Love, Dai Li, and Tea

by Nate The Ape

As far as Iroh is concerned, even a member of a totalitarian, brainwashing secret police force deserves an opportunity to meet a special someone. It makes one agent's already wild summer equal parts delightful and complicated-and even turns Hong himself into a hero no one saw coming. Good!Dai Li agent/Tamil-based OFC whirlwind romance fic, during canon. Cross-posted at AO3.

15. Chapter 15

Aaannndddd here comes another utter monster of a chapter down the pipeline!

Warning: This chapter contains,

-Dai Li creepiness.

-An act of animal abuse.

-Violence against said abuser.

-A few swear words.

-Allusions to a real-world act of cultural imperialism.

-Past childhood bullying.

That should take care of all the disturbing stuff-and please, please leave any sort of review, dear readers!

---

Two days later, Hong received a letter from Rajata, which not only thanked him profusely for the truly marvelous time she'd had at the Imperial Zoo-with her chance encounters with General How, Long Feng, and The Earth King just being the regal, awesome icing on the pastry-but invited him to have a dinner date with her family now, to come and see the new house they'd bought with her race winnings.

He gave a pleased smile. While Rajata couldn't have known it, stumbling across King Kuei had posed a modest security risk in terms of information leakage-and indeed, the day afterwards, Long Feng had called Hong into his study after his shift was over to give some annoyed glares and a few metaphorical wags of the finger to an apologetic Hong.

At least he wasn't upset enough to challenge me to a first blood duel, Hong thought with a snort, which is always a good thing.

Long Feng had also calmly extracted a pledge from his subordinate that next time he felt inclined to bring a low-born civilian into the palace grounds, would he be good enough to inform the Grand Secretariat-or at least one of the Dai Li captains, who'd then relay the message to him-when and where they'd be spending their time in the vast compound, so he could steer King Kuei away from that area?

"Yes sir," Hong had vowed, chastised. But the rebuke had been totally worth seeing Rajata so thrilled and happy.

He told Aiguo to write a reply of acceptance on his master's behalf, and made a mental note to be at Crescent Moon Avenue tomorrow evening.

His face was feeling rather bristly to the touch, so after a seated soak in his smooth-sided, bucket shaped granite bathtub the next afternoon, and getting dressed in a simple linen tunic and loincloth for the procedure, Hong passively bared his thick neck to Biao's soapsuds and bronze straight razor.

Until the procedure was finished, while the honed edge slid over the skin of his throat, Hong kept a stone glove, fingers flexed with the chi in his own right hand, lightly clamped around Biao's own throat as a grim assurance of good behavior.

It wasn't that Hong didn't trust his barber of over seven years, or suspected the worst of him, of course. All the same though, Biao liked to get out of the house compound too sometimes…and you could never be certain if one of the Dai Li's many enemies had waylaid the man during one of these outings, offering him an amount of blood money which was just too tempting to refuse.

Any attempt to gain money or power by suddenly, fatally slicing one of the major blood vessels in your reclining master's neck obviously wouldn't be of much benefit to you if his final act was to break your own in return and crush your windpipe.

A beaming Rajata was there to greet him in front of her new, green-roofed family home, wearing a pleated linen lehenga, warm brown in color with little yellow stars and lavender trim, and a more modestly cut daffodil yellow, elbow-length linen choli, over which she wore that emerald green sari.

Her hair was done up in a large bun at the back of her head this time, over which she'd draped and fastened a sheer mint green dupatta, the multi-purpose, see-through Tenjikuan woman's shawl, its fabric further adorned by the tiny printed figures of magpie-parrots.

She'd also donned the diamond and emerald choker he'd bought for her, both the jewels and her expressive eyes sparkling in the brassy evening sunlight. As soon as the carriage had moved far enough away, he placed the woven bamboo basket he was holding on the ground before smiling warmly, spreading his own linen sheathed arms apart as he stood tall, saying, "How's my beautiful lotus flower doing?"

An eager Rajata's response was to fling one sandaled foot out in front of her and, before Hong could fully process what was going on, earth-skate for him with the speed of a dashing cat before lowering her hands, fingers crooked, and pulling up a short springboard of stone from the street before hurling herself at him.

In a reflexive move, startled by such enthusiasm, he dealt her a defensive cuff to the shoulder with a bare hand, taking a few steps back and wheeling in a half turn-before it finally registered in his combat-trained brain that she only meant affection with her sudden charge.

Reaching out, he then seized both her bangled forearms in his hands while she was still airborne, and pulled Rajata to him, the young woman wrapping her arms around his neck, and her legs around his waist, as they laughingly embraced.

"Well, that was a pretty obvious answer to my question," he grinned, unable to keep himself from placing his right hand underneath her butt for several seconds (his back was now to the rest of her family members), under the pretense of supporting her weight while he kissed her on the hairline.

She gave a soft, knowing chuckle and sly grin in response. "You just can't help yourself, can you, you excited thing?" she whispered into his ear.

"Not with a body like yours in my arms," he huskily told her with a smirk.

She snickered before replying, "At any rate, I'm doing a lot better now, my handsome hero," smiling and flushing in a surge of emotion, looking up into his face and leaning back before letting herself slide down through his arms into a standing position. "Now that you've come."

She turned and used a pushing motion, then a sweeping movement of her right hand to fix the damage she'd just done to the street, even as she backed to his right side. Looking back up at him, she softly told him, "I'm not too proud to admit that I've been pining for you Hong. I know you have your duties as a Dai Li agent-but I still selfishly wish you could spend more time with me," as she took his hand.

"Hou-Tu knows I try my best," he shrugged, "and at least we're going to have a few hours together now-in the company of your parents and siblings no less," he smiled, bending sideways to grip the handle of the bamboo basket.

"My uncle too," she grinned, nodding in his direction.

Ashwin and Madhuri, Tuhina and Pranjal, Maalai and Pankaja, they all once more warmly gave Hong a touching hero's welcome, bowing with steepled hands before scattering marigold and rose petals over his yellow ochre cloth shoes-which he had to slip out of before entering the Puri house, of course.

Madhuri had another marigold garland in hand, and Hong obligingly squatted down a little so she could place it over his shoulders, while a grinning Maalai lightly jabbed him just above the place where his eyebrows met with a fingertip, which she'd just dipped in a little pottery dish of red turmeric paste. He resisted the impulse to wipe it away.

Tuhina expressed her thanks to Hong for the emerald-studded, gold nose ring, and the simple, narrow in its depth, white gold choker, fringed at the bottom with dangling pearls, that he'd bought for her as a consolation gift-which of course, she was wearing right now to show them off. Maalai was equally grateful for her three pairs of new gold bangles, and the kundan-style earrings, each composed of a dangling, interlocking strand of three broad, oval-cut sapphires, all mounted in gold backing and surrounded by tiny crystals of amethyst.

All three of his girlfriend's baby siblings were most certainly pleased by the sight of the sachima pastries contained in the basket, and Madhuri immediately offered Hong a cup of water, which he accepted.

While she then got to work brewing some chai tea, and setting out the bowls of already prepared foodstuffs on the dining mat, Rajata and Ashwin spent some time proudly showing Hong around their new home, thanking him at least once every two minutes for providing the funds to make its purchase possible.

"Well, I'd say the credit goes far more to Lady Jiu Pan and a hard-running ostrich-horse called Monkey Catcher," Hong smiled. "On their behalf though, you're very welcome."

They showed him their tiled bathroom, the bedrooms with their woven cots, their closets with new clothing, the small courtyard out back. He was led to the sacred household shrine, where a shining copper plate sat on a stone altar, on which a small, flat-topped, goblet-shaped pewter lamp, its shallow bowl filled with amber oil and containing three cotton wicks had been placed, surrounded by scattered flowers, the plate resting next to burnt-down incense sticks in their holders.

Above the altar were two beautiful, colorfully printed paper wall hangings, each evidently portraying a different goddess, both of them depicted with four arms. There were also two small brass figures of other, unfamiliar deities on the altar, each about six inches tall.

While Hong's expertise, his very department, was mostly in stealthy patrolling of Ba Sing Se's alleys and rooftops, enforcing Long Feng's will and always being vigilant for signs of criminal activity, subversive speech and behavior-he was certainly no museum curator or historian-it still didn't change the fact that the Dai Li's "official," original purpose was to steward the city's cultural heritage.

And so, Hong not only produced his own art at home, but could appreciate and value the beauty of works of art in general, even if they were produced by a different culture-like the devotional ones he was currently looking at.

One of the two paintings depicted a goddess with a strange, disc-shaped jeweled crown and a large, gem-covered finial right in front of it, her black hair long and flowing loose down her back as she sat, richly attired in silks and jewelry with her legs crossed before her, on an immense lotus flower. In both of her upper two hands, she held a normal-sized lotus blossom, a beatific smile on her face which also touched her gentle, kanjal-lined eyes. From the palm of her raised left lower hand, gold coins shot forth in an arc to land on a golden plate which was already heaped with them.

"That is Goddess Lakshmi," Ashwin said near his shoulder. "She's Vishnu's wife, and bestows wealth, beauty, good fortune, power, and abundance upon her followers." Hong thoughtfully nodded in understanding.

The other painting depicted a goddess seated on a stool-like, jeweled throne, with bright, emerald green skin (a feature which as an Earth Kingdom citizen, Hong found especially aesthetically appealing), fluid long hair, wearing a crimson red sari and skirt, one anklet adorned foot tucked up against her body, with the other casually resting on the floor.

Before the goddess, its top portion lightly resting across her knee at an angle, was some sort of tall, narrow pipa lute, and in her four hands she held a noose, a goad, a club, and a bloody sickle, respectively. But in spite of these formidable weapons that she held, her expression was more aloof then aggressive, and four equally green parrots were trustingly perched around her.

Ashwin made no comment, but just gave his oldest daughter an amused, sideways glance and a quick nod. Taking her cue, Rajata gave Hong a slow, proud smile as she informed him, "That's a painting of my own patron goddess, Matangi."

"Then she's particularly significant to you, I take it?"

She nodded. "Just like I've heard your Wu Sheng is much revered by many members of the Dai Li."

