Title: Spoils of War
Author: Digimon Empress Yaten (de yaten)
Warnings: Mature subject matter, implied non-con. (rewritten 7/22/08.)
Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar: TLA, its characters, nor do I claim to own them.
--
Jin glanced around the busy shop, trying to ignore the drone of conversation in her ear, the sick feeling in her stomach. It would be closing time soon.
The tea shop was just as busy, just as bustling as it had ever been, but it was no longer green. It was red – too red. Too full of Fire Nation soldiers and Fire Nation generals and a few nobles come to scope out the great city of Ba Sing Se for new summer homes. There were, of course, the occasional noble clad in green, dropping coins in the nearest solder's hand for the privilege to enjoy the luxury of tea.
Tea, like most food – most things now, clothing, entertainment, knowledge—was now considered a luxury for the rich of Fire Nation-born. Even the price of basic rice and water had skyrocketed, and Jin knew more than one family on the brink of starvation. (She wondered if it would hurt more to accept the prices and die of starvation, or fight them and be executed by fire?)
She remembered the day it all began—sudden, quick, like ripping off a bandage sticky with blood. A Fire Nation soldier – captain? Guard? Simple recruit? She didn't know—read from the scroll, bored, nonchalant, uncaring at the outcry from the citizens.
"The following items are now restricted…"
The crowd had surged forward, out of rage, maybe fear –what would they doif they couldn't afford food?—but the would-be riot was quickly subdued with a blast of fire. She remembered it hit a woman-pregnant? Or maybe she was just fat—and the smell had lingered in the square for days.
"Yeah, and then he… hey, Jin! Are you even listening to me?"
Jin nodded, a lie.
The girl, Kana, had been working at the shop for a while before Jin was "hired," as the soldiers put it. Hired, indeed. Jin had sworn –to herself, as her friends had been long since taken away—to resist the invasion however she could. Never submit to the soldiers, never treat them with respect. Certainly refuse to go to work for them… well. She had quickly learned that a silent vow was easily broken by the wail of a neighbor's child, the flames licking the edge of her dirty kitchen window.
She was to be a server in a tea shop – the tea shop, once owned by the newcomers Mushi and Li. But when she arrived, shoved into the building with rougher force and necessary, her old friends were nowhere in sight. Feeling brave, feeling reckless, she asked the soldiers what had happened to them.
Were they killed? Being held prisoner? She tried, and failed, to ignore how her voice wavered when she asked them about Li. He's a good kid, she said. He'd never cause any trouble.
The youngest soldier—her age, maybe even younger, only gave a haughty laugh that made her feel suddenly very small. "I'm the only Li here. You must be thinking of—" and as he said it, her stomach dropped, "Prince Zuko, the crown prince of the Fire Nation."
He noted Jin's change of expression, her slight trembling, and continued. "We're important soldiers, so naturally, wewere told of his great plan—he disguised himself as a refugee to infiltrate the city until the Princess could join him and take it down from the inside. And by the looks of your face," the soldier added, a smug grin plastered on his lips, "he was excellent at tricking you simple Earth Kingdom peasants!"
Jin couldn't respond. She didn't even realize she was falling (either from shock or the way her knees wouldn't stop shaking once he had said Prince Zuko) until Li roughly grabbed her arm and sat her down in one of the chairs.
"Hey now, don't get upset, sweetheart." His tone had softened, but with a slimy slickness that made Jin shiver. "There are plenty of other raven-fish in the sea. And hey, since you like Fire Nation guys so much, I bet you'll love working here." He grabbed a bundle of fabric from a nearby table, shoved it into her arms, and watched – with a smile, she noticed—as she unfolded it.
Jin saw the large slit on already short robe and swallowed the bile rising in her throat.
"Closing time!"
A gruff voice carried over the din of conversations, signaling for the few Earth Kingdom patrons to leave. Jin watched as the doors were closed, unconsciously chewing at the tip of her fingernail. It wouldn't be long before…
"Hey, sweetheart. If you keep chewing your fingernails like that, I'll have to clip them short again."
She looked up.
Kana was already leaving, being carried upstairs by a drunken captain. Li was standing close by, arms crossed, and his ever present smile crossing his face. He had, apparently, been watching her unnoticed for some time.
"You're not thinking about him again, are you?" He took hold of Jin's arm and pulled her to her feet, putting an arm around her shoulder. "'Cause I'd hate to have our, ah, conversation again…"
She shook her head—no, in fact, she hadn't—and tried to ignore the way his eyes lit up at the prospect of another beating. He murmured something sweetly that she didn't care to hear, and lead her upstairs into the now familiar bedroom.
--
Li rubbed circles up and down her back, soft, gentle. He whispered sweet, rewarding praises into her ear.
" Good job, Jin. Doesn't it feel better when you don't resist? Isn't so much more enjoyable now?" I'm so glad I broke you. He didn't dare say his last words out loud. His superior—who had plenty of experience with women, he heard—told him it was better not to remind them that they're broken. Even if they know it.
Jin closed her eyes. She didn't resist that time. She hadn't for quite a while.
She remembered the first time, how afterwards he had wrapped his arms around her, promising that he would never, ever have to hurt her like that again if she would just listen to him. He whispered calming words as rubbed a strange lotion into the burns littering her back, her sides, the one on her face. She just had to be a good girl, he said. A good, good girl who didn't fight and smiled pretty when he asked.
From then on, she pledged to be a good girl who didn't fight him. She even smiled, when he asked, and moaned—although she never felt anything but the urge to spit in his face and run away—but to what?
It didn't matter, really. Not to her. Not in the end. Let him think she was his, let him think she was broken. Even let him think she didn't hate him with everything in her heart.
Jin smiled—genuine—watched the firelight dancing off the fountains behind her eyes.