Chapter 57

Episode 16, The Southern Raiders

Okay okay, hold up. Mom was almost arranged to Fire Lord Ozai. I expected almost everything but not this.

In addition, dad said Ozai was in love with my mom and that it was already kind of an obsession. He wanted her to be just his and he wanted to have her every move under control. No one should look or talk to her.

"She told me that she would run away from home immediately and that we should meet up somewhere in the Earth Kingdom. Of course, I agreed immediately and made my way to our rendevous place. We met up and I took her with me and not soon after that we got married. Gran-gran accepted her immediately as her own despite being Fire Nation. We were so happy until we got a letter from her sister via messenger hawk."

"Your mother hadn't told anyone where she went and with whom, no one knew of our relationship. But the letter said that Ozai wanted to know where your mother was and that he would look for her until he found her. Since then we had been very careful with everything. Your mother rarely sent letters to her two friends and her sister, never mentioning anything beside her being well and about you kids."

"Then one time your aunt sent another letter, saying that Ozai is now Fire Lord and that he had married Ursa. But he had found one of the letters your mother had sent his brother. In this letter she had only mentioned Jasmine but unfortunately also a water tribe and your aunt warned about Ozai sending out people to find your mother and Jasmine. I honestly don't know if he is still after you or not."

Okay, the truth is more twisted than I expected it to be. Never would I have thought that mom was involved with the Fire Lord. That's just insane.

Dad took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a brief moment. It must hurt him to talk about all this.

"Have you ever met mom's family?" Sokka asked, eying dad closely. That question piqued my curiosity as well as I straightened my back. If he has, then he must have seen the royal family as well somehow.

"No, I haven't," dad shook his head slightly. "As far as I know you have one aunt and a cousin around your age."

I nodded and hummed. "We also have a baby cousin," I said with a small smile when I remembered the cute baby boy from Omashu.

All heads turned to me and I gulped. Shooting them an innocent smile, I remembered that my siblings didn't know that I knew all of that.

"And how do you know that?" Sokka asked making me shrug slowly.

"I might have already had a little family reunion," I trailed off, avoiding looking at my siblings. My eyes stopped at dad who smiled slightly and nodded briefly.

Katara's jaw dropped and she narrowed her eyes at me. Great, as if she doesn't hate me enough already and now this. "You knew all along?" She slowly asked.

I nodded slowly and Sokka, who had briefly glanced at Katara, gasped putting a hand on his chest. "I thought we wouldn't keep any secrets!" He dramatically exclaimed.

I knew he was halfway joking and I was glad for that. However, that didn't mean that I didn't feel any less guilty for not telling them earlier. Letting out a sigh, I looked at my lap, playing with my fingers. "I'm sorry for not telling you earlier. But I didn't know how you would react and defeating the Fire Lord is way more important. This would have just distracted all of us from our task at hand."

Sokka nodded before grabbing my shoulders. "Who is our cousin?" He asked, shaking me.

"Sokka stop shaking her," dad said with a bit amusement in his voice.

Sokka let go of me and I cleared my throat. "You're really gonna get the kick out of this," I mumbled. Katara only eyed me while Sokka raised his eyebrows. "It's Mai, the gloomy girl and Azula's friend."

My brother's jaw dropped. "That's our cousin?!" I nodded slowly and Sokka's shoulders dropped and he mumbled something under his breath. "Why does our cousin be one of the bad guys?!" Sokka said with a grim expression on his face.

"Well, she isn't that bad," I said and cleared my throat. "She told me everything she knew and she helped us escape from the Boiling Rock after all."

My brother nodded, deep in thought. Katara on the other hand eyed me carefully. Uncomfortable under her gaze, I shifted in my seat. "You know, Jasmine kinda looks like Mai, now that she mentioned it," Katara told dad and Sokka.

"You found your lost twin!" Sokka exclaimed and pointed a finger at me. I smiled and slightly shook my head at his stupid statement.

"I'm glad you children took the news so well," dad spoke up. I looked at him and smiled warmly before getting up and hugging him tightly.

"Thank you so much, dad," I mumbled into the hug. Sokka immediately joined into the hug putting his arms around me and dad but not before flicking the back of my head. Katara slightly cleared her throat before joining in as well.

"I love you kids more than anything," dad whispered before we parted the hug.

"We love you too, but why didn't you tell us sooner?" Sokka asked, a bit of sadness in his voice.

Dad's expression softened and he put a hand on my brother's shoulder. "With everyone going on with the war and the Fire Nation, we wanted to wait until you were older, but then your mother died. I couldn't simply tell you that you're part of the Nation your mother died of. And then when you left with the Avatar I thought it would be best to tell you after everything was over."

To ease the sadness, I decided to speak up. "Welp, at least we now know Sokkii ridiculously hated on his own nation." I put an arm around his shoulder with a grin on my face. He glanced at me with a smile and rolled his eyes before shrugging my arm off and nudging my side lightly.

"Dinner's ready!" Aang ran up to us, waving his arms around in the air. Katara snapped her head in his direction and smiled before standing up. I swear this girl has a crush on him as well.

The rest of us got up too and my siblings quickly went to get some food.

"So, and how did you find out?" Dad asked me and put a hand on my shoulder.

