Hello and welcome, this story can also be found (and commented on :P) on ao3 under the same pen name!
This story is basically the fic equivalent of those "reblog the money cat to have good luck" posts, I swear. When I started this fic last year, the week I settled on the title, I got the job I wanted (despite thinking I wasn't qualified for it). A few months later, the week I finally finished the first draft, a better position became vacant and I was offered the job the second I mentioned I was interested. Let's see what happens when I finally post this story O.O I'm so ready for a bit of good news!
There Must Have Been a Mistake, I'm Not Qualified for This
Ming nodded at a pair of palace guards making their rounds, perfectly on time according to the pre-decided schedule.
The one she'd had to sign.
She softly hit her head against the wall behind her the moment the guards turned the corner. The muttering going on behind the door to the Fire Lord's chambers a scant meter away was now the only discernable sound in the hallway.
Ming wasn't a fan of the new Fire Lord.
She didn't hate him, Agni forbid. He was a definite improvement from homicidal balls of rage like Ozai, but, well, he wasn't General Iroh. And when it came down to it, that was her main problem with Fire Lord Zuko.
The boy turned monarch had called a stop to the war and didn't abuse any of the palace staff, as far as she could tell, but previous royals notwithstanding, that should have been a given for any decent human being. Sometimes her countrymen forgot that, but she'd seen enough in her three years in royal service to know better.
The General would have done the same as Zuko, had done the same, but he would have been…professional, more strategic, and, let's keep it real, also socially acceptable about it. No shouting matches with advisors, in any case.
So yeah, Ming might have had a tiny problem with the new Fire Lord, insofar as he wasn't his uncle. Which was kinda suboptimal since she'd just been promoted from the position of a lowly prison guard to the head of the Fire Lord's personal royal guard. Like she said: It was far from ideal.
She would just like to know who had thought it was a good idea to make her Fire Lord Zuko's guard, thank you very much. Send them her way, she just wanted to talk.
Leaning more heavily against the wall, Ming said Fuck It All and dragged a shaking hand down her face, setting her helmet askew, while the grumbling from the other side became louder and louder. The boy was at it since this morning when the first messages of the day from other nations had come in.
Grumble grumble, breakfast, grumble grumble, lunch (which had gone back to the kitchen two thirds uneaten, a total waste of perfectly good glazed mussel-salmon), grumble grumble, and still grumbling.
Dinner couldn't come soon enough. It meant shift changes, so someone else would be forced to listen to Fire Lord Zuko thinking up appropriate answers to unreasonable demands for war reparations instead of going to sleep. He hadn't had a reasonable sleep pattern for the last week, as she and the other guards had noticed. An ill-rested Fire Lord was an irritable Fire Lord and they'd had enough of those over the last hundred years. General Iroh would have been a nice change, was all she was saying.
Fine, Ming was biased, and mature enough to admit it. But it was impossible to spend weeks with the Dragon of the West and not see how perfect he'd have been as leader of their nation. He'd been a model prisoner, and she his warden, and the man had still talked to her like a person and not like she was his jailor.
The first time she'd brought him dinner, the general had asked her if she'd like to split it with him when he'd heard her stomach grumble because she'd been running late that day. From there on they went from talking about the necessity of raisins in couscous to philosophical discussions about inner fire and burnouts. (And he always gave her the olive-berries from his plate, because he hated them and she loved them. They were kindred souls, okay?) And if he hadn't been over sixty and, well, in prison, she'd have thrown her vow to never marry over board in a second.
Loathe as she was to say it, the stories he'd told her when he was feeling nostalgic on especially bad days, when the sun hadn't been bright enough to shine through his tiny window, were probably also the reason why she didn't think Fire Lord Zuko was the right Fire Lord. It was hard to hear about a boy getting pecked by turtleducks, or collaborating with pirates, or stealing an ostrich horse of all things, and think, This is our Fire Lord, the ruler of our nation, the guy who calls all the political shots. Yay us, this will work splendidly.
