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Blue Mask	By : PatPat Category: Avatar - The Last Airbender > AU/AR - Alternate Universe/Alternate Reality > Het- Male/Female Views: 11083 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 18
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Blue Mask, Two Swords, and Sozin’s Comet
Oaths
By Pat Squared

________________________________________

Sokka returned and Aang silently cursed the brothel girls of Chongqing for introducing Sokka to the properties of a powdered drug called Dream by its users.

Sokka’s eyes were open wide and a silly grin was plastered on his face. He had not looked so out of it since that incident with the cactus juice in the dessert.

Sokka’s clothes smelled of vomit, stale sweat, drink, cheap perfume, and the cloyingly sweet scent of smoked Dream.

“Gods, Sokka if Katara or Toph catches you like this, you are going to become seal jerky!”

Sokka smiled, “I like seal jerky. I like it rapped around a small block of seal fat just like Yue use to make it for me when I visited her. Did you know that we were going to elope and run away from everyone until we had a bunch of little seal pups? That way no one could tear us apart.”

Aang looked that the boy who told him about the bird and the bee and wondered how Yue and Suki could ever fall for such a...dope-headed jerk.

Sokka grabbed his water-skin and poured the contents into his throat. Aang caught a wisp of the contents.

Cactus Juice, gods, is Sokka that stupid?

Sokka was.

Sokka fell to the floor and acted like he was swimming.

Aang knew that he had to find Katara. However, he did not know where Katara went.

Aang looked for Toph. She knew how to quickly sober the Water Tribe boy went on a drinking binged. Katara would spend hours berating her slush of a brother and Aang was sick and tired of all the fighting. Aang felt sorry for the boy. He had lost his red string soul mate and he was going through the motions of living. Aang could not imagine his life without Toph calling him Twinkle Toes and tickling him every time she was getting a little frisky. In a few short months, Aang felt that he lived a life time.

Aang did not want to imagine how it would hurt if anything bad happened to his wife. He wondered if he would sink as fast as Sokka was doing so right now.

Toph could find almost anyone anywhere. He looked through the inn, but Toph was not there. Toph would occasionally go to the market to buy breakfast since Katara was now often working late into the morning caring for a dying patient and often would not return late into the afternoon. Toph always bought from the same merchants since they always gave her a discount for being a regular.

Aang slid into Earth Kingdom workman’s grab. It was a green floppy hat, tan tunic, and brown pair of breeches. He slid his feet into his leather sandals and started walking to the market.

Toph was at none of her usual haunts. The merchants told him that she did not show today. Toph might have been a lover of fun, but when it came to providing breakfast, she was punctual about eating. Any more than half an hour late for a meal and Toph would be cranky for the rest of the day.

On his way back, he spotted Katara, red eyed, returning from her patient. For the past week, Katara seemed distant from everyone. Toph once asked and Katara told her that the one thing she could do was make her patient’s last days more comfortable.

“What’s wrong?”

Katara knew that Aang would never leave Toph alone.

“Sokka lost it and I can’t find Toph.”

“What! Is that fool drinking of that damn cactus juice again? It’s powerful medicine, not a toy! Tell me what else he did, now.”

Aang related the events of the early morning.

“Okay, Sokka is not your responsibility. I will deal with my brother, my way. Find Toph. She told me before I left that she needed to talk to me about something very important. Go ahead; I don’t think you want to be around when I sober up Sokka.”

Aang knew that Katara’s methods with respect to her brother’s use of herbs and drink were rather brutal. He did not envy Sokka. Being turned into an icicle was not something that any person enjoyed being done to them.

Aang wandered the market, but no one saw a blind girl walking alone. Toph never got lost. She knew exactly where she was as long as one of her feet was on the ground. She had gone shopping by herself before, even though most of the time the pair went together. Thieves did not stand a chance. The last pickpocket to accost Toph spent time contemplating his crime sunk up to his neck in the earth until the city watch politely asked Toph to let them drag the thief off to the jails.

It was mid-afternoon before the avatar returned to the inn.

Things were wrongs.

Sokka was frozen to the wall gibbering madly about icicle wedgies. Katara was napping, crying in her sleep. However, there was no sign of Toph

Toph did not run away. Aang knew that she would never do so. Toph would have grabbed her travel box. Inside were some personal things that Toph treasured including her favorite hair brush and her favorite hair clip. The box was her property and she had lovingly arranged everything in a special way so that things would not shift around and that she would be able to find anything without having to dig through the rest of her stuff.

Aang knew better than to open the box, but he did so. Her hair brushes and hair clips were arranged. Toph would not go in public without her hair clipped into place. Yet all her hair clips were there.

