Chapter 16
Hello all! It's good to be back. Since I haven't posted in a while…here are five chapters!
Disclaimer: This chapter and the rest of this fanfiction portray drug and alcohol use. If this will disturb you, do not read further.
By the time Temurin finally finds them, his coat is soaked through with sleet and not even the lively chatter of the Red House bar can permeate his dark cloud. The lighting inside is a soft orange-red, and at first Temurin doesn't see them.
And then he does. Curled up together in a single armchair, Kana and Altan are surrounded by empty glasses of what looks to be rice wine. Her hair is down and her entire face is flushed red, either from the light or from the alcohol. Somehow it just makes her look more potent and fiery than ever. As Temurin approaches, Altan laughs, and tilts his head back to kiss her. She sinks into him in a way that would be indecent in any other setting.
Storming past all the other drunken patrons, Temurin stops before the couple. They don't notice.
"Nekana. Where is my wagon?" Temurin demands.
Slowly, as if emerging from underwater, Nekana pulls away. Of the two of them, she appears more conscious, but also more shameless. When Altan sees Temurin, he laughs hopelessly before grabbing a pillow and hiding his face. Nekana nonchalantly stares at Temurin with half-lidded golden eyes. He simmers with impatience.
"My wagon. Nekana, what did you do with it?"
"Relax, Temurin, have a drink," Nekana says, each word clearly and deliberately enunciated. "There's one…somewhere."
Temurin crouches down and grabs both of her upper arms, shaking her slightly. "Where. Is. It."
"Hands off, peasant," Nekana drawls, voice somehow still dangerous. "I concluded our business. Here." She reaches for her foot and finds that she's barefoot. "Oh," she says, confused for the first time. But then she leans over, plucks her Fire Nation boot off the floor, and fishes out a bag of money.
"Here," she says, throwing it at Temurin just like she threw the scarf this morning. He catches it. Assuming it's gold, it appears to be roughly the right weight to pay for his remaining stash of yapian.
"You should be thanking me," Nekana says, leaning back into the armchair. She takes another drink of foul-smelling liquor. "I did your job for you."
Still underneath the pillow, Altan giggles. "Your job! But she's not a doctor!"
"You should have waited for me," Temurin spits. "You can't just...I thought—"
"You thought what?" says Nekana, sitting back up and looking ready for a fight. "What did you think, Temurin?" She reeks of rice wine.
"So while I was out there trying to save my nephew, you and Altan decided to take my possessions, sell them, and get drunk on the profits," Temurin hisses. "And you think I should thank you? Do care about what happened to Jirou at all? Do you have any sense of what is…is…" He sputters. "Appropriate?"
"What are you really angry about, Temurin?" Nekana whispers. She rests her elbows on her knees so her face is level with Temurin's, just a few inches away. "What's really...agitating you?" She runs a teasing finger down his cheek and jawline. Temurin jerks back like he's been scalded.
"You're drunk," he says, pushing her hand away. "Both of you are."
"But isn't the haze magnificent?" Nekana says dreamily. "I don't know why I didn't try this ages ago…all the voices are gone…"
Temurin's face is still burning from her touch, and maybe it's that that causes him to lash out even though she's just a drunk little girl.
"You're insane, Nekana," he says, standing. "You're mad. And I don't know why you're fleeing the Fire Nation, but I bet it's because no one wants you there. Because you pull completely unfeeling, inappropriate bullshit like this."
Her eyes flare, and she tries and fails to stand. "You have your money," she shouts from the couch. "Now leave us alone."
Temurin nearly bowls someone over as he flees the hot, overcrowded red room, the sack of gold clutched in his hand. Damn her.
Temurin's dark coat blurs out of view and Azula tosses her glass aside. It shatters noisily on the floor, but Altan barely stirs. When she pushes the pillow off his face she finds he's sound asleep, mouth open and snoring like a baby. Such a pretty baby. Azula slides to the floor and then uses the back of the couch to pull herself to her feet. This sensation is new and completely wonderful. She's completely free from herself, she can do anything, be anyone, free for once from the voices in her head! This is the new start she was looking for the whole time.
Smoke curls around the corners of her vision as she staggers away from Altan, drawn by a sweet smell.
"You all right?" someone asks her. But she merely fixes them with her quelling gaze and they step aside. Peasants, all of them. She wonders if Zuko has ever been drunk. Or Mai. Why didn't they drink together?
A doorway outside the bar and across the hall is floating in a magical, flowery mist. She heads towards it, and when she pushes aside the cloth flap at the entrance, she coughs on the smoke. People are lying on the ground, strange pipes in their hands, and before she knows it she's joined them and is breathing in the sweet, undiluted scent of peace and an unclouded conscience.