To boil it down, she didn't hate him, the boy surely had his good qualities or General Iroh wouldn't be so fond of him, but the sweet and sometimes downright scary stories he'd told her about his nephew didn't scream COMPETENT FIRE LORD. More like, Beware, here lay a hormonal baby dragon. So if she favored General Iroh, no one could fault her.
Taking a day off, without permission, on the day of the black sun wasn't something she thought would endear her to her bosses. That was more a reason to fire her, especially since her prisoner had escaped, quelle surprise, not press a shiny new uniform into her hands and give her a bunch of people under her jurisdiction. Which was awkward as hell, because being the boss of your own sister-in-law was weird and Lin didn't let her forget it. Family dinners had never been so uncomfortable.
She traced the golden ornaments on the door next to her head, intricate little swirls and roaring dragons carved and painted over with pure gold that felt smooth under the rough pad of her pointer finger. The money this freaking door had cost could have fed her old hometown in the colonies, before they'd moved, for a month.
Steps were drawing closer and Ming turned her head to watch Tetsu salute her with the flame.
"Er," Ming said, "at ease?" Would commanding someone double her age ever stop feeling iffy?
Loosening his stance, Tetsu regarded her with a stoic mine. "I'm here to inform you on behalf of Guard Kaori and Guard Temaki that they were derailed due to a commotion at the harbor and will resume their posts with a delay of thirty minutes."
Ming sighed. So much for escaping before dinner. "Fine, I'll keep watch until they're here, but tell them, if you see any of them before me, that they should take a team with them the next time they decide to go to the one place in the Caldera famous for people stirring up shit."
Tetsu's souring face, half-hidden behind an impressive set of muttonchops and beard, told her how unimpressed he was with her answer. Proper speech wasn't her forte. And now she, of all people, was an authority figure. Good call, whoever had recommended her.
It had been easier to be polite and gracious to General Iroh. The man was a legend and inspired good behavior and worship just with an enigmatic smile. Mister Sourpuss here, in contrast, just inspired her to get her potty-mouth on. She was one of the guys, not some uppity snob. Get over it, man.
As he continued to stare unblinkingly at her, Ming suppressed the urge to fidget. She wasn't a rookie, he was just exceptionally disconcerting with the dead eyes and stilted movements.
"Thanks for the update and now back to your duties," she said, trying for gruff. Once again she'd forgotten which rank he had. The stupid roaster Lin had drawn her for this very reason didn't help shit if she couldn't find the time to memorize it.
Tetsu saluted her and turned on the spot, leaving her without a word.
She was so good with her new underlings, it was creepy.
Too tired to hold up the sarcasm, Ming thumped her head multiple times against the hard surface of the door at her back.
More energetic than she'd intended, apparently.
It was wretched open with a loud screech, the heavy door dragging over the polished floor, and Ming stumbled barely for a second before she caught herself just in time to switch to parade rest and hear the Fire Lord ask her, "Yes?"
The rasp of his voice was more pronounced than the last time she'd heard him speak, probably because he now had a full day of muttering to himself behind him, as the unruly mop of hair free of crown or topknot belied. Most definitely from gripping tuffs of hair dramatically when wracking his brain for something non-offensive to say to demanding Earth Kingdom dignitaries (even if they were only in his head). He looked like a komodo-rhino had sat on him, wrung out and in need of a good ol' nap.
Ming blinked.
Fire Lord Zuko blinked.
And because Ming must have been a really great chap in a previous life, one of the kitchen maids came up from behind her with tonight's dinner tray.
"Um," Ming said, "your dinner is here, my lord."
Fire Lord Zuko blinked once again, slowly, "Oh," and looked from her to the hastily bowing maid, who held the tray in front of her like an offering to Agni himself because she hadn't anticipated to encounter their Nation's ruler in the middle of the hallway.
