Chapter Twelve
###
"Azula, you were supposed to bring your boyfriend!"
Azula blinked at them, her hand in the crook of Lei's elbow. "My what? And it's Oma, Ty Lee."
Ty Lee sighed - she didn't like Zuko and Azula's Earth Kingdom names very much - then gestured illustratively at Bahn. "Boyfriend. Like the powerful and handsome shirtless earthbender who was fussing over you?"
Bahn was looking at Lei with moony eyes again, his aura all feathery. It was cute, but Lei's wasn't really feathering in return. Probably because she was a nice Earth Kingdom girl, and nice Earth Kingdom girls didn't steal other girls' boyfriends. Not that nice Fire Nation girls did either, Ty Lee reminded herself, her sisters notwithstanding.
She'd have to break it off with Bahn after tonight. He was fun and all, but she wasn't planning to take him home with her.
"Lok?" Azula's voice was sharp, but her aura drifted towards scarlet. "He's not my boyfriend, he's my rickshaw-driver."
"He is handsome," Lei added impishly, "and I've never seen him wear a shirt."
Irritation flashed across Bahn's face and an ugly green curled through his aura. Azula's aura got shot through with black.
Ty Lee smiled brightly. "How long does it take to walk to the Han-Guk quarter? I don't want to miss any of the festival!"
"Not too long," Bahn assured her. "I just want to make sure Lee gets these theater tickets before we go."
"Lee isn't coming," Azula said bluntly. "He got cornered by Mother. She's grilling him about where we were the other night."
"Oma went out the window," Lei murmured.
Ty Lee winced. "Mai's going to be unhappy."
"When is she not?" Azula asked, and Ty Lee frowned. Mai had been happy since Zuko started taking her out at night. Well, happy and sometimes very angry. She'd been happy when they were kids at the Academy together, though pretty much only when they were getting into trouble. She was happy when summer took her out to her uncle, though Ty Lee had no idea why the stern warden of Boiling Rock made Mai smile.
But Mai's happiness was small and subtle, and Ty Lee remembered that while Azula could be subtle, she could also be complete overkill.
The night Mai said Zuko thought he was Earth Kingdom came back to her. 'Azula was eight. She's been in the Earth Kingdom almost half her life.'
Azula hadn't even recognized her at first.
'Half her life.'
Suddenly that seemed a lot more real.
###
The festival was fun. Telling Bahn he was way better off chasing Lei while she still didn't have a boyfriend went over pretty well, even if Bahn apologized a lot for something that didn't really bother Ty Lee. Neither of them had wanted anything serious, and she was pretty sure he and Lei could get very serious.
Ty Lee went to check the place where Mai said she would wait for Zuko, but Mai must have given up. Or Zuko had found her. Either was possible, and both left Ty Lee walking back alone to the Lower Ring and their apartment there. It hadn't ever bothered her before, but tonight she felt unsettled. No one around her was acting any differently, and even when she almost collided with a boy a year or two older than her in a Dai Li robe with no hat, he just stammered an apology and ducked around her.
She watched him slip into an apartment building and wondered what it was like to live in Ba Sing Se all your life. Or even half of it.
Azula wore a dress. Zuko talked as if the Fire Nation was the enemy.
Zuko lied. Azula hung out with merchants' children and servants.
A shiver ran through Ty Lee as she passed through the gate between the rings. The guards gave her slightly irritated looks, and she knew she'd only just made it before they shut the gate entirely for the night.
Even as she thought it, she heard the metal gate grind against stone. It shut with a dull clank, and she was locked into the Lower Ring again. The rings locked in each other, the city locked in its citizens, and Ty Lee had never wanted to run harder in her life. Not even when she was her parents' middle daughter, not even when Ta Mei's enlisting led to screaming fights with Mama and her wanting to join the circus just garnered eye-rolls.
The apartment was empty when she crept in. Unease curled in her stomach until she saw the shutters were open in her and Mai's room. Mai must be out with Zuko. Then when she went to make herself tea, she found a note from Iroh saying he had been asked to have dinner with a war-widow.
Ty Lee glanced out the window. It was an hour after sunset, sure, but that was still early for a city like Ba Sing Se. As long as you stayed in your ring.
Her hands trembled while she made the tea, and it didn't really soothe her at all. Afterwards, she got her blankets and curled up on Iroh's pallet, taking in the shadow of firebender-warmth clinging to it and the smell of ginseng tea.
She felt... safe there.
###
Iroh didn't say anything in the morning, and Mai just gave her a dark look. Ty Lee put on a bright smile and got ready for another day at Pao's teashop. It was a happily boring day and so was the next. That evening, instead of returning directly to the apartment, she went to the fire-fountain.
In the Fire Nation, it would have been what it sounded like. The torch-lit fountain was still pretty, though, and she could watch the interplay of fire and water for hours.
Another girl sat by the fountain tonight, a dreamy smile on her lips.
Ty Lee beamed. "Jin!"
Jin turned to smile at her. "Ty Lee! I haven't seen you around much lately."
She shrugged. "I've been busy. What about you? How's your boyfriend?"
"He's... doing well." Jin's eyes drifted back towards the fountain, and Ty Lee saw little black sparks in her aura. "He's doing better every day. Being safe here in Ba Sing Se... He was orphaned by the Fire Nation, you know."
Ty Lee nodded and tried not to say anything about the children in the Fire Nation orphaned by the Earth Kingdom.
"He's been fighting all his life. Having a chance to not fight, to rest... It's been good for him."
"It sounds like," Ty Lee said. "But what about you?"
"I'm all right." Jin smiled at her again. "My brother's been able to find work most of this month, and my sister got me a job at a bath-house. It pays well, and if I learn everything I can, maybe I can get a spot in a better one. Maybe even one in the Middle Ring."
