This is shaping up to be my longest chapter yet!
Reviews! We've past 100!
Gerbilfriend: Thank you! I love writing Lien, I don't know why I don't do it more often!
MrCcoz: I was glad to update it! Part of me really wants to do something with that, like an au of my own fanfiction (jesus) where she was raised by Zhao. But also, I am very lazy and I already have a ton of fics going on.
goddragonking: Thakn you! I will do what I can ^^
Guest from March 29th: Lien isn't normally that demanding, so that was fun to write! She's typically a lot more patient, if equally passionate. I was a little worried I was stretching her character, so I'm glad to hear from you!
Circle: You are welcome.
RedtailHawk19: Even if they aren't informed, Lien isn't exactly subtle. Especially since part of what she's going to be doing is teaching Aang about firebending. There's no way the Dai Lee are going to miss that! As for Jet... he's actually in this chapter.
curlystruggle: Whoo!
DearChibico: Lien is like, right on the verge of being pretentious and being wise, and it's really fun to write.
Taffdog19943: Thank you! Here is is ^^
Eclipse130: Isn't she great?
The water was steaming up, out the window. Lien flicked her fingers and the bath heated further. It was a difficult trick, one that had taken her a very, very, long time to master. Water, after all, was a different element from her own. Changing its temperature was very difficult. But heat was heat, and she was a master of it.
With the water hot and ready for her she slipped out Ying's gifted clothes. She folded the tunic neatly, set the sash atop and started unwinding her leg wrappings to put in a pile. Then the ones on her arms. The left went fine, but when she pulled free the last of the right her breath caught and she froze.
There it sat, tight enough against her wrist where she wouldn't feel it move, against her skin where the metal would not feel cool.
The silver gleamed in the fire light. The inscription smiled tantalizingly at her.
Enlightenment.
Lien took a deep breath before she put her lips to the blowpipe and blew. The molten blob expanded, quickly. Much too quickly.
She yelped and dove to the side when the glass splattered like a popped bubble.
Lien peered out from behind her table, stunned. She had messed up before, and she hadn't expected her skills to be anywhere near what they had been before, but this...
This was a brand new kind of mistake. She's never even heard of someone blowing up their batch. With a sigh she stood up, checked herself for burns, and started cleaning up. The scraps of cooling glass were dropped into her hot pot, and the burned spots on the walls she sucked the heat right out of.
She was lucky enough to find an abandoned blacksmith's smithy with almost everything she needed. The blowpipe had been easy enough to procure, from another smith, and everything else she had either had already or were supplied by Joo Dee.
Lien had never done much work with metal, and so she was pleasantly surprised to find an annealing oven along with everything else. With a few adjustments it would be perfect for her glass. Her original plan was to suck the heat out slowly through the night, but this would require much less effort. Which was just fine with her.
Everyone worked and struggled for their art, but that didn't mean that she wouldn't accept an easier way of doing things. While Glassblowing was an artform over two thousand years old, and it hadn't changed that much, she was not someone who was stuck in the old ways. She evolved and learned and was willing to try new things.
New things such as firebending with molten glass.
New things that she was now regretting.
Lien set up a new batch into the kiln and with a flick of her wrist the fire rose beneath it. The kiln was a bit like a closet with a shelf inside to hold the creations. The fire was built at the bottom, with the flue leading up and out of the building through the chimney. Truthfully Lien prefered a downdraft kiln to an updraft, in that it was more efficient to push the heat in from one side and push it out the other instead of just let it rise through the roof, and it was more fuel efficient. But, they had yet to master natural gas in this world and so it hardly mattered. She didn't think downdrafts even existed yet. Maybe in the Fire Nation, but certainly not in Ba Sing Se.
With the kiln going to melt her newest glass Lien went to play with the pieces in her hot pot. She heated them again, and wondered to herself if an earthbender could do anything with it. Which, gave her an idea.
Joo Dee hadn't accompanied her today, probably because Aang had been chattering excitedly about looking for Appa again. And, of course, the Avatar took precedence, and Lien had already laid her cards on table as far as who she thought to be in charge of the city.