"Including me," Hong commented. "Anyway, what is she associated with? War, I'd suppose, with all those weapons she's holding, and music too, from that lute."

"You're half right," Ashwin replied. "The veena shows that she is the goddess of music, as well as the arts, the spoken word, and intellectual knowledge. The weapons are simply symbolic though, signs of her willingness to protect those who revere her, to help give them the power to vanquish their enemies."

Rajata smoothly nodded. "We also revere her as a restorer of harmony, peace, calm, and good luck after times of stress, fear, and uncertainty." She flashed her teeth again. "Most of all though-and somewhat to the chagrin of my dad here- "she smirked as she shot him a sidelong glance, "I guess Matangi has a special place in my heart because you could more or less call her a 'rebel' goddess, who follows her own rules."

"She's sure an awfully fitting divinity for a daughter who ended up falling in love with one of the Dai Li," Ashwin snorted in dry amusement, shaking his head even as he lightly smiled.

Hong briefly snickered before replying, "So Matangi's pretty much viewed as a goddess who dares to be different, in other words. Exactly how though, might I ask?"

"Prepare yourself Hong. This may take a while," Ashwin sighed tolerantly.

"I'm as patient as stone itself," Hong replied. "Go ahead," he nodded at Rajata.

"Well, she's strongly associated with both physical and spiritual pollution, crude behavior, unlucky forces, and people who frankly, kind of live outside society as a whole, who are considered lowly even by the standards of The Lower Ring," Rajata said, not seeming ashamed of what that might imply about her at all, while starting to tick points off on her dark fingers.

"Undertakers, people who scavenge through trash, that haul away all the human and ostrich-horse turds on the streets, clean things out of wells, gather and burn trash, butcher meat and clean fish, those sorts of tasks-or men and women who most people just plain don't like," she specified.

A part of Hong wondered if the Dai Li were included in that last category of despised people, but he said nothing.

"She also gladly accepts, and actually wants, gifts of food which are partly eaten, old, spoiled, that fell on the floor-which would normally be an insult to offer to a god or goddess, as I'm sure you can imagine, since that makes it defiled, spiritually 'polluted,'" she went on, making air quotes at the last word.

Her matter-of-fact tone and generally authoritative posture couldn't help but bring back memories to Hong of patiently sitting at desks in one of Ba Sing Se University's classrooms, while one of the specialist Dai Li professors lectured and wrote on the thick slate board just behind him, either with a freely floating, earthbent piece of chalk, or by simply forming the characters into the sheet of stone directly with movements of a finger before smoothing the surface clean.

"Yeah, very much so," he agreed with a nod. "I certainly wouldn't offer that to Hou-Tu, for example, or an ancestor like Great-Grandfather Zhongjian."

"But as I said, Matangi has no problem at all with it. Anyhow, finally," Rajata informed him, ticking off the last point on a slim finger, "the last major reason Maa Matangi is regarded as an unorthodox goddess is because she not only demands her worshippers-like yours truly-give her 'contaminated,' or even spiritually dangerous offerings-such as the clothes that a person wore on their deathbed-but that they practice their devotions in a defiled, polluted state."

Hong felt his eyebrows furrow slightly as he gave his girlfriend an odd, perplexed look. Was she saying that she actually covered, smeared herself with nasty mud, garbage and maybe even animal "leavings" before paying the goddess homage?

Hurriedly, she added, "And no, that doesn't mean you come covered in dirt or other filth, in case you're wondering. It just means you're not required to ritually bathe, fast, or do any other formal rituals before the act of worship-and I can do it at any time of the month," she hinted knowingly.

"In other words, she's a goddess whom you're free to come before as you are," Hong surmised.

"Exactly. It's a big reason why she appeals to me," she smiled. "Because I'm the lazy type-and I guess I also have a tendency to step outside the lines at times, act a bit crazy as the mood strikes me. Sorry Dad," she added with a playful shrug and grin as she turned to him.

Her father's response was to give a mock where-did-I-go-wrong facepalm and headshake before all three of them chuckled.

Of the two brass figures, one portrayed a god with a human body and an elephant's head, while the other was of some other god with four arms sitting on another huge lotus flower, holding a conch shell, a discus, a mace, and another lotus, a five-headed cobra protectively rearing up behind him. Rajata told him their names were Ganesh and Vishnu, respectively.

Madhuri arrived then, telling them that the tea and dinner were ready.

First however, considering that Hong was no average guest, but one of the Dai Li, a wealthy and powerful man-and most of all, the man who'd saved Rajata's life-Ashwin asked him to please spend a few minutes more in this shrine room while they formally honored and welcomed him with a ceremony called aarti.

Once all members of the family were in attendance, they gathered around Hong, still respectfully wearing the marigold garland, before Pranjal lit the wicks of the lamp as he and the rest of the Puri family began to reverently sing, eyes half-shut, in a tongue the agent couldn't understand.

With his knowledge of what was coming Ba Sing Se's way all too soon with Sozin's Comet, the sight of fire being waved so close to him made Hong slightly uncomfortable-and he could see in the eyes of Rajata's parents and uncle that it was bringing back memories of loss and pain that they'd much rather forget.

But he kept his expression neutral, contemplative, as the plate and the lamp it supported were passed around him three times, from one of his hosts to the other, in a circle from left to right, as Pranjal repeatedly struck an iron bell with a short, stout stick to produce a constant rhythm of sharp, chiming dings.

Before taking the holy plate, each of the Puris carefully placed their cupped, downturned hands over the flame for a few seconds, then placed their palms on their forehead. Taking the plate in both hands, they then proceeded to slowly move it and the lamp up, sideways, and down a few times before handing it off to the next person, all the while continuing to sing what Rajata respectfully whispered to Hong at one point were hymns of love, friendship, welcome, and gratitude-but he'd not only figured that out way before, but had also quickly realized that the Puri family was essentially symbolically worshipping him with this aarti ceremony.

It was very much a flattering gesture, he had to admit, and even his proper due in a way-for was he not a 'son' of Lady-of Avatar-Kyoshi, acting under the mandate of an incarnation of the World Spirit? Certainly, this was a welcome change from how most people in this city viewed and behaved towards him.

---

Dinner was different, and amazingly spicy compared to what Hong was used to, the agent puzzled by the strange custom of sitting down on the floor to eat instead of at a proper table, and ceremonially sprinkling water around, then over the food before eating it. As for eating it, the act generally performed with the fingers instead of chopsticks, although his hosts were freely using spoons as well. But if he was going to have a close relationship with Rajata and his probable future in-laws, Hong guessed that he'd better get accustomed to it.

For possible children in the future though, having a father who ate his meals with chopsticks, and a mother who preferred to eat with her fingertips, was going to cause no end of confusion about what composed suitable table manners.

He was served red lentil dal over steamed basmati rice, roti flatbread, pork-chicken korma cooked in a delicious yogurt-based sauce flavored with ginger and garlic, and saag paneer. The freshly brewed masala chai and raspberry lassi, a sweet beverage made from yogurt, cream, and milk, proved to be very tasty drinks, while both the sachima he'd brought along, and squares of barfi made with pistachio paste-a sweet, milk-based pudding which was very like jelly in its consistency-made for delicious desserts.

After dinner was over, and the dishes were brought back to the kitchen, Hong rested for a time in the company of his gracious hosts as his meal settled in his belly, drinking a total of three glasses of the dark Tenjikuan rum known as arrack, made from molasses- "Try it, it tastes awesome!" Rajata had assured him-as they all chatted about their day and general lives.

When the time finally came for Hong to take his leave of the Puris, Rajata naturally accompanied him outside, standing around as he waited for a carriage to eventually come down the street. They affectionately leaned against each another, Hong's right arm curled around her lithe body.

Rajata sighed morosely.

"What's wrong?" he frowned as he looked down at her.

"Just thinking about how I'm going to miss you so until we meet again," she said with a thin smile. "While I know it's not permanent, this is always the least favorite part of our dates and visits for me."

"Can hardly say I blame you," he replied, giving a kiss to the crown of her head. "But I take you out on the town or arrange other visits with you fairly often, you know."

"But the rest of the time, you're either on a ten-hour patrol shift, or sleeping, or eating, or spending rest and relaxation time away from me…" she half-jokingly complained. "That's too long for me to bear!" she added theatrically with a pout, and then a mildly dejected smile.

"Well, Rajata, it's hardly as if I neglect you. In fact, I'm seeing more of you right now than I did of Gyunghui back when we were actively dating, under circumstances that were far less stressful and demanding then what we Dai Li are all collectively facing right now-and I fell for her beauty and charms like a dropped brick."

"That's great. But all the same…I don't want to come across as pathetic and needy here, but I'm going to be honest and admit that a big part of me just feels so lonesome now whenever you're not around for any length of time."

"I have trouble understanding that. I mean, don't you have the rest of your family for company? Don't you have friends of your own? At least some regular customers at your family spice stall that you've come to know well?"

"Of course. But it's not the same as spending time with my big, brave, sexy Shiva," she smiled, moving around to stand in front of him and giving him a warm hug, half-crushing the marigolds against his robe before reaching up and running her hands down his chest in a manner which made both his breath and his knees tremble.

"Hey, I get it," Hong replied. "But the reality is, my duties as an agent of the Dai Li come first," he shrugged, "and I also need to find time to sleep, to eat, to bathe, take care of my own needs in general, fill out forms, write shift reports to be filed. Besides, I also don't want to overwhelm you with too much of a good thing," he grinned. "End up getting on your nerves…"

Rajata laughed. "You? Get on my nerves?" she said as she playfully slapped his upper arm. "That's like suggesting I could ever get sick of playing with meerkat-ferrets!"

Suddenly, she backed away a few steps, regarding Hong with a contemplative expression as a thought struck her. "You know," she said at length, "this will sound crazy…but I'd like to join you for at least a couple 'work dates,' spend at least part of a shift at your side."

For a few seconds, Hong just blankly stared at her in surprise.

"I can't allow that, Rajata," he then told her simply. "I can't bring a civilian along with me while I'm on active duty. It would violate at least half a dozen laws, and be too dangerous. End of discussion."

