CONTENT WARNING! depictions of the aftermath of violence, discussions of violence, and discussions of PTSD (not depicted but talked about).
The Dai Li had taken over the Earth Kingdom. Ba Sing Se was once again theirs.
And yet Long Feng was not pleased.
Zhou and the agents who sided with him were placed in the dungeons to be taken care of at a later date. Unfortunately for Long Feng, that had been the extent of his victory.
The Avatar and his companions managed to get away, along with the Earth King. All their preparation, and still they managed to get away. The Avatar had gone into the Avatar State, blown all the agents surrounding him away with a gust of wind, snatched the Earth King, and made off with his friends. All without killing a single Dai Li agent.
Long Feng would be impressed, if it weren't for the fact that the Avatar was on the loose!
And worse, he had the monarch that they had just deposed!
And to make things even worse, the secondary team had failed to capture General Iroh and Princess Azula. And that failure was not as clean as the one with the Avatar.
Long Feng arrived at the scene, and immediately covered his nose. The air was rank with the smell of overcooked meat and smoke. One of the bodies had been thrown out of the restaurant, twisted and charred. The portions of skin that weren't burnt to a crisp were mottled with dark, jagged purple scars, like frozen lightning. The corpse's hair had melted and fused together in its braid.
The scene was similar inside. Bodies were strewn about, covered in the same scars and burns as the one outside. Long Feng couldn't stand the smell, and moved back outside. He went over to Yanrong, his second-in-command, who had arrived before him.
"Report," demanded Long Feng.
"Of the twenty agents sent to apprehend the two Fire royals, only seven are still alive," said Yanrong. "Three have minor concussions. One has second degree burns on his face. The other four are in critical condition from General Iroh's lightening. We may be looking at only six survivors very soon, if not less."
Long Feng cursed and looked at the ground. Now they had to worry about the Avatar, his friends, the Earth King, and two extremely dangerous master firebenders wandering around. And to make matters worse, the dead agents reduced their numbers.
This was quickly becoming a massive headache. One would think that pulling off a coup was effortless, given how Princess Azula had achieved it three years before. And Long Feng was not going to be outdone by a teenage girl!
Not again.
"We need to find them, immediately!" Long Feng growled.
"According to witnesses, the Avatar picked up the royals and took them away on his flying bison."
Long Feng nodded. "At least they'll all be together…"
"We also know where they are all hiding."
Long Feng looked up. "Where?"
"The Fire Nation embassy."
Long Feng snarled and kicked the ground, causing a boulder the size of a man to jump up several yards away. "Damn it! We can't risk attacking the embassy while our hold is still so precarious!"
"We can move to expel the ambassadors," said Yanrong.
"But that gives the Avatar and his friends time to regroup. They can just flee with the ambassadors, and attack us again later!"
"Not expelling them will also give the Avatar time to regroup, right under our noses."
"I know!" Long Feng pinched the bridge of his nose. "We need to discuss this more. Have the City Guard take care of the bodies, and then meet back at the palace in an hour."
Yanrong bowed. "As you wish, sir."
Long Feng began to turn away, but paused. "What about our spy, Mrs. Hu? Can she still be used to infiltrate the embassy? Maybe poison their food?"
Yanrong shook his head. "She is gravely ill. She hit her head after falling over, and might be at risk for a heart attack if put through any more stress."
Long Feng arched an eyebrow. "She was attacked as well?"
"No, sir. We believe it is from shock from seeing this massacre. When we found her, she was incoherent. We had to sedate her. She wouldn't stop screaming."
0-0-0
Slowly but surely, Azula's hearing came back as her ears adjusted to quieter sounds once again.
She made sure to stay away from the waterbender, not wanting to have any more flashbacks to her humiliating defeat. Jin and her family and peasant friends were huddled in a corner, speaking and sending furtive glances her way.
Uncle sat in the same place all day, not moving. Once she started to come back to herself, Azula moved away from him, too. Thinking about what she witnessed in the Jasmine Dragon, the Dai Li dropping like spider-flies, the terrifying power of Uncle's lightning, the smell of human beings cooking from the inside out… it made Azula's stomach go queasy and her intestines twist with discomfort. So, she avoided him too.
Kei and her family already went to a different room, and the other embassy employees gave everyone a wide berth for the moment. Azula wandered over to the window and looked out of it.
Naturally, the embassy was within walking distance of the Earth Palace, most likely to make intergovernmental business easier, and she could actually see the palace from the window. A large flagpole stood outside of it, waving with the yellow flag of the Earth Kingdom, bordered in green and emblazoned with a green disc with a square hole.
As Azula stared out the window, two figures dressed in long black robes glided over to the flagpole. They unhitched the rope and lowered the flag, going quickly without any regard to respect for the flag. Once it had reached them, they roughly unhooked it and let it fall onto the dirt. Much more carefully, they unfurled a black banner that they had brought out, and attached it to the rope. Azula watched as the figures slowly raised a black flag, with a green disc bordered in gold and a gold square in the center. One of the figures pulled the rope, while the other held the black flag off the ground, until it had raised enough that he could throw it out to catch the wind. The new black flag looked a lot like Azula's old Dai Li outfit. Her stomach clenched again, and she felt cold.
