Fai Lan poured tea out for his benevolent and generous employer before sitting back down at his desk.
"How have things been lately?" The prince took the cup and drank without hesitation. Half a show of trust and half a show of power. He'd poisoned the cup before as a test, but the master in front of him simply shrugged it off without so much as a grimace. And by then it was a waste to serve him the good tea since the cup was more a courtesy than anything.
"Calm, but not quiet," Fai Lan said. "There have been stirrings lately, rumors of a coup."
The prince smirked, his face was in full view and open to the close scrutiny of everyone who deemed it worth a second look past the grime and dirt. Children entering his office was not a cause for concern for the watchful eyes around him, of enemies and allies alike to the Burning Ember Gang. Fai Lan welcomed anyone who wished to enter the fold provided they proved their loyalty, but with the air so charged with tension lately, it could just as easily prove his people's down fall if the prince's less than reputable deeds came to light.
"It was bound to happen," the prince said. "I'm more surprised it took so long. Did anyone get hurt on your side?"
Fai Lan shook his head. "The information came to us freely from one of the servants at the Five Treasure Restaurant."
It only took half a year for anything substantial to come out from the bait they'd laid. Seizing the lands around the capital made a big enough commotion that spreading a rumor of this as inevitable with the other territories was like setting an ember to long-dry fields.
"As long as no one gets hurt, then there's no need to change anything." The prince set the empty cup on the table. "You don't need to look too deep into who these people are either, they'll have to show their faces in the palace sooner or later anyway if they really want to challenge uncle to an Agni Kai."
"How are you so sure they won't cause any trouble?" Fai Lan could believe in the prince's confidence at hiding in plain sight, but nobles playing their pai-sho with people's lives never sat well for those on the board. And this was the first time his people had ever done a riskier job than simply telling on fencing shop keeps and corrupt guards.
The least the prince could do was be forthcoming with the people dancing in the spider-wasp nest for him.
"Because anyone who'd want to depose the royal family at this point would only fall under a few categories." He held up three fingers. "People who want to continue the war. People who hate the other nations coming in. And nobles who don't understand that 'never having to work a day in your life anymore' can be both a promotion and a threat." The prince frowned, then raised a fourth finger. "I could be wrong though, and there could be those I so far haven't thought of, and if there is then it's not showing up in the reports I'm getting.
"But the biggest assurance I have is that you haven't reported anything about any dissatisfaction from the people. I'm more worried of mothers complaining about not having enough to eat or fathers having to venture further out to sea for more fish. Or of people dying on the streets."
"We've had a lot less of those, yes." The prince saw a man dead in the street when he first visited their humble slums after the war had ended. Fai Lan, however, had seen him before riding on the palanquins from afar, but three years ago was when the boy had first properly set foot in his world.
They'd lost less people since then to both the guards and other gangs ever since the prince took them in, but they lost people anyway to the further territories, to the far-flung farms and factories and promises of an upstanding life. It was good for those who didn't have anything or anyone to leave behind, for the able-bodied and old enough. The orphanages could only hold so many people, and not everyone was cut-out for the straight and narrow.
"That's why I have you guys as part of my payroll," the prince continued. "You guys are my eyes and ears and help me see what I can't from the fancy palace and the dusty papers."
Fancy and honeyed words from someone who could pay so much more. But it was better than threats and thankless work. Fai Lan poured himself a steaming cup of tea. The prince loved his tricks, and heating tea without touching it was just another of his many ways of flaunting his power.
"Then why wait for them to come to you? You can no doubt hunt them down with the power you have, no?" Walking around with a sack over his head was not Fai Lan's idea of a pleasant journey. The more he knew of the prince's plans then the better he could navigate his people around anything too dangerous.
"Because they don't have a choice." The prince smiled. "They need the legitimacy of the Crown, whether properly won through duel or conquest if they really want to get the people to follow them. And since I've seized the lands among the caldera and control the trade routes, then anyone amassing wealth for an army would end up too obvious on the ledgers.
"And thus that leaves victory by Agni Kai as their only choice. And besides, letting them gather strength is also a test, part of it to see how many truly oppose the decisions I've helped make so far, and part of it to see just how far they're willing to go with this." The prince stretched his back in his seat. "There will always be Chin or a Sozin who's not satisfied and will find a reason no matter how obscure, that they know or deserve more than anyone else. And frankly, the greater good is not really a place but more an endless journey anyway, and stamping dissidents down is just part of that path."
This talk of the greater good was the same thing that stayed the boy's hand when Fai Lan made the mistake of crossing a line he never should have even looked at. The greater good was why so many of his people had been whisked away by those great metal beasts in the sky to live scattered amongst the other islands, and it was also the same why that a royal had started paying a gang to commit less crimes with coin and threats.
A royal that could have easily killed them all and made it so nothing ever happened.
"I pity the fools then," Fai Lan said. Theft and robbery at their worst merited imprisonment, but now it was a one-way sentence to the farms and a new life for anyone caught by the guards, whether they liked it or not. He doubted the same fate awaited those guilty of conspiracy against the Crown.
"And besides, the more there are of you and yours just means I'm not doing a good enough job of making sure you guys won't need to do this."
Fai Lan shook his head. Had that been anyone else it would have been a cold-blooded threat, but all he heard was someone simply trying his best. And it was his job to talk of the things the guards couldn't, among other things.
"The brothels at the north district have started making their people take these herbs, they feel safer using them more since there are healers nearby."
The prince took out a piece of paper and pencil, writing something down. "How bad are they?"
"They're for numbing sensation, but if someone takes too much then they might fall into a deep sleep and waste away."
"Do you know if any of them want to find other work?"
Fai Lan had eventually learned to ask ahead of what his employer usually needed. "We know of at least five, but the others all prefer to stay. Not all of them gave their reasons."
Because every person had a right to their own story, even if that meant that things weren't always on what was seen as right or proper. Life was neither good or evil, it simply was.
They further discussed the matters on some of the guards taking bribes to better protect some houses and streets, of allowed targets for thievery, of the aftermath of the typhoons on the slums. They also talked about how Gong had been having difficulty rooting out the corruption in her ranks, and how some of the guards had been more liberal with their use of force no matter who. They talked about the new members of his gang, the water and earth benders who found themselves out of place and unwanted.
And then they talked about simple nothings, about how Yare had found someone she thought she could eventually marry, about Zaimo and his adopting a kid named Hak for a son, about Hilu and his disgusting obsession with seaweed and of better lighter things.
They'd run out of tea sometime between the stories, and the prince finally stood up.
"Well then, it's about time I go." He held up the head-sized sack of gold that was in his lap with one hand and set it on the table.
The wood creaked from the weight.
"I'll be back again sometime though I'm not really sure when. Just know that I appreciate the efforts of you and your team and please continue your good work."
Fai Lan dragged the sack over, calling forth strength from his sea of Chi just to do even half of what the boy had so casually done. His master, if the boy could even be called that, had beaten into him the importance of strength and conviction if he truly wanted to protect his people. Opening some of his Chakras was just a happy consequence to that.
Then he saw the label on the sack.
"And for the last time, stop calling it the Beggar Sect," Fai Lan said to empty air.