Just because her guide hadn't come along, didn't mean that no one had…
Lien poked her head out the window and peered out, pretending to look for something on the ground from behind her goggles. The reality was she was checking the rooftops for green hats. When she saw them she smiled, lifted her face and waved before they could vanish properly. She caught a flash of chagrin on one of their faces before they were gone, and with a laugh to herself Lien pulled her head back in and heated the glass further.
It took some time before it was warm enough for her to try blowing again, this time with a good amount more success. She rolled it across her bench, smoothed it into an hourglass-ish shape. It was wobbly and malformed but Lien had never felt so much euphoria as she did when she put her first lumpy, misshapen vase into the annealing oven.
She spent the rest of the day skipping around, singing songs in foreign tongue while she drew out shapes into glass menageries, and got a start on sketching out a design for a stain glass window. Something simple at first. Mostly green, she figured. For her nation.
Lien was going to need an assistant soon. She was considering Sokka, or maybe Katara, but truthfully she didn't know if either of them would be willing. Toph would have been her first choice as a person, but she wasn't letting the blind girl anywhere near this much heat.
With these thoughts on her mind the girl exited her new shop, locking the door behind her and setting off. The sun was lowering itself down, heating the sky into streaking pinks and orange. Lien watched it go sadly. She always got tired when the sun went down. A side effect of her people, she figured.
With her bag, made of the tanned hide of a Sand Shark, rested against her back, its flaps securely buckled. While she had no fear of the people here, she didn't care much for pickpockets. Her people were known for thieves, and to be fair she had stolen her fair share when she needed to, but that didn't mean she wanted to have her money or her menageries taken.
On her way to the monorail station Lien found that the tea shop where Iroh and Zuko worked. She peered in, checking the staff, and once she knew the former-prince was cleaning a table she stepped inside.
She smiled at the scarred boy, who barely returned her a neutral expression. He moved back to the kitchen like a storm cloud and Iroh came ambling out towards her with a warm, welcoming smile.
"How nice to see you again!" he said cheerfully. "Allow me to show you to a seat," he requested.
Lien smiled brightly at him, delighted. "Thank you, sir. That's very nice of you."
"Please, call me Mushi," he deferred. It was said with such ease she almost missed the minute grimace when he gave the name he had been bestowed with.
"Lien," she introduced, and saw his eyes light.
"A lovely name. Do you play Pao Sho?" it was would have been a totally out of the blue question if she didn't know what her name meant.
"I do," she settled in her seat. "I do enjoy using the white lotus."
She heard more than saw Zuko's exasperated groan. Her smiled widened.
"Then perhaps you would do me the honor of a game. At a later time, of course," he amended when the owner of the shop, having overheard, cleared his throat.
"I would love to," Lien agreed, "I work down the street. I can't imagine it would be hard to find the time." Especially since no one was telling her what to do. She would set up a shop sometime too, a storefront nearest her workhouse. God knew she had enough money saved up to do it.
"If you have it, may I have a camomile tea, with honey?" she asked, polite as could be. She was planning on going to sleep once she was back at the house, and this might help. She wanted to try for another of those peculiar dreams with Peter.
Perhaps, if she hadn't succeeded yet and she knew Iroh well enough to ask, she might get his input. He knew a lot about spirits. If her memory served her, he had even entered the spirit world at some point before his ascension into the spirit world itself.
"Of course," Iroh smiled again at her and disappeared into the kitchen with Zuko and Pao. Lien pulled her sketch book. While she waited for her tea she worked on designing a chandelier that she wouldn't have the skill to create for some time yet. With long flowers blooming into budding flames, and twining vines that stretched out.
A cup was set down near the top corner of her book and Lien looked up to see Zuko. She had never realized from the cartoon exactly how horribly scarred he was. The trenches of the burn were deep and the skin was rough and bordered on scaley. His ear was destroyed, and if he could hear out of his Lien would be personally amazed.
It was gruesome. It made her stomach roll with boiling anger as Ozai for laying his fire upon his own son.
Lien smiled sweetly and thanked him, before asking his name.
"Li," he said shorty.
"Li, like Dawn, or Power, or Logic?" she asked, reaching for the cup. It was hot.
Zuko eyed her oddly. "Dawn," he said at last, before he left her alone.
