AUTHOR'S NOTE: Do I even need to mention that I don't own any of the A:TLA characters? I'm just playing with them and promise to put them back when I'm done. Ling-Ling is also not mine: she is from Ardy1's wonderful story Prison Conversations, and used with permission. If you have read PC, you'll know right off the bat who this girl is and what she's thinking about; if you haven't read Ardy1's story, this may seem a little confusing at first, but if you're patient enough to read through to the end all should be made clear.
INTERIOR
Her mind lives in a quiet room,
A narrow room, and tall,
With pretty lamps to quench the gloom
And mottoes on the wall.
There all the things are waxen neat
And set in decorous lines;
And there are posies, round and sweet,
And little, straightened vines.
Her mind lives tidily, apart
From cold and noise and pain,
And bolts the door against her heart,
Out wailing in the rain.
-- Dorothy Parker
It's only a wooden door, much like every other door in her father's house. The varnish is flaking in places, and it hangs loose on the hinges, requiring a certain awkward twist of the wrist to make it shut properly. Cheap softwood, no doubt, to judge from the scratches hazing the surface, and the dull thump that sounds as its insubstantial weight closes behindher. It's a familiar, homely sound, scarcely louder than her worn slippers sighing across the bedroom floor.
There's no reason a sound like that should make Ling-Ling think of other doors, barred ones that open and close with the screech and clang of metal against stone. No reason at all.
She lights an unsteady candle, watches her shadow flicker and dance across the shabby walls as she crosses the room. There's only the ghost of a breeze rising from the courtyard below, scarcely worth the trouble of removing the paper shades from the cracked lattice window, but she opens them anyway. She slips off her ill-fitting dingy robes, peels away her underthings, kicks off her slippers to join them in an untidy heap on the floor.
Three paces, from the door to the dressing-table. Seven more to walk to the window, another seven to retrace her steps. She doesn't really need the candle just yet; she could navigate this room in total darkness without a single bruise. She leaves it lit anyway. It doesn't remind her of amber eyes, flashing with unspoken anger or hooded against her immodest stare. It doesn't remind her of much brighter flames, flaring and dimming rhythmically above open hands. It's just a candle, the cheap kind that gutters too much. It doesn't remind her of anything at all.
Pitcher, basin, cloth; the shock and relief of cool water against bare skin, and she allows herself to voice the faintest of sighs as she scrubs off the day's dust and sweat. A fresh cloth, more water, and she wipes away the carefully-chosen face powder that's just a shade too sallow for flattery. She unpins her tightly coiled mass of hair, patiently smooths it out with water and a gap-toothed comb to hang in a heavy, gleaming cloak down her back.
Tomorrow morning, she'll take the same care to pin it up severely before leaving her room.
She will make very, very sure not to dwell upon the surprising softness of ink-black hair cropped too short to tangle.
The last snarl pops free. Ling-Ling puts down the comb, shivers a bit as her hair glides over her naked shoulders. Her skin, still damp from bathing, glistens wetly in the dim light. She bites her bottom lip and tries not to think of too-brief glimpses of water trickling over darker skin half-lost to her eyes in shadow, and closer, more lingering studies of the sheen of sweat on skin almost as luminously pale as the moon. It's not time for those thoughts, not yet. There's one last ritual she must perform.
Ling-Ling opens the small chest where she keeps her humble treasures.
There is the little heap of well-thumbed books and scrolls, epic tales of chivalry and romance too thrillingly beautiful to ever be real. There is the bundle of small mementos wrapped in a scrap of tattered silk, which she touches but does not open. There are a few ragged woodblock posters proclaiming rewards for the capture of this or that fugitive. And there is the tiny mirror of polished bronze.
Ling-Ling picks up the mirror, and gazes upon her most secret face. It's just herself staring back of course, clean and neat, clad only in her shining hair. But the unveiled glint in her eyes would have shocked the folk of this sleepy Fire Nation outpost, who for years now had never seen her looking anything but meek and demure. She'd been quite, quite careful about that.
In a tale of errantry, she knows, this would be the point of near-magical transformation. The heroine would shed her humble disguise, dirt and drab clothing falling away to entrance the hero with her beauty. Ling-Ling remembers dreaming, praying for such magic once, when she was young and foolish and still believed in fairy tales. She's older and wiser now. She knows the romances she adores are just beautiful lies. She knows there is no real magic beyond what she can make for herself, with her wits and her work-roughened hands: and she knows that no amount of wit or skill, no costly cosmetics or finery, would ever suffice to grant her raw-boned features more than the merest mockery of beauty.