The very same Fire Lord who stepped up to the girl now shaking in her palace issued slippers and took his dinner right out of her hands, with no fanfare. Just, grabbed it like a ruffian and said, "Eating, right, good idea," to the plate. Only then did he seem to remember that it couldn't answer and snapped his gaze to the girl's downturned head. "Okay, thanks, I mean, great." Heaving the tray higher, he word vomited a bit more. "Thank you, it looks…" It didn't look like anything, it was still covered with a warming pan. "…hot."
The girl nodded, not leveling her gaze up.
Ming felt like she had a front row seat to an Ember Island Players production, and it was as marvelous as all their other plays. (Hey, would you look at that, her sarcasm was back.)
Zuko seemed to remember basic courtesy, since he spared the poor girl from further interaction. "Thank you. You may go, Rian."
The pure shock on the girl's face as her name crossed his lips made Ming almost snicker. Either the Fire Lord had just butchered her name or she hadn't anticipated that he'd know it.
Which, all things considered, would have been normal. Ming didn't know half the place staff, and that was after three years of working, eating and living here, and not traipsing around the globe. Who'd drawn the Fire Lord a name diagram? (And when did he have the time to study it? He could give Ming pointers about time management. On the other hand, Ming liked sleep. A lot. So, rather a hard No to taking notes from him.)
The girl henceforward known as Rian – now that she studied the girl closer, including those adorable double buns on the top of her head, Ming was pretty sure the Fire Lord had gotten her name right – bowed even lower, empty-handed, and hurried away.
Left alone with her new boss, Ming wanted to fidget again because he kept standing there like a salt statue, looking unblinkingly at Rian's retreating back until she wasn't even a speck in the distance.
Readying herself to gently remind him to take dinner in his quarters instead of the hallway – a thing she totally wouldn't have needed to do with General Iroh – Ming coughed. "My lord…"
At the sound of her voice echoing in the now silent hallway, the Fire Lord's head snapped up, his eyes suddenly too big for his face and blurted, "Ash bananas!"
General Iroh had been fantastic at playing nuts. His nephew didn't need to play at it, apparently, he just was.
"I fear that's not the case, today. The cook mentioned smoked sea slugs this morning." Ming had held out hope for some leftovers.
He shook his head, pivoting around while mumbling a list of ingredients, "Ash bananas, Komodo chicken, Komodo rhino, chili," and after a longer pause as he opened the door to his chambers, "purple berries!" like it was some great eureka-moment for him. Then he slipped inside and the door fell shut with another loud screech.
Except for the weird addition of purple berries, that sounded actually pretty tasty. As a curry? Ming would totally dig it. A pity that the creation of this new inventive recipe was probably more a sign of the reigning Fire Lord losing a few marbles than of him demonstrating his interest in cooking.
The mumbling behind closed doors started up again, intersected by shouts about edible stuff that made Ming's mouth water and question her Lord's competence some more, so Ming resumed her vigil at the entrance with a put upon sigh.
By the position of the sun, its slow decline, the days were getting shorter and Ming's chance to go home in daylight slimmer.
Kaori and Temaki took their time, the oldschool guard and the new guy fresh out of the academy learning the ropes. Ming would have liked some extra company, too, because guard duty was most of the time surprisingly boring. That's what she'd liked about General Iroh. Someone to talk to, someone fascinating to learn from. And now she was standing alone in front of the doors to a teenager's bedroom.
She'd eat her words.
As Ming turned to the side to scratch better under her itchy helmet, something whizzed past her ear.
An arrow was sticking out from the wall where a millisecond before her neck had been.
Another whoosh and Ming threw herself to the ground, rolling sideways to spring back up, in time to evade three more arrows. On her feet again, she sent a fire wave outwards, burning all incoming arrows. The time it took her to watch her fire consume the polished wood, her training had set in and her reflexes did the rest.
She was under attack. The Fire Lord was under attack.
Assassins in the heart of the Palace. And right behind the next incoming arrow, she saw someone crouching on the windowsill of the highest window. Sending a short but powerful burst of fire outwards, she got the archer in the shoulder, making him tumble down with a heavy thump.