But she was undaunted. "It would just be a few times, Hong. I won't tell anyone that you brought me along, what you did, or get in the way. So, please? I'd also like to see something of just what my boyfriend gets up to whenever he goes out in those handsome green robes and that hat which makes him so alluringly mysterious-looking," she added.

Highly flattering words, but Hong resolutely shook his head.

"In so many words, you're not coming on a patrol shift with me, Rajata, now or ever. If I was assigned to do security duty for some fancy party or festival in the Upper Ring or even the Imperial Palace where you could easily-and safely-mingle with the crowds during that time, that would be all right, sure. But goddess knows that the streets of the Lower, and even the Middle Ring to some degree, are dangerous, Rajata-especially after curfew."

"I can hold my own perfectly fine as an earthbender against any Lower Ring thugs," she declared hotly in response, gesturing at her chest. "I've actually done it in the past as well, so don't be so quick to write me off as the naïve, defenseless type."

"Hey, don't you start putting words in my mouth," Hong replied lowly, "and I have no doubts about either your street smarts or your ability to protect yourself with your bending. But Rajata, dear-"

He hesitated, holding his hands out almost pleadingly before going on.

"Any alley we enter, any corner we turn, any abandoned-looking squatter's shack or tunnel bent into the ground that we Dai Li come across during a patrol can easily end up bringing us face to face with one or more robbers, opium dealers, muggers, drug users who've gone too long without a fix, people who are just plain mentally unstable, families or even entire loose communities of homeless 'tunnel people'-who can be very territorial towards any unwelcome visitors," he informed her, giving her a meaningful look.

"True, the second they recognize me as a Dai Li agent, most of them usually either start running like their asses were lit on fire, or they smile and nod and give me no trouble-but not always," he grimly amended as he regarded her, raising an eyebrow. "And if you were with me in a situation where Guozhi and I had to deal with several attackers…" he gravely shook his head, closing his eyes.

"Don't worry. I'd immediately get well away from the area, or hide behind something if that happ-"Rajata began-but Hong sharply cut her off.

"Even so, to be perfectly blunt Rajata, you'd also be a liability for me if I let you come along. Not only would I have to constantly worry about your security-since you'd be a relatively softer target-but I can't afford to be distracted, and I have to move quietly, be totally focused and stealthy when I'm patrolling and observing-and it's not fair to expect Guozhi to do all the heavy lifting on his own."

He began to turn away, signaling that the discussion was over. But Rajata warily earth skated in an arc and blocked his path, looking up at him.

"You have my word that I'll be respectful and quiet. I'll stay several paces behind you. I won't be a problem, and will work around your needs-at a moment's notice, if need be. I simply want to be with my ma-"

Hong crossed his arms in aggravation and glared at her before giving a protracted grumble of irritation. "Hou-Tu, you just won't quit, will you? What part of 'Going on a surveillance patrol with me poses real danger to both of us' is not managing to sink in, Rajata?!"

"I can face, and manage to dance around a certain level of danger, look over my shoulder-and again, be aware of your need to always be on the alert Hong," she resolutely replied, standing firm even as the pavement around Hong began to quiver with his mild frustration at her obstinance. "Humor me in my quest to spend a little more time in your company-and maybe get to learn a thing or two about your professional life."

Hong felt his hands lightly clench, and his teeth grit in frustration, only aware that he was doing it when she saw Rajata visibly flinch. He forced himself to relax, and rolled his eyes in exasperation before adopting an impassive expression, fixing his girlfriend's gaze with a steady look as he then said in a low, disturbingly calm tone, "And what if, while you're shadowing me during an active patrol, you happen to witness Guozhi or I-but likely both of us-needing to do something…extreme to an especially uppity fellow civilian as part of our professional duties, all in the greater, vital cause of keeping peace and order in this city? Putting them to death on the spot for instance, or having them arrested to later be 'reminded' of how to be a decent citizen? How would you take that?"

"I wouldn't exactly enjoy witnessing that," Rajata admitted as she redirected her gaze to her feet, her breath coming a little faster.

"I didn't think you would." As much as he hated doing this, Hong still gave Rajata a slow, knowing, rat-jackal's smile anyway to intimidate her as he went on, "Now, I won't confirm or deny whether there's any truth to such rumors of course, but since I'm nobody's fool, I think I can safely assume that while you were growing up, your parents and uncle warned you about how we Dai Li are feared for bra-well, they warned you," he quickly caught himself with another humorless smile. "I certainly wouldn't want you to be seeing-and then maybe talking about-incidents so far above your clearance level."

"I can manage to turn a blind eye if you ever have to do something-dreadful-in my presence," Rajata whispered, even as she began to faintly quiver. "And keep my lips sealed, accept that sometimes, you have to do what you must for the good of this city."

Hong made no reply to that as he regarded her thoughtfully. This was a highly irregular thing for a Dai Li agent to do indeed…

"All right, you win," he sighed reluctantly, conceding in the face of his better sense. "Guozhi is going to think I'm utterly nuts, and there's a worrisomely high chance that my captain is going to personally beat the schist out of me if he finds out that I allowed a civilian to follow me around on patrol, among other punishments-but I'll risk it for you."

It was at that very moment that Hong heard the creaking wheels of an oncoming carriage in his right air, and briefly turned away from her to hail its driver-but not before seeing an expression of disbelieving pleasure and satisfaction flow across her deep brown features.

---

After returning to Lake Laogai after their assigned day shift the next evening, both Hong and Guozhi were changing out of their uniforms in their shared, simply furnished room, compact with just a few items of stone and wood furniture within.

Since the stone door had been shut tight, Hong felt okay with speaking freely as he asked his partner, while raising his outer tunic with the Earth Kingdom seal over his head, "Be honest with me, Guozhi. Now that you've gotten to know her somewhat better, what are your feelings about Rajata? Do you think more highly of her?"

"What brought that question about?"

"I'm just curious," Hong replied. "I'm not accusing you here, Gambling Man," he said with a small smile, "but I know that when you first met her, you had certain-prejudices towards her, let's just say, as a native of the Lower Ring-even though I'm from the Lower Ring myself," he smirked, while raising an eyebrow.

"Yes, I did," Guozhi admitted. "I thought she was beautiful and nice, don't get me wrong, Farm Boy-but I also felt that she was beneath you, that you could aim much higher, to be perfectly frank," he shrugged. "I was also suspicious of her intentions too, at least initially, worried that she was really hooking up with you not out of love, but to just selfishly leech off of you Hong-and once she'd gotten what she wanted from you, she'd be out of there like a spooked fox-antelope, leaving my buddy behind with a broken heart."

Hong found himself gently smiling in the glowstone-lit chamber as he said, "I appreciate that, the idea you're looking out for me not just on patrol, but in matters of the heart too. But do you view her differently now?"

"She's your girlfriend," his partner said simply. "And I was happy to have her as my guest, along with her siblings, when I had her come visit my home."

"That doesn't count as an answer, Guozhi," Hong said sternly, even as he slipped out of his linen pantaloons. "Do you like Rajata, respect her now-even if she's a commoner woman?"

"She has some awkwardness in formal settings, and sometimes also has a little coarseness to her speech, her mannerisms," Guozhi warily replied. "But she's friendly, gentle, sociable, kind. She strikes me as being comfortable in her own skin, and remarkably intelligent, although we both know she never had any higher-level schooling."

"So, to get to the point here," he concluded, "yes, I have come to like and respect her, Hong. Granted, it's not quite the same sort of relationship and respect I have for you, my wife, my friends, or other people who are close to me, mind you-try to keep in mind that I still don't know her nearly as well as you do-but it's there," he said with a light smile.

"You're going to have an opportunity to get to know her better in the very near future, actually," Hong said.

"Oh?" Guozhi replied, seated now on his bed as he pulled on a pair of pale green linen trousers. "Have you arranged a three-way dinner date?" he grinned.

"Not exactly. Rajata's made me basically promise to let her politely tag along on a few of our active patrol shifts."

Guozhi suddenly went still, slowly, intently meeting his gaze.

"Tag along? Did I just hear you right, Farm Boy?"

Hong nodded.

The eerie light of the glowstones reflected off his longtime partner's slanted eyes as they goggled in shock.

"Are. You. Mental?!"

---

After pleading her case in such an adamant fashion, Rajata didn't deign to rock the boat further by trying to join Hong for his very next shift-a night one, she knew-or even talk about how they were going to arrange such a thing, content to focus on her duties as a spice seller, domestic chores, and the company of her family to keep her mind off her absent qinglang.

The next day however, Rajata found a letter addressed to her waiting in the stone mail pocket by their door when she and her parents got home from work.

With expectation and interest, she began to open it-and was surprised to see that it was from Guozhi, not Hong.

From Hong's partner, Guozhi Chen.

This is no invitation or love note, missy, it began brusquely.

Treat this letter damn seriously, as a classified document-because it basically is one. Go to a private location to read it, away from anybody else-and nowhere that's outdoors! Yes, that means right now.

Placing it against her chest to hide the words from sight, Rajata immediately left the company of her curious siblings to head towards her room.

"Is that another invitation for a fancy date from Hong?" Tuhina asked with a grin as she tried to look over her shoulder.

But this time Rajata firmly, though gently and calmly, pushed her younger sister away with the palm of her free hand, lightly shaking her head as she neutrally replied, "No-and this time it's meant only for me to read, not you or anybody else, Tuhina. A secret."

Once her bedroom door was bent shut behind her, Rajata silently resumed reading Guozhi's terse message.

Do not read this to the other members of your family, or any parts of it out loud. And as soon as you've finished reading this document, taken in the information it contains, you are to immediately burn it to ashes, understand? Now that the need for secrecy has been driven home…

As ridiculous and dangerous and foolish as I recognize such behavior to be, I've somehow decided to let my besotted patrol partner talk me into letting you come along on at least a few shifts in one of the three districts we rotate through, and I guess we're glad to have your company.

But make no mistake, permitting a civilian such as yourself to follow us around while we're walking the mean streets of Ba Sing Se in uniform is risky business for us in more ways than one. So you need to obey us and keep everything hush-hush, because if another member of the Dai Li notices you, Hong and I are going to be in such deep shit it's not even funny-at the very least, we'll both get flogged raw and suspended for two months without pay.

