Episode 34: Planning Salon

 Starting with Shizaku and Jyoti in the Northern Air Temple:

As they enter the main halls of the temple, Shizaku is met with a vision of the past - the night of Sozin's comet when the Fire Nation attacked the temples. Destruction and death surround Shizaku as he sees a young Jyoti fighting off Firebenders, and then his master, Arjan, comes in carrying the reliquary the group has come to know so well.

Arjan helps Jyoti escape, knowing they would have to leave the temple behind in any attempt to save the Air Nation.

Shizaku wonders what he'd just witnessed, but it stirs his own memories of witnessing the Fire Nation military's brutality. This war had shaken Shizaku's belief in his nation, wondering if it's all just propaganda and where his loyalties lay.

He comes to see how intentional the Fire Nation has been, and how blind he was. He asks Jyoti how he can help others see this isn't a 'greater good' effort on behalf of Sozin and Azulon, but megalomaniacal ambitions. Shizaku's simmering anger has him lash out at Jyoti, claiming the Air Nomad didn't stress enough how big a deal this had all been.

Jyoti counters Shizaku with the need to plan and act accordingly - to not only rally against the Fire Nation, but to find this Place Beyond the Clouds where he can save the Air Nomads, either by finding a new home or burying their history away from the flames of war. Preserving the Air Nation is critical.

They plan to depart, but Jyoti is wary of the bounty hunters still roaming around the Temple. Shizaku goes to find them in secret, to ask them to back off. Saki and Mura mention they've been traveling in the region a while, having come across the remains of a buried temple southward in the mountains (connecting to the location of the Place Beyond the Clouds Jyoti is looking for).

Jyoti and Shizaku sneak out of the temple away from the bounty hunters, just in time to find a (tired) Kou, who informs them that Timmy Moshi fell down a well! (Not really, but that the camp is reggrouping its strategies.)

Meanwhile, in camp:

While awaiting word from companions out and about (Tokala, getting help from the Northern Water Tribe, and Dharma and the Embers on patrol to map out the Fire Nation Camp's borders), Toji and Moshi receive word that Fire Nation commanders have been moving north in an attempt to recon and solidy the borders of Okuru's own bases. Bozan's men around Tokar's farmstead insist they've heard Okuru himself is in the area looking for recruits, dissidents, and pressganging others.

Toji, Moshi, and Bozan go north to discuss with the Fire Nation soldiers there that the camp can protect them and the unity of the camp is a stronger ally than falling under the military banner again. 

They're interrupted by word that a captain's palaquin is spotted, and they investigate to find a retinue and, indeed, Okuru approaching. They see Bozan's former soldiers talking, and Okuru steps out to converse (the group is too far away and cannot hear this whole conversation, but Bozan surmises that Okuru us testing the borders of the resistance camp's influence and where Okuru can safely draw the lines of his own camp.

Toji and Moshi question whether they can handle Okuru, but it's believed this may be the only shot where he's so unguarded and a strike is tempting. Bozan cautions Toji into restraint, but Toji pushes back, leaning on Moshi's sense of freedom to do the right thing - try to cut off one of the badger-hydra's heads here and now. They consider options and decide to go back to Tokar for help.

They build a trap and firewall to try and lure Bozan in, springing it as he approaches Tokar's farmstead. Okuru doesn't seem too fazed, but the companions approach....