Hi all! No characters are mine save for my OC Chen Beifong-Bao is courtesy of a friend! If you're interested in more about Chen, please see "Guess I'm Going with You." Happy Reading!
Asami had always prided herself on asking the questions that needed to be asked. It's why she had been termed a quick study by her numerous governesses, why she had taken to mechanics so easily, why she had melded so easily into the Krew.
She had once prided herself on her ability to read people. Seeing her father's underground basement full of Equalist paraphanalia had long disabused her of that notion.
One thing she never thought she had to question, however, was Chief Beifong. There was never any pretense around the woman, and nothing that happened-even when dark spirits plunged the world into darkness-surprised her. She was steadfast, stubborn, and straightforward to the point of brusqueness and Asami loved her for it. When Beifong had offered her, Mako, and Bolin a place to stay at her estate after Zaheer's capture and after Korra's...Korra, she had absolutely jumped at the chance. She would get time to reflect and heal at a beautiful estate and under the watch of someone she deeply trusted. She could think of nothing more necessary at the moment.
To say that she was shocked by Chen's existence was putting it mildly.
Chen, or more formally, The Honorable Chen Mei-yin Beifong of Gaoling, was Lin's natural born daughter. Chen was Lin's natural born daughter by Tenzin and everything and nothing like either. Chen was open, sweet, and always ready with a kind word or a warm smile. She was a prodigious metalbender, able to gracefully and flawlessly move through her metalbending forms alongside her mother during their morning practices. It dovetailed nicely with her musicianship-so much so that she elected to use metalbending to play her favorite instrument, the guzheng. She glided noiselessly in the elegant daixushans characteristic to Gaoling, yet was so full of mirth and laughter in the way that only innocent children were. She was...well…
She was great. She was the little sister that she and everyone else had always wanted. She just...she got along so much better with virtually everyone but her. And it boggled her mind. What did Chen see in the others that she didn't see in her?
Chen was like Mako's little shadow, following him wherever he went. And Mako didn't mind at all! In fact, by the third day he was making her her favorite noodles, teriyaki chicken-whatever she asked for, he made and then some. And Bolin? Bolin was the type of person who was made to be an older brother, and he took that role in stride when he met Chen. If Chen wasn't reading in the library with Mako, she was hitching piggyback rides from Bolin, their laughter filling the courtyards. But Chen never sought her out, not like she did with the boys. And whenever Asami tried inserting herself into their conversations, or sat in on her guzheng practice, her presence was not accepted so much as merely tolerated.
It hurt.
Bolin didn't see how there was a problem, even when Asami laid out the evidence as clearly as possible. Mako had merely shrugged his shoulders in response.
"Maybe you remind her too much of Korra," he said on his way out the door. "Those two were really close according to Beifong."
She wasn't the only one who missed her, Asami muttered under her breath. Korra was amazing. She was brash and brave and strong and Raava, she liked her. If only she had told her as such when she had still had the time…
But that was then, and this was now. And now, she was staying at an estate with an heiress who could barely stay in the same room as her.
Asami was on her way to the kitchen when she saw Chen heading in the same direction from one of the interior courtyards. She was dressed in grey pants and a matching shirt-if Asami squinted, she could barely see the outline of the Republic City Metalbending Police Insignia. Over the training clothes she wore padding on her chest, arms, and legs. Her hair was pulled up into a ponytail, but her baby hairs were stuck to her temples with sweat. Just as the young teen saw her and was about to turn away, Asami called out to her. "Hey!"
Chen stilled, and Asami jogged over to join her. "I'm just about to boil tea, do you want some?"
The girl hesitated. "Right now? I'm super sweaty from conditioning with Mako. I really don't want to stay in these clothes any longer than I have to."
Asami resisted the urge to cross her arms. Based on Chen's past behavior, she'd use this as a way out of seeing her until dinner. It wouldn't work this time. "Look, I know Mako put you through the entirety of his old probending conditioning circuit, and after that circuit he could finish an entire meal and then some before the actual meal."
