Things are certainly going to get interesting by the end of this chapter and I'm really looking forward to the plot that the rest of this story will have. My offer to post double the updates a week still stands but I want double the reviews so if you guys want more of Taming the Dragon, leave me a review.
Hoping for Help
Getting captured by the Dai Li had certainly not been on Izanami's To Do List. If anything, she had completely forgotten about the secret police of Ba Sing Se. It wasn't until Niko said 'the men with ponytails looked after him' that Izanami remembered their odd hairstyle. Being outcasted by society certainly hadn't done the Dai Li any favours since Izanami was actually afraid of them this time. Last time, Azula had been there to keep the Dai Li in check but Azula wasn't around to do that now. Azula was nowhere in sight.
After they were initially captured by the Dai Li, Gen and Izanami had been separated from Niko, much to Gen's despair. As much as Gen was trying to show that she was coping without her son, it was clear to Izanami that the woman was desperate to have her little boy in her arms again. Even though Izanami had just met Gen, she was determined to make that happened because she could see that Gen loved Niko and she didn't want her to have to feel misery over her sons separation.
The whole time that they were taken by the Dai Li, they were blindfolded so Izanami had no idea where they were until the blindfold was ripped away from her face and she found herself in what appeared to be a cellar of some sorts. Hunched over in a corner was Gen, who finally gave in to the emotions that were overwhelming her without the Dai Li around to see.
"It'll be okay, Gen. We'll get out of here and we'll get Niko too," Izanami tried reassuring her.
"But he's my little boy. He's the only light in my life. Without him I have nothing," Gen cried.
"Nothing? Not even a family of your own?" Izanami asked.
Gen shook her head, "I was taken from my family when I was ten-years-old. I haven't seen or heard from them ever since."
"I guess that's something that we have in common then," Izanami commented.
"What do you mean?" Gen wondered.
"Well, I haven't seen my parents in over a year. They walked out on me after I made a choice that they didn't agree with," Izanami replied.
"That's so sad," Gen murmured. "Parents should never abandon their children, no matter what choices they make. People who can't support their children should never be parents."
"People who manipulate their children for their own selfish needs shouldn't be parents," Izanami muttered, referring to how Ozai had controlled Azula throughout her life and made her into his puppet.
"So I guess that means we have no parents to rescue us then," Gen said.
"But what about Niko's father? Won't he realise that you're missing and come find you?" Izanami questioned.
Gen sighed, "Niko's father… isn't around. It's just been us two together."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Izanami apologised.
"It's okay, you didn't know. Not many people know anyways. I prefer to keep it that way," Gen stated.
"Gen, can I ask you something?" Izanami waited until she got Gen's approval. "What did the Dai Li mean by saying that you were the worst kind of traitors?"
"Those traitors don't know what they're talking about," Gen muttered. "In their eyes I might be a traitor, but I don't consider myself as such. Any choices that I made were out of love, and they can't fault me for that. At least I didn't betray my entire country like they did."
It was then that Izanami realised just how similar she was to the Dai Li. They had all betrayed their country, even if their intentions had been different. For Izanami, she had betrayed the Fire Nation because it was what she thought was the right thing to do. As for the Dai Li, they had betrayed their country just so that they had somebody to follow after their leader, Long Feng, had been bested by Azula. Now they were all considered outcasts. Despite Izanami not officially being an outcast, she still felt like one after her actions in the war.
"What were the Dai Li talking about when they mentioned you?" Gen wondered.
Izanami sighed, "I have a bit of a… history with the Dai Li. Things turned out the way they did partly because of my efforts."
"What do you mean?" Gen inquired.
"What do you know about the Fire Nation Royal Family, Gen?" Izanami asked.
Gen shrugged, "Not much. Just that their Fire Lord tried to wipe out the Earth Kingdom but was stopped by the Avatar. And that his son had betrayed the country to help the Avatar and is now the Fire Lord."
"That much is true. But the current Fire Lord also has a sister, Princess Azula," Izanami stated.
"Oh, yes. I forgot about her. She was the one who conquered Ba Sing Se, right? Then there was her uncle, General Iroh who tried to do the same but failed before she did," Gen remembered.
"Yes," Izanami nodded. "I'm not sure if it's common knowledge, but Princess Azula wasn't alone when she conquered Ba Sing Se. She had three friends with her, one of whom included me."
"You were friends with the Fire Nation Princess?" Gen gasped.