From her right came clatter, the sound of a hundred little things hitting the ground and she could see in her peripheral vision a quiver and bow lying on the ground. A second attacker went from long-range to short-range weapons because they sure as all hell didn't flee. Blocking in time, she was confronted with someone clad in black with a red festival mask on – the face of Agni, for they tried to be as insulting to His Lordship as they could. She threw her arm out, sending the attempted fireball wide and used their distraction to finally scream a warning.
"Fire Lord under attack! Assassins in the east wing!"
Either her comrades would hear her, wherever someone was patrolling right now, or not, but that wasn't the point. She screamed for the Fire Lord. To set the next step of the protocol in motion – his escape through the hidden tunnel behind the tapestry.
If she could hear him grumbling, he could hear her yelling her lungs out in the face of an attack. The walls weren't that thin for nothing.
A kick from behind caught her in the knee, making her buckle. Two assailants and the one she'd felled started groaning as they came back to themselves.
Three against one didn't look so good for Ming. But she just had to keep them occupied long enough for the Fire Lord to escape. Just long enough for a teenager to scramble through the hidden door and get to safety.
If those fuckheads thought she'd make it easy for them, they were mistaken.
Go after the Fire Lord, she'll do her duty.
Go after a kid, feel her wrath.
That both were one and the same person just fueled her anger.
Fire sais manifested in her hands, nailing one through the foot of the person in front of her and the other slashed backwards as she bent her arm as far as possible to maybe get them in the hip. It didn't work, both danced out of her reach, but now she had enough space to get back on her feet.
Ming tried to figure something out while throwing fireballs in all directions to scatter them and give her more time to think.
She shouldn't have bothered.
Because as one of them made a run for her on the wall, trying to get her from above, the doors to the Fire Lord's chambers were thrown open with a mighty boom, rattling the walls and making the guy up there crash down.
And through those enormous golden doors raced Zuko, his hands swathed in flames, heavy outer robes ripped off and still whipping in the air behind him as he sent bursts of fire at the guy next to him trying to get the jump on him.
Facing them head on, the kid elbowed his would-be-killer in the head, gripping their burning hand and dousing their fire with his own. Instead of the common red, rainbow colors took their entwined fists over, showing clearly who had the upper hand here.
On her own opponent's next strike, they were pushed back by the Fire Lord's fist striking them from the side as his previous attacker lay on the ground, out cold. Flame-wreathed fingers skimmed his current enemy's shoulder from his left. There was a whole damn rainbow in the boy's fire now, succulent whites bleeding into pink and green, so what the heck had Ming signed up for, here? (Fact was, she hadn't signed up for anything herself, as she liked to remind anyone who spent even five minutes in her presence.) No time for owlishly blinking, because she had to duck low to escape a sweeping kick from the third assassin.
Her focus was pulled away from him by Zuko's sudden scream as his attacker got a good hit in, flames eating up the Fire Lord's right sleeve.
He only came back angrier, more determined, as in one single move, he put out the fire on his person and the fire whip his opponent had just created. Pressing on, he walked the guy – Ming was sure it must be one, now that she was closer – backwards until he hit the opposite wall, cornering him there, a fire dagger at his throat.
"Who are you? Who sent you?" Zuko snarled into the masked face looking up at him while his own was illuminated by his own fire, his burn horrific and fear-inducing.
A wheeze tore out of the assailant's throat, squished by Zuko's forearm, followed by a low chuckle that sent shivers down Ming's spine.
"Long live the Phoenix King. Death to the usurper." The voice was muffled by the mask, but deep and gravelly before its owner ended his proclamation with a crunch.
Ming didn't know what she'd heard, same as Zuko, who started shaking the man, until foam dripped from under the wooden mask, staining the dark material of his shirt while the man gurgled and convulsed.
