Chapter Text
In hindsight, Katara should have known that despite having the highest grades in her law school cohort, she’d be a terrible legal observer.
But as she forces herself between the Dai Li agent’s baton and the young man scrabbling for his now shattered camera, she has no regrets about her dereliction of duty. “Hey! Hey! He wasn’t resisting!” she screams.
The gap between the letters L and I on the riot shield crashes into her forehead and she stumbles and hits the pavement. She gasps for breath through the blood gushing from her face and down the front of her neon yellow legal observer vest. Immobilized, an agent roughly flips her over and wrenches her hands behind her back.
“Hey! Get off her!” the man yells. Grey meets red in her peripheral vision and taking advantage of her freedom, she leaps to her feet, drags the man along with her and heads toward the crowd in an attempt to disappear.
BANG! BANG! The sharp impact nearly knocks her to the ground, centred in her upper arm then ripping up through her left shoulder. She trips, the Dai Li agents pounce and suck her behind the line.
Her nose throbs, her shoulder bruises, and the handcuffs pinch tightly as she and the man she defended are hauled away from the escalating protest. Chaos rages around them as the crowd pushes forward and the police pull back then push against the crowd with a renewed power.
She comes to her senses fuming as another agent shoves her into the back of a van. Legal observers aren’t supposed to interact with the protestors or police at all, much less get arrested themselves. Professor Pakku said it was important to keep their distance and only observe, not even accepting water from them. Otherwise the court could consider her testimony biased. But how could she be expected to stand by while that agent struck a man on his knees, hands stretched out in plain view? How could she be expected to be neutral when it was her home that the Sozin Corporation was polluting with their oil drilling?
The door slams shut and the man she’d attempted to defend sinks onto the hard bench, groaning. She slides over to him without hesitation. “Are you hurt? What happened? Did a rubber bullet get you too?”
“Rubber bullet? No, blockhead didn’t like me recording so he hit my camera. Then my face, before you intervened.” He winces before continuing, “Just a few scrapes and bruises. Luckily my videos are automatically saved.”
She beams despite the salty tang on her lips and aching shoulder. “Good, we’ll need those videos to prove excessive force.”
He instinctively tries to reach for her, rattling the handcuffs in frustration. “Your nose is still bleeding.”
“It’s my arm I’m worried about,” she snorts. “What do you suggest I do about it?”
“Lean on me,” he says. “The pressure should help.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, after all you did get that for defending me.”
She does so reluctantly, grimacing as the man dabs at her face with his upper arm. ”Thanks.”
When her vision clears and she finally gets a look at his face, she recognizes him instantly. Messy black topknot, broad shoulders, giant scar wrapping around his left eye: Zuko Hira’a, if that’s even his real name. Her internet searches hadn’t found any sign of him existing before he was twenty.
She’d been keeping an eye out for him since the day he showed up at the Southern Water Tribe with a camera, claiming to be making a documentary about the Fire Nation’s growing environmental destruction. He could be working for a company like the Sozin Corporation, or the Fire Nation military. Either was a possibility, despite the scar on his face both obscuring and highlighting his identity. After the scuffle with the agents, she’s sure it isn’t makeup. Why would they choose him to go undercover?
Unfortunately, the White Lotus had vouched for him when she brought her initial objections. They even said they were sponsoring his documentary! Something about ‘bringing more awareness to the problems’ and ‘expanding as an environmental activism group.’ Whatever it was, she wasn’t buying it.
He blinks rapidly, twitchily sizing up the van. “I’m Zuko. What’s your name?”
Some tension lifts off her body as she realizes her attempts to evade him and his camera in the South Pole had succeeded. “Sapphire. Sapphire Fire.” Remember that he’s a highly skilled liar.
“Your name is Sapphire Fire?”
“It’s my alias. How do I know you aren’t a snitch?” Why would Zuko Hira’a tackle a Dai Li agent to defend me?
”Good point.” He shrugs as much as the handcuffs will let him. “Guess it’s too late for me now though.”
For a moment, she marvels at how he carries this shifty demeanour, the way he disguises his deception as fear or anxiety. “Weren’t you at the protest against the factory dumping in Jang Hui?”