"I was," Izanami confirmed. "We'd first met when we were younger before becoming permanent friends later once I moved to the Capital. I'd travelled almost all over the Earth Kingdom with her when she was given the orders of bringing her brother and uncle back home. Then we found ourselves in the Earth Kingdom after she decided that she wanted to conquer Ba Sing Se. It had soon became apparent that the Dai Li were the ones who were really pulling the strings around there with the Earth King out of the loop on everything. Princess Azula managed to use that to her advantage and got the Dai Li to turn against not only the Earth Kingdom, but their old leader as well."
"I'd heard about the Dai Li before then. They were some of the most feared earthbenders in the Earth Kingdom. Everyone knew them for their signature rock gloves," Gen said.
"With the Dai Li on her side, conquering the Earth Kingdom became a piece of cake for Azula. She was able to defeat the Avatar for the timing being which allowed her to take control of the city," Izanami finished.
"If you were friends with the Fire Nation Princess then how did you end up out here?' Gen wondered.
"When we returned home, things had changed. My life at home wasn't how I had remembered it with my parents pressuring me to do things that I didn't want to do. Then there was the fact that Azula's actions concerned me and I started to fear what she would do to herself if she kept going down the path that she was going on. Finally, I decided that enough was enough and made my own choice in the war which meant betraying my country and resulted in me being locked up in prison," Izanami explained.
Gen shook her head, "You shouldn't be imprisoned for doing what was right."
"That's not how things worked in the Fire Nation. Out of all the crimes, treachery was considered the worst to commit and those who did commit it regardless of why they did it met the cruellest punishment," Izanami said.
"What happened to the princess?" Gen asked.
Izanami sighed, "She started to lose her mind with the pressure of everything that she had to deal with. Most of that pressure came from her father who wanted her to be perfect. But I soon realised that she wasn't the person who I thought she was and it made me realise that everything I had done was wrong. Because of my betrayal, she became even worse than what she already was before she finally lost her sanity after her brother defeated her."
"That Royal Family of yours seems like a mess," Gen remarked.
"Trust me when I say that they were a mess. They were unlike any family that I'd ever seen before. It made me glad that I had my family even if it wasn't perfect," Izanami admitted. "After the war, Fire Lord Zuko released his sister so that they could find their mother together after she had disappeared. But once they'd found her, the princess ran off and didn't show her face until months later. When she did return, she was more of a threat than ever and threatened the newfound peace in the Fire Nation. But now she's disappeared again and nobody has heard from her since."
"Her life honestly sounds like such a tragic story," Gen murmured.
"It basically was. She never had anyone who really loved her apart from me. I'm not sure if her own brother even loved her since she was constantly trying to kill him. That's not the kind of sibling that you can love," Izanami said.
"But how did you get out here? Why are you here?" Gen questioned.
"When I heard the news of what Princess Azula had done in the Capital City, I decided that it was finally time for me to confront what I had been avoiding since my betrayal. It was about time that I confronted Azula about her actions and tried to make her see some sense," Izanami answered.
"So now you're tracking her?" Gen deduced.
"Yes, I am," Izanami confirmed. "I'd heard rumours that the group of people she had been travelling with were hiding out in the Earth Kingdom. But now that I'm here, I'm starting to think that it was just an elaborate scheme by the Dai Li so that they could get their revenge on me."
"I hope that it doesn't come to that, Izanami," Gen whispered. "I've already been through enough in one life and I can see that you have too. We cannot let them get away with this. We cannot let them hurt my little boy."
"They won't," Izanami insisted. "We'll get out of here, get Niko and then we can both move on with our lives and not worry about the Dai Li."
"I hope we can," Gen whispered.
Despite things not turning out how Izanami had expected them to, she fully intended to get things back on track and finish what she had set out to do. But before Izanami could do that, she'd have to escape the Dai Li's clutches and get Gen and Niko out as well.
~*•°•*~
Not too far away from where Izanami and Gen were being held prisoner, the remaining Dai Li agents turned their focus to Niko. Their intentions with the boy was to turn him into a useful power against their enemies. Even though they weren't exactly sure how he was going to be useful to them just yet, they were going to start small and teach him some basic earthbending moves.
However, teaching the boy seemed to be harder than they thought it would be as he refused to listen to them. All of the Dai Li agents had begun their training at thirteen-years-old and even before then, they were able to grasp the concept of obeying orders and doing as told. This boy was without a doubt their most difficult trainee yet and they were beginning to think that maybe they'd chosen the wrong protégé after all.
"That child is nothing more than an incompetent fool!" one of the Dai Li agents complained.
"Quiet, Charan. You cannot expect the boy to be an expert when he is just a child. With rigid discipline we will eventually be able to get him to complete the tasks that we set for him," their newly established leader, Hiresh stated.