Fortunately, however, it should be easy for you to "hide in plain sight" while people are still allowed to be out on the streets, and between the two of us, we've come up with a good cover story to use if the wrong people notice us after the curfew mark.

So, anyway, here are the simple facts, and our schedule. As we have done for years, Hong and I operate in District 107 in the Upper Ring this night, then the next night, in the Middle Ring's District 52…

She read the locations of the places Hong and Guozhi tended to begin a patrol in each district, tucking them away in her memory. Then Rajata tucked the rolled-up letter underneath her sari, came out of her room, and stealthily slipped it into the cooking fire at her first opportunity.

Once more, she decided not to push her luck any further by trying to meet up with both agents that night either, even though she now knew roughly when and where to expect them-and they would be working in the calm, safe domain of the Upper Ring tonight.

But after dinner the next evening, she plucked up her courage, told her family she was going out to visit some friends, and waited for Hong in the Middle Ring, seeming like she was just enjoying the early summer night air along with dozens of other people as she loitered, standing not far from the street she expected both men to come pacing down from the letter.

When they actually did, stone boots lightly clacking against the pavement, hands held behind their backs, they gave her a friendly, but subdued smile and nod of welcome and recognition.

At the moment, a mere seven people were currently in sight-and their attention was diverted either by a dice game four of them were playing at an outdoor table, or the endearing young marbled weasels that the other three were watching caper and chase each other through a shadowy flowerbed and among some bushes.

It made Rajata confident enough to approach and softly speak with her favorite pair of Dai Li agents. Besides, ordinary people kept their mouths shut about anything they saw the Dai Li getting up to.

"Hong-and Agent Chen, sir-I really appreciate both of you allowing me to tag along like this. I know this is violating more than a few regulations, so thank you."

"You're welcome. I think," Guozhi deadpanned.

"I'll do everything I can to keep out of the way, and not bother you two."

"I trust you to be good as gold, my lotus flower," Hong assured her with a smile.

"Still," Guozhi added, his voice smooth, yet firm, "this is a patrol that the two of us are setting out on, and it's a job we take seriously as agents of the Dai Li."

Hong coolly nodded. "You are to follow orders without delay if either Guozhi or I feel it warranted, and remember, you are also to keep any-occurrences-that we would judge to be classified strictly to yourself," he told her.

"You've made that clear as quartz crystal," she meekly replied.

But then, Hong slipped the stone glove from his extended right hand and sent it drifting over to her, before affectionately scratching, stroking, her shoulders and upper back for a brief time with the blunt rock fingertips-a sensation which made her spine arch with pleasure.

---

Hong's first 'work date' through the streets of District 52 with his girlfriend in tow turned out to be pretty uneventful, to his great relief-save for four minor incidents he and Guozhi found themselves dealing with-none of which posed any risk in the least to Rajata.

The first one involved a crying, lost, six-year-old boy who told them his name was Chengzhi, whom the agents eventually reunited with his frantic-and deeply relieved-mother after about fifteen minutes, Hong feeling Rajata's approving gaze on him as he briefly watched Chengzhi being led away before moving on.

The second report-worthy thing that happened was a passerby running over to tell them that some guy had just come charging out of a nearby tavern he'd already half-vandalized, totally drunk and chasing random people, currently challenging a shade tree to have a fistfight with him.

It was actually pretty amusing to see, and it was almost a shame, Hong thought, to have to cut the spectacle short by pinning the confused drunkard's wrists behind his back with a pair of stone gloves before summoning a prison wagon, both agents tossing the guy inside to sober up later in a state prison cell-where he would later not only find himself dealing with a splitting hangover, but being fined and charged for destruction of property and "a gross disturbance of the peace."

The third incident Hong was summoned to involved a poor draft ostrich-horse cock which had collapsed in the street from exhaustion, and was being mercilessly whacked with a switch by his yelling asshole of an owner to get him back on his feet. Yeah, like that was going to help matters, you prick.

Being both a decent man and a former farm kid, that sort of behavior made Hong rather pissed off, and within seconds, the driver was howling in pain as he ate pavement, his switch hand wrenched savagely behind his back by one stone glove grimly clenching his wrist, as Agent Hong flung the other forth to brutally slap him across the face before cuffing the remaining hand with it. The man's nose began trickling blood, and seemed at least cracked by the blow, but neither of the agents could really bring themselves to care.

Thankfully, some of the gawkers surrounding them followed Hong's orders and coaxed the shaky ostrich-horse back to his feet, a few others offering him water and some handfuls of long grass while Hong and Guozhi bluntly told the bastard-Hanxin by name-who'd been overworking, beating the animal, that they were officially and permanently confiscating the beast of burden from him as they waited for the prison wagon to come.

This time, a pair of City Guards actually ended up being good for something when they wandered over, taking over custody of the ostrich-horse from both agents and patiently coaxing it away in the direction of the closest stable for their own police mounts. There, Hong knew, the animal would receive good care and be kept as state's evidence until Hanxin's trial-which would almost certainly result in a conviction of felony cruelty to a working animal. Either way, the ostrich-horse's future was going to be much brighter now, and Hong couldn't help but be pleased by the part he'd just played.

Of course, he fully recognized that it was wildly hypocritical of a Dai Li agent to intervene on the behalf of a poorly-treated ostrich-horse cock—but not lift a finger to improve captivity for or just facilitate the release of the Avatar's unique, sensitive sky bison, a creature meant to be as free-roaming as any bird, as he helplessly laid shackled in one of the largest chambers at headquarters-and as far as Hong was aware, for no real purpose.

Hong lightly sighed. Situational ethics could be a real bitch at times…

Frankly, if he was pulling the strings instead of Long Feng, Hong would've allowed the kids to have the flying cow back in exchange for a nice, big sum of ransom money-even the Dai Li had no problem with some extra gold pieces in their coffers-before letting them leave with strict orders to get out of town, never come back, and keep their noses out of Ba Sing Se's political affairs.

Or he would've told the foursome bluntly that yes indeed, the Dai Li had the bison in their custody, but they weren't going to say where, or release it-and if you kids stir up too much trouble, that bison will go bye-bye. For good.

Unfortunately, of course, he wasn't Minister Long Feng, or one of the Dai Li captains, and if he was bold enough to voice a contrary opinion concerning how this whole Avatar situation was being handled-yeah, that would only result in him being slapped with a fine and a week's suspension with no pay for insubordination, with complete fuck-all getting changed.

He was startled out of his brooding by Rajata's touched chuckle as she sidled up by his left shoulder (Guozhi was on his right.)

"Well, my Shiva did it again," she beamed. "A protector of innocent people and helpless animals alike. Laugh at me if you want, but I know that ostrich-horse is so thankful to you right now, Hong-and Guozhi," she added.

"I'd certainly like to think that," Guozhi said, giving her an appreciative, sidelong glance from under his tasseled hat. "Unfortunately, though, he's far from the only ostrich-horse in Ba Sing Se who deserved far better in terms of an owner."

"Some people in this world aren't fit to know the company of a loyal animal," Hong chimed in as he grimaced in distaste.

"Too true. But at least he'll be free of that man now, thanks to you two."

"Who would've imagined it from us Dai Li, huh?" Hong said, giving her a sideways glance and grin.

"Me, for one," Rajata replied, as she used her bending to briefly form yet another stool of stone beneath her, and slid over the flagstones on it as she kissed his cheek-before sinking it into the ground again with a push of her hands.

"Aww!" a moved Guozhi drawled-only to duck a moment later as Hong sent a bent stone, about the size of a peach pit, whizzing at his temple in annoyance with a flick of his fingers.

---

As Rajata demurely followed Hong around on patrol, he and Guozhi regularly split apart for maybe fifteen, twenty minutes at a time, to cover the same patch of their district more effectively, for one of them to scout ahead-while also making resolutely sure to always remain within earshot of one another until they rejoined to quietly share what, if any, potential or actual signs of suspicious activity either agent had detected.

She had to cheekily admit to herself that she was really digging the thrill of it all, actually rolling with Dai Li agents on a patrol shift. It made her feel like a sneaky spy by proxy herself.

The fact that the three of them were all doing something that was a big no-no indeed together only made it all the more exciting. Her goddess of choice was probably grinning in approval right now, Rajata smugly thought.

And of course, she was getting to spend extra quality time with her man.

During one of these periods when Guozhi had split away, Rajata brazenly, but warily decided to slip her arm through the space between Hong's left one and his torso. Hong's initial reaction was to startle, saying "What in Hou-Tu's name, Raj- "but then he went quiet, lightly smiling as he deigned to lead her along in that fashion for several contented minutes.

And during another, they both heard a small disturbance in a nearby alleyway, Hong quickly gesturing to her to stay back as he quietly skated forward to investigate-but then an exasperated looking male spotted monitor lizard-rat, about the size of a housecat, came sashaying out of the alley entrance. Right at his heels, nipping and sliding against him and tugging at his tail with her mouth as they moved, was an eager, somewhat smaller, female monitor lizard-rat.

Seconds later, the male decided to accept her ardent advances at last, turning and mounting her as she willingly crouched on the paving stones. The act of reproduction was completed in a matter of seconds before both monitor lizard-rats then went their separate ways.

Rajata said nothing, but she turned to Hong with a suggestive smile and twitched her eyebrows knowingly. Even in the faint green light of the glowstone lamps, she saw his face flush beet red under his hat as she doubled over in huffing laughter.

The fourth, and final, incident of significance happened close to the city curfew at two in the morning-at which time, Rajata and both agents had agreed that she'd take one of the last active trains for the night back home before transferring to a carriage (which were allowed to operate throughout the night), so that her family wouldn't worry or ask questions-and she could still get a decent amount of sleep to stay sprightly at her job tomorrow.

The streets were all but deserted now, and Rajata quietly followed several paces behind both agents in the pale light of the moon. Now and again, while Hong or Guozhi stayed on the ground below near her, his partner would almost noiselessly climb the side or back wall of a shop, an apartment complex, a studio, a house, with stone gloves and boots, before crawling onto the green-tiled roof in a prone position and listening, watching for a minute or two before lightly jumping back to the ground, bending any stone directly underneath his feet into gravel as he landed, lest he twist his ankles.