But she's also learned that while beauty may be beyond her power to conjure, invisibility is almost childishly easy. People expected things from a girl of her unimpressive looks and humble station, and the more she pretended to live up to their low expectations, the easier it was to hide her true self in plain sight.
When had she really figured out the game? Was it when her mother had died, and she'd felt so sure she had been condemned to a life of dreary servitude in her place? The choking smoke had spread and vanished over the funeral pyre, and those last sweet, childish dreams of the fairy-tale princeling or knight-errant who'd somehow save her from the dullness of this town, this life, vanished with the smoke. Father's prospects of remarriage, with his negligible assets, his dead-end position as prison warden in this backwater outpost, would have been slim even if he'd been more interested in courting eligible widows instead of slowly pickling himself in rice wine. Ling-Ling, now expected to take her mother's place as housekeeper, had thought at first that her life from this point on might as well be viewed as a prison of its own. But with the passing of time, she had come to realize that her new position held a paradoxical sort of freedom in it. Her father was far too busy with gambling and drink to bother himself any more than necessary with domestic affairs, too absent-minded to keep the books: the more household management she took on, the more he relied on her. She had begun to throw herself wholeheartedly into the expected public role of the pious spinster daughter, modest and self-effacing in her filial devotion; privately, she gloated over the once-unimaginable freedom of movement and action this dreary position granted her. No longer was she confined close to home as befit a mere unmarried daughter; she could roam the town unchaperoned, spend money as if it were hers, all in the cause of dutifully caring for her poor bereaved father. And if she sometimes wandered a bit further than was truly necessary, bought small luxuries that she could easily conceal, who was there to see? Who would pay more than a moment's notice to a plain face and downcast eyes, drab clothes and a timorous voice?
Or perhaps it had been a few years later, when Ting was married? Oh, how bitterly she'd envied her sister when they were younger. The older girl was everything Ling-Ling knew she could never hope to be -- soft-voiced and graceful, delicate and pretty as a doll. Even when she was too young to give a name to her feelings, Ling-Ling had been all too acutely aware of how differently they were treated; every cast-off toy, every hand-me-down garment, was a stinging reminder of her place. It would have been so much easier to bear if that perfect girlish beauty had been coupled with a witchy soul, in proper fairy-tale fashion...but Ting was sweet and bubbly and charming, totally lacking in guile. Ling-Ling had tried to hate her anyway, in the most secret depths of her soul. She almost succeeded for a while when the first suitors began to approach their father, too dazzled by Ting's loveliness and charm to be much bothered by the scantiness of her dowry. Her jealousy had almost worked itself into hate when the lucky suitor was the best match in town, the handsome youngest son of the wealthy provincial governor. But even then, at the lowest ebb Ling-Ling had felt since her mother's death, some stubborn voice of reason within her mind kept pointing out that it was the situation she hated far more than her sister. It was horrible and unfair and rotten luck, and there wasn't a thing she could do about it. And when Ting's marriage had proved to be rather less of a fairy tale romance than it had seemed at first, even that last flicker of resentment began to fade. Maybe her luck wasn't so bad after all -- would she really want to trade her paradoxical freedom for a gilded cage, solitude for a loveless match, self-directed drudgery for servitude to a tyrannical mother-in-law? No, Ling-Ling couldn't really hate her sister. Pity, perhaps, but not hate, not any more.
Maybe it had been later that same year, when she met the first prisoner. Not that there hadn't been an endless dull parade of forgettable criminals for as far back as she could remember, but they'd been as unimpressive as anything else here in this dusty, long-conquered corner of the Earth Kingdom. But this man had been different. Rumors swirled and spread like fog: a high-ranking officer turned renegade, a dishonored noble, a deserter, a failed assassination plot...it was all so much more exciting than the usual boring stream of thieves and debtors, almost like something out of one of her books. Father's drinking had him needing ever more help at work as well as at home, so it had been simple enough for her to find an excuse to be there when the troops brought this particular convict in. Romance had whispered that he must be young and tall and devastatingly handsome, a proper epic hero. Reason had sniffed disdainfully that he would surely be like Father and his friends, old and fat and balding.
Reality had proved them both wrong.