"But what are we going to do about the mother and the girl? Surely they'll end up getting in the way at some point," his right hand man, Hiroki pointed out.
"We will deal with them when the time is appropriate. For now we need to maintain our focus on moulding this boy into the perfect soldier for us. Then when the time is right, we will use him to our advantage so that we can get back into the good graces of the Earth King," Hiresh proclaimed.
"It is pathetic that we have been reduced to such peasants. Had we not betrayed our country for that blasted princess, we never would've been in this situation," Charan said.
"While our actions are most regrettable they are not something that we can dwell on. We must maintain our focus on regaining our control in the Earth Kingdom so that we can redeem ourselves," Hiresh declared.
Soon after their betrayal of the Earth Kingdom which was followed by them pledging their allegiance to Princess Azula of the Fire Nation, the Dai Li had realised just what a mistake that had been. They no longer had the power that they once had in the Earth Kingdom as Princess Azula was almost impossible to manipulate. Instead of using their abilities to control the Earth Kingdom like they had done under Long Feng's leadership, the Dai Li agents had been rendered to nothing more than the princesses bodyguards. Since they had already been disgraced in the Earth Kingdom, they would've made themselves to be even more outcasted by betraying the Fire Nation Princess. So they had maintained their loyalty to her because that was what was expected of them, even though it certainly wasn't what they wanted to do.
After getting banished from the Fire Nation, the Dai Li quickly realised that there was nobody that would want their service after their previous actions. Not unless they redeemed themselves. That was what gave them the idea of luring the Princesses sidekick to the Earth Kingdom so that they could capture her and turn her in for her crimes against the Earth Kingdom. It was her who played a part in the fall of their great city, and it was time that she paid the price for her actions. As for the mother, she had made her choices many years ago and had managed to evade the truth for all these years. But she wouldn't be able to escape the truth anymore – not on their watch.
~*•°•*~
In the days that followed, it became apparent to Izanami that the Dai Li really were trying their hardest to make her and Gen's life miserable. They were barely feeding them, they were hardly staying hygienic and were making it impossible for them to relax. Despite their best efforts, Izanami and Gen continued to receive poor treatment and it was becoming more and more obvious that this was what they had wanted. But Izanami had her own thoughts. She believed that the Dai Li had further plans with them and that for now, this was what their situation would be.
Seeing the way that Gen acted without her son made Izanami if her parents had thought about her since they last saw her. While they hadn't made any attempt at communicating with her, Izanami hoped that her parents would at least spare their thoughts for her every so often like she did with them. Every time one of the Dai Li agents entered their cellar, Gen immediately asked how her son was doing and if he was okay, only to get no response. But on the seventh time she asked, Gen got a response.
"Where is he? How is my son? Is he alright?" Gen asked.
"Your son is nothing but an insolent and useless brat!" the Dai Li agent yelled. "Clearly you do not care enough to raise him right as he does not know how to respect his superiors."
"Children shouldn't be raised to respect their 'superiors' when they're hardly that," Izanami remarked.
"Stay out of this, you ash maker. But I suppose that you feeling sympathy for the child makes sense. After all, you are both one and the same. Your blood runs through his," the Dai Li agent said.
"What?" Izanami wondered.
"Tell me, you traitor," the Dai Li agent hissed at Gen. "How does it feel every time you look into your sons eyes? How does it feel to know that he's the spawn of an ash maker who's people wanted to wipe away his very existence?"
Shock went through Izanami's system once she heard what the Dai Li agent said and she found it hard to hide her gasp. It was then that Izanami realised why the Dai Li had referred to Gen as a traitor and why they had taken such an interest in Niko. The reason because Gen had obviously been in some sort of a relationship with someone from the Fire Nation which had resulted in Niko. No wonder Gen said that his father wasn't around.
"He's just a child you monsters!" Gen cried.
"If anyone is the monster, it's him! Monsters do not do this to people!" the Dai Li agent shrieked as he rolled up his sleeve, revealing a severely burnt arm. "We tried to be patient with the boy, but he wouldn't listen. Then he does this!"
"Wait, so let me understand what this is about…" Izanami interrupted his rant. "You're upset at a five-year-old boy for not listening to you when he's a child and you're mad at him because he burned you after the way you've treated him and his mother? Seems pretty just to me."
The Dai Li agent glared at her, "Shut your mouth, you ash maker. I'm done with you two for now but don't worry, I'll be back. We're certainly not finished with you two just yet."
With one last glare, the Dai Li agent left the room, leaving a sniffling Gen and a confused Izanami behind. Glancing at Gen, Izanami had so many thoughts racing through her mind. Who had she been involved with? What did she have to do with all of this madness? So many questions at once, but Izanami didn't know where to start.