On one of these vertical sorties-she was tempted to ask Hong later to teach her sometime how to climb with stone gloves herself-Guozhi suddenly, almost imperceptibly stiffened a little from his position on the roof of a clothing store, intently looking to his left before backing quietly to the ground and silently gesturing to Hong to join him.

As her qinglang did so, Rajata watched in interest as both partners quickly used a few signals to communicate and plan.

Guozhi grabbed at a fold of his outer robe, and tugged it to the side a bit as he gestured to the left with his other hand, then pretended to reach into his right pocket for money. Hong seemed to understand perfectly, and Rajata figured she was getting the gist of it as well.

Some people are dealing in stolen goods, further down the alley. They're working on cajoling a customer.

Hong displayed a stone-mailed fist, and flicked his tiled fingers apart. I'm ready to take them. But how many are we going to be dealing with?

Guozhi quickly glanced over at Rajata before flinging the middle three fingers of his right hand upward, then clenched them again before raising his pointer finger.

Two of them, plus the unknown factor of the guy they're trying to sell some of their ill-gotten merchandise too right now.

Hong gave a single, sharp nod before Guozhi jerked his head to the left, then pointed towards the stars. Hong pointed downward in reply, and made a slow arc with his finger in response.

As Guozhi left to get into position, Hong bent over towards Rajata and took a few seconds to whisper, "We're about to ambush a couple of fencers shortly. They tend to submit pretty quickly once they realize it's too late to run from us-but you'd still do well to stay in the background. Got that?"

She nodded. He gave her a tiny smile before turning away and stealthily vanishing from view around the side of a coppersmith's shop, into the alley behind.

Slowly, with the finesse of a prowling cat, Rajata herself paced past the façade of one, then two, then three, then four Middle Ring shops, keeping the structures between her and the back alley as she tried to seem nonchalant to any observers-even as an excited anticipation built within her.

Soon, she was close enough to start to hear several low, husky male voices drifting into the street.

"That turquoise camelephant figure sure is a stunner, isn't it?" she heard one of them prod.

"If you buy it," another man's voice added, "we'll let you have that sparkly silver bracelet you keep eyeing for a third off the price."

"Hmmm," a more cautious male voice said thoughtfully. "That wouldn't be a half bad bargain," he admitted.

"Either way, make your choice and hand over your silver pieces quickly," the first man she'd heard speak impatiently grumbled. "Curfew time is starting to breathe down our necks, and I don't wanna be just waiting around for the po-"

Suddenly, as Rajata discreetly listened around the side of a cobbler's business to the goings-on in the alleyway, she herself was startled by the sound of Guozhi's boots making contact with the ground in said alley, along with the sound of her boyfriend charging in from the right.

The two dealers in stolen goods, and their would-be customer, were even more surprised.

"Schist!" one of them cried.

"Oh spirits, it's the Dai Li!" the formerly interested buyer gasped helplessly.

A flurry of pounding feet, as the trio tried to scatter in all directions, make a futile run for it. Rajata quickly ducked back as one squat, mustached man, queue flailing behind him, came frantically earth-skating down the very side alley she'd been using to eavesdrop-before she heard a jangling, whizzing noise, a sharp, metallic click, and then the man gave a sharp, pained yelp as his struggling form was dragged backwards.

Either Hong or his partner had whipped out one of the normally folded up metal surveyor's chains they kept concealed under their uniform's voluminous sleeves, she knew, the steel cuff at its end expertly clamping around the fleeing man's wrist or forearm-before he was yanked back to the agent like a helpless grasshopper caught by a chameleon's tongue.

In less than six seconds, all three men were apprehended and kneeling on the pavement with their hands behind their backs, from what she could hear. She felt confident enough to look down the side alley once more, and saw at least one of the dealers in view at the end, staring up at a looming Hong with a terrified, placating grin.

"Ni hao, Agent Yan, Agent Chen," the man said sweetly with brief nods. "The three of us were just having a friendly chat on this glo-"

"Spare us the bull-boar shit pleasantries, Lanpo," Hong spat, cutting him off. "You and your crony Jincheng here should've learned by now that trying to sweet-talk us Dai Li out hauling the two of you off to jail for your little enterprises is about as effective as trying to catch a fish with a spoon."

"But we're reformed men-" Lanpo began to protest.

"And what's your name?" Rajata heard Guozhi demand of the third man.

"Um, Hailu Tan, sir," the third man quaveringly replied.

"Hailu Tan." Guozhi repeated. "You would do well to have enough sense and class not to do business with peddlers of stolen goods, no matter how appealing or cheap the prices, Hailu."

"Are you saying that our wares are stolen?" the second man-Jincheng, Rajata assumed-gasped in faux indignation and shock-before then crying out, "We stopped do-ouch, ouch, my wrists!"

Rajata found herself cringing in sympathy.

"Don't play dumb with us, Jincheng," Hong droned. "Lying to our faces tends to really piss us off. So, let's make this short and sweet before we send for the paddy wagon. Who's filling the role of your new 'supplier' these days?"

"You know," Lanpo suddenly said, his voice smooth, sly, and desperate all at once, "Jincheng and I are perfectly happy to move-ah, our place of operations-to another district in this fine city-if you two fine gentlemen are willing to release us from these cuffs."

"And don't forget about cutting me loose too," Hailu chimed in.

Hong laughed. "That's a pretty audacious display of pleading, Lanpo. But good luck coming up with a valid reason why Agent Chen here and I should listen!"

"I have some very effective reasons why it would be worth your while tucked underneath my robe right now, actually," Jincheng replied. "Ones in the form of gold, which we'd be delighted to bestow upon you illustrious men in return for forgetting that you ever encountered us," he hinted. "And what harm are two dealers in hot property, when compared to a zealot shouting lies about a war, or a snatcher of children?"

Rajata felt her eyes widen. Her boyfriend and his partner were being offered a bribe! How were they going to react to this offer?

She knew for a fact that the City Guards happily accepted bribes on a regular basis, before letting the pleading wrongdoer go on their way. The Dai Li were said to be far more difficult to persuade in this way, no matter how much money you waved in their faces-but now and again, such offers evidently proved just too tempting for even an agent of the secret police to refuse.

There was a considering silence, and she saw Hong raise his head to casually look towards his right, to his partner. Then he thoughtfully looked down at their prisoners before replying with a smirk, "Start with the bargaining then."

Guozhi evidently must've released Jincheng then, for Rajata heard a shifting of stone, and a soft, rasping rustling-just before a fist-sized, leather bag, secured with a drawstring and containing what she estimated to be maybe forty, fifty, gold pieces landed a pace from her boyfriend's stone boots.

Hong unzipped a pocket in the side of his upper robe with a gesture of a finger, before pushing the stone glove off his right hand and picking the bag up with granite fingers to deposit it inside. Then he looked at Jincheng again, flatly telling him, "We're still going to need more than that to help us forget things. Another."

By the time Hong asked for a fourth bag of gold pieces, Jincheng understandably responded with a pained whine, like a cowering dog, at the idea of having to part with so much of his ill-gotten coinage.

"Enough of that mewling noise," Hong growled, giving a light, intimidating stomp of a foot for emphasis. "You knew we were going to gouge you scumbags deep, Jincheng. And my girlfriend's jewelry isn't going to pay for itself, you know."

At that point, Rajata suddenly backed away and went jogging down the street the way she'd come with her hands desperately clasped over her mouth, knowing that all five men could still hear her strangled guffaws anyhow.

---

Late the next afternoon, most of the Puri family had reunited in the small courtyard behind their new home after work and school, Rajata and Tuhina giggling as both sisters used their bending to fling a watermelon-sized rock back and forth in play.

Although her family were now middle-class citizens, there were still many things which kept them tied to the Lower Ring, and for the time being at least, Rajata's younger siblings continued to attend the same run-down schools as before the move, barely kept operating by state funding. But they had so many friends there, which were hard to just leave behind.

When Pankaja returned home, he relayed a message from Maalai that she'd decided to accompany a classmate and good friend of hers, Pooja, to her own home, where they'd spend some time talking and playing together before Maalai finally left to go home to her own family.

That was nothing out of the ordinary-but when Maalai happened to stroll into the courtyard, Tuhina stopping the game and gently lowering the rock to the ground with her bending, she only gave her family a perfunctory greeting, looking rather miffed underneath her pineapple yellow dupatta as she took a seat on a wooden stool.

"What's wrong honey?" Madhuri asked in concern.

"Did Pooja's jerk of an older sister cause trouble for you again?" Prankaja guessed. "Seriously Maalai, just because you can't earthbend back, it still doesn't mean you have to just put up with her cr- "

Maalai shook her head. "It wasn't that," she replied. "Someone else. I can't believe there are people out there with the nerve to badmouth this amazing city," she huffed, "who everyone knows is the finest and grandest in the world!"

Without waiting for a question, she continued, "I was walking with Pooja to her home after the last class, when we suddenly heard some girl the next street over randomly shout 'We're finally leaving Ba Sing Se. Worst. City. Ever!' Well, I was tempted to go run over and give her a piece of my mind before telling her not to let the door hit her in the ass on the way out. Sorry for saying that mom," she added guiltily.

"We all have slip-ups," Madhuri tolerantly smiled.

"I wouldn't take it too personally," Tuhina said. "I'm guessing the girl you heard was probably either there as a tourist with her family, or some merchant's daughter who only came to Ba Sing Se because she was forced to, and never got to spend enough time in this vast city to truly appreciate it."

Ashwin nodded. "And if all she got to see of Ba Sing Se was just the Lower Ring, our visitor could well be forgiven for thinking the entire city in general was a filthy, run-down hellhole."

Suddenly though, Rajata wondered if the girl Maalai had heard complain had, at some point, figured out some of Ba Sing Se's quiet, ominous secrets-ones which Rajata herself dared not pry into or examine too deeply as a local woman-that the people walking its streets knew much more than they dared tell-and was now as eager to leave this twisted place behind as a parched frog would be to leap into cool water.

---

Later in the evening, Rajata bid her family goodbye as she slipped out of her house to hook up with both agents for a second "work date." This time, she'd told her parents that she was going to visit a childhood friend of hers, Polivu, and her husband, spend the night at their home until the morning, when Rajata would rejoin her mom and dad at the spice market for work.