He lays back against the wall and glances at the ceiling. ”The one where they used the LRAD, chased us into the park, then kettled for six hours?”
Us. It sounds genuine, but so did the rat they’d caught last month. So did the infiltrator who’d gotten her mother killed twelve years ago. “Yeah, my ears rang for days afterwards,” she replies carefully.
“I escaped the kettle but I stuck around to film.”
”Ugh, I wish I had been that lucky.” She hadn’t bothered to learn about Zuko’s alleged film before and she might never have such an opportunity to get intel again. “What’s your documentary about?”
His face lights up as he launches into a summary. “It’s about what all the industrialization is doing to the environment and the movements against it. I interviewed the Mechanist yesterday.” The passion dims a little. “He wasn’t really concerned about the impacts of his work.”
“What brought you to Ba Sing Se?”
“Other than today’s protest? Looking for Wang Fire, an engineer working on cleaner ways to generate electricity and run factories.” His knee bounces and he manages to speak faster, somehow forgetting their current situation. “A few weeks ago he posted proof online that these corporations know what they’re doing and that it’s harming the planet. When he didn’t reply to any of my emails, I figured I’d search for him here while covering the action here.”
Katara steels herself against her pounding heartbeat. Why did I tell him my name is Sapphire Fire? “How close to finished is the documentary?” I can’t lead him to the rest of the White Lotus.
But if Zuko notices her trepidation, he doesn’t show it as he rambles about his project. “I’m mostly editing now but I’m going to keep trying to get that interview with Fire. Still haven’t figured out my next move if I can’t.”
She forces herself to smile. “You talked to anyone besides The Mechanist?”
“Yesterday I interviewed some Air Nomads. The Sozin Corporation completely ruined their traditional land by drilling for oil and dumping garbage.” Gazing down at the floor, he deflates slightly. “They can’t live there now, and a lot of people are sick. I’m glad I was able to give them the chance to tell their stories.”
“And the Southern Water Tribe is next,” she murmurs, forgetting her facade.
Melted gold meets blue, and his jaw sets. “Not if I can help it. I’m hoping this documentary will get people on our side. Encourage them to be more conscious of what’s happening.”
“Your goal is awareness?” Katara prods, already satisfied with the new intel she’s gained.
He nods frantically, adding, “I may not know how much industrialization should happen, but I want to get people thinking about the costs and show that we don’t have to trash the earth to make progress. There’s other options.”
Without warning, the van lurches forward, pitching Zuko into Katara’s lap. “What’s happening?”
Katara strains to hear the crowd outside. “They’re trying to de-arrest us!”
“De-arrest?”
“LET THEM OUT! LET THEM OUT!”
She steadies him with her knees but he rolls off the bench anyway. “Even if we aren’t charged with anything in the end, it’s still better that we aren’t arrested and booked in the first place. De-arresting is when protestors stop us from getting that far.”
“Could that really work?”
Before she can answer, an agent jumps into the driver’s seat and blares the horn, inching the van forward.
“Agni, I hope no one gets hurt,” Zuko prays amongst a cacophony of shouted slogans and pounding on the van’s exterior.
POP POP POP!
Barely ignoring the agony from her injuries, Katara inches towards the back window, where thick white plumes obscure the crowd.
“What’s happening?”
“They’re using tear gas,” she replies grimly.
The van finds a gap and plows through it, horn still blaring, making its way from the protest.
He suddenly seems to remember they’re in a police van and how they got there. “Where are we going?” Zuko chokes out between deep breaths.
“Probably a Ba Sing Se Police Station,” says Katara. “First time getting arrested?”
He doesn't reply as he blankly stares off into space, his breathing quickening and eyes widening.
Unnerved by this frozen terror creeping over him, Katara falls on her legal training. “The first thing you need to know is don’t talk to the agents. During booking you’ll have to identify yourself, but that’s it. No chit chat, no answering questions, nothing…”
-
After undergoing pat downs and being stripped of their possessions and outerwear, Katara and Zuko find themselves on wooden chairs somehow more solid than the police van bench. The small, sterile enclave boasts only a table with bins and a desk with a computer adjoining the benches packed to leave half of the space empty.