He was so standoffish, it was a little bit funny. Lien thought so at least. Many patrons proably wouldn't agree with her. Customer service was a very big part of any business, and with service as rough as that Lien would be surprised how many people came back for anything more that Iroh's tea.
Which was more than enough reason to return.
Lien spent enough time in there sipping tea and chatting now and again with the staff that by the time she was done the son was gone entirely. She set out, slumping her shoulders and staring three feet ahead of her steps. Keeping from looking too out of place.
She glanced into the ally by the Pao Family Tea Shop and saw a boy with wild hair pull himself hurriedly behind a bin of debris. Jet.
With a breath she set forth once more. Heading for her new home.
"Lesson number one," winter, summer, moon, and sun, "Light this on fire."
Lien handed him a candle, one of the three that she had brought out with them.
Aang looked at it dubiously. "My last teacher told me not to make a fire," he said.
"I'm not your last teacher," Lien retorted. She drew one of her legs up to her chest and propped her chin on her knee to watch. Her hands, once again wrapped in the long strips of cloth, were clasped on top of her shin.
Aang looked between her and the candle before he took a deep breath. He was visibly steeling himself for this activity. He was afraid. Which was utterly ridiculous. Lien tried to be patient, but she wasn't made of earth, and endless equanimity. She was born of fire, and everlasting evolution.
Aang put the candle on the ground placed both hands around it, one on either side. His brow furrowed. The wick lit.
Lien placed both of the other candles on either side of his. With a wave of her hand they lit.
"Now. Put yours out," she nodded at the one in the center.
Aang took a deep breath before Lien held her hand up.
"Not like that," she interrupted. "Like this."
The reached for the fire and made a motion like she was pulling. The fire stretched to follow her fingers before it left the wick. She took her energy away and the light went out. There were at least ten different ways to get that same result, but this one was the easiest. Especially for a beginner.
"You remember how I told you fire exists?" she asked.
"With Fuel, Heat, and Air, right?" When she nodded he smiled at her, full of teeth. He was a sweet kid.
"Right. So if you pull it away from it's regular fuel, the wick, and then cut off your supply, your chi, then the fire will die. Try."
Aang looked again at the fire. He reached for it, slowly. Carefully. When he pulled it was with the fluidity of a waterbender, and she was silently impressed. The fire flickered, twisted, and came off the wick.
"Now, cut off your energy," she nodded to him. Aang obeyed. The fire went out.
"Keep doing that," she instructed, "Until you're bored out of your skull. Then yell for me."
Lien stood up up, brushed herself off and went a few feet away. The sand for the Zen garden hadn't come in yet, which was why they were only doing this much.
The girl started going through the motions of sandbending, sweeping herself through long strikes and stretches. She reached for the sun and centered herself upon the earth. Any real firebender would have been horrified. Only a few of her strikes were sharp and straight enough to count. That was what she knew. What she could do.
She didn't know how, but Aang managed to pass over two house starting and stopping candles, of all things. Lien would have grown bored and wandered into something else. She supposed that Aang had learned his lesson with Jeong Jeong.
"Okay," Aang said at last, "What now?"
Lien looked back at him and shrugged. "Melt the wax. Without a fire."
"How?" he looked very puzzled. Lien was aware of the arrival of Sokka, who Katara where she was sitting on the edge of the back porch. She had been there since the beginning, watching the two of them with sharp eyes.
"Fire is Fuel, Air, and Heat," she repeated for what had to be the third time. "These can be separated. As long as your produce the heat and the energy, but keep them separate from the air, or you fail to produce a spark, you can heat things without necessarily lighting anything on fire. Observe."
She straightened up, pointing to the candle nearest to her and focused. The air between her and the candle shimmered. She narrowed her eyes, snapped her fingers, and the candle fell apart into a puddle of wax.
"Don't try it from too far away, or with anything between you and your target just yet. These are only the basics."
"These seem like pretty advanced basics," Katara spoke up at last.
Lien looked over at the water girl and shrugged helplessly. "I was never actually taught firebending. Everything I know is from trial and error, and what little I could pick up at the library. And theory. Mostly theory that I've proven correct. So Aang is lucky, he's going to learn the most unique form of firebending ever. Shit I made up."
