A. N. : I grew curious about Phat (Piandao's butler) while writing my Big Fic, and I guess this is the result. This story here takes place about 30 years before AtlA. I think that's about it, hope you enjoy ! (While loosely related to my long-running fic A viper-lizard's tales, this text can perfectly stand on its own.)
When Phat steps outside, the first thing he notices is how humid it is.
The second is that it's hot.
Phat is used to heat – the searing kind that dries up the battlefield and scorches the earth, the fire that protects as it takes lives, and smothers the men in their armors. Fire and heat all around him, in his lungs, everywhere. Fire and heat from his companions, too, comfort in the middle of a hostile place, laughs and slaps on the back and Weng's cooking – the Weng from Phat's last regiment, not the one from the first who was as much of a bitter old man as Weng number two was a joyful young cook. Both shared the same fate no matter the differences, and Phat is here now.
Mainland is awfully humid, but the heat is welcome. Makes Phat feel at home, even if he never stepped a single foot here before.
As much as Phat ever felt at home somewhere before, at the very least.
Or not quite. Weng number two had his mother's eyes, Lee had the thick accent from the backwater village he came from, the not quite right Rs and Us that would've had him sent to the frontlines even if his blood somehow didn't. Satsuma despised her father, lots of them did their own, really. Phat didn't, still doesn't, but he understood those that did, and as the oldest of them all, he simply looked after the others and found in them the home he never quite had anywhere else. They all did.
He asks around in the port, learns he needs to take another ship for the island he is looking for, at the city down south. One particularly insistent woman tries to have him buy an ostrich-horse for the journey, but he is comfortable walking.
His current baggage is much lighter than what he is used to, even if the heat makes it seem heavier than it really is.
It's a one day travel from one city to the other by foot, and leaving at the time he does has him camping outside for the night.
It's fine, except it's somewhat cold.
Phat never used to be cold. It was dad's pride and mom's joy, at least until he told them of his decision. Then they were a lot less enthusiastic about it. Mom still asked him to help with the cooking, and dad still liked to talk with the other farmers and brag a little, but there was always this unease behind it all.
Leaving was his choice. No one had to come to the village, no letter was sent to his parents. Conscription didn't exist back then. Phat wanted to belong, even at the cost of making mom cry. He never went back, didn't want to at first, and then mom passed away and dad remarried a fine Fire Nation colonial and had some other children, the way he was always supposed to before he met mom and started courting her, and Phat simply didn't want to intrude.
Here, during the day, Phat almost forgot about the cold. Sleep doesn't come easy, doesn't stay long either, and he leaves the moment dawn allows him to see the road.
Now that he's seen the sea, even crossed it once, he can safely say he doesn't understand the appeal. Reaching the mainland was hellish the first day, and only slightly better afterwards. The ferry to Shu Jing is smaller than the other ship, and he quickly learns it means more movement and an even worse travel experience.
He never would've survived the navy. Then again, his kind usually aren't allowed anywhere other than the frontlines. He's heard of the rare War Hero who made it to officer, but never very high, and never very long.
Command likes giving away posthumous medals for heroic acts on the other hand. Or non-posthumous ones for the people who are forced to retire and served longer than was ever expected.
Medals don't feed a man. Don't keep him warm, or give him work.
Phat asks for directions to a weapons merchant who looks at him with something like pity, or maybe arrogance. It's sometimes hard to say. The apprentice snickers from the aisle he's standing in.
It's a pretty place, this city. Reminds him of his hometown a little, in how green it is. Much more mountainous, though, with rocks black as soot that he had never seen before setting foot on that first island. But he's walked for longer on worse terrains, with a heavier bag, and isn't even sweating when he reaches the manor.
He knocks. Waits.
The wait is worse than anything, he's learned. Wait for the order to attack, wait for the medic to come while holding Lee's hand and promising that everything will be alright he swears, Lee is young, he'll make it. Wait for Satsuma to stop crying when he doesn't, and she finds herself widowed without even the papers to claim the annuity Fire Nation colonials get.
Wait for the earth to stop shaking and the sky to stop raining rocks as he kills and kills earthbenders and soldiers who could be his cousins for all he knows, over and over until he falls, until he thinks the time has finally come for him. Wait for help to come when it hasn't and he can't move anymore even so, and he can't hear any of the others around him. There's only the smell of burned grease and blood and death. Only silence, and waiting, and cold.
The door opens before the more painful part invades his mind, and he focuses all of his attention in front of him. The man – late thirties, lean and tall, holds himself inconspicuously to an untrained eye but clearly ready to fight back if necessary – introduces himself as Master Piandao, and Phat thinks this isn't right. That the Master would be at least ten years younger than him, he can accept. Talent doesn't wait.
But the Master opened the door himself. Surely he has servants around the house, right ? A house this large, and a man this prestigious…
Maybe the prestige is the cause.
It sounds like it, listening to the Master's guesses about what brings Phat to his door, tired and almost disappointed, and not entirely wrong.
Phat walked all over the Earth Kingdom, and only reached Shu Jing in order to learn from the Master. He has, however, never held a sword in his life, he doesn't say.
Instead he mentally counts how much money he has with him, how much he could sell his medals, how long he can stay here before running out and needing to find whatever work he can do. He leaves the manor with the intention of coming back tomorrow, and the day after, over and over until the Master gives him a chance.
The owner of the cheapest hotel he finds gives him a look he's only seen from newly arrived Fire Nation folks, and higher-ups. He wonders for a second if all colonials get the same treatment here, or if something betrayed him, before deciding it doesn't matter.
Night falls. Phat lies on the floor, next to his bed.
When he woke up at that time, he was almost disappointed. Being alive was –
He had hoped, for a second, that he would see Weng or Satsuma on the bed next to his. But he knew the truth the moment he opened his eyes, and he was cold.
Minimal injuries for what he went through, and a miraculous survival. Proof by fire, and the dozens of dead soldiers around him when he was found, of the superiority of his blood over pure Earth. Medals. Take them and say nothing, act as if their words about humbleness and talent mean anything other than the truth of Phat's survival and the others' deaths.
The medic who examined him, who talked to a superior and got Phat retired, who had odd flames that didn't burn, instead seeped into Phat's skin and body until they found the cold in his stomach – that man had looked at Phat with something that looked almost like envy when he gave his diagnostic.
That was the basis for retirement. That, and the heroic acts.
Phat woke up in that bed, alone and cold, and he was left without a purpose. Going home was impossible. Home, whatever form it had taken for him over the years of his life, didn't exist anymore. Others, conscripts, have jobs to fall back onto when they leave the army, even if everything else is gone. He has nothing of the like.
All he's ever known is fighting.
Fighting for his existence, for the right to bear the name mom gave him, for the recognition of a Nation that never really wanted him. Fighting against colonial teachers and Fire officers and Earth soldiers. Fighting against the guilt of not protecting anyone, of waking up in a bed alone, of making mom cry for nothing.
He has medals, and still he doesn't exist in anyone's eyes. Has a name, but no purpose. A life, but no future he can see.
The envy of that doctor made him want to scream. Still does.
Phat doesn't sleep, or barely, and opens his eyes at dawn, still on the floor. He goes to the manor first thing in the morning, knocking on the door until a barely awake Master opens. All he gets is a no before the Master closes the door on his face and presumably goes back to sleep.
He'll come back later tomorrow, then.
He has nothing else to do.