-Danger,Deceit-
Book 01.: Fire Nation
Chapter .04: FACES
[The still face of the water conceals the current beneath.]
"Home," Mai snapped as she swept up into her chaise without giving her servant the opportunity to assist her. The young man took one look at his mistress's face, thought the better of saying anything beyond a hurried "Yes, milady," and leapt up into the driver's seat. With a click of his tongue, the ostrich-horse set off at a trot through the forecourt's opening gates and down the steep slope to the road leading back to the capital. Behind them, Mai's bodyguards raced to mount their mongoose-lizards, cursing under their breaths as the maids of the manor looked on and giggled.
It had been a while since someone or something had so thoroughly pissed her off. Probably since Zuko had left that letter on her bed before running off to join the Avatar, without a thought of asking her to come along. 'Yes, dredging up the past and getting angrier - that's the way to deal with this!' Mai sat up, straight as a cypress in a temple grove, her eyes fixated on the dancing row of red silk tassels sewn around the hood of her chaise and took deep breaths, willing herself to calm down.
But then, a letter from Zuko had set the stage last night, the final injury slapped on top a day of headache-inducing bookkeeping under Maha's supervision (why were estate finances so complicated anyway?). 'At least he had it delivered properly, instead of just tossing it on my bed this time.' After apologizing for his "insensitivity" at their last meeting (Mai forced her jaw to unclench), Zuko went on to inform her that he was finalizing negotiations with the "representative" of the colonial governors, who had finally consented to individual audiences with their Fire Lord in the capital, hopefully within the month.
'Who do those governors think they are, 'agreeing' to an audience with the Fire Lord?' When prior Fire Lords had summoned their governors, they came like obedient lion-dogs, heeling at their master's call. Now, they pleaded all sorts of "difficult circumstances," rogue war bands, dissidents rabble-rousing, revolts, natural disasters, attacks on officials, assassinations of family members, any excuse really, to avoid leaving their territories when Zuko requested their presence. She had to hope that Zuko was concealing his own anger at their impudence in his letter (no way to know if it might have been intercepted at one point or other), and that he knew he still faced an uphill battle against nobles who scorned both his claim to the throne and his ability to compel their obedience.
Whatever his true feelings, the upshot was that Zuko was inescapably tied up in Court matters for the next few days, and so he wished Mai well on her visit with her honored matriarch.
It felt good to destroy that china. Mai felt justifiably smug that she could still nail targets so well with only the flickering light of a single oil lamp to help her.
But there were no convenient pantries with spare saucers out here. Gritting her teeth, Mai turned her attention to the events of the preceding few hours, analyzing it as she would a masterwork of calligraphy to determine the purpose of its composition...
Felled trees and other debris left in the wake of last night's storm littering the road out of the capital had forced her chaise to a crawling pace along with the rest of the traffic, and the hour of the appointment had come and gone by the time she made her appearance on the veranda where Sharanya waited, as before. Without even giving her a chance to spit out her courtesies to the old hag, a cluster of servants descended, wordlessly laying out the instruments by which she was to "entertain" the matriarch. Mai could only stand there, spectator to a pantomime designed to chastise her for her tardiness. The humiliation quickly gave way to anger. Who the hell did Sharanya think she was, insulting her like this?
Without a word, Mai took her seat across from her great-grandmother. A quick glance at the table informed Mai of a variation on the theme of these "social calls": rather than the conventional style, Sharanya had laid out trappings for an obscure, ancient mode of tea ceremony. Instead of fine china cups and saucers balanced on a delicate rosewood box, two deceptively plain and inelegant antique bowls of partially glazed black clay squatted on the table in front of Mai. 'Raku bowls, from the kiln of the master himself.' She did not even have to turn them over to look for artist's mark; the secret of Raku's "opal-fire" glaze had been lost over 200 years ago upon the untimely death of the "nobleman artisan." 'The Palace has… eight of these, maybe?'
There was no teapot or salver loaded with expensive tea leaves; in their place was a spindly split bamboo whisk and round lacquered wood box containing the fine powder of green tea leaves. Everything had been selected with care by an eye well-versed in the ritual, one Mai's mother had always dismissed as being "out of fashion."
Mai smirked inwardly. If it was Sharanya's design to embarrass her with such an esoteric test, she had sorely miscalculated.
It was hardly Mai's fault that the Academy's master of tea ceremony happened to be the master of the ancient ceremony, or that Mai, forced into the class by her mother, just happened to possess a prodigy's aptitude when it came to her teacher's style of choice. And neither was it Mai's fault that, within four years, the master declared Mai the "rising star of classical tea ceremony." Mai's mother had to grin and bear the "compliments" from other ladies about her daughter's marvelous talent for learning something she "never could have learned at home."
(Azula had remarked at the time that she was impressed at the lengths Mai would go to spite her mother.)