Chen looked around, hoping for an out, but she wouldn't find one. Now that she was done conditioning, Mako and Bolin had left for the market. Lin, as usual, was on the phone with Saikhan discussing new security protocols. The girl sighed. "If you give me 15 minutes, I'll meet you in the kitchen for tea."
Asami nodded, and watched the girl noiselessly flit past her and enter the main building. Once she had disappeared completely from view, the Sato heiress followed suit, following winding hallways until she found the kitchen. The kitchen was, unsurprisingly for an estate of this magnitude, incredibly spacious. There was multiple of everything, be it stoves, workspaces, or larders. She knew Beifong employed multiple chefs-with this much space, she had to-but Lin could fit an entire restaurant's worth of staff inside and still have room to spare. It made her childhood kitchen, the one her flour-covered self would roller skate through, laughably small by comparison. She opened and closed multiple cabinets until she found what she was looking for: a tea kettle, polished until it gleamed. She set it on the counter and rooted in the nearby drawer for tinder and a stone, which she found neatly tied in a bundle. The last thing she needed was tea. Tea said so much about a person, both the one who chose it and the one who-
"Her favorite kind is cherry blossom."
Startled, she turned on her heel to find Dad. Well, not Dad, but the closest thing Beifong had to one. Bao Beifong (she assumed he had her name) was a retired police officer according to Mako, and one who had raised Lin her entire life. He wasn't her biological father, but he certainly functioned as such. He was soft-spoken and exuded a genuine warmth-so much so that it almost hurt to be around him. To see Lin with him, it was too…too much.
"Her favorite kind is cherry blossom," he repeated. "Tea, I mean. Though honestly, she'll eat anything cherry blossom flavored. Tea cakes, mochi-especially mochi." He strode over to one of the large refrigerators and pulled a large packet out, along with some more substantial scallion pancakes. "You'll want to have these around when she comes in."
Asami hesitantly took them from the older man. "She likes these?"
"Loves them. Especially the scallion pancakes. She'll eat them cold without dipping sauce, that's how much she likes them."
"What are you all talking about?"
The duo turned to find Lin leaning in the doorway, a smile on her lips. It was nice seeing Beifong so relaxed-if anyone deserved it, it was her. That said, seeing Beifong relaxed was one of the most jarring things Asami had ever witnessed in her entire life. "Ah, about to feed Chen, I see. I'd be careful with those pancakes if I were you, those will be gone faster than you think." She turned her gaze to Bao. "Baba, I have a couple questions about stadium security. Are you-"
"Say no more," the man replied, his eyes twinkling as he and his daughter left the kitchen. "I hope you have some schematics set up. I have fond, fond memories of working the first probending matches…"
Asami smiled, their departure leaving a bittersweet taste in her mouth. That could have been me was the first unfiltered thought that ran through her head. Yeah, but it's not, was the rebuttal. Sighing, she opened the kettle and started on the tea. Just as the water was boiling, she heard someone quietly walking. She looked up to find Chen leaning against the doorway. Her long hair was braided down her back, and she wore a delicate daixushan with diaphanous crimson sleeves. She gently held up the navy skirt, revealing that she was barefoot-truly a Beifong daughter. Her green eyes bored into hers with an unguarded curiosity. She was beautiful, and while that wasn't Chen's defining characteristic, it was hard not to take notice of her striking looks. How Lin had kept her hidden, and so well at that, was truly a testament to her dedication to her work, both as an officer of the law and as a mother.
She wondered how she had kept those spheres of her life so separate. Then again, had they ever truly been?
Chen glided over to one of the cabinets and pulled out a matching set of cups and saucers. They were delicate things-bone china with exquisitely rendered climbing vines in gold. Asami couldn't have imagined that these were used by Lin. Something told her these were an inheritance, one of many in this family heirloom of a house. Chen set the little tea set down on a counter space that had two plush stools tucked underneath. She pulled open a drawer and set out container after container of tea, each one meticulously labelled. There was lapsang souchong, tieguanyin, biluochun, baihao yinzhen. Small wonder Beifong rolled her eyes whenever Bolin left the estate for snacks. She might as well run a teahouse out of her kitchen.