But even as her mind soars away, she can't forget Temurin's face as he yanked himself back, or the line of his shoulders as he swam away…
Zhao Zhilong was twelve when she broke her nose and earned the moniker "Crooked Zhao." Over the years various stories sprang up around how she broke it. Some said her nose snapped while scuffling with a childhood friend, others said it was crushed by the butt of a Fire Nation spear, while others said, no, she broke it trying to tame a wild boar-squirrel. Zhao merely smiles pleasantly when she hears these rumors. The truth is she broke her nose because she was a coward. Because when the Fire Nation attacked her Earth Kingdom town she didn't stand and fight alongside her father, the village headsman. She ran away.
Blinded by tears of shame and terror, Zhao's foot had suddenly tangled with something sharp yet brittle. She fell to the dirt. Her nose crunched. When she flipped to her back, nose streaming with blood, she realized her foot was caught in the ribcage of a charred, blackened corpse. She ran.
In her neat study in Taiyang, Crooked Zhao idly runs her finger over the sharp curve of her twisted nose. It's become a habit of hers in the four decades since she earned her name. A knock on the door startles her out of her reverie.
"Come in." It's about time. Zhao straightens and adjusts the gold filigree netting pinned to her grey bun.
One of her aides enters. "This week's financial and political report," the girl says, laying a scroll on her desk. "And detailed news on the riots in Bahasa, as you requested." The aide presents a news bulletin with a handwritten note attached.
"Thank you, Lihua," Zhao says. The girl bows deeply in traditional Earth Kingdom style, as Zhao insists all her employees do, and exits the room. The door slides shut with a snap.
Zhao rolls out the scroll eagerly and smooths out the fine paper from top to bottom with an obsidian weight. Even in her haste, she is careful not to wrinkle the paper or damage the message. Zhao reads every ink character carefully. Profits are up in Yu Dao, of course; Fire Nation and former colonials alike turn to yapian when rocked by the uncertainty of Yu Dao's new independence. Taiyang, New Azulon, Bahasa…yapian is selling like never before. Even as the Firelord use the guise of independence to tightens his grip on the Colonies, more and more people slip through his fingers and fall in Zhao's outstretched hands. Yapian is both gold and power.
The candlelight flickers and Zhao opens the news clipping on Bahasa. The populace is finally rising up against the Fire Nation Mayor in favor of the true King in Ba Sing Se. Predictably, the bulletin makes no mention of the three lives extinguished when the Colonial peacekeepers broke up the peaceful protest. Zhao scowls. Classic Fire Nation revisionism.
Finally, Zhao turns to what she's saved for last. Mila is sure to have an update on their Earth Kingdom allies. After the disaster at New Azulon, Zhao feared that her alliance with General Xia would go up in smoke. She winces as she thinks of the lives wasted there, and of the poor planning that, according to Temurin's last letter, almost resulted in her allies killing the doctor. But instead of dissolving their partnership, the Earth Kingdom general doubled down; despite their mysterious losses in New Azulon, the incident did succeed in making the Fire Nation look weak. Zhao holds Mila's report from Bahasa close to the candle. She is so accustomed to their code she translates as she reads.
The rest of Xia's troops have successfully crossed the Broken Plains. By the time this hawk arrives, Bahasa may already be ours.
Temurin arrived with your shipment of yapian and his firebending bodyguard I encountered on the road. His nephew, Jirou, was captured by the Colonial government, but a few pounds of yapian smoothed the way to his freedom. The boy is passionate for our cause. He could be of great use to us once Bahasa is won. I will write when the Earth Kingdom flag hangs once more on the outer wall of the city.
In the name of the King,
M
Zhao looks at the pre-war map framed on the wall. On the hundred-year-old paper, the entire continent of the Earth Kingdom is tinged with faded green ink. In the Fire Nation Palace and in the classrooms of young children, Zhao knows that Fire Nation maps stain the entire Western Shore of the Earth Kingdom a bloody, proprietary red. Tonight in this Colonial city someone makes a new map. A pair of hands smooth out a new sheet of rice paper and carefully trace the shape of the continent; they dip a wide brush into grey ink and paint the former Colonies grey instead of red or their rightful green. Grey. A dull color for independence. But appropriate for a puppet state.
Zhao will do whatever she can to ensure that new map is never hung. She will do anything to make these sacred lands return to green.