Glancing at Sharanya, Mai picked up the white linen napkin in the same way a warrior takes up their opponent's letter of challenge. The matriarch seemed as distant and dozing as she had the first time, but Mai was no longer fooled – she was being watched from under those pouchy lids. Confident of victory, she bowed and began.
This time, there were no whispers of memory, no Mother prompting her along as she carried out the ceremony with perfection that would have made her former master beam with pride. It was faultless, from the way she cleansed each instrument in turn, measured the tea powder to the precise quarter-turns of the bowl, the swipe of the napkin, and the soft swish as she whisked the steaming water into the tea and the perfect height of foam she achieved as she presented the bowl to her great-grandmother.
In silence, the matriarch accepted the bowl, bowing to acknowledge her great-granddaughter's offering and the perfection of the ritual. Turning it slowly in mirror-perfect imitation of Mai's earlier demonstration, she meditated on the flecks of crimson and gold the sunlight illuminated in the ink-black glaze before raising the priceless pottery and sipping the bitter, chalky tea.
Mai's breath trapped involuntarily in her throat, recognizing a true master's grace and deliberation in an instant, so far removed the casual affect of someone who partook in the ceremony out of curiosity or diversion and certainly not the actions of a woman rotted by Time.
Sharanya set the bowl down without a sound, turning it back to Mai. Shaken, Mai instinctively reached for it, napkin at the ready to begin the cleansing. Before she could, the matriarch left her chair and the veranda, the tump-tump-tump of her cane loud in the unnatural silence.
This time, Mai did not hesitate. Throwing down the napkin (but placing the bowl carefully on the table), she shot to her feet, fully intent on pursuing the old hag and getting to the bottom of her game. Intent quickly foiled, however.
"The Mistress would have you receive this, Lady Mai." The old woman, Sharanya's senior household servant, ought not to have been such an effective obstacle, but she was taller and broader of shoulder than first impression gave and the doorway was rather narrow when one got right down to it. Ignoring her, Mai stared down the passageway. Empty. Her great-grandmother had vanished.
The servant coughed delicately, bringing Mai's attention back to her or, rather, the thing in her hands: a folded red paper bound by thin gold cord and sealed with the clan crest. Not caring that the woman would doubtless report the impropriety to the matriarch, Mai ripped the seal off and dropped it to the floor, scanning the characters she knew she would find. 'Tomorrow?' Cramming the taunt into her sash, she turned calmly to the servant. "Please inform my honored great-grandmother that I will arrive at her bidding at the appointed time."
"Yes, Lady Mai."
The desire to deny Sharanya the satisfaction of breaking her composure (any more than she already had, anyway) carried Mai at a sedate, ladylike pace all the way out the front door, but no further…
Mai sat back, suddenly tired. The ordeal had passed, and there was nothing she could do about it, other than take away anything she might have learned to prepare for the next time. And there would be a next time: no way was she letting Sharanya get away with making a fool out of her!
The matriarch was just playing at being senile, that much was obvious. Mai tapped her thumbnail against her front teeth, a habit Mother had always scolded her over. Their first meeting had planted the seed of suspicion, and this latest confirmed it. The old woman, for whatever twisted reason, was playing with Mai like she was a piece in a game to occupy the empty hours of her days. She had learned long ago to trust her instincts concerning people with a certain power over her, but Mai had to admit she could not puzzle out Sharanya's motivations. And there had to be motivations beyond simple torment for the sake of it; even Azula had always had a sort of frightening logic and purpose behind her smallest cruelties. 'Most of the time.'
The question then, she supposed, was whether or not Azula was at all a useful frame of reference for someone as inscrutable and ancient as Sharanya.
The crews were still out clearing the road, but the traffic had died down to no more than the usual nuisance and they made good time back to the capital. Once clear of the tunnel leading to the interior of the caldera and looking over the royal city spread out below, a sudden whim seized Mai.
"Driver, take me to my Au… my Uncle Peizhi's house."
"Yes, mistress."
As the chaise changed course, Mai said to her bodyguards, "Return home and tell Maha that I'll be staying with my aunt tonight. Both of you."
"But, mistress…" one of them began to argue.
Mai silenced him with a glare and the chaise moved on, leaving the pair in its wake.
Chyou's (or rather, Peizhi's) steward, Thao, was cut from a different sort of cloth than Maha. For one, he was not half as ancient and two, Mai had never heard him utter more than one sentence at a time, even to her uncle. Perhaps it suited a prison warden's taste to have such a stoic, severe-looking man in his service. Thao was rather physically imposing and not the sort one wanted to find waiting on the other side of the front door when dropping in, uninvited and unexpected.