"That, doesn't inspire a lot of confidence," Sokka said dryly. One more, Lien shrugged.
"Well you're stuck with me. Unless you can find another firebender in Ba Sing Se willing to teach the Avatar, in which case I will get out of your hair, and out of this creepy-ass city."
"Oh come on," Katara scolded, "It's not that bad."
Lien stared at her blankly. "That is a lie."
It was almost a full two weeks into her work before Lien finally climbed onto the roof across from the Pao Family Tea house. She felt more than saw her babysitters hide themselves from her, but they weren't why she was there.
"I don't know if you're stalking me or Pao, but whichever it if you are seriously creepy."
Jet spun around, a hook erupting from his side to swing at her. Lien yelped and scrambled back, almost falling off the roof before she grabbed the secondary hook that had come at her and latched onto it.
The end result was her being hauled back, onto her knees, while Jet fell down next to her because of the sudden change in weight and his own panic.
Lien stared at him, and for a second her stared at her before he stood up, his weapons holding to his sides.
"Who are you?" he demanded shortly. A very unattractive quality.
"I'm Lien," she said simply. She pointed to the south, "I work in that building with the red chimney."
Jet eyed her, distrustful, before he said, "I'm not following you, or Pao."
"Then why are you here watching the shop, instead of going inside?" Lien reasoned. She cocked her head, feigning cluelessness.
Jet looked at her very closely, squinting. Scrutinizing. She didn't know what he was looking for, but he must have seen it. For he told her.
"Those two guys in there, Mushi and Li. They're Fire Nation."
Lien glanced over at the shop and frowned. She had a lot of the traditional Fire Nation features too. Black hair, gold eyes. But her skin was darker than that, thanks to her mother and her years in the desert.
"Why do you say that?" she asked, scooting closer to the edge of the roof. She was very careful not to deter or insult him. She showed no judgement.
Jet's eyes lit.
"The old man firebent. I saw it," he got closer to her, his eyes narrowed at the shop where Li was taking out the trash to the side of the building.
"Well, just because he's a firebender, doesn't mean he's Fire Nation."
"What are you talking about?" he practically spat the words at her, "Of course it does!"
Liens mouth thinned into a line. "Not really. I mean, they might not be Fire Nation, Fire Nation, you know? We've been at war with them for what, a hundred years? There's gotta be a ton of bastards running around with Fire Nation parents. Especially the ones with bending. It might not even have been a choice for the other person."
She saw him go still. He had fought had seen travesties. He knew what she was referring too.
"And if bending is genetic, then they wouldn't have any choice in it at all."
Jet scowled at her. "Firebenders are dangerous. They don't have any business in Ba Sing Se."
Lien didn't say anything. Jet was a stubborn, traumatized child. She couldn't say she blamed him for his logic. It hurt, but she understood.
She stood up. "Even if that's true there's no sense in you sitting up here all night. Why don't I buy you some tea? Then you can still watch them, and you'll also have tea." The logic was perfectly sound to her.
Jet eyed her suspiciously before he looked back at the tea house. "I'm not drinking Fire Nation tea."
Lien said only, "suite yourself," before he left, climbing down the wall to go into the tea shop again. She greeted Iroh by his new name and went to the table in the corner. He got his breaks about this time at night, when the rush was dying down. She had taken to playing Pao Sho with him every night.
So far, she had lost every game.
"Does your son play?" Lien asked, pushing her Air piece into harmony with Iroh's White Lotus.
"My son?" Iroh looked very surprised, before he followed her gaze to Zuko, who was cleaning off a recently vacated table with a very firm scowl upon his face. Iroh's eyes softened.
"He is my nephew, actually, but I think of him as a son."
"He seems to have an admirer," Lien tilted her head to Jin, who kept peeking at Zuko over her tea cup.
Iroh laughed. "I believe you are correct. I must get a plant, in case he brings her home."
Lien joined him, her voice ringing in light peels. While she was considering the rather uncomfortable looking Zuko, Iroh set to disrupt her harmony, and put in place his third. Not a good sign for her. With that disruption she was down to two, and he was only one away from beating her. Again.
She reached for her tea and, without thinking, reheated it to steaming before she moved her Earth piece into place. While she was drinking she glanced at Iroh to find him staring at her. At her tea.