Mengding Ganlu. Da Fang. Huang Qi. Rougui.
Were those not the teas on her father's tea cart? Yes, they were, he kept them in his study for-no. Let's not think about that.
Red lids-Fire Nation imports. Yellow seal—straight from the Royal Family. Aracha. Bancha. Genmaicha. Goishicha. Kukicha. Sakura-cha.
Sakura-cha.
Chen's fingers pinched up above the container, her metalbending turning the lid into a pair of tweezers. It was interesting, watching Chen metalbend. She had her mother's force, the ability to destroy aircraft rippled in her veins, and yet she contented herself with using metalbending for the most precise of tasks.
Then again, Tenzin could create a vortex larger than Republic City if he so wished. His power lay in choosing otherwise.
The young heiress used her tweezers to gently pluck two pairs of cherry blossoms from the container and set one in each of their cups. She poured the water so smoothly the liquid landed soundlessly in their cup-a move that would have made any of Asami's governesses weep from happiness. Ugh, to be that naturally graceful.
"Thank you for this," Asami said, tipping her head towards the girl. "It looks delicious."
"No thanks necessary. You are the one who called me over for tea, after all."
They sat in silence. Chen ate a couple scallion pancakes, and Asami watched a sakura petal unfurl in her cup. Sakura tea, good sakura tea, was a specialty of the Fire Nation. The petals were hand harvested from the cherry blossom trees and then pickled in a mixture of plum vinegar and salt. The saltier the brine, the sweeter the tea. Or so the saying went.
It was on her third pancake that Chen started to speak. "So why did you invite me to tea? I can't imagine you have this much free time, what with your company to run and all."
Asami's eyes slightly narrowed. She knew what Chen meant, even if her tone didn't convey it. Can't you leave me in peace? You know I don't want to be here with you right now. "I just want to get to know you better is all. I find you...interesting."
Chen hmphed under her breath as she sipped her tea. In that moment she was so much like her mother it took Asami's breath away. "Interesting as a person or as a symbol?"
Asami choked on her tea. "I beg your pardon?"
"As a person, it seems. Looks like that answers that." Chen eyed Asami curiously. "You've never heard that question before?"
"Wha-no!"
"You've never thought to ask it?"
The Sato heiress froze. "What are you talking about?"
Chen sighed and placed her teacup on its saucer. "Asami, are you not the scion of the Sato family? Are you not the newest captain of industry?"
"And what does that have to do with anything?"
The young girl steepled her fingers. "Your closest friends are two orphans who lived on the street for years and the Avatar, who grew up an equivalent to tribal princess in the Southern Water Tribe and never learned the concept of money. You don't think you'd have questions, especially after you paid for them to enter the final probending tournament?"
Asami opened and closed her mouth. Well, when she put it that way...
Fuck.
Had she not paid the 30,000 Yuans for their entry into the final probending tournament? Had she not clothed them all in top-quality gear, all of it emblazoned with the logo for Future Industries? Had she not driven and maintained their Satomobile? Fuck, had she not housed Mako and Bolin after Amon had destroyed the stadium?
But they had friended her in spite of that. It took testing out a new Satomobile in a motor race for Korra to respect her. Mako and Bolin had never considered it in the first place. Shit, Mako almost fell out of the booth when she told him who she was exactly. She knew sycophants, had seen them work with her father plenty of times-her friends did not fall under that term.
Asami ran a hand through her hair. "Look, that's not why we're friends. Fighting alongside people...it binds you in ways I can't even begin to explain." She looked down into her drink. "Why else would I have electrocuted my father for them?"
Chen furrowed her brow. "Electrocuted? How? Aren't you a non-bender?"
Asami sighed. She had wanted to relax on this escape from the world, but this conversation was quickly derailing that idea. Reluctantly she pulled out her electric glove from her pocket, where it always was. If protecting the new Air Nomads had taught her anything, it was that she could never be too wary. "I used his invention against him. He never saw it coming."
Within moments Chen threw herself over the counter, sending tea jars flying. She crouched low, the stone tiles now levitating around her hands. Her eyes were wide with fear. "What are you doing with THAT?"
