Death of a Thousand Cuts 24 - Hiding

It was overwhelming. Knives flew through the air, tea cups were smashed against tables and their jagged remains used as deadly weapons, thugs with swords attempted to chop away at anyone born in the Fire Nation but succeeded only in destroying every single piece of furniture in the tea shop, and in the middle of it all, Jin stood there staring at Zuko with accusing eyes. It was too much to process, a raging storm of violence that no umbrella of human resolve could stand against, even without the presence of treacherous crosswinds.

Deciding that enough was enough, Zuko punched a plume of fire into the space above him (being careful not to set the ceiling aflame) and bellowed, "STOP!"

Everything came to a halt.

Zuko jumped up onto the nearest undamaged table and looked around at the crowd. He spotted Mai in the thick of it, frozen in the process of pinning someone's pants to the wall (while the man in question was still wearing his pants, thankfully), and she seemed unharmed. Reassured on that point, Zuko let his gaze travel over the assembled mob. "There's no need to attack us! We mean no harm to the city. I am Prince Zuko, son of the Fire Lord, and it is my intention to see that Ba Sing Se and its people are treated fairly. I will see to it that your homes are not destroyed. I will make sure that all peaceful citizens are allowed to go about their lives in safety. We will do nothing to impinge on your culture, but we will bring sanitation and order to the chaos created by the old, corrupt government. You have my word as a Prince, and as the future ruler of this city!"

Zuko hoped for cheering, but he would have settled for nods of approval and everyone putting their weapons away. However, one massive man with an axe raised his hand and said, "Hey, my home was already destroyed by one of your tanks trying to back up and smashing into my apartment."

An older man with a broken teacup in his hands said, "Your soldiers looted my store without so much as a by-your-leave!"

A woman with a black eye said, "I was trying to get home when one of the riots spilled out across my path, and your soldiers beat me up!"

A teenager in an apron said, "Your soldiers come in here all the time for tea and they never leave a tip!" (Zuko had to admit that as a former waiter himself, he found that last one particularly dishonorable.)

More shouts rose up with complaints about Fire Nation rule, and Zuko had to shoot out another plume of fire to restore the quiet. "I'm sorry for these incidents. I had not heard about these difficulties, but I will try to make reforms! You have my word of honor!"

The silence reigned for a brief moment, and then one woman called out, "Well, why didn't you know about any of this? What were you doing all this time?"

Zuko swallowed. "Um, worrying about my destiny and trying to sort out my love life." He was suddenly struck with the thought that perhaps hiding from everything going on in the city was not the best way to prepare himself for actually ruling Ba Sing Se. That was a good lesson, and he hoped he would survive to properly apply it.

Then Jin screeched, "Get him!" and the fighting broke out again. The table Zuko was standing on was yanked out from beneath him, but he twisted to land on his feet and came up drawing his twin dao from the scabbard on his back. He fought only for defense, deflecting and blocking blows from other weapons and striking with his fists and hand-guards when he had to knock someone back. He forced his way over to Mai, and their eyes met for a single moment before they fell into a rhythm together. Zuko had seen Mai fight, back before he was banished, and knew her strategies both when she battled alone and when she worked in partnership with someone like Ty Lee. Mai was dangerous with her knives in short range, but she was truly stunning when she could focus on the long range and throw her blades with superhuman precision.

Zuko took the role of her short-range defender, allowing Mai to shift her strategy to target enemies before they got close.

He divided his awareness between Mai and the crush of fighters immediately around them. When she spun, he ducked and orbited around her. When he noticed someone pushing in at her, he stabbed past the curve of her waist to discourage her attacker with the point of his sword and a burst of concussive flame shot from the sword itself, and then spun with his dao outstretched while she ducked and stepped to a position of relative safety. He didn't worry at all about her knives, which sometimes flew close enough to his own body that he could feel the wind of their passage against his skin, because he knew that she was far too good to accidentally hit him.

The battle ended when every armed enemy had been pinned by blades to a wall or the floor or even larger pieces of broken furniture, and Zuko came to a stop with one sword pointed at Jin, who was still standing unarmed after she had thrown her knife at him at the start of the battle.

Jin stared with eyes filled with such hatred that Zuko had to take a step back and move his gaze elsewhere. Unfortunately, that left his eyes resting on Pao, the tea-shop's owner, who was cringing from behind the front service counter. Zuko felt an absurd desire to make the man feel better, and said, "Um, s-sorry about this?"

Pao looked around at the wreckage of the little shop. "Young man, this is the second time you and your violent antics have wrecked my establishment. This is getting to be a bad habit!"

"Oh, uh... When I get back to the Palace, I'll have enough gold sent down to cover all the damages. And a little extra for the inconvenience."

Pao blinked. "Oh. Thank you. In that case, it was a pleasure to see you again, and we appreciate your business. Please come again. Tell your uncle I said hello!"

"Right," Zuko muttered as he grabbed Mai's hand and pulled her out of the teashop with him. He left Jin standing there, still glaring at him.

Zuko paused in the doorway when he saw what was waiting outside. There was a crowd gathered around the tea shop, and every single person was holding a weapon, ranging from well-maintained swords to loose cobblestones pried from the street. Zuko realized that Jin must have organized some backup, in case her first assault failed. That was surprisingly clever of her. He looked over at Mai to make sure she was ready for trouble, and was surprised to find her eyes all glassy, and her face flushed and sweaty. She was even panting for breath. "Are you okay?"