"I suppose at this stage you've figured out that Niko is the son of a firebender," Gen stated after a moment of silence.
"Um, yeah, I guess I've come to that conclusion," Izanami murmured. "But what does this have to do with the Dai Li? Why is it such a crime for you to have gotten involved with a Fire Nation man?"
"You don't understand the differences between treachery in your country and our country, Izanami. I'm not sure what it's like in the Fire Nation but getting involved with someone from another nation falls under treachery here. By getting involved with a Fire Nation man, I committed the greatest act of treachery one could do," Gen explained.
A look of understanding morphed onto Izanami's face as she remembered her old ancestor, Akira, who had betrayed her family and country by falling in love with someone from the Water Tribe. That had resulted in her being disgraced in her family and remembered as a traitor for generations.
"I understand," Izanami whispered.
"I know that you must have a different perception of people from the Fire Nation than what I or anyone else would have, but Niko's father was a good man. He knew that what his people were fighting for was wrong, but he was doing it because he wanted to protect those he cared about," Gen said.
"I'm not sure if that's a view that most people in the Fire Nation army would've had during the war," Izanami remarked.
"It wasn't, and he knew that. When I first met him, all I wanted to do was leave him for dead when I saw that Fire Nation uniform. It's what I thought he would've done if the roles had been reversed. But then I saw that helpless look in his eyes and a look that wasn't pure evil like I thought all Fire Nation people were, I decided to give him a chance and helped him," Gen explained.
"What happened to him?" Izanami questioned, eager to learn more about Gen's backstory.
"He had been injured during a battle which had almost tore his arm off. As soon as I saw him, I knew that it was only a matter of time before his arm gave out so I knew that I had to do something. When the coast was clear, I took him away from the battle ground and used my healing herbs to mend his wound. My work hadn't done much, but it had saved his arm from falling off for the time being," Gen answered.
Shivers ran down Izanami's spine as she remembered the time when Kazu had almost lost his arm in battle. They had found out that news from a letter that reported him missing before he was eventually found. That had almost saw Kazu's military career over but it hadn't ended in that way since his arm had been saved and he had been cleared for duty.
"After that, I didn't see him again until he found me a few weeks later. He thanked me for saving his arm and said that without my work, he most likely would have lost it. Because he was still injured, I offered him help which he graciously accepted. In that time, I found myself falling for him. I knew that I could never be with him because of our stances in the war. But when he told me he loved me the night before he was scheduled to be moved elsewhere, he told me he reciprocated those feelings and I'm sure you can imagine what happened next," Gen continued.
"Yeah, I can," Izanami cringed. "That sounds like one tragic love story."
"It was. But one good thing came out of it, little Niko. Even though I haven't seen his father since, I know where he gets his looks from. He gets his looks from his father as well as his firebending, which had always been a thought in the back of my mind. Part of me had hoped that Niko wouldn't grow up to be a firebender because of the perception of them. Now I'm not sure what this means for our future," Gen finished.
"I'm sure you'll get through this together. Your love for Niko should be enough to get through the tough times," Izanami reassured her.
"It already has. My love for Niko is as strong as it was for his father. But nothing could ever make me stop loving the man who gave me a son. Nothing could make me stop loving Kazu," Gen proclaimed.
Once again, a wave of shock went through Izanami's system. She almost fell back in shock at Gen's proclamation. Only now that Gen had revealed that last detail did Izanami realise where she had recognised Niko from when she first saw him. He was almost the spitting image of her older brother Kazu was when he was that age.
No wonder Izanami had felt some sort of a connection to that boy despite barely meeting him properly. She had literally been looking into the ghost of her brother standing before her in the form of a five-year-old child. Unless Gen was referring to an entirely different person, Izanami was ninety percent positive that she was being trapped with the mother of her brothers son.
That also meant that Niko was her nephew.
Now that chapter turned out longer than expected and for a good reason too. Did anybody see that coming? On another note, I've really got a thing for incorporating star-crossed lovers into my stories. I've done it twice in this one now with Akira and Sachiko along with Kazu and Gen. Then there's the small love story I wrote into my other fic, Blinding Horizon. It was a few chapters ago when I thought about giving Izanami a secret nephew/niece but it wouldn't have worked with the plot that I originally had so when I made the changes that I did, I figured why not put it in? When Izanami mentions Kazu's arm-threatening injury, it was first referenced in Chapter 15 – Wishful Thinking.
Since I love giving facts, Charan and Hiresh are names of Sanskrit origin that mean feet and king of gems respectively and Hiroki is a Japanese name that means big tree.