As the city streets passed by the carriage she'd hailed, Rajata felt tense as well as thrilled. Part of it was that she very seldom lied to her parents, and now she couldn't help but be worried about being found out, in spite of her best efforts.

But the even bigger reason was that she was going to shadow and walk with Hong on the city streets not just before, but well after curfew. In a Lower Ring district, no less. This was probably not the wisest move she'd ever made.

On the other hand, she would have her own earthbending, a lifetime of experience dealing with similar local hazards, and two Dai Li agents available as safeguards if things got nasty. Those should be more than enough arrows in her quiver, she figured.

Still, Rajata had to admit Guozhi was hardly wrong when, after she'd spied and greeted both agents, he'd lightly shook his head and muttered, "This is like getting ready to take a stroll through a pride of armadillo lions with a garland of raw steaks around each of our necks. Hou-Tu, this is just plain nuts."

Fortunately, the hours between the start of her boyfriend's patrol shift and curfew proved to contain far less drama than Rajata had anticipated. There were a few times when Hong and Guozhi needed to haul away some drunken bum who was causing trouble, approach and question someone who seemed to be up to something, and once Rajata watched from the background as the pair came across several homeless people dozing in a ramshackle shelter they'd cobbled together in an alley-but the group was submissive, polite, and since no contraband or weapons were found by either agent, they were left in peace.

After curfew time came and went, the streets of the Lower Ring and the partnered agents alike took on an entirely new, eerier aspect, with a heightened attitude of danger. At the same time however, the now deserted streets, flooded with opalescent moonlight, were an ethereal, dazzling sight-not to mention romantic.

Always staying in earshot, close enough to rush to each other's aid-or Rajata's-in a matter of seconds, Hong and Guozhi strolled along in tandem, climbed onto roofs, for a time before parting ways, one of the agents often taking to the rooftops while the other stayed down on the streets.

Or they'd take the calculated risk of separating, in order to cover two adjacent areas of the district at once-always keeping an eye and ear on their fellow agent. Rajata of course, always chose to stay close to her boyfriend-but not unduly so.

Sometimes, Rajata would find herself being left behind by Hong for a few minutes at a time. He would gesture or whisper to her to stay put, to stand in a patch of moonlight, or go into an open area where he could easily keep an eye on her. Then he would silently, almost slither on his stone boots around the corner of a house, of a building, into an alley to see who, if anyone, was in there, and what they might be up to.

Or, she'd watch from below as Hong used those stone gloves and boots to climb the outer face of a building, in swatches of shadow if he could, to get a better view, a better position on a sound. Despite the fact that he was twice her size in mass, his movements were as smooth and quiet as those of a stalking mantis-and it made a watching Rajata profoundly grateful at these times that Hong and his partner were her qinglang and friend, respectively, rather than her enemies.

And even then, it was still undeniably a rather sinister sight to watch Hong go about his nocturnal duties, his motions, stance, and expression deliberate, attentive, coolly composed in the same calculating, predatory, dreadful way that birds of prey were likewise composed.

At times, he even suddenly seemed to Rajata less like her paramour and far closer to a human incarnation of one of the black, formless, intangible childhood horrors which had shared her bedchamber and made her quake on her cot in the depths of the night as a little girl, certain that they would come gliding forth when it suited them to claim her. Agent Hong was a fiend, who stalked and brought justice down upon other fiends.

It brought to her mind a traditional Tenjikuan ballad she'd sometimes heard performed as a girl, about a beautiful young maiden who fell in love with a rakshasa-prince-especially the lines pertaining to the maiden's first encounter with the demon-prince in the forest, regarding him with both attraction and fear just after he'd chivalrously charged in and fought off a bunch of irate wild boars which had been about to slash her to pieces.

And he was the demon of her dreams, savagely handsome in his frame and features.

His victorious eyes blazed like those of the tiger, like a steel blade…

He stretched forth his hand to her.

"Will you come along with me, delicate beauty?"

"I cannot," she said fearfully. "The dark forest, its beasts, and your wicked power frighten me!"

"But I shall use that very power to guard you from harm," the ogre-prince said as he gripped her hand and began to lead her away. "You shall come with me."

What else could she do but trust, and go with him?

And like the maiden, Rajata could only trust, and follow.

---

As the night wore on, the stars slowly wheeling above them, both lovers were silently strolling together down yet another moonlit, vacant street while Guozhi had once more left them for a time.

Even though this was very much a time to be focused on surveillance, with Hong ready to whip out his stone-gloved hands from behind his back, or reach with his hands, his feet, for the stone around him at a second's notice, he still tolerantly allowed his girlfriend to walk beside him for a time with her right arm wrapped around his left.

It charmed him, and felt good, comforting. He turned his head slightly as Rajata idly glanced up at a familiar opalescent, pearl-colored streak stretching across the night sky.

"I should talk you into letting me tag along with you on a nighttime patrol shift more often," she said with a grin. "The Silver River, combined with that moon, is especially gorgeous tonight."

Hong's attention was rightfully focused far more on the risky surroundings he was leading her through than celestial lights. Besides, stargazing these days tended to bring Sozin's comet to mind, which he didn't like to think about any more than he had to.

But Hong still tilted his hat back with his free right hand and for several seconds, let himself drink in the beauty of what neither he or Rajata could possibly know was a sideways view of what one group of their genetically close cousins, yet distant in both time and space, called the Andromeda Galaxy.

He decided these empty streets were safe enough at the moment to permit open, if subdued, conversation, and nodded.

"Very much so. But don't your own people have a different name that you usually call it by?"

"Yes, we call it 'The Ganges of The Sky.' Not that I know what the Ganges is, or even if it exists in a physical form," she added with a small, faint smile. She frowned then, looking back up at the stars, arranged in constellations no earthly human would recognize as she softly, contemplatively continued, "My mom though…she has told me since I was a little girl with my hair in pigtails that the Ganges is a real river, that it's holy and sacred-but that we'll never see it until we pass over into the spirit world, because it exists on a far-off planet."

Hong knew just what she was getting at. The Dai Li agent lightly nodded as he said, "So your culture has the same story for where we came from as humans, how we came to live on this world as mine does. That we were all once 'star people,'" he said reflectively as he briefly raised his head again to regard the heavens. "Interesting."

"It can't be a coincidence," Rajata said simply, as, to Hong's mild disappointment, she let her slender arm slide away from his while continuing to stride beside him, the moonlight glistening on her sleek hair and the fabric of her sari.

"In fact, my mom and Grandma Jaanvi both told me that our peoples used to actually be neighbors, Hong, in a way, on that planet, separated from each other by a vast range of white mountains that reached up into the very clouds. Wouldn't those be a spectacular sight to see?"

"They sure would," Hong agreed. "Anyway, my own mother told me similar tales as a boy."

"I figured as much," Rajata replied. "We Tenjikuans believe, at any rate, that all men and women, all plants, all animals, all living things, were once very different from what we are now, that Vishnu created everything in the world in a land of green hills, thick jungles, open grasslands, rushing rivers, that was scorched into dust and stubble at some times of the year, and nearly drowned with pounding rains at others, that was called Bharatham."

Hong reflectively nodded. "And as I'm sure you've heard at some point, our people's-in Ba Sing Se, at any rate-creation myths say that we-by which I mean humans-were created on a different world from yellow mud by the half-woman, half-snake goddess Nixia, a planet so far away from this one that you can't even see a trace of the sun which warms it and gives it life," Hong said. "The land where this happened, that my ancestors (and here he gestured towards himself) are said to have come from on that world was evidently called Zhongguo."

"Interesting. At any rate, one thing that both our cultures agree on is that we're not of this world originally."

"No-until the Scholar-Gods are said to have brought us here, before even the time of the lion-turtles. Some even say that they were the lion-turtles."

Rajata nodded as she looked back up at the starry sky. "They came from the clouds one day, as my mom told it, in huge, metal ships the size of hills that glowed with violet light and were shaped like eggs. Then the Scholar-Gods used their powerful magic to capture hundreds of our people, and thousands of both wild and domesticated creatures, which they took into the bellies of their metal vessels."

"They collected the seeds, fruits, bulbs, and sprouts of many trees, flowers, bushes, and grasses, along with people from all over Zhongguo, and then spent a great span of years bringing them on a journey through the vastness of Heaven to this world," Hong recited, deciding to pick up where his girlfriend had left off, "where the Scholar-Gods, strange in both their form and their habits, treated our ancestors kindly in their fear as captives, and made sure that all their needs were properly met."

"But once they arrived on this world," he went on, "they also subjected us to strange ordeals, used their magic to change our bodies, even our very spirits, to be vastly different from what they once were."

Rajata's lips curved downward in disapproval. "If this origin myth is true-and since both all three nations and the Air Nomads have very similar versions, it must be-the idea that these scholar-gods just went and basically kidnapped our distant ancestors against their will…that strikes me as a pretty jerkish thing to do. They must've had a good reason to do so though. I wonder why?"

"Who can say why gods or spirits are motivated to do anything, Rajata?" Hong shrugged underneath his uniform's flowing robes. "Your guess is as good as mine."

"Still, it's fun to speculate," she ventured. "Think out loud."

"Just don't do it around anybody who asks you to address them as Professor," Hong wryly grinned. "Some of the supposedly mild-mannered academic types at both Ba Sing Se University and in the Dai Li's Curator Division have gotten into fistfights, even full-blown earthbending battles, over differing theories about the motivations of the Scholar-Gods. I've seen it," he told her with a scornful chuckle.

"Hah, that'd be funny as hells to watch!" she smirked. "Thanks for the warning," she grinned. "Anyhow. Maybe they did it," she proposed, "because they recognized that humans are more advanced, more intelligent, capable of understanding, inventing, accomplishing so much more than other animals. And they wanted to make sure that creatures as special as us wouldn't die out-in case something really bad happened to us on our original world, like a disease outbreak-by taking members of our kind to live on other worlds in the universe."

"That would be very sensible thinking," Hong agreed. "Like taking a rare flower and growing it in different gardens and towns, instead of leaving all of them vulnerable to fate, to nature's whims, on the only mountain or island where they naturally grow."