As if burned, the Fire Lord flinched and drew back his hands. The man dropped like a sack of rice to the ground, his limbs shaking uncontrollably. Zuko knelt and ripped the guy's mask off and Ming could finally glimpse his profile. A man in his late fifties, his face non-descript insofar as he looked like everyone's dad, but his brown eyes were wide open and his mouth twisted as blood-tinged foam dripped from his lips.
"What– What should I–" the kid stuttered and his hands flittered uselessly up and down the man's shuddering body without touching it. His eyes snapped to Ming, a deer-bunny in headlights, begging her to tell him how to help the assassin who'd just tried to kill him.
Ming's heart skipped a beat. What was she supposed to say to the kid on the throne asking for guidance from her of all people?
What would General Iroh do?
She tried to soften her voice as much as possible for the blow. "Nothing, my lord. Poison. He must have had hardened poison stored in one of his molars. It's a widely known tactic to escape interrogation by enemy's hands." The coward's way out. She swallowed the last thought and stood at attention for her Lord, who kept on searching the dying man's face for a hint how to help him.
Before he could, undoubtedly unsuccessfully, scream for a healer, the man convulsed for the last time and spit a glob of foam right at the Fire Lord's shoulder.
After the man lay still, and Zuko ran a hand down his own drawn face, shielding his eyes from her, Ming remembered with a start the third assassin. Whipping around to search for them, she came up short. No third member of the group in sight. They must have scampered after the other two were down. Someone had to report the failed attempt to their ring leader, the mastermind. Ming hoped they would come to regret having been the last one standing.
A rattling sigh made her turn back to the Fire Lord.
Zuko was in the process of dragging his hand from his eyes to the pointed end of his chin, letting the hand fall almost lifelessly.
The danger was over and there was a corpse. Ming hadn't imagined her first week on the job like this, but the young man leading a nation famous for loyalty and bloodshed might have. Sunshine and roses wasn't on the cards for new rulers. Ming suddenly felt naïve and, honestly, mean and dumb.
"You should have taken the escape tunnel, my lord," she heard herself say, three feet away and above her kneeling charge. "Your survival is of utmost importance for the nation."
At last, he looked up at her, weary and confused, "You were out here, alone."
He said it so lapidary, like there was no other option, like he hadn't shot fifty points of the protocol to the wind and kicked a thousand expectations in the butt.
His eyes studied her, a questioning tilt to his brow and pink foamy spit still running down his sleeve.
The thing was, she was sure General Iroh would have taken the escape route. He had been kind enough to warn her to go on leave on the day of the black sun, but if she'd stayed, he'd have flattened her, barreled her over, with minimal damage though, but he'd still left her to fight whoever came next to free their prisoners, alone. People who didn't know she was only doing her duty. He was a general, a man of war, of politics, and a prince. He would have followed the protocol, in part because of his duty and strategic thinking, in part because he knew she was capable of doing her job properly.
Fire Lord Zuko, on the other hand, did know shit about her, and despite having the highest position their country had to offer, he obviously hadn't even thought, not for a second, about fleeing; just barged into the fight because there was one happening and she was facing that on her own. He had been aware there was a secret tunnel, it was standard information for royalty and their guards, but for all his titles, it didn't even cross his mind. The boy before her had jumped in front of lightning for that waterbender friend of his, the news had been all over the Caldera, and fuck it all, the kid would have done the same for her right now, for a guard he'd met seven days ago.
The sound of a dozen pairs of feet thundered down the hallway, drawn swords rattling and fire crackling. The cavalry had arrived, ten minutes too late to keep Ming sane.
She sighed as she watched Fire Lord Zuko stand up to get back into regal posturing so he wouldn't frighten his incoming guards unduly. Her lips quirked up. Well, there went her resolve to quit.
The boy had the self-preservation skills of a lemming-mouse. He needed someone looking out for him, and with neither his uncle nor friends around, that thankless job now fell to her.
She guessed she finally knew who'd volunteered her for the job.
Damn you, General Iroh, with all due respect.