It took all of Katara’s power to prevent the avatar from going into a rage. Someone had taken Toph away and Aang vowed to turn that person into an object lesson.

“Katara, find out where the nearest Fire Nation encampment is. They probably took her to get me.”

Katara looked at him and shook her head.

“Aang, if they kidnapped her, don’t you think they would have just grabbed you at the same time. No, it’s probably her parents.”

“Why? Toph said that they...”

“Aang, she ran away from home. They don’t know anything except that she ran away with us. We have to return to her parents and see if we can save her. I am going with you. Toph is the little sister I never had and I would be damned if I just sit around. Start packing your stuff. I will settle our bill.”

Aang hoped that Katara was right. If not he knew that he would go to the Fire Nation, not to defeat the Fire Lord, but to seek his death.

________________________________________

Jian Li managed to summon enough strength to crawl out of his sick bed. The medicine gave made his skull resonate like the gigantic dragon drums of his homeland. His body hurt and it was painful just to put on his body paint and loin cloth. If he had to wear anything more, he knew that the pain would render him unconscious.

He knew that he had to leave. He was hallucinating about the Water Tribe girl, but he knew that he let too much stuff slip out during the fever.

Gingerly, he packed his stuff. He positioned his dual broadswords on his sides. He shouldered his bag and made his way to the ring master.

“Jian, go back and rest. You look like death warmed over.”

“How much?”

“What?”

“How much did you pay the healer?”

“You don’t...”

“I am leaving. Enjoy.” Jian tossed the ringmaster a box. “The governor is offering a fifteen thousand golden mountain ransom for his wife’s necklace. Tell him where you got it from. Tell him that the Blue Spirit will give him once chance to try to kill the thief before the Blue Spirit will attempt to add the governor’s name to Jian Li’s list of client’s served. It has been good knowing you.”

The eyes of the ring master widened when he saw the necklace.

“Yes, you were right the first day we met. I was a thief on par with the Blue Spirit. It was a good friendship, but all good things must end. I am dying, but I will choose how I will die, not some whore called fate.”

Jian Li turned around and left.

He smiled. He spent two hours looking at the always sharp blades of swords. Forged by masters of the four elements, there would never be another sword like these. He wanted to end his life, but could not summon up the courage to take his own life. Now, soon someone would come and relive him of this burden. But he was not going to make it easy for the assassins.

On the way out of town, Jian spotted a signal that his other employers wanted to speak to him.

The former magician would go.

Hopefully whatever they wanted him to do would have a good change of ending his pain.

________________________________________

Mai looked as the magician entered her camp. He grabbed a bowl and helped himself to some of the soup cooking on the fire.

“Mai, where is Acid Wench?”

The magician acted like he owned the camp. Mai wanted to kill the magician, but she needed him.

“Crown Princess Azula is back in the Fire Nation selecting a consort.”

He laughed, “I feel sorry for the poor bastard. She is not exactly the caring type, I noticed.”

He attacked the soup and went back for a second round.

“I called you here for a special job. It will involve travel to the Fire Nation and I will pay you very well.”

“Lord Ozai, I see that she can’t even deal with the thought of speaking to the man who is going to kill her father. You know my price.”

“Not that. You are going to do a personal mission...for me. I want you to kidnap somebody who will be very well guarded. I want that person in my arms alive within two moons. For that, I will give you twenty pounds of gems, the type that my lady paid you for Zuko’s death.”

He looked her in the eye and she suddenly felt shamed and glanced down. She had shown weakness and now he was going to exploit it.

“I am not welcomed in my former homeland. I have a price on my head and many will drop whatever they are currently doing and will hunt for my head. My price will be much steeper. One, you will tell me the truth about the target and who the opposition is. Two, you and your spy network will no longer work for Crown Princess Azula, but for me. Three, you will swear an oath of loyalty to me, not just any oath but the ancient Mulberry Oath.”

Mai found herself gasping. Despite the pleasant name, the Mulberry Oath bound the oath-taker and her line to loyally follow the bidding of their master, to the grave and beyond. It was the oath sworn by generations of assassins to their clan master. To break the oath would mean that the entire clan would kill her and her line to the last generation. Not even the Fire Lord demanded such an oath.”

“I am not...”

He merely sipped the soup.

“If you were not planning something traitorous to the Fire Nation or its ruling family, you would not need me to kidnap someone out of Azula’s custody. This someone is very important to you. Important enough for you to chose the life of a fugitive. You and I know that it is not a life that one deliberately chooses. Living without honor, without a home, without love, all men hands turn ‘gainst you. Yes or no. The soup is good, but not that good.”

He poured more soup into the blow.

Mai found herself taking the Mulberry Oath to save her son that night.
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Blue Mask