Their eyes met before he looked back at the game and Lien looked back at her tea.
"Sorry," she said without meaning to.
"There is nothing to apologize for," Iroh countered her. "Only a recommendation towards caution."
Lien nodded and took a drink. Iroh moved a piece. Her mind turned around the change on the board.
"You and Li have the same eyes as I do," eyes sparking with fire. It was an inquiry.
"Mmm, the city is home to many people, from many places," Iroh said neutrally. Lien wondered if this was what politics were like.
"I was born to the Gansu, of the Si Wong," she didn't know why she was trying to justify herself. She pushed another Earth piece into place. Created her third Harmony.
"I visited the desert once, on our way here," Iroh picked up the new topic, a new move. "The sunset was beautiful."
Lien gave a smile and moved another piece, creating a Disharmony.
"The desert is a beautiful place. It's hard to see, if one only looks at the surface," her eyes caught onto an err in Iroh's next move. "But for those who pay attention, for those who seek that which her sands hide, they will always find gold in the sands."
She pushed her own White Lotus into place and marked her fourth Harmony. She very carefully was not smug. She didn't warn Iroh. She didn't need to.
In one move he created his fourth Harmony, broke hers, and left her without a way to stop him from winning. Lien bowed her head to the old general.
"Next time, I might win," she put forth, half joking. Iroh smiled at her, old, wise, and too kind for someone who had seen the things that he had.
"It is my fondest wish that the next generation be greater than mine."
"I told you, I don't want Fire Nation tea," Jet snapped the words at her when she set the cup down by his side. She was more careful this time. She made sure he heard her coming.
"Then drink Si Wong tea instead," she sat next to him, a cup of her own in her other hand and a thick ceramic thermos in the other. "Unless you think that I used firebending to heat it."
Jet glared at her. "I know what I saw."
"I believe you," Lien confessed. "I don't agree that Li and Mushi are up to no good, but I'm sure you saw something."
Jet was placated enough to sniff the tea before sipping it.
"How can you think that firebenders could be doing anything but bad?" he asked at last.
"I've only ever known a few firebenders. Mostly bastards from the war or people's whose mothers were…. Less than willing to carry a child for a firebender," Ozai hadn't exactly given Ursa a choice. Her grip on her cup tightened. "Mostly, they tried to hide it and live regular lives."
Jet grunted. "Yeah, well, I'm not taking any chances. What is this?" He nodded to the tea. His eyes never left the tea shop, where Zuko was moving in front of the window, serving Genji and Miroko, a pair of very gay, very sweet blacksmiths who had commissioned from her a glass display with their names on it, something to sound pretty when the wind blew outside their little house. It was next to the storefront she rented in the Middle Ring, open only twice a week.
"It's Brown Ephedra tea. It quenches thirst and boosts energy. You look like you could use it," she stared, very pointedly, at the bags under his eyes.
"My friends don't believe me. They won't help me with this. They don't see the danger in two firebenders hiding out in Ba Sing Se. For all we know they could be here to kill the Earth King!"
Lien looked at him, thoughtful. Pensive. She didn't like listening to him talk like this, but he would tell her, sometimes, what it was like to live in a tree. About the system of pulleys and counterweights that they employed to let them soar into the canopies. Lien had never been in a big forest. Her whole life had been spent in a jungle of concrete or a desert devoid of anything taller than twenty feet.
"Is that really what you're worried about? The Earth King?" she asked at last.
Jet faltered and at last looked at her. "What?"
"Do you fear for the King, or the People?" she rephrased herselfs carefully. Jet drew himself up.
"I'm not afraid of anything!"
Lien awarded him with a flat look.
"Fine. Are you doing this to protect the King, or the People? Or are you just doing this out of your own personal grudge?"
Jet opened his mouth to answer her before he stopped. He looked back at the tea house, his face darkened with the shadows of the setting sun.
"What would you know about me?" he snapped, but it was quieter.
Lien felt for him, enough that she touched his hand, gently, and only for a moment.
"All I know is what you've told me. It's not my intention to make assumptions," it was as close as she would allow herself to come to an apology.
"The Fire Nation took everything from me," he said darkly, glaring at Zuko through the window.
