The opening quote is from The History of the Three Kingdoms by Kim Bushik, a book written in the 12th century A.D. about ancient Korean history in the era of the Three Kingdoms. King Munmu ruled the Korean peninsula from A.D. 661 to 681, and was the king who defeated the other two kingdoms to unite the peninsula.


Shadow of the Dragon King

Second Interlude: Legend of the Dragon King


鑄兵戈爲農器

And in his days, swords were made into plowshares

驅黎元於仁壽

The people lived out the span of their days

薄賦省徭

Taxes were low and the labor light

家給人足

The houses were rich, the people sated

民間安堵

All knew comfort in the walls of their homes

域內無虞

And there were no cares in all the land

倉廩積於丘山

Mountains of grain enriched the storehouses

囹圄成於茂草

And weeds grew in the unused prisons

可謂無愧於幽顯

There was no shame to the ancestor spirits

無負於士人

And no debt owed to the people.

三國史記 文武王 下

The Reign of King Munmu Part 2, from the History of the Three Kingdoms


The back room of the little mechanic shop was quiet in the evening. Models, spare parts and hand-written order slips cluttered the small room. A table stood in the center of the confusion, where a cheerful and comfortably plump woman entered numbers into a ledger. Next to her, a stout man with calloused hands sat back, relaxed, reading her figures from receipts and notes.

Just then a door in the back of the room opened, and small feet pattered across the cluttered floor. A head of tousled black hair peeked above the desk, then sparkling brown eyes and a snub nose.

"Lijin." His mother reached out and smoothed back his hair, which simply sprang back to its former state when he shook his head out. "Not in bed yet?"

Lijin shook his head. "I've been wondering," he began.

"What about?" His father patted the chair next to him, which Lijin promptly climbed up to. His mother marked down the last of the figures and set the ledger aside to dry. She waved a hand at the old stove in the corner, making the flames leap up in lively gold.

"Mom, Dad." The rejuvenated glow from the stove cast the little boy's face into bright light and deep shadow. "Who's the Dragon King?"

His parents exchanged a glance. "Where d'you hear about the Dragon King, little fellow?" asked his mother. "School?"

Lijin hesitated, then said: "Tea shop."

"What did I tell you about eavesdropping?" His father frowned at the boy.

"I didn't eavesdrop, I swear!" Lijin shook his head. At his father's wordless glance, he added: "I didn't have to. They were really loud about it."

His mother sighed. "What did they say about the Dragon King?" She muttered under her breath: "The fools."

"Something about..." Lijin scrunched up his face. trying to remember. "The war, and how hard it was, and how if only Prince Iroh became the Dragon King things would be different." His gaze wavered, then he looked down at the desk, whose surface was entirely covered with papers.

"They- they also said," Lijin continued in the silence, "that they're rounding up the younger firebenders again."

His parents exchanged deeply troubled looks at that, and said nothing for a few moments. Upstairs, they heard the clattering of dishes as their daughter cleaned up after the family's dinner.

"Would the Dragon King win this war?" Asked Lijin in a small voice. "Can Prince Iroh do it?"

"Spirits of flame know he tried, child." His father's eyes took on a faraway look. "But that's not what the Dragon King is - was - about."

"Tien Shou," his wife said, a tone of warning in her voice. The mechanic, however, shook his head.

"He'll be hearing more things the way things are going, Shiri. Better he know from us."

Shiri did not look happy, but did not object when he continued.

"The Dragon King is from our old history, or from our stories. It was so long ago, it's hard to tell which."

"What did he do?" Lijin asked excitedly. "Did he kill dragons, like Prince Iroh? Was that why they called him the Dragon King?"

"No, he..." Tien's mouth compressed in a thin line for a moment. "They say the first Dragon King was a dragon, or his ancestors were dragons. No one is sure. Like I said, it was a very long time ago."

Lijin looked confused; his father hastened to explain. "What he did, Lijin, was protect the common folk." He tousled his son's hair. "Before the Dragon Kings, the Fire Islands were split between warring lords, and life was very dangerous in the middle of all that fighting. Often they would burn whole villages to the ground trying to gain an advantage over each other."

"The Dragon King ended all that?" Asked Lijin. "How?"

"By uniting the country as one nation, the Fire Kingdom. He made all the lords swear fealty to him, and decreed - ordered - that differences should be settled one-on-one with an Agni Kai instead of war. The nobles might not have liked his rule, but the common people united behind the Dragon Kings. Things were peaceful while the Dragon Kings were on the throne."