The prisoner hadn't been truly old, but the lines about his eyes and the shock of grey in his hair had shown he was also far from young. His back was straight and his shoulders broad; his face was perhaps a bit too craggy for classic masculine beauty, but not lacking in charm. But it was his bearing, more than his appearance, that had drawn her eye: even in chains and tatters, face mottled with old bruises, there had been a dignity about his movements like nothing she'd ever seen before. Despite the shackles and prison walls and armed guards, she had thought it almost seemed as if his spirit was somehow still unfettered. Fascinated, her eyes had flickered to watch him as she knelt in the dusty courtyard, lazily scrubbing the armory steps. Closer, a little closer, close enough for one good look, and then she'd go about her business; closer, closer, her brush scratching at the dirty stone in time with the soldiers' heavy footfalls. And then they were close enough at last, and she'd risked glancing up for that single look, only to feel her breath catch in her throat as his eyes met hers. Not looking through her, or past her, or over her, but straight at her face, as if he actually saw her instead of her mask of humility; and then the electric moment had passed. His eyes snapped forward again as the procession thudded on towards the cells. She had covered the hitch in her breath with a wheezing cough, and wondered what this sudden flutter in her chest meant.
She couldn't leave well enough alone after that. There was a mystery there, and she'd always hated not being able to figure things out. She had to know more, and what harm could there be in that? Bored, gossiping guards had let her know that he was in the little-used execution wing. It had been so easy to mumble the usual words about cleaning and get the key, easy enough to trudge across the courtyard with the heavy bucket, easy enough to shuffle into the gloom with bent head and downcast eyes like a perfectly forgettable drudge. She'd used this cover so many, many times before, after all.
But she hadn't been expecting him to speak to her as if she were actually a fellow human being, not just a means for transporting dirt from place to place. And from there, things had stopped being quite so easy for Ling-Ling.
It had been simple enough to find excuses to come back, of course. There were always meals and laundry and cleaning, and no one ever really bothered to question the movement of scrubbing brushes and chamber pots. And it had been pleasant enough to just listen to his talk, even if he never spoke of anything so exciting as his battles or his great crime. His voice had been deep and resonant, his vocabulary and accent cultured; it had been so easy, so pleasant, to pretend to work and just let her mind drift on that rumbling voice. He'd spoken of such simple things -- distant towns he'd visited, people he'd known, his childhood in a distant Fire Nation province -- yet his quiet tales had somehow enthralled her as much as any epic of high romance and adventure.
The hard part had been not talking back.
There had been so much she wanted to know, so much she yearned to ask him, about the world outside this dusty pit, about the war, about what he'd done to be condemned, and why he'd done it. The questions had flooded through her mind until sometimes she found herself biting her lips to keep them in check. But in her short life, Ling-Ling had already learned all too well that a keen mind generally wasn't valued much if it came in a female body, especially one as ill-favored as her own. He might be a condemned traitor, and thus scarcely more worthy of notice than she herself was, but it still would not pay to abandon the habit of caution and let her mask slip too far. So she had allowed herself only the most neutral of comments and mostly listened in silence, speaking more in the rare unguarded glances she allowed herself than she did in words. And he would meet her sharp gaze, smile a bit sadly, and keep talking, never pressing her to speak.
And then the date appointed for his execution had arrived. She had trudged in with his last meal, resolved to at least whisper her thanks and a farewell. He took the tray in silence and set it on the floor, scarcely sparing it a glance. She had looked at him, puzzled, wondering if she should speak now and leave him to himself. The words died in her throat as he took a halting step towards her, dropped stiffly to his knees, bowed his head deeply. Some idle corner of her mind had noted the ragged bristling of hair at the crown where his topknot had been roughly hacked away at some point, focusing on this mundane detail as if it somehow held the key to explaining his strange behavior.
She had still been staring at the cropped patch when he finally broke the silence, still staring as the soft thrum of his voice had shaped itself into an absolutely indecent proposal couched in language of the utmost courtesy, still staring as he fell silent once more to await her answer. Her blood had pounded in her ears and burned in her cheeks. It had been an utterly dishonorable, unthinkable thing...as dishonorable as her false pretense of filial piety, her deceptions, her petty thieving. As dishonorable as her own treacherous mind wondering if a man lawfully condemned could somehow not really be a traitor. As dishonorable as even wanting to give the answer that had burned on her sulky tongue. She had hung her head in shame for a moment, but only a moment; she understood then that she'd also long since been condemned in her own heart, and so surely the only honor remaining to her was that of meeting her fate with what grace she could find...