Lien hummed, thinking to herself. "Fire is a source of the greatest change in the world. It can bring light to the darkness, or turn the living into ash."
"Who said that?" Jet asked, sounding annoyed but playing along. He had heard her quote enough people to recognize words of wisdom. The girl smiled.
"I did."
"I don't get what this has to do with firebending," Aang informed her blandly. He was staring at the pie she had placed in front of him, on top of a stone she asked Toph to lift from the earth. It was one of a dozen they had put into a line across the new yard.
They had finally lost the grass, and been gifted with their zen garden. Sand spread around them in swirls. A few patches of green remained, and a large sphere of stone took its place in the center.
"You're always worried about burning people," Lien said it very flatly, "So I'm teaching you control."
"What does baking have to do with control?" Sokka asked, "Follow up, who get's the pie?"
"When it comes to baking if you get it too hot it burns, too cold it doesn't cook, and if the temperature it uneven it'll screw everything up. So, bake the pie."
Lien stood up then and walked over to the rock to stand on top of. Aang frowned at the pie before he took a deep breath and punched his hand forward, sending the flames out. It was nothing more than a sharp burst, and he had to punch again. It was not going to work at all, Lien could tell just by watching. But she let Aang keep going. Mostly because she was busy basking like some form of lizard. She was even dressed in green.
"Um. i think it's burning," Sokka piped up.
A glance revealed that the pie was charred. Black, almost entirely, except for the other side which was still pale. Lien crossed her legs and shook her head at the boy.
"I think Sokka's right," Lien made a pulling motion and sucked all the heat out of the pie so it was safe to handle. "Try this."
Lien pushed forward a small jet of fire towards the pie closest to her. Instead of blasting it directly she twisted her hand like a mime doing a disk jockey and the fire swirled into an unbroken hoop around the pie. There she lifted its flames evenly.
She didn't let the fire fade or waver. Her breathing was even and her posture was straight. She was still, like the stone that she wasn't.
Aang stared at it before he tried to mimic her. The result was a weird crescent that cut off halfway around his pie. He frowned and tried again, to a similar response.
"Maybe try a wider range of motion?" Lien suggested.
Aang tried, and this time the fire shot too far into the curve and shot onto the sand. The exact reason it was there. His frowned deepened.
"I don't get it. When I was working with Jeong Jeong it was so easy." he complained.
Lien shrugged. Her fire stayed where it was.
"This is a self-created form of firebending. It's probably that before you remembered part of it from your past lives, but I doubt any other Avatar's have tried to cook a pie with firebending. Or used it in the way that I do. You're putting too much force behind it. Let it breath. Fire isn't something to force like a rock or give in to like air. Fire is alive, with its own desire to keep existing. You have guide it with your chi and intent, and curb it from leaving you."
As she spoke she moved her arms, circling them slowly. The fire turned with her, burning low around the edges of the pie. Her words weren't quite right. They didn't capture the essence of what she meant, but she hadn't rehearsed a speech on the nature of firebending. She should have.
Whatever she said, Aang must have gotten the gist of it, for he had a decent circle the next time. A circle the sputtered into sparks before snapping up into high flames. Aang's brow broke with sweat.
Lien, for her part, showed no visible signs of exertion. For her firebending was as easy as breathing. The fire beat in time with her heart, fluttered in time with her breath. It was so deeply ingrained into her that there was no disconnect between them.
Aang was different. Aang was struggling, he had rejected fire and only now started to accept it, and as a result he was fighting to get it into place.
Lien waited, patient, until her pie was just darkened into brown on the edges before she let her fire die away. Aang was still unsteady, and had moved on to his fourth attempt.
"You can have that if you want it, Sokka," she offered, gesturing to the pie.
The boy's face lit up. "Is there meat in it?!"
Lien laughed. "Strawberries, actually."
"I'll take a piece of that," Toph declared. When Sokka shouted and lunged for the still steaming pie she stomped on the ground and slammed a pillar of earth into his stomach. Sokka doubled over, groaning, while the little earth bender grabbed the pie with stone covered hands.
Lien laughed again at their antics and hopped down from the stone, going in to fetch some plates and knives for them.
She was very well aware of the eyes on her retreating back.