"Maybe," Ty Lee said dubiously, and Jin nodded in agreement.
The only way Lower Ring girls moved up to the Middle Ring was by marriage.
"What about your boyfriend?" Jin asked.
"I broke it off."
The other girl gave her such a surprised look Ty Lee giggled.
"It's all right! It wasn't anything serious, Jin. He was nice and all, but I mostly started it so Mai wouldn't have to be alone with her boyfriend when she didn't want to be."
"Yeah?" There was a wealth of hidden meaning in Jin's tone.
"Nothing bad," Ty Lee said hurriedly. "They just knew each other when they were kids, but his family left for Ba Sing Se six years ago. This is the first time they've seen each other in a long time, you know?"
"People change," Jin said agreeably. "Especially in Ba Sing Se."
"People do change." Ty Lee nibbled on her lower lip. "Because it's safe?"
There was a flash of expression across Jin's face, and her aura went all spiky. Ty Lee blinked and thought maybe not all the Earthfolk in Ba Sing Se thought the city was safe.
"You have to change in Ba Sing Se," Jin said at last. "I mean, there's no war here. How can you still be the same person you were outside the walls when-"
She broke off and didn't say anything more.
Ty Lee wrapped her arms around herself. "I want to go home," she said very softly, and Jin nodded.
###
"I want to go home," Ty Lee said the next morning at breakfast.
Mai stared at her, and Iroh set down his bowl of rice. "Has something happened?"
Azula wore a dress, and Zuko lied. The walls kept the Fire Nation out and the Earth Kingdom in. Jin wanted to go home.
She shook her head. "No."
###
Everyone stepped lightly around her at the teashop after Iroh had a word with Pao. Ty Lee gave him a grateful smile, and he smiled back. He had a kind smile, she thought. He cared for her and Mai even though they weren't really his granddaughters. He had to love Zuko enough that he wasn't here to kill him.
"Maybe we should just ask him why we're here," Ty Lee said quietly when she and Mai had a moment together.
"As if he would tell the truth," Mai muttered.
"Maybe he would."
Mai just looked at her.
###
Ty Lee bought a dress that afternoon. It was a pretty mint green, and it looked nice on her when she put it on.
She couldn't fight in it at all.
Azula had fought in her dress. But Lei hadn't. Lei hadn't fought even a little bit.
Jin's boyfriend had a girl partner who looked and dressed so much like a boy, Ty Lee had almost mistaken her for one even while looking at her aura. But Jin and Lei wore dresses, and Azula could fight in her dress just like the Avatar's fan-girls could.
'That would mean they all went traitor.'
Iroh found her crying into the dress back at the apartment. He murmured softly to her and rubbed her back, then made her jasmine tea. When that didn't work, he drew her into a hug and softly told her the story of the pirate and the landlord's black-eyed daughter.
Her sniffles died away, and she curled up tightly against him.
Mai had to be wrong. Zuko had to be wrong.
Zuko could lie.
What if Zuko was lying to Mai, and he had gone traitor?
She started crying again, and Iroh just held her.
###
"Hey, Ty Lee!" Jin caught her as she was leaving the teashop the next day. "Come on, it's the Vine Pear Moon! There's all kinds of stalls in the streets by the Agrarian Zone, and so many fresh vine pears!"
Ty Lee blinked at her. "-What?"
"The vine pears are ripe," she said patiently, "so we're celebrating. Come on! Mai, do you want to come?"
Mai heaved a sigh. "Fine."
Jin led them through the maze of streets that Ty Lee still didn't have all figured out. As they got closer to the wall, Ty Lee heard lively music playing and so many voices all together. They ducked into another alley and burst into a crowd at the other end, and a pretty boy grabbed Ty Lee's hands and danced her half across the street before breaking away.
She laughed and caught Jin grinning, then the smell of batter-dipped fruit reached her nose and Ty Lee chased after that.
###
Ty Lee and Mai brought home armfuls of the golden fruit, and Mai pulled a jar of sugary batter out of one of her pockets. They grinned at each other, and Ty Lee took a dozen vine pears down to the butcher to trade for cuts of calfpiglet.
Iroh just laughed when he came home, a happy laugh from deep in his belly. "You two had fun today!"
"Yes!" Ty Lee said at the same time Mai nodded.
They had peeled vine pears and roasted calfpiglet that night, and Ty Lee curled up under her blanket with Mai and drifted off to sleep holding her friend's hand.
###
"We found the girls," Xiang said.
"In the Lower Ring, since you're the one reporting." Hyo glanced up from the response he was writing to General How's request for Dai Li cooperation. "Who are they?"
"I have no idea. But the old man they live with is the Dragon of the West."
Phantom pain flared in Hyo's burned arm, and he dropped his brush, spattering ink across his desk.
###
Mai bit into a vine pear without peeling it, enjoying the tang of the fruit on her tongue. Ty Lee bounced around the apartment, cheerful for the first time since she'd broken it off with Bahn. Zuko had promised to come by tonight so all she had to do was endure the tedium of another day in the teashop.
"I believe none of us need to be anywhere today," Iroh said, setting down his empty rice-bowl. "Why don't I take you to Huaren's Forum like I promised?"
She blinked and mentally counted the days. Oh. She did have a free day today. Her heart sank even as Ty Lee brightened. She didn't have an excuse to get out of shopping.
Of course, she thought darkly, Ty Lee loved shopping and whatever melancholy had taken over her this past week had driven her into trusting Prince-General Iroh. Maybe because he was the only bit of home Ty Lee really had here. She needed to spend more time with Ty Lee from now on. Her friend would be devastated if her trust in Iroh led to Zuko getting hurt.
"Sure," Mai said. "Sounds... fun."