Asami looked at the panicked girl in front of her, and down at her electric glove. It didn't look terrifying, not to her. It was a simple contraption, a gardening glove really. Well, a gardening glove with a functioning electrical current, but nothing compared to the hulking behemoths her father created to do his bidding. The hulking behemoth he drove into her, the one he almost used to-no, no, no. Those days were long behind her. "Wha-Chen, it's an electrical glove. It's basically a gardening glove. Have you never seen-?"
"That's not a gardening glove!" Chen barked. "That's a weapon! Why did you bring a weapon to my family estate?" Her eyes narrowed. "What are you planning, Sato?"
"Planning? What do you mean, pla—"
She didn't finish that sentence. Chen vaulted over the counter and tackled the heiress, sending the two of them crashing to the ground in a tangle of limbs. Asami threw a hand out to steady herself and throw Chen in a grapple, but the girl had already flipped herself right way up—and had taken Asami's glove off her hand in the process.
"What the fuck," Asami said, out of breath and flabbergasted. She pushed herself up to a leaning position, her shoulder groaning with the weight. Yeah, that was definitely bruised. "Why would you DO that?"
"You brought a weapon—that weapon—onto my family estate without declaring it. That's considered an act of war down here."
"An act of—" she gazed incredulously at Chen. "It's not a weapon! I only use it in self-defense!"
"That weapon is for torture!" Chen shrieked, waving the glove in the air. "Do you know what this is used for? Do you know how it was used? Do you know about the lightning-shaped scars it leaves on people's skin from the contact? Do you even care?"
Asami bit her cheek to hold back a wince. She should have known, having been electrocuted herself, about the scars. Moreso, she should have realized that she wasn't the only one with them either. "Do-I saw the Lieutenant electrocute my friends right in front of me! He electrocuted me! AND I helped free the police officers he was keeping hostage! What did you do, read the newspaper?"
"Read the newspaper? Like I'm some pampered princess musing over the misfortunes of her kingdom?"
Your words, not mine, Asami thought.
"Of course not. I asked him myself."
Asami was about to yell when the weight of Chen's answer hit her fully. "You ASKED the Lieutenant? As in, the right hand man of Amon? How did that happen?"
Chen crossed her arms and looked away. Asami saw a small bruise blooming across her hand. "You weren't the only one looking for Mama after she disappeared."
Asami's heart dropped into her stomach. She could still taste the disbelief that Tenzin and his family had been captured, could still feel the panic and fear seizing her body as she heard that Lin had disappeared, nowhere to be found. While the others had been more immediately preoccupied with the Air Family, she had stayed behind with Saikhan and his men, helping them search for Lin in whatever way she could. She had been on a search boat helping lead the search on Air Temple Island. She still remembered the taste of salt on her lips, and not knowing if it was from the sea or her tears.
She had remembered a group of young cadets nearly frantic in their panic to find Lin. Had Chen been among them? Yes, she must have been, because there was the cry of discovery when they found an Equalist man, half-drowned from the waves in the bay…
Oh. Oh.
"They pulled up a man half-drowned from the bay," Asami said slowly, weighing every word. "He wore the uniform of a high-level Equalist. And I remember, when they sped towards shore, Saikhan said over the radio that they have a code-"
"Grey," Chen interjected, crossing her arms tighter. "They called it a Code Dark Grey. A Code Grey means they're bringing in someone who actively and intentionally hurt a high-ranking member of the force."
"What does Dark Grey mean?"
"It means there's already at least one person set for the interrogation. That person is usually the fallen officer's partner."
An uneasy feeling settled in the pit of Asami's stomach. "Usually?"
"Saikhan was the official investigator, of course. But I had the first shot. So of course I had some...questions."
Asami examined the teen in front of her. Chen visibly cringed whenever she had to fight offense in conditioning, to say nothing of grappling and submission locks. Why did she have the feeling she wasn't asking him for his favorite noodle bars?
"Your questions...weren't just questions, were they?"
Chen smiled icily. "Did they need to be?"
Did she….Did she just confess to torturing the Lieutenant after the disappearance of her mother?