A smile flickered across her lips. "I didn't know you could fight so well with blades."

Zuko wasn't sure what that had to do with anything, but nodded anyway. "I taught myself while I was in exile."

"You taught yourself?" Mai's face went an even deeper shade of red, and she closed her eyes for a moment. "We should train together once we get out of this. Just the two of us alone. With our self-taught bladed weapons. Alone."

Zuko wasn't quite sure what she was getting at, mostly because he was ignoring the enthusiastic part of his brain that knew exactly what she was getting at and wholeheartedly approved. That part of his brain even had some creative ideas involving the dress code for the training sessions, but Zuko continued to pretend he wasn't listening to that part of his brain. "We'll talk about it later. You ready to move?"

"More than ready. Should we make for the nearest guard station?"

Zuko frowned. "I don't want to be rescued. Azula will never respect me if I can't handle myself in the real world."

Mai nodded. "Then we break clear of here and find some place to hide out and wait for things to cool off."

"Fine."

And with that, they were once again in motion. Mai flung out her hand in a wave that peppered the increasingly aggressive crowd with pointed bolts, while Zuko rushed in at the thinnest part of the enemy gathering and used a flurry of sword-swings to disperse a pair of men brandishing knives. Mai dashed right behind him, and together they plunged deeper into the Lower Ring, an irregular army chasing after them.

Half an hour and one desperate slapstick chase later, Mai was hiding with Zuko in a large barrel and hoping desperately that she didn't smell as funky as she felt.

Her rather embarrassing enthusiasm for the fight back at the tea shop had left her fairly sweaty, and between the warm weather, the running she had been doing, and now being stuffed into a close space where she couldn't avoid touching Zuko, she hadn't had a chance to cool off. Mai loathed sweating on general principle and did everything she could to avoid it, so being stuck in such a state threatened to ruin her otherwise fantastic day.

If Zuko noticed, he didn't say anything. An open plug in the lid of the barrel let in a shaft of sunlight that allowed them see each other, but Zuko didn't seem to notice. He was staring at the wall of the barrel as though he could will himself to peer through it.

Mai wiped some sweat from her face with the edge of her cape. "How long do you think we'll have to hide?"

Zuko shook his head. "Word travels quickly in these kinds of neighborhoods, and there are lots of dangerous people around here. We might have already lost them, or they might keep the search going all day. If nothing happens in an hour, we'll see if we can make a break for it."

Mai sighed. An hour crammed in here? Her clothes would be sticking to her by the time they got out. She hoped Zuko wouldn't be put off by the destruction of the feminine mystique her mother had taught her to cultivate. 'Proper ladies don't sweat,' Mother had always said, 'they trick a handsome and rich Firebender to diffuse their excess heat for them.' Unfortunately, Zuko wasn't offering, and it wouldn't have had anywhere to go in the barrel, anyway.

In fact, Zuko seemed lost in his own headspace. Mai shifted a bit to let the blood properly flow to her legs, and turned to face him. "Are you okay? As long as we're stuck here, we might as well talk about what we came down her for."

Zuko closed his eyes and shook his head. "It's all wrong. I knew the types of things that happened in colonies, but I didn't let myself think that it would happen here, too. No wonder they all want to kill me."

"They?" Mai couldn't keep the coldness out of her voice. If only she could have used it to cool the rest of her. "Or that Jin girl?"

Zuko nodded. "She was nice. She tried to be nice to me, but I knew I couldn't get close to her. But if she could like me before, and see me as a monster now, then I really have become a different person. And I still couldn't do anything to help anyone." He lightly tapped his fist against the wall of the barrel. "I hate hiding."

"Then why is that all you do around here?"

Zuko shifted, and turned to look at her. "What do you mean?"

Mai met his gaze. "You've been hiding from Azula and your Uncle. You tried your best to hide from me after my mother made a big deal out of it. And let's not forget that you've been hiding from your father. That whole plan you came up with to stay here and rule the city is nothing but hiding."

"I wanted to stay and help these people!"

"Well, it looks like you can't do both." Mai tried to shrug, but in her current position she just succeeded in rubbing her shoulder painfully against the wall of the barrel. "If you want to try to help these people (and I'm not exactly well-inclined towards them right now, but that's your business), then you need to change the whole Fire Nation. And to do that, you need to go home and really be a Prince. So why do you want to hide away here and pretend you're still banished?"

He blinked at her, his eyes wide. Then he nodded, and looked down into the shadows of the barrel. "You're good at cutting straight to the point."

Mai couldn't help but smirk. "Was that a pun?" Zuko looked at her with obvious confusion, so she clarified, "You know, cutting, point. Me being the crazy knife girl?"

"Oh. No, that was unintentional."

"Well, clever with your words or not, you sure know how to show a girl a good time. This is the most excitement I've had on this entire continent."

Zuko snorted. "Crazy knife girl is right. You're a lot more interesting now that you talk and actually do things."

Mai grinned, and hoped she didn't smell as funky as she felt.

Together, they waited in the hot, stifling, sweat-scented barrel, waiting for an hour to pass so that they could rejoin the world.

When Mai woke up, she found Zuko dozing beside her, and the night sky visible through the hole in the barrel's lid.

TO BE CONTINUED