"What happened to the Dragon Kings?" Lijin's face was earnest in the reflected firelight of the stove.

"The line ended," Tien Shou said carefully. "The Kingdom fell apart, and we didn't become one nation again until the first Firelord took power. Some say he was a descendent of the Dragon Kings, and that helped the Firelord unite the country."

"So the Firelords are like the Dragon Kings coming back?" Lijin knit his brows together, working things through in his head.

"Something like that," said his father, not quite meeting the boy's eyes.

Lijin looked like he was going to ask more questions, but then footsteps sounded on the stairs behind the door he had come through.

"Hey, Squirt." The door opened brusquely. A girl of sixteen or seventeen held it open while beckoning to Lijin, the pink apron she had tied over her clothes incongruous against her crisp, almost military bearing. "You should be in bed. You too, Mom, Dad, come up and get some rest."

"Dad was telling me a story, Yenzi," Lijin said brightly, causing the girl's severe amber gaze to fall on their father. Tien cast a mock glare at his son.

"You can tell him stories in bed," Yenzi pointed out. "You have school tomorrow, Lijin. Come on."

"She's right, dear." Shiri stroked Lijin's head. "Yenzi, could you put him to bed? We'll be right up to say good-night." She urged her son from the chair with a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't be too late," said Yenzi, giving Lijin a hug and taking his hand when he crossed the room to her. She was just about to close the door when she caught sight of the merrily crackling stove. "And please go easy on the coal. We'll run out before the next rations at this rate."

Yenzi let go of her brother, concentrated for a second, then brought down her hands palms down, tamping the flames down to a calm glow. She nodded to herself, satisfied. "Let's go, kiddo." The door closed behind them, and two sets of footsteps trooped up the stairs to the residence.

"What a girl," Shiri chuckled as she started tallying the numbers in the ledger on a worn abacus, the red and brown stones flicking up and down at her expert fingertips. "The real boss of our house, let me tell you."

"I told you, it comes of being a firebender." Tien Shou waggled his eyebrows at his wife as he stacked the receipts into separate piles. "Just as well Lijin shows no signs of it, just like his old man."

"No, he doesn't." Shiri checked the number on her abacus and took up a brush from the inkwell, coating the bristles in black ink. "Thank Agni," she added in a low voice.

There was silence for a few moments while Shiri entered numbers into the ledger with careful brush-strokes. Finally Tien Shou said, "We should have a talk with the boy. He can't go around talking about the Dragon King."

Shiri laid her brush on the inkstone, then cast a wry look at her husband. "Won't be easy to explain why not, after you all but said the Firelords are the new Dragon Kings."

Tien Shou tied off a stack of receipts with cord, then spread his hands. "What could I do? There's always the chance he could repeat what I said, and I wasn't about to tell him they're nothing alike. It's too dangerous."

"Maybe you should talk to your loudmouth friends about what they say where children can hear." Shiri snorted, then fell quiet. "Though maybe they're right - about Prince Iroh," she said, a little wistfully. "Maybe he could have been a new Dragon King, ended this war... or at least made things easier."

"Shiri, don't-" Tien Shou shook his head, but she took the ledger and plopped it in front of him, sending scraps of paper flying in all directions.

"Look at the numbers, husband mine. Look at them." She jabbed a finger at the pages. "After the war tax, we have enough to keep the shop and our home and that's it. How much do you think old Lord Zhao pays? What about Lord Koe?"

Tien Shou put a strong arm, muscled from years of heavy work, around his wife. After a few moments she whispered: "They're rounding up the young fire-benders."

Tien Shou swallowed. "They don't send girls to the front, usually. If she is- if they do make her join, we'll try to get her posted here in the city. One of the safer colonies if we can't."

His wife nodded, eyes downcast. It meant more bribe money they could hardly afford, and they both knew it. They also knew they would pay every last coin, and more. Tien Shou smiled with an effort, stroking her back with round, smooth strokes. "We're both tired. Let's go to bed."

They tidied up the desk, and at the doorway Shiri cast her hand down, turning off the stove and candles with one swift motion. Husband and wife closed the door and retired upstairs, leaving the room in darkness except for the last orange glow in the stove, a remnant flame that was slow to cool.


Next: A rural family drama unfolds before Zuko's eyes. As if reality weren't bad enough, he also sees things that aren't there. Or aren't they?