I looked at him and smiled before telling him everything. How the soldiers argued because they weren't supposed to kill mom, how Iroh knew mom and then how Mai told me about everything she knew and that her mother recognised me because of the necklace.

After my story, dad and I went to get dinner as well. We were a bit later than the others and when I saw Zuko, I briefly froze before making my way over to him and sitting down. How could I have forgotten that my boyfriend is the Fire Lord's son, the man that wanted to marry my mom.

Immediately shrugging the thought away, I took my food. That fact was in the past and had absolutely nothing to do with Zuko's and mine relationship.

"How did it go?" Zuko asked me in a low tone.

I shot him a smile and nodded. "Good, dad told us everything. I'll tell you later," I said and glanced at the other people around us.

Zuko nodded and turned back to his food with tense shoulders. I knitted my eyebrows and eyed him. Not only were his shoulders tense but his whole stance was kind of stiff and his face was scrunched up in concentration.

Slightly clearing my throat, I tapped on his shoulder. He turned to look at me and I tilted my head to the side slightly. "Are you okay?"

The tips of his ears turned pink as he nodded and cleared his throat. "I'm thinking about asking Katara why she hates me."

I tensed and raised my eyebrows. "You what?" I asked, making sure I heard correctly.

He nodded and looked on his lap. "I want to know why she still doesn't trust me after everyone else does. And I'm also the reason you two don't speak."

My face softened and I put a hand on his arm. "Katara and I, we had our ups and downs in the last few months, that has nothing to do with you," I said and he looked up. Clearing my throat, I glanced at my twin briefly before looking at Zuko with an unsure smile. "But I'm not sure if she'll give you an answer when you ask her."

He nodded and glanced at Katara briefly. "It's worth a shot."

That night we all slept around the fire and I really should have appreciated our few peaceful days a bit more as we were woken up by bombs attacking the Air Temple.

All of us quickly got up when a few Fire Nation air ships came into view. A lot more bombs were coming our way, making the whole temple shake.

Toph and Haru made a tunnel into the wall which would lead us out of the temple. "Come on, we can get out through here!" Toph pointed at the tunnel.

All of us quickly jogged up to it but when Zuko didn't follow, I stopped and turned around. "What are you doing?"

"Go ahead, I'll hold them off," he said and looked over his shoulder briefly. "I think this is a family visit." And without another word he ran off.

"No wait!" I called out and stretched my arm out. And just when I was about to follow him, Sokka grabbed my arm.

"Come on, we've gotta get out of here." He dragged me to the tunnel despite my protest.

"We have to help him," I argued and tried to wiggle out of my brother's grip.

Aang made us stop as he failed to get Appa into the tunnel. "I can't get him to go in there. Appa hates tunnels." After the incident with the secret tunnel in Omashu that's quite understandable.

"Aang there's no way we can fly out of here," Katara said. She had a point but Aang still tried to get Appa into the tunnel.

"We'll have to find a way!" Aang exclaimed when the whole temple shook.

"The temple is gonna fall off soon. We need to get out of here," I said loudly because of all the explosions and noise of falling stones. Another huge rock fell down and with a panicked expression I looked at them and grabbed my brother's arm. "Now!"

"We need to split up," Sokka said and turned to the other people and dad. "Take the tunnel and get to the stolen airship."

Katara knitted her eyebrows and walked up to dad. "No," she said in a determined tone, "The Fire Nation can't seperate our family again."

I took a deep breath. She was right that we couldn't let them seperate families, but this time it was different. After all we were the people who wanted to defeat the Fire Nation and we all knew that that meant to sacrifice something. You can't go to war and expect everything and everyone to be the same afterwards. Loss and war go together hand in hand.

"It'll be okay," dad reassured her and put his hands on her shoulders. "It's not forever."

Katara bit her lip and hugged dad briefly before going on Appa where kiddo was already waiting. I shot dad a smile and hugged him briefly before climbing on Appa as well.

Despite all the explosions and fire all of us, including Toph and Suki, flew out of the temple.

We managed to dodge all of it, even Azula's attack. When I looked over my shoulder, I saw Zuko standing on another airship, opposite of his sister's.

"We need to help Zuko," I said and Aang looked at me before following my gaze. He pressed his lips together and nodded with a deterined expression before turning around with Appa.

I couldn't see exactly was happening. All I saw was blue and orange flames but when we neared the airship I could see Zuko and Azula. Both of them were sending a fire fist the other's way.

When their fists and fires met, both of them were sent flying the opposite way due to the impact. Both siblings fell over the airship's edge, making me gasp.

But just in the nick of time, Appa flew under the airship. I stretched my arm out towards Zuko and vice versa. When he was in arm's reach, we grabbed each other's hands and he landed on Appa's saddle right next to me.

I let out a quiet breath but didn't let go of his hand as we all watched Azula fall down. "She's not gonna make it," he said and I gave his hand a squeeze.

However, this was Azula we were talking about. While she fell, she shot fire out of her feet. This helped her to more or less fly to the cliff's wall. She pulled out her metal hair clip and slammed it into the rocks. Azula held onto the clip and watched us flying away with a smirk.

"Of course she did," mumbled Zuko and looked away from his sister as we were flying away.