be almost impossible – but somehow I doubt it. It would mean leaving civilisation behind."

Azula nodded. "Would the Avatar go there?"

"Again, it's possible, but I can't see why. It's most likely that he's looking for an earthbender to teach him and I doubt any would be mucking around down there. Southwards, he could turn west onto the peninsula or east along the coast. East would be the smartest selection, particularly with a wounded travelling companion."

"Why?" asked Ty Lee from where she was perched on the edge of the basket, apparently completely confident that she would not fall. She was probably right about that.

I grinned. "Bit of folklore. I'm sure you've heard of Chin the Conqueror." They really ought to: he's one of the relatively small number of Earth Kingdom rulers to have been important enough to merit mention in a Fire Nation education. Sort of like Napolean I suppose. "Avatar Kyoshi killed him in that part of the world and most of the towns are descended from survivors of his army. They have an adorable little ceremony every year where they burn Kyoshi and every subsequent Avatar in effigy. He'd have to be an idiot to go that way."

Mai nodded. "So we're going there?"

I couldn't help but laugh. She'd certainly taken Aang's measure quickly. Or maybe she was just being sarcastic. "You might be right. Nothing I've heard about this Avatar suggests that he's got so much as a shred of caution in him. And if Zuko has come to the same conclusion then it would be an excellent place for him to try to capture the Avatar: it's not as if the locals would be inclined to stop him from doing so. They might even help."

"Very clever." Azula seemed pleased. "Perhaps too clever for my brother though."

"I wouldn't go that far. He has tried using local groups against the Avatar before. It would be more difficult to do so now – but that's not the same thing as saying that it can't be done."

.oOo.

We could see the smoke of Chin Village for some considerable distance. I shielded my eyes. "Well what luck. It must be Avatar Day already."

Azula narrowed her eyes and pushed her way to the front of the basket – the close confines were already proving a problem and we had only been travelling for two days. "That's quite a lot of smoke for just a few effigies," she told me doubtfully.

I shaded my eyes. Azula had a good professional knowledge of how much smoke meant how much fire. "They're rather large effigies. But you're right. Even with thirty foot tall statues that's quite a lot of smoke." As we got closer, it was evident that it wasn't just the wooden statues of Kyoshi, Roku and Aang that were burning. Most of the village was doing likewise.

"Well, if your brother hasn't been through here, it's a safe bet that the Avatar has been."

She patted Aziraphael on the head reassuringly. "So this is normal for one of them passing through."

"Well, mostly when they met up." I grinned. "You've heard the phrase 'getting along like a house on fire'?"

Azula nodded.

"This is what it means."

"Maybe I've underestimated him, just a little," Azula admitted thoughtfully and then laughed. "Although that hardly seems likely."

"Shall we investigate?"

She smiled at me. "By all means. But make haste. Whichever of them it was, I don't want to fall behind them."

.oOo.

Burning rooftops, explosions, komodo rhinos running loose... yep, the Fire Nation was attacking Chin Village. And by the Fire Nation, I mean all of five soldiers.

"Colonel Mongke, what precisely is going on?" demanded Azula as we came face to face with the leader of the Rough Rhinos, who was pacing his steed through the streets.

"Your highness?" The man recognised Azula immediately, although he was obviously flabbergasted to see the Fire Lord's daughter in a small Earth Kingdom town. "We're in pursuit of the Avatar."

Azula's eyes widened. "Excellent, Colonel. Consider yourself under my command, effective immediately." She marched forwards. "Now, where did you last see him?"

He grimaced. "Near the cliffs but we drew him and his allies into the streets to split them up."

"Then the best way to find them is from the rooftops," I suggested mildly.

"Precisely." Azula gestured for Ty Lee to take the lead, the acrobat bounding up onto tiles almost effortlessly. "Colonel, rally your men and sweep through the town."

.oOo.

(1) Sure, I could have probably beaten them up if I was in form – but after all the excitement I wasn't sure I'd be able to at least until I'd had some time to recover.
(2) And for certain bodily functions.
(3) And to King Bumi who had somehow managed to get himself recaptured, still in his casket, a good long way from where anyone had last seen him. Gee, I wonder how that had happened.