Slowly, he had raised his head to look up at her face, his eyes pleading and more than a little sad. Her breath had hitched as her lips parted soundlessly. Years of habitual caution struggled against desire as she panted and fought to make her voice work. Habit had won, letting nothing more than a sigh escape as her lips settled into a determined line. The sound of coarse fabric rasping against itself, rustling as she parted her robes with trembling hands, would have to be answer enough for him.
She would revisit this scene in her mind, over and over, for years to come. She remembers the pain, although it had been transient enough, and not nearly as bad as she had feared. She remembers his hands, so large and rough-skinned, surprisingly gentle for all their strength. She remembers his voice, the familiar rumble vibrating through her bones, gently explaining what they were about to do, soothing her with soft words of encouragement, meaningless endearments that she knew were just pretty lies, but chose to believe anyway, at least in that moment. She remembers the surprising sweetness of the first stirrings of pleasure.
But mostly, she remembers the sense of unbelievable power she felt as this strong man moaned and shuddered helplessly at her clumsy touch.
That had been when all the pieces started to fall together, the years of camouflage and cunning and deceit, the hopeless yearning for something bigger than this town, bigger than this life, big as all the unbelievable romantic lies of the tales she knew by heart. That was when she began to understand the outlines of her game. She was the plain, unmarried second daughter of a drunkard petty official in a nothing town. It wasn't given to her kind to be the pretty heroine who gets swept off her feet. But here, in this unlovely body, in this dull place, hidden in clear view, she had a power that no hero or foe would ever expect. And she would use it to feed her heart and her mind, to steal bits of the romance and adventure that life tried to deny to girls like her.
Lying on the dirty flagstones with him, sweat cooling on her skin, she had felt a strange sense of triumph blazing through her. At that moment, she wouldn't have traded her lot with the Fire Lord himself.
Ling-Ling shuts her eyes and sighs as the wave of old memories recedes. She slips the mirror back into the chest, pauses to once more run her fingers over the bit of torn sash taken from the first and last man she would ever allow herself to weep for. There is no grave for her to visit, no wooden slab for him in the household shrine downstairs. She doesn't need them; she holds his name secret and unspoken in the depths of her heart. She bows once, shuts the chest, and turns to snuff out the candle. Her ritual is over, the dead past shut away once more with the dying of the day.
Five paces, her stride confident as a general despite the darkness, and she is climbing into her alcove bed. It's too warm to draw the bed curtains, but she does so anyway, enclosing herself in a space of silence and deepest dark. And there, alone in the stifling black stillness, she hugs her bony knees to her chest and laughs, the sound a bit hysterical even to her own ears. There had been so many other prisoners since him. She'd only pursued the most interesting ones, of course, the ones with the sharpest minds or prettiest faces, the most excitingly romantic crimes...the rebels, the foreign enemies, the deserters, the ones any loyal daughter of the Fire Nation should want to see dead. She toyed with them, brought them small indulgences, seduced them or let them think they were seducing her...and sometimes, when her traitorous heart insisted they were particularly undeserving of their fates, she'd play the most dangerous of her games and find a way to help them escape. That was the best game of all, really, for the continuing gossip about the latest mysterious jailbreak or some fugitive's newest exploits gave her such secret thrills, long after the memories of their dalliances had begun to fade.
These last two she'd helped to escape, the Water Tribe boy and the traitor prince, ah, now that had been the biggest gamble yet; she was still giddy at her success. There'd be no more of these games for a while, not until the destruction they'd wrought on the prison in their spectacular breakout could be repaired...oh, but the memories from this round were so sweet. Still, it was good in a way that they were finally gone. Ling-Ling knew she'd been growing a bit too obsessed with the scarred prince, a bit too reckless. She'd cut things a bit too close, taken too many risks; these memories would not be likely to blur into all the others, not any time soon. She hopes his memories of her won't be too unhappy. It wouldn't seem fair, somehow, when he was going to burn so very, very brightly in hers.
Ling-Ling sighs, suddenly wistful, and uncurls herself to stretch out on the thin mattress. Her thoughts keep returning unbidden to the scarred boy's stubborn pride and dignity; she finds herself wondering whether it was really just the irresistible romance of an exiled, disgraced royal that had inspired her to abandon so much of her usual caution, or whether it had more to do with the one he reminded her of, the one she hadn't been able to save. She shuts her eyes tight, willing away the prickling behind the lids, and prays that when sleep finally finds her it will be dreamless.