No, confess isn't the right word. That implied guilt, and she clearly didn't regret what she had done. No, Chen just confirmed what had been unspoken all along. She had been the one to start breaking the Lieutenant, and Saikhan had condoned it.
Sweet Raava, what was she capable of?
Her train of thought was broken by the thudding of heavy footsteps. She looked up to find Lin and Bao in the doorway peering down at her. Lin leaned an arm against the doorway, and Bao crossed his arms, his mouth downturned.
"See, baba?" Lin drawled, motioning to the two girls with her head. "I told you there weren't any attackers in our kitchen."
"I did know that, sweetheart," Bao said, adjusting his arms. Asami noted the warmth in his voice with a pang in her chest. "But - look at the floor!"
Asami did a double take. She had heard the sound of things falling of course, but hadn't realized that in their tumble she and Chen had sent the cherry blossom mochi and scallion pancakes crashing to the floor. Canisters of tea had rolled into odd corners, peeking out from under counters as if they were shy. The only thing that hadn't fallen, ironically enough, was the tea set. Lin took notice of that fact as well.
"Yes, baba, but look at the tea set. There's not a single chip. Sweet Raava, that thing will never be destroyed."
"Consider it yet another reminder of your grandmother's continued influence on the family," Bao drawled. He looked over at Asami and Chen. "Do you two need help putting everything back?"
Asami shook her head no as Chen spoke up. "No, Baba, we'll get it all sorted out."
The kindly gentleman nodded and turned to leave, but not before helping Asami off the ground and ruffling Chen's hair on the way out the door. The two girls looked at each other and then down at the floor. The beautiful slate flooring, which must have been original flooring in the house, was all askew.
"You take the tea canisters and food, I'll take the floor," Chen said, already beginning to shift the stones back to their original pattern. Asami threw away the food and hunted down the canisters, picking them up and placing them on the counter. "Ah, to be an airbender. I'd just blow all the canisters out of their hiding places. Either that, or I'd make a mess out of your mother's kitchen."
Chen snorted, then paused. "Wait-do you wish you were a bender?"
Asami pushed back some of her hair as she placed the last containers on the counter for Chen to put away. "Honestly? I never thought about airbending for myself. I'd been so preoccupied with finding and protecting the new airbenders that I never thought about it for me."
"And now what do you think?"
Asami cocked her head to the side. "I...I don't know. I'm so used to the connection I have with my elements, I don't know what it would be like to have a connection to another, much less one I can bend."
"Your own connection with the elements?" Chen clasped her hands, her eyes curiously regarding Asami.
Asami's gaze hardened. "What, you didn't think that it was possible for nonbenders to have a connection with their nations' elements?"
"Wha-no!" Chen exclaimed, waving her hands for emphasis. "I just-I'm not saying that, I just-it's a different type of connection, you know? It's not-"
"Boiling tea by holding a cup or throwing rocks around, I know," Asami responded, leaning against the countertop. "But it's there, I guarantee you. Riddle me this, who has the best barbeque pork in Republic City?"
"It's Chau's, everyone knows that," Chen said, rolling her eyes goodnaturedly. Okay, this was good. This was good! Chen was beginning to open up! "I always get their pork buns on Friday after school."
"Right? It's so good! But it's not a coincidence, Chen, that all of their chefs are nonbenders with Fire Nation ancestry. I mean, don't get me wrong, Mako's great, but his food-"
"Is barely edible," Chen said, suppressing a giggle. Then her eyes widened with dawning realization. "Because he's fighting against the fire to cook! Oh, that makes so much sense! How can he cook that well if he's spending so much time just fighting the instinct to bend?"
Asami opened her palm in agreement. "Exactly. He's trying to both not bend the flame and not burn the food….sometimes he's successful. Other times, not so much."
Chen's lips upturned into a radiant smile. Sweet Raava, she was making progress with the girl. There was hope after all. Her head turned slightly to the side. "Asami?"
"Yeah?" She moved to get more food out for them from the fridge. At this point, they wouldn't be hungry for dinner, but in all fairness they did knock their snacks over.
"What do your elements feel like to you?"