The Dai Li were undisputedly in charge of Ba Sing Se.
Azula wrenched her gaze from the window and turned to look at the Earth King. The pathetic man was slumped in a chair, in a foreign embassy, and pouting as his power was wrenched away once again.
Well boo-hoo, Your Majesty, thought Azula. You were nothing more than a puppet when I first came here, what makes you think you're any more capable now?
The only people who seemed content with the situation weren't even people. The Earth King's bear and the Avatar's lemur seemed perfectly content to sniff around the embassy, disturbing the workers and potentially making a mess. The Avatar was too busy trying to help heal the Beifong girl to rein in his pet. The Earth King had no excuse, he was too busy pouting.
Jin broke away from her parents and made her way over to Azula. Azula huffed out a sigh.
"Go away, Jin, I'm really not in the mood."
Jin was silent as she sat next to Azula by the window. Then, she spoke. "That was terrifying."
Azula lifted an eyebrow.
"Your uncle, I mean. I knew him a super nice and laid-back tea maker, but seeing him do that with the lightning… I don't know if I'm gonna be able to sleep tonight."
Azula kept her gaze trained on the floor. To be honest, she wasn't sure either. She had managed a small nap on the way to the embassy, but that was because the adrenaline draining from her system left her so tired. She wasn't sure she'd be able to fall asleep again for the night.
"I'm thankful that he saved us, of course," Jin continued, "but I guess… I dunno, I've never seen anything like that before. I hope I never will again."
"I watched my brother get burned," said Azula. She didn't know why she said it. The words just came out. Jin looked over to her.
"That must have been awful," said Jin.
"He deserved it, for disrespecting our father," Azula snapped automatically. But… "I saw the aftermath every time I closed my eyes that night."
Jin nodded. "Your father doesn't sound like a very good person."
Azula turned to Jin, a sharp retort ready, but the words died on her lips. Her father permanently disfigured his own son. He was willing to kill his own son. He had left Azula behind to take all the glory for himself. He took an offhand, somewhat hyperbolic comment that she made literally, to burn down the entire Earth Kingdom. (Honestly, how stupid was that? What about the colonies? What about food production? Just destroying Ba Sing Se would have been enough to bring low the rest of the Earth Kingdom.) He probably had something to do with their grandfather's death. He took the throne from his own brother.
What could she say to Jin? That he was a good person? By every objective standard, he was a terrible person! And yet…
"He's my father," said Azula.
Jin shrugged and stared off into the distance. "Not everyone is lucky enough to have good parents. There was a girl in our neighborhood who went missing one day. It turned out her dad killed her when he got really drunk and angry one night. It was a whole big thing." Jin looked at Azula and shrugged again. "I'm glad he can't hurt you or your brother anymore."
"My mother thought I was a monster," Azula said. Why was she saying these things? Some weird feeling made her feel like she had to contribute to the conversation. Still, Jin wasn't her friend! She didn't have friends! She left the two closest things she had for friends to rot in prison!
…Her mother was right.
Jin's face softened. "I'm sorry you had to go through that, Azula. She was wrong."
What?
Azula's brain short-circuited for a moment. Why in the world would Jin say that? Azula had done nothing but snap at her and insult her and be generally awful to her for months. Azula was the one who pushed her away at every turn. Azula had said to Jin's face that Ba Sing Se should be totally destroyed—and she meant it, too! She still meant it. So why—
"Don't lie to me," said Azula, wrenching her gaze from Jin and looking at the floor.
"I'm not lying, Azula," said Jin. "You're not a monster. You're a person, just like the rest of us. I actually think you can be pretty cool sometimes."
Azula looked back up at Jin, squinting.
"I've insulted you for months."
"No worse than some of our own customers have."
"I pushed you away."
"Not everyone is ready for someone to be close."
"I think this entire city should be burnt to ashes."
"We'll have to agree to disagree on that one, but I get it. Ba Sing Se holds bad memories for you, especially after what happened to your cousin."
She knows about Lu Ten? thought Azula. She tilted her head to the left, then to the right, studying Jin's face intently. Azula couldn't detect one drop of insincerity.
"Um, Azula? Do I have something on my face?"
"How? How can you be this… nice?"
Jin blushed. "Um, thank you? I dunno how to answer that."
Azula stared at Jin some more. Jin shifted and looked away.
"So, um, if you need to talk about anything, I'll be here for you. Whenever you're ready. If you wanna share more," said Jin.
Azula stood up and looked away. She went over to a more isolated part of the waiting room and curled up in a chair. She didn't know what to think.
After a very tense dinner provided by the embassy staff, they were given mats to sleep on for the night. Azula rolled hers out near the window, a way away from the others. She noticed Uncle doing the same.
She lay awake for a long while, thoughts swirling in her head. About what happened. About what Jin said. Memories from childhood.
She didn't know when, but at some point, tears began to leak silently down her face. She tried to rub them away, to no avail.
Eventually, she drifted off into an uneasy, dreamless sleep.