Path Ahead

Firebending

The group was quiet the next morning as they ate their breakfast. Zuko didn't mind this. He'd never seen the point in filling up the silence with idle chatter. Eventually, however, he noticed the boy called Sokka eyeing him speculatively.

"Your uncle plays Pai Sho, right?" Sokka said finally, stroking his chin as he thought.

"He loves it," Zuko acknowledged warily, wondering where this was going. "Almost as much as he loves tea."

"Aang, show him the tile we got from Piandao."

"The...why?" the Avatar blinked at him, looking just as confused as Zuko felt.

"Call it a hunch," Sokka replied, his eyes narrowed. Aang shrugged, rummaged in a small, cloth pouch, and extracted the round tile. He handed it over to Zuko, whose eyes widened as he took it.

"The white lotus!" he exclaimed, turning it over as though the tile's image would change as he flipped it. "Where did you get this?"

"A swordmaster who trained Sokka gave it to us," the waterbender interjected. Zuko remembered that her name was Katara. "Why?"

"Does it mean something?" Sokka added his own question. Zuko frowned, wondering how much to tell them. Of course, they had accepted him despite all of their past animosity, so he supposed he owed them something. He tossed the tile back to Aang, who caught it deftly.

"I don't know everything," Zuko admitted. "I just know that Uncle Iroh is part of some mysterious group. They call themselves flowers, and the organization seems to cross all boundaries. Members use the white lotus tile to introduce themselves."

"So the sword guy was part of the group, too?" the little, blind earthbender put in.

"Could be," Zuko mused. "I think we now know where Uncle might have gone after he escaped."

"You really think so?" Katara pressed. Zuko shrugged.

"I have no idea how many members might be in the Fire Nation," he said. "There was a man in the Earth Kingdom who helped us because of this group, so I think Uncle would have gone to another flower, if he could."

Sokka was tapping at his teeth, and Katara looked at him suspiciously.

"You're not planning to go after him, are you?" she challenged. He made a valiant effort at appearing innocent, but even Zuko wasn't buying it, and he hardly knew him.

"Not immediately," Sokka temporized. "We need some time to re-group, and Aang should start learning firebending."

"He and I can start while the rest of you work everything else out," Zuko suggested, already gazing around for a good spot.

"What? Now?" Aang sounded a little nervous.

"I can't think of a better time."

"No, right, but..." the Avatar glanced around his companions briefly. "We need to go away from the others." Zuko nodded, but he noticed the mistrustful look Katara tossed at him.

"Do you have to go alone?" she addressed her question to Aang.

"Yes, I do," he answered, a firmness in his tone that Zuko had seldom heard from him. "Please, Katara." She still hesitated, and Zuko tried to seem as harmless as possible. He even left his swords on the ground, where they'd been while he slept. He could understand her reticence, and he knew that she would be the hardest to win over.