“Name?” A burly man with his head half shaved and green eyes narrowed steps into the enclave and sits at the desk. His crooked name tag reads ‘Commander Gow,’ the badge number conveniently covered.
“Zuko Hira’a.”
He types on the computer before reading aloud, “Zuko Hira’a, formerly Zuko…” Commander Gow trails off. He momentarily raises an eyebrow but quickly recovers. “Daddy issues, eh? You’re a bit old for those, aren't you?” he sneers.
He takes Katara’s advice and keeps his mouth shut.
Gow leads Zuko across from the desk and pushes him against the wall, then marches back to the computer. “Smile,” he barks.
Zuko scowls, deadpanning. “Say something funny.”
C-Click! “Turn to the right.”
He shuffles to face the wall and Katara’s concern of injury renews itself.
C-click! “Let’s get your good side.”
Zuko flinches, but turns towards the hall.
When the mugshots are finished, he roughly walks Zuko back and scrolls down the monitor.
“10-30 Song, 10-30 Momo, 10-30 Momo, 10-30 Song, 10-30 Song,” he scoffs. “You feel like taking a vacation?”
“His psych record alone isn’t enough cause for a 72 hour hold,” snaps Katara, hoping they don’t notice how panicked he’s been. “You can’t hold him on that!”
Gow glares at her as he uncuffs Zuko and slams his fingers onto the scanner. “Hana! Book the girl, I’m taking Sozin to holding.”
Sozin. The name bounces around her head, confirming her suspicions with each echo of Gow’s snarl. All the pieces fall into place: why he was hanging around the White Lotus, why he was filming the activists, why he didn’t exist until he was twenty.
The agent dubbed Hana smacks the desk. “Name?”
She jumps to attention. “Katara.”
“Last name?”
“I’m from the Southern Water Tribe.” She groans at the ordeal of explaining this again. “We don’t have last names.”
Agent Hana snorts in disdain. “You had to put something down when you moved here.”
“I’ve only been in the Earth Kingdom for six months,” Katara argues. “They haven’t issued anything, all my documents are from the Southern Water Tribe.”
“Sweetie, our system can’t search only your first name,” she says slowly. Leaning over the desk, she tips Katara's chin up to look her in the eye. “Unless you’re in the Earth Kingdom illegally, you have a last name. The attendant would’ve written something on your visa.”
She wracks her brain for what Sokka could have possibly put down as his last name. “Try Katara Wolf Cove.”
Agent Hana taps on the computer and smirks. “Found you. Got a nice record here: damage to property under 50.000 yuan, multiple counts of inciting a riot, vandalism, and assault. I can tell you now that Ba Sing Se takes these crimes a lot more seriously than the Southern Water Tribe. Now I know why you didn’t want to tell me your name.” She then grabs Katara’s left arm and takes her to the white background. “Let’s get your mugshot, sweetheart.”
“OW!” Katara cries out.
Her grin somehow widens. “Don’t attack Dai Li agents and you won’t get hurt.”
Katara gnaws her cheek and focuses on the poster tacked behind the desk. ‘Nation is not probable cause, ’ it declares. ‘Profiling based on ethnicity and nation of origin is lazy investigative work.’
C-click! “Left side.”
The second quote churns through her head as she stares at the empty space.
C-click! “Right side.”
Another poster in the hallway states ‘We’re the Dai Li. We want to help, not harm, those struggling with their mental health.’ She suppresses a chuckle while reading, knowing that the real Dai Li is Gow and Hana and all who she encountered on the protest line.
The slightest movement exacerbates her pain yet the agent offers no patience as they return to the desk. She removes the handcuffs to take fingerprints and jerks around her hands without any care. Tui and La, don’t let the damage be permanent.
She grits her teeth to hold back all the swear words she can think of as she’s escorted down the hall, refusing to give them any hint of satisfaction.
The holding cell clangs open and shut as Agent Hana shoves her inside. Katara rubs her wrists gently, her shoulder still screaming when she sits across from Zuko Sozin, who’s dazed and scratching at his own wounds.
She defended him. She gave him advice.
She had even felt sorry for him.