Azula awakens in a verdant meadow. She lays on soft dirt, surrounded by impossibly large and vibrant flowers whose stalks brush her face as they sway in the breeze. A pale purple sky soars above her, teeming with strange creatures that wind their way in and out of the filmy clouds. For a second Azula thinks she sees a dragon but the serpentine figure quickly pops of existence. Where is she?
Azula stands quickly. Her Fire Nation armor clinks familiarly. For the first time Azula realizes than her armor is much heavier than her new Colonial attire. Here in this garden paradise the metal feels like overkill. But then again the peaceful places are the most dangerous. This is not the Fire Nation. The petals all around her shiver as another breeze ripples through the flowery meadow. She recognizes bright red fire lilies, orange-and-white dragonflowers, and clustered to her right—
"Panda lilies," says a young voice. "They only grow along the rim of volcanoes."
Azula turns slowly, ready to attack. But it's only Zuko, a young Zuko like the one she met on the road in New Azulon. Once again his face is unscarred and smooth. He wears the tunic of a Fire Nation Prince with the knife Iroh gave him at his waist.
"Where am I?" Azula demands. "Why are you back?"
"Welcome to the Spirit World, Azula," the boy smiles. "It's good to see you again."
The Spirit World. Azula knows she should be afraid—she knows when she's out of her league—but all she can feel is relief. Either the Spirit World is real or she's descended into new elaborate depths of insanity. Azula examines a panda-lily carefully. It's perfect, down to the stripes and the orange dots of pollen in the center. This world is too detailed, too vivid for it to be a hallucination; she feels none of the panic that usually accompanies her visions of her parents. The Spirit World is real. Which means Azula isn't completely crazy.
"Are you really Zuko?" Azula asks the spirit suspiciously. "I've never heard of encountering someone's spirit while that person is still alive." A horrible thought strikes her. "Zuko is alive, isn't he?"
The boy laughs. "Perceptive as always, Azula. Yes, Zuko is alive in the physical realm. But I'm also Zuko."
"That doesn't make any sense," Azula scowls.
"I'm here because I need to tell you something," the spirit says, ignoring her. "Azula, before we were born the Fire Sages prophesied that combining Avatar Roku's bloodline with Sozin's line would result in the birth of a powerful firebender. One who would ensure the Imperial Family's rule for generations. And you—"
"Stop," Azula cuts Zuko off. What is this? Are the spirits themselves trying to tempt her back to the Fire Nation? Turn her against Zuko? Because it's obvious that the 'powerful firebender' is herself. The Spirit World is full of tricksters. This is probably a test.
"The powerful firebender. It's Zuko, isn't it? It's you." Before Azula says it she doesn't believe it, but once she hears the words aloud they seem to ring true in this beautiful empty place.
"Zuko fulfils the prophecy. He fought me. He defeated our father. And he's not only the Fire Lord, he's completely reshaping the world." She smiles and crosses her arms, certain she's beaten the spirit at his own game.
The boy Zuko looks surprised.
"You don't give yourself enough credit, Azula," he finally says. "You've changed more than you realize."
"Was I right?"
"No," Zuko says. "The prophecy refers to both of us. The Fire Nation cannot survive unless we work together and heal the wounds our ancestors inflicted."
Azula's stomach turns. Images flash through her mind: the screaming as Fire Nation troops entered Ba Sing Se. The burnt bones of bandits in New Azulon scattered across the city street as if someone dropped a box of matches. Her own half-brother Akira dead with one strike of her lightning and Zuko's blank face as he stared at the body. No, Azula is no healer. Temurin is the healer. Fixing people requires steady hands and a sound mind and more kindness than she is capable of. This prophecy cannot be her destiny.
"Why won't you just let me go?" Azula says wearily. "Stop asking me to come back, Zuko! I've rejected my birthright. I'm trying to start a new life."
"Azula, you're my sister," Zuko says. "I will always ask you to come back." His child's face twists with an odd expression. "Have faith, Azula. You will not be forgotten in the Colonies forever. Your destiny and your redemption still await."
"My redemption," Azula sneers. A huge gust of wind blows through the meadow and reveals the white undersides of the petals. Her hair blows wildly in the steadily roaring wind.
"You know what's right, Azula!" says Zuko. "You may not always have known, but you know now." His form flickers like he's a candle flame quivering in the spirit wind.
"It's hard for me to stay here," he says. "We'll talk later."
"No!" Azula yells over the gale. "You still haven't told me anything useful!"
But before the spirit can answer he is swept away in a whirl of petals and air. Azula braces her feet, but the wind is too strong. Not even her armor can weigh her down. As she flies away, back to a world of armies and treachery and yapian, Azula thinks she sees Ty Lee tumbling through the meadow. But maybe it's her imagination.