"But there's plenty of other reasons why they might have brought us from the stars too," he pointed out. "One possibility I've heard discussed among the professors and scholars at Ba Sing Se University is that the Scholar-Gods brought us here because they sensed-or could measure- that this world had different, more potent levels of chi and other spiritual energies than the one among the stars that we were first born to," he said, even as he continued to scan and probe the shadows with his emerald gaze.

"Therefore, they brought our ancestors here so that we could reach our greatest spiritual potential-including our ability to become manipulators of the elements, in time. You don't try to make swamp orchids grow in a dry grassland, after all," he smirked.

"But didn't the Four Nations only gain the powers of bending until well after the Scholar-Gods left this world for good? We both know all about the story of Oma, Shu, and the badgermoles…"

"I think bending was more or less a happy accident for our kind," Hong replied, "one that the Scholar-Gods might've suspected, or even hoped would arise among us in time-but we just needed the time, the knowledge, the maturity, the spiritual advancement to be ready to accept it as a race-and of course, the right individuals."

"Like Oma and Shu. Which is why I find it all the more puzzling that the Three Great Tribes of animals were the first to bend an element before humans," Rajata pondered. "I guess I shouldn't though, now that I start thinking about it. I mean, I don't have to tell you that if anything, the Scholar-Gods did even more bizarre things to their ancestors, even going so far as to create entirely new species from them, as the legends say."

"Yeah. And I've also heard in some versions of these legends that the Scholar-Gods were just that, scholars, basically playing the same role among their own people as the professors and philosophers and experts at Ba Sing Se University-and this world we live on was a sort of base for them, acted as something that they informed our ancestors was called a 'research colony.' Whatever in Yama's name that is," Hong deadpanned.

"Well, I figure that means they used this world as a special place, as one meant only for studying, for testing, for learning and discovering information," Rajata surmised.

"That would make a lot of sense," Hong nodded. "Fit right in with an agenda of research."

"Anyhow, the minds, the anmas of animals are so much simpler than ours are too," she knowingly added. "They aren't all cluttered up with constant reflection, and schedules, doubts, always second-guessing, regretting things they did or didn't do."

"They can only understand and live for the moment," Hong agreed. "It makes perfect sense that some of them would be the first to bend an element before us, with that type of mental, spiritual purity and simple wisdom."

"Absolutely. Praise the badgermoles!" Rajata grinned as she tucked her arms against her sides with just her wrists and hands jutting into the air in an imitation of the forelimbs of the vast creatures, holding her hands palms outward before spreading them apart to mimic a typical bending move that they used while tunneling.

Hong couldn't help but smirk under the brim of his hat.

Her face became more serious then. "But back to finishing our conversation. There's another possibility I've heard for why the Scholar-Gods brought us here, one that some people and books practically swear was the 'true' purpose-and I've gotta say, I don't exactly like thinking about this one."

Hong knew exactly which version she was speaking of, and he nodded gravely. "For our own protection. To keep us safe from other members of our own kind that had become arrogant, out of control," he said, thinking uneasily of the Fire Nation. It looked like history was very much repeating itself if the motive attributed to the Scholar-Gods in the version of the myth Rajata was about to summarize was true…

"Yes," she said gravely, looking at him, then the sky with apprehension as she chewed her lower lip. "Both our lands were visited, then invaded, by a strange new people, with pale skins, bringing terrible weapons of iron and steel that made smoke and thunder, used a sort of invisible metal lightning to strike down and kill all those who displeased or resisted them, threatened their interests."

"Their leaders and businessmen, at least, had completely forgotten how to live a harmonious, spiritual life," she went on with a shudder, "or even worse, used a twisted, self-serving version of their own spiritual beliefs, alien ones which they forced on our people, to justify what they were doing to us, to the land of Bharatham, which the greedy strangers called 'India.'"

Hong found himself hissing in anger, and turned his head aside to spit in contempt before giving a brusque nod, his jaw set.

"My people's version says that they called Zhongguo 'China,' prowling the land like ravenous packs of wolves whose hunger could never be satisfied, taking what they pleased as they could, meddling in our affairs and insulting us, believing they knew what was best for our future and society. And they also murdered the soldiers, the generals and admirals, of Zhongguo when they resisted, the myths say," he grimly added.

"If those horrid pale-skinned people truly did exist, with their terrifying weapons," Rajata grimaced, "then I guess the Scholar-Gods actually did us a favor in a way, by getting us far away from them. I wonder if they'd be able to dominate us so easily this time if they showed up with those weapons, now that we have the ability to bend?" she sneered.

"They wouldn't stand a chance," Hong said with smooth confidence. "We'd take a few losses, but we'd still crush them in the end," he said, both of them chuckling at his pun.

"That was a good one," Rajata grinned. "But I think we can both agree that the actual reason the Scholar-Gods brought our ancestors here from the stars so long ago, whether for study or protection, is one that only the spirits still remember now," she concluded. "If they truly were real, my last big question is, what happened to make them go away-14,000 years ago, the legends say-and never return since that time?"

"I couldn't even begin to guess," Hong replied, shaking his head. "If they did bring us here to be studied, as subjects of some experiment, maybe they finally got bored, or obtained the knowledge from observing us that they were seeking at last-and so had no more reason to be interested in us, leaving us to whatever our destiny might be."

"Or maybe," Rajata ventured, "the Scholar-Gods were called away by their own leaders, to abandon working with us for a new, different, more important task. I wonder if it had something to do with why they've never been seen again," she frowned. "A terrible plague of their own, perhaps."

"Or war," Hong found himself saying softly. Then he shook himself in rebuke.

"That's also very possible," Rajata agreed. "But all we can really do is, as I just said, wonder."

"Yeah, just wonder."

He watched as she raised her painted eyes once more to meditatively regard the Ganges of The Sky, as she paced beside him in the light of a different moon, that circled a different planet than the one where a new, tool-using ape had first learned to walk upright and use fire on the plains of Africa-and never earthbent so much as a pebble or lump of broken rock during its species' history there.

Before he could respond, Hong heard his partner's voice smoothly speak from above them, on a rooftop.

"Quite the stimulating discussion you two have been having, from what I've been able to catch of it," he grinned down at them from under his hat as Hong looked up. "It's certainly good to know Agent Hong here has found a girlfriend who can match his intellect-not that that's a difficult task," he smirked.

Hong just rolled his eyes, and mouthed "Fuck you," up at Guozhi.

His patrol partner chuckled.

---

About an hour after their intellectual discussion and pondering of their origins, Rajata's thrilling, danger-tinged, romantic walk with her boyfriend as he performed his surveillance duties was cut short.

Feeling increasingly fatigued, but still gamely plodding along, she was affectionately, lightly holding Hong's hand during another period when Guozhi had peeled away from them, not minding the cool, slick feel of the stone tiles against her own fingers.

Suddenly, nature called, and a minute later, with no other options available, Rajata was squatting on the flagstones next to a stone wall, behind a broken crate, holding up her mocha brown cotton lehenga as Hong both respectfully looked away and stood guard some distance in front of her, right in the middle of the side street they'd been pacing down.

Rajata was just finishing her business when she suddenly heard a series of fast-moving, yet stealthy, footsteps in the still, cool night air, coming out from a side alley, and then charging down the street at them, from directly behind.

She softly gasped and whirled about, letting her pleated skirt fall back down around her legs as she stood to look over the deep wooden box. The next thirty seconds or so were sudden chaos, a flurry of movements, reactions, half-glimpsed shapes.

As Rajata stood and revealed herself, she was briefly confronted by an onrushing figure in the moonlit street, wearing a grotesque, snaggle-toothed, fiendishly grinning mask the same shade of blue as the night sky above, its features accented with white. Clad in black, the assailant was short in stature, but very much lean and athletic-she also got the impression somehow that he was quite young, in his early twenties at most.

He seemed about as startled to see her unexpectedly pop up from behind the crate as she was to lay eyes on him, skidding to a stop in a fraction of a second-once again, Rajata just had an instinctive feeling flash through her mind, that this prowler had been stalking Hong as his intended target, presuming the agent was on his own for the time being. She'd obviously just put a big wrinkle in his plans.

She cried out in alarm of course, as the figure jumped sideways, to the right-but even as Rajata did so, she reached out with her right hand and pulled a good-sized chunk of rock from the street in front of her before sending it flying at the masked stranger with a palm-out thrust of her arm, hoping to deliver a crippling blow to his right hip. But he spun, and dodged it by inches.

"Rajata!" she heard Hong bark behind her, stone suddenly grinding as he immediately broke into a glide with his bending, rushing to her aid.

She then began to reach out with both hands, fingers curved downward, and focused on spreading the ground underneath the guy's feet apart, a sudden sinkhole beginning to form-but she was trumped then by Hong, who'd finally arrived, grabbing her left arm and flinging her smaller form behind him.

The momentum sent her spinning, halfway falling before she caught herself, gaping in shock and confusion as Hong commanded, "Stay back!" his looming frame taut and just moving with the deceptive speed of a charging elephant-mandrill as he sent the tiles of a stone glove's fingers flying off his hand like darts, through the night air, in a well-timed, lethally serious attempt to riddle the upper body of the fleeing fellow nightstalker with the fatal projectiles.

But with the speed of a pygmy puma, the young man in black dropped to the street-so quickly that for an instant she thought her boyfriend truly had scored his hit-rolled like a log as the stone tiles harmlessly dug into the side of a house above him, leapt to his feet, and was then bolting into another side alley.

"Leave this to the experts," Hong snapped at Rajata, holding his hand behind him before he raced after the fleeing figure-it always astonished her how such a well-muscled, massive man as he could move so quickly-but she ignored his order as she ran into the alley behind him, feeling a growing sense of irritation now that he'd felt the need to interfere in a skirmish that she'd been handling perfectly fine.

She was just in time to see the prowler, blue-masked face turned away from them, a dual sword slung across his back in a scabbard, vaulting a medium-height stone wall into somebody's courtyard-right as the second of Hong's stone gloves, formed into a fist, smashed into the vine-covered rocks right below the guy's feet.