She stopped in front of the fridge and turned to face the girl. "What do you mean?"
"What I ask. What does fire feel like to you if you're part Fire Nation and can't bend it? What does earth feel like, or metal?"
Asami opened the fridge, grabbed the nearest package of cherry blossom mochi, and sat it on the counter between them. She grabbed a piece and toyed with it as she thought. "It feels natural to me, I guess," she said after a moment. "It's something I can manipulate, like my hair as an example."
Chen, munching on her mochi piece, raised an eyebrow. "Like hair?"
"Yeah." She popped her mochi in her mouth before she continued speaking. "I could leave it down like I have it now, or I could pull it up into a half-wolftail. I could braid it so it's wavy, or I could set my hair in rollers when it's wet for curly hair. My hair won't react of its own accord, because it is just there."
Chen nodded slowly, intrigued. "You don't feel a pushback."
"Exactly. And I know my hair best-I know how much product I need in it to achieve a specific look, the type of hairstyle that's best to keep it out of my face. So I can manipulate it whatever way I want without having to take into account any possible reactions. It's not like I'm ever going to take my hair out of a braid and have it stick straight. I know what will happen. And because of that, I can explore."
"That is so fascinating. So you don't feel a hum, or run warm constantly, or anything like a regular bender would?"
"Nope. Why would I feel a hum?"
"That's not a normal thing?"
Asami shook her head. "That's definitely an earthbender thing. What does it feel like to feel the earth?"
Chen popped a piece of mochi in her mouth. "The world is never silent. Like, ever. It's a steady hum in the background all the time."
"Like office noise?"
"Eh. Kind of, but not quite. Office noise, it's-it's predictable. Predictable is the best way I can describe it."
The Sato scion raised an eyebrow. "Predictable?"
Chen's lips quirked upward into a smile. "No, what I mean is that office noise isn't so alive. And sure, you're connected by an office, but you're not connected connected. Not the way that earthbending does it. For example, most people think that seismic sensing is just a cool trick that my grandmother invented to see the world, and don't get me wrong it is. But it's also more than that. It's another-it's another sense, really. Most people are born with only five senses. Earthbenders are born with six." She perched her head on her hands, her smile icy. "Have you ever imagined having your ears cut off?"
Asami choked back her last piece of mochi. So much for things going well. "Wha-no? Why would I ever imagine that?" She chugged the last of her cold tea when a thought struck her. "Chen, are you threatening me?"
The teen examined her nails. "No. But my mother had to imagine it. In fact, she had to live with it after Amon took her seismic sense."
Asami could feel her eye twitching. But she couldn't show weakness, not in front of Chen. Her kindness belied her sharpness-a single quip could send anyone scattering, no doubt. She took a deep breath.
She was better than this pettiness. She was? She was!
She was not.
"But I'm sure she didn't lose her spirituality," Asami said, her words dripping with condescending tones. "After all, even we nonbenders have that spiritual connection. Take Pema, for example."
She'd be lying if she didn't relish the scowl cutting Chen's face.
"I mean, she's had spiritual visions since she was a kid! It's what prompted her to become an Air Acolyte, really. But you want to know what the tipping point was? She saw a vision of herself married to a bald airbending master with a goatee, their four children with them. And what do you know, Chen? Didn't that vision come true?"
Chen's face flushed red, and she clenched her fists so tightly they turned white. She took a deep breath, and another, and anoth-
"Your father sexually harassed my mother!"
Asami's mouth dropped. "I beg your pardon?!"
Chen smiled as if she were baring fangs. "Oh, you didn't know? Your sweet little criminal monster of a father used to be a suitor of my mother's. And by suitor, I mean he harassed her constantly. But let's let bygones be bygones, hm? It's not like he's ever going to see outside of a jail cell ever again. I'm sure you had your own visions of that, hm? After all, even nonbenders have their spirituality."
Asami brought her palms together. She noticed belatedly that they were shaking. "Don't you ever. EVER. Talk about my father again."
Chen tied up her hair, coldly regarding the heiress before her. "Don't you ever. EVER. Give me orders. Especially not here."
And then the punches came.