even more background
Some more fic connected to a request on this meme.
The road between two Fire Nation villages was no place for a freedom fighter. There weren't as many people as in the towns he'd visited, but there were still travelers, farmers and merchants and soldiers, and Jet hadn't attacked any of them.
A year ago, his swords would have already been drawn.
But they weren't the enemy anymore, the war was over, and he had other things to worry about. Like the fact that he was trying to track down a woman who might very well try to kill him when he told her why he had come.
I'm sorry, but your son doesn't even know his own name anymore, and it's kinda my fault. Yeah, that was gonna go over really well.
Maybe he wouldn't find her. Maybe Zuko wouldn't stay Lee. Maybe the spirits wouldn't kill them all.
And maybe Ozai will decide that trying to conquer the planet wasn't a good idea after all.
Dammit anyway, why couldn't the Dai Li have decided he was wrong when decided those two were Fire Nation spies?
He was almost glad he was here, and not in the Impenetrable City. Even with the Dai Li mostly gone.
There is no war in Ba Sing Se.
It was policy enforced with stone-covered fists. There was no war, but there were no firebenders. At least, not if the authorities hadn't been informed, and given them permits, and gone through lots of paperwork that probably didn't really exist.
Those men are firebenders!
The subsequent arrests had been swift. Later, when Jet had run into Katara again and they had seen what Dai Li did to dissenters and other threats, Jet hadn't given a thought to the firebenders that had been dragged away by stone gloves. He hadn't thought about them with guilt, or checked every cell they passed hoping to see golden eyes, and he certainly hadn't been disappointed when he didn't find them.
Really.
Then the war, the invasion, and Jet was back in Ba Sing Se again while the others helped negotiate a fragile peace on the other side of the world. Which was harder than anticipated, it turned out, when the Fire Sages and everyone else (including the spirits) refused to accept the break in tradition caused by not having a Fire Lord. The Dai Li had made things difficult again, and suddenly Aang and Katara and Toph were helping him lead prisoners out of some catacombs (seriously, how many hidden caves were there in Ba Sing Se?). One of whom was Lee, who was actually Prince Zuko. Sort of.
Except he thought he was Lee, for real. And when they had brought him back (what else could they do, he didn't have anyone in the Earth Kingdom to go to) Sokka had been all thrilled, something about succession and old records, and Zuko not being a complete psychopath. And his excitement had lasted all of five seconds.
What are you talking about, I'm not a firebender!
Katara had tried the waterbending that had worked on some of the others and it hadn't worked. When grilled about his past, his family, Zuko remembered he had an uncle, a father, a sister. But Mushi (Iroh, his name was Iroh) hadn't been among the prisoners, and from the records Sokka had found... well, Ozai might just make things worse.
Then Katara had found some old portraits and discovered that Ozai had been married at some point, and Zuko and Azula had a mom, and she maybe wasn't dead. Zuko didn't know and Azula wouldn't tell.
So now Toph was digging around Ba Sing Se for Iroh, and Jet had volunteered to find Ursa. Jet hoped Toph was having better luck, because a two months of searching and he still hadn't found her.
Which brought him back to the dusty road filled with people he should hate.
He gripped the portrait and approached a passing... farmer? merchant? Whatever, they looked like they would know the area.
"Have you seen this woman?"
The man squinted at the picture, but Jet knew the answer would be no, just like every time before. This woman could be their only hope for regaining all the memories that waterbending couldn't, the only way to bring stability to a nation that wasn't the enemy anymore (and that was the only reason Jet cared, not because of golden eyes that should have had sparks but didn't anymore) and he just couldn't find-.
"Yeah, she lives just down the road."