For an instant, he stood in sharp relief against the starlight sky, a haunting, solitary figure who didn't even bother to give them a backward glance, even as Rajata leaned around Hong's broader form and pulled at the specific top section of the wall he was standing on, bringing it down into the alley with a grinding crash of stone-but the masked lurker in the shadows once more proved to be quicker, bounding off the shifting rock and into the courtyard below.

And then he was gone.

For a few seconds, Hong stood motionless in front of her, his back turned to her and gaze remaining locked onto where the masked apparition had just been, his right arm still cocked and extended in a fighting posture, the gold cuffs of his drooping sleeves seemed to glow in the moonlight.

She became aware then that the pavement stones under her feet were quivering, a deep, forceful vibration. And it was coming from the direction of where Hong was standing. It was the earthbender equivalent of the snarl produced by a protective dog. The sound too, was also coming from his lips.

As she caught her breath, she heard Guozhi arrive, dropping into the alley behind them from a rooftop as he said, "Are you two mandarin ducks okay? And did I just get a glimpse of who I thought I did?"

Hong whipped around, startled as Rajata saw him reach toward the ground and immediately pull up more stone to form a second pair of stone gloves, flexing his fingers to crack the plates apart into new tiles-but then he relaxed a little as he realized it was just his partner speaking.

"Rajata here is fine," he said, even as he gave her a sour glare from underneath the brim of his hat. He clearly wasn't happy that she'd disobeyed his command to stay where she was. She couldn't help but bristle in response though. "And yes, Gambling Man, it was none other."

"None other than who?" a baffled Rajata asked, glancing between both agents, their hands once more tucked within their sleeves.

"The Blue Spirit, he's called," Guozhi replied levelly. "He's a master cat burglar, who's already gained quite a reputation for himself in this portion of the Lower Ring, even though he's only been operating in this city for less than a month."

Hong slowly nodded. "The reports we have filed in Administration at our headquarters about his thefts and muggings all attest that he's no ordinary bandit-he's silent, works alone, leaves little if any trace of his presence, is cunning and quick-as you just saw for yourself. He's bad news all around-which is why it wasn't very smart of you to follow me into here after I told you to stay back, and let me deal with him as a trained agent," he rebuked, his voice suddenly like a whipcrack in its tone.

"And why it just wasn't a smart idea in general for either of us to agree to let you come along," Guozhi added as he raised an eyebrow at her.

Rajata cringed, but she still stood firm and felt her slight jaw clench as she hissed in exasperation at Hong, "Oh spirits, let's not start with this 'You're a weak, defenseless woman' crap again. Even if this Blue Spirit punk is as dangerous and cunning as you both make him out to be, that still doesn't change the fact that I took him on first-and I had him on the run with my bending even before you jumped in!'

Guozhi stared at her with something close to awe before giving a low, impressed whistle through his front teeth. "You mean to tell me, Rajata, that you had the Blue Spirit himself running scared? Seriously?"

"I sure was," she grinned proudly. "I told you both I can manage on these streets," she lightly shrugged.

Guozhi glanced at Hong for confirmation.

"Okay, you were handling yourself pretty well," her boyfriend reluctantly admitted. "You certainly weren't screaming for help or cowering."

She gave a pleased, validated smile.

But then Hong's broad, tanned features became severe once more as he chided, pointing at her with a stone-sheathed finger, "That doesn't change the fact though, that the outcome of your encounter could easily have gone the other way-and as an untrained civilian, you were almost begging to possibly get caught in the middle by following me into this alley-even though I specifically told you not to, whether you can bend or not!"

Guozhi nodded slowly. "You might not like hearing that, but that's a point well taken."

Rajata slumped slightly. But she was still hot under the collar as she protested, "Okay, maybe you two are right that trying to keep fighting this Blue Spirit guy after you'd shown up to take care of things really wasn't a wise move. But I was only acting as I thought best, all right?"

"Either way, the streets are too dangerous now, with the likes of him running about," Hong spat. "We're both taking you to Polivu's house for real, right now-even if it means we have to leave this district and its people unguarded for a time," he declared, in a tone which made it very clear that there would be no dissenting opinions.

But Rajata had to get one last shot in before conceding.

"Bodyguards for the damsel in distress, huh?" she said sardonically. "And the Blue Spirit's long gone by now, so why in Oma's name are you still so worried and all protective?! Give it a rest, for Vishnu's sake!"

Hong's features flushed with anger as he hurled an answer at her through bared teeth, his voice rising in pitch.

"I'm worried because I love you Rajata, Hou-Tu damn it!"

Time seemed to stop, and the anger, the tension, suddenly drained out from both of them as they stared at each other in the alleyway, the aggression in Hong's face transforming into awe and astonishment at what he'd just said, confessed out loud.

"Finally," Guozhi grunted in satisfaction. "Not even close to how I'd expected it to go, but its finally out in the open."

But Rajata paid him no attention as a warm thrill gushed up within her, her cheeks splitting into the widest of delighted grins.

"Oh Hong," she found herself saying in a touched tone as she stepped up to him. "Do you truly mean that?"

"Yes. I do," he said simply, quietly, nodding twice under his hat as he reached around and stroked her back with a bare hand as she leaned into his chest with a smile, aware of the strength in it.

Even if she'd been putting up a good offense on her own, it was still no less gallant of him to help protect her from a notorious, terrifying criminal in a demon mask. And she knew Guozhi would have done the same.

She still wasn't getting out of being escorted to her friend's home right-this-instant though, and to her disappointment, both Guozhi and Hong also told her that after this, she was never going to be allowed to join them on a patrol shift, in any of the city's rings, ever again. And that was that.

Hearing Hong admit his affection for her out loud though, was more than sufficient consolation.

And the icing on the cake was, just several blocks from Polivu's home, Guozhi and Hong were carefully escorting her along one side of the street-carefully watching for any of their coworkers. A dog began to bark nearby, and the light of a lantern suddenly appeared in the window of the derelict house directly across from them, as a young, but haggard-looking, woman stuck her head out and began shouting at it to be quiet-but she suddenly cut herself short as she saw Rajata and the two Dai Li agents, green almond-shaped eyes widening in shock.

Rajata recognized-and remembered-her right away as Yutong, a former classmate who'd been quite nasty to Rajata when they were girls, snatching her dupatta off her head, saying that her skin reminded her of diarrhea in its color, that her tilakam looked like a gross-ass scab on her forehead, and that her dad was ugly, among other insults which had often made Rajata break into tears.

But now, Rajata just gave her a slow, smug smile as she sidestepped over to Hong and took his hand in her own, looking up into his eyes with affection as she said, fairly loudly, "I just can't tell you enough how wonderful you are, my Shiva!"

He gave a quick, knowing glance in Yutong's directing, a smirk, and then unfolded a cloth-draped arm to give Rajata a sideways hug for a long moment. "We are being so damned petty right now, and I'm just loving it!" he whispered to her.

At her window, Yutong had an expression on her face like she'd just been told she'd ingested poison.

Rajata parted from Hong and gave a smirk over her shoulder as they left her former bully behind.

Rolling with the Dai Li, wish my haters luck, she silently chanted in glee.

---

Zuko hated surprises.

And he'd just had more than his fair share of them-which was especially ironic, considering the strategy he was currently attempting to put into motion for gaining information.

The first major surprise was to discover that the Dai Li agent he'd been stalking had, for spirits knew whatever reason, brought his girlfriend along on patrol with him. The second was that agent's said girlfriend, by some improbable, stupidly funny coincidence, was none other than Rajata, who he'd regularly served tea and snacks to at Pao's-to say nothing of Hong himself.

Last, but by no means least, it turned out that Rajata was also an earthbender, and was no shrinking violet either when it came to using her bending against a threat-because with the way his luck worked, of course she would be.

But as soon as he'd seen Rajata show herself from behind the crate, really-a second person that would interfere, would witness-Zuko had instantly known that the jig was up when it came to baiting this particular member of the Dai Li.

Yet another failure.

But the night was still far from over. His dummy could easily be moved to another district and set up again. There were lots more Dai Li agents on these streets to try goading. And he was patient.

First though, he would rest for a bit, crouching here behind the upswept corner of this apartment building's roof.

Although they were too far away to eavesdrop on, he could still see Hong and his partner flanking Rajata on either side as they moved away, both agents even more alert and watchful now. And from time to time, until the trio was lost from sight, Hong would reach out and touch or stroke her for a few moments as he scanned the rooftops and shadows, in a gesture of both reassurance and possessiveness.

It brought back memories of Mai.

And fire daggers nearly spurted from Zuko's clenched fists as he glared down with bitter envy.

---

Whoo-hoo! Hong said those three words at last to her! Thanks for being the catalyst Zuko, lol.

Although I'm sorry for basically doing an info dump about the Hindu goddess Matangi, there was really no other option for me here.

I hope the "slice-of-life" look at Hong and Guozhi's typical work on the streets wasn't too unduly boring.

As a visit to the Wild Mass Guessing section of the A:TLA page on TV Tropes proves, there are more than a few fan theories-some more serious than others-about just what sort of beings the "humans" are in the show, how they came to exist on the different planet the series takes place on, and what is going on with all the hybrid animals.

As revealed in the conversation between our lovers, my headcanon is that the world of Avatar was originally a planet with a young, developing biosphere of its own, with an atmosphere, continental plates, a water cycle, oceans, and still-primitive plants and simple animals. In time though, it was discovered, colonized, and then used as a research outpost by a spacefaring extraterrestrial race with equally advanced spiritual knowledge.

They sped up the evolution of this planet's biosphere with terraforming technology over thousands of years, and then, when the time was right, introduced various living organisms from earth, roughly in the order that each taxonomic class evolved here-while also freely crossing and genetically altering these species as it suited them. And at some point of course, races of humans from the Arctic, Eastern Asia, Southern Asia, and Mexico were transported and acclimated to this smaller planet before being cut loose.

And yes, the reason this alien race disappeared from the Avatar world is for the simple reason that their spacefaring civilization permanently collapsed-although the reasons why are entirely up to you to decide.

The events of A:TLA, as a result, occur far in our future indeed on this different planet.

Mandarin ducks are viewed as symbols of devotion and marital relationships in Chinese culture.

Next chapter, we go to Lake Laogai again for one of Hong's worst days on the job ever...