15th Day, Peach Moon, Year of the Tiger
Meixing
Mother and Father had not spoken to each other in almost thirty-six hours. Meixing would think it was an improvement, if it hadn't been for how Lazuli had taken to hanging off her earthbender pet like a baby koalacat.
"It's going to be fine," Meixing said as she pried Lazuli off of the earthbender in preparation for dinner. "Mother and Father will make up eventually. You're too young to remember their last big fight, but they decided they liked each other well enough afterwards that we got a baby brother out of it."
"But we don't have a baby brother," Lazuli said.
Meixing sighed. She had expected Lazuli to remember the funeral at least. "He died. Fell off of a balcony when he was little." Meixing straightened Lazuli's collar, smoothing it from where it had been crumpled against the earthbender's leg. "Don't worry about him. It's time for dinner and I don't think that bringing Azhu up will make Mom or Dad feel any better."
"Do I have to go to dinner?" Lazuli whined. "I can stay back here and be really quiet instead. I even saved some of my lunch so that I'd have something to eat. Mom and Dad won't even miss me."
Meixing could not argue the truthfulness of that last statement, but also had no desire to be the only one at the dinner table, stuck between her parents when they were having a fight. "You have to go to dinner. Now hurry up, or we'll be late."
"We're already late," Lazuli said, pointing to the clock on the wall.
"Then we don't need to be any more late." Meixing took Lazuli's hand, fully prepared to drag her down to the dining room by force if necessary, but Lazuli took off running before she was ready, so that Meixing was the one getting dragged along.
Fortunately, she had the good sense to slow down as before they reached the dining room and Mother saw her two children tearing through the house like hooligans and the calm and pleasant tones currently emanating from the dining room changed into a scolding.
"Mom and Dad are talking again," Lazuli said happily. She seemed stunned into immobility and so Meixing tugged at her hand to get her moving again.
"I told you they would," Mexing said. But when Father spoke, his voice was grim and Meixing stopped as well, not eager to attract Father's attention when he was already upset.
"Our proceeds have gone down considerably in the last two days," he said. "I expect this will keep up for some time unless we do something."
"And what exactly are we supposed to do?" Mother asked. "Fire the already-deceased crew of the... ship for taking on passengers without approval? Publicly accuse Prince Ozai of lying just after the deaths of his children?"
There was an edge of hysteria to Mother's voice, and Meixing couldn't blame her. Even shut up in the house, she had heard about the latest two deaths in the royal family, and knew that if it had been one of Father's ships that killed the little Prince and Princess it wouldn't matter that it was the first ship lost in fourteen months or that the Hamasaki family only ran cargo lines normally. Their business would be sunk.
"No. I think it's best that we did a little digging before we make any public statements– aside from giving our condolences to the royal family, of course."
"I already had a note sent," Mother sounded far more distressed by that then Meixing would have expected, and she flinched back as though afraid that Father would be mad at her for it. "I did apologize for the role of our ship in the disaster and promise that there would be an investigation into what went wrong."
"Good," Father said, but he sounded angry enough that Lazuli buried her hard in Meixing's front. "If we uncover any less than legal behavior on Prince Ozai's part, or can fabricate some well enough, we can claim that we discovered it during the investigation."
"You don't want to do an actual investigation?"
"We won't be able to avoid doing one. Not without making ourselves appear even less trustworthy than we already do." Father's fingers drummed idly on the top of the table, as though he were thinking hard about something. "Do you think that any of your family might be willing to involve themselves on our behalf?"
"How? By hiring us to transport goods for them?" Mother snorted. "No one will believe that's the result of anything other than pity. And I very much doubt that even my siblings would be willing to openly associate themselves with us now that we're responsible for the deaths of the Prince and Princess."
"I was thinking more along the lines of something less obvious." The tone of Father's voice made it quite clear that he had something specific in mind, but Meixing had no idea what it could be. Her mother's family held a couple of minor governing positions in the Colonies and the only thing noteworthy about them was their unusual laxity with regard to who was allowed to marry into the family.
"Of course," Mother said, and Meixing suspected that she knew exactly what Father had suggested. "Yes, they would probably be willing to recommend someone if nothing else."
"Good." The finger-drumming began again, and it seemed as though Mother and Father were waiting for something to happen. "Meixing and Lazuli are taking far too long to come to the table, don't you think."
"They probably lost track of time," Mother said. "You know how Meixing is with her tsugi horn. She might not even know it's time for dinner yet." Mother shifted, turning to face the other doorway, the one that lead to the kitchen.
"That's our cue," Meixing muttered to herself. She poked Lazuli in the ribs, to make sure she was paying attention, then leaned in close to whisper, "Don't let Mother and Father know that we overheard them, all right?"
"Why not?" Lazuli whispered back. "Will we get in trouble?"
"Yes. Lots and lots of trouble." Meixing was confident they wouldn't, although there was sure to be a stern lecture about eavesdropping and Lazuli was likely to be kept home from school on pretext of illness until Father was sure that she wouldn't let anything slip to her classmates.
Lazuli winced and peeked into the dining room. She was trembling a little and Meixing was worried that she'd frightened her.
Then Lazuli took a deep breath, jumped a couple of times, and bounced into the room, an enormous smile plastered across her face. "Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. Sorry that we're late. Meixing was practicing her tsugi horn and I was listening and there isn't a clock in Meixing's room so it wasn't until the maid came and got us– the new one with the brown eyes– that we realized that we needed to come to dinner, and–"
Meixing was sure that Mother, at least, would notice that something was horribly wrong with Lazuli, but she only nodded and said in the strained voice of someone who had already stopped paying attention, "That's nice, Lazuli. Sit down for dinner, please."