"Tell my aunt that I'm here to see her," Mai said to him as she breezed into the foyer, turning into the front reception room and taking a seat on the cushy chair just inside the doorway.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Thao bow, like a tree trunk slowly bending in half and straightening itself before he turned and glided off into the house. Letting out a deep breath, Mai slouched back in the chair, letting the thick silk cushion absorb the aches the bouncing of the chaise over the rough road had worked into her backside. She needed a plan, a way to deal with Sharanya; talking with Chyou seemed as good a place as any to start, since she knew more about the matriarch and had yet to offer Mai any bad advice about anything. 'You're going to have to tell her you ignored her advice to talk about the weather, you know.'
"Hmph…"
"Here to see my mother?"
Mai started, then realized it was Xue, skulking in the chair in the far corner, a large book spread across his skinny legs. She had not noticed him when she came in, but then, Xue had an odious talent for appearing in unlikely places.
"Yes, I am," she replied, considering moving to the rear garden so as to not have to endure the little brat's presence.
To her surprise, Xue kept talking. "You're going to have to wait a bit. Mother's other visitor's still here."
'"Other…"?' Mai closed her eyes and swore long and loud in her head. She had forgotten about Zhì and her unwelcome "duty." All the same… 'Shouldn't she have left by now?' It had to be at least three hours past midday; what sort of inconsiderate boor inflicted their presence on a poor widow for that long?
"I like her."
Mai opened one eye at her cousin, who actually smiled, not in any sort of vicious or sarcastic way, but out of apparent sincere cheerfulness. It was a bizarre expression to see on that normally sullen face.
As though she had prompted him, Xue continued, "She saw me on the way up to Mother's room and knew who I was. She said, 'You look just like your father, my captain,' and asked me if I wanted to join the Navy like he did. I told her I did, and she said that she'd be honored to have me be part of her crew when she gets her ship!"
The boy was practically bouncing in his seat, cheeks flushing with excitement. Mai inched farther away from him in her chair and craned her neck, hoping to catch sight of Thao returning to take her up to her aunt.
Not getting the hint, Xue kept up the chatter. "She also said that she'd take me on a tour of the Hui Jian! That's the Second Fleet's flagship – she's the second mate, so she said she can even take me onto the bridge and down into the engine room." He brandished the book, which Mai saw was a history of famous naval battles. "Did you know? The first Hui Jian was commissioned in Sozin 73, and was the Fire Nation's second ironclad flagship, and that's why the Second Fleet's flagship is always called Hui Jian. But the first one wasn't even as big as one of our modern destroyers, see?"
"Yes, interesting," Mai commented, glancing at the illustration Xue was waving at her.
He beamed, and flipped further into the book. "Zhì's ship is actually the fourth ship to be named Hui Jian, but it was the second Hui Jian that's the most famous; it helped win the Battle of Hakodei Gulf, against the Earth Kingdom's largest fleet, which also had ironclads back then, but they weren't as good as ours. Have you ever seen the old ironclad, the Yun Tie, they keep on display at the Institute? Even civilians can go see it, you just have to have a Navy officer escorting you. Father used to…"
"Maybe your new friend can take you to see it again," Mai suggested, egged on by a strange sense of guilt at the way Xue's face crumpled at the mention of his father. Uncle Ta had never been around much (a fact of life for anyone in the Navy), so it mystified her as to why Xue should be so attached to his memory; she could count on one hand the number of times she had met, let alone talked with, her uncle, and he had never left much of a lasting impression. In fact, she recalled resenting him for leaving Aunt Chyou behind all those times, when other ships' captains apparently had no problems taking their families with them on their tours of duty.
'Then again, if he had…'
"… and don't hesitate to call on me any time your duties permit, Lieutenant Commander. If you'll pardon my saying so, I'm rather glad your current assignment will be keeping you in port for a little while."
"You're too kind, Lady Chyou."
Xue literally leapt out of his chair at the sound of his mother's voice and, clasping the book to his chest, darted from the room. Mai, meanwhile, got to her feet in a more dignified manner, carefully composing her mask for the oncoming encounter.
Three people were coming down the cool, dimly-lit hallway toward her; Thao's hulking form bringing up the rear, preceded by her Aunt Chyou and the petite lieutenant commander. Zhì, Mai noticed, had dispensed with her uniform armor, opting for her formal officer's tunic and sash of rank: subdued yet respectful attire for an officer visiting another officer's household, without giving an outside observer any clues as to the exact nature of the visitation. 'Very proper and polite; why couldn't she be polite enough to just leave Aunty alone?'
"Lieutenant Commander Shé! Lieutenant Commander Shé!"
Xue, the little brat, had barreled up to the lieutenant commander and was waving his book in her face. "I found it!"
"Xue, did you take that from your uncle's library?" Chyou asked, too taken aback by her son's trespass to scold him for practically jumping on her guest like a slobbering lion-puppy.
"It's not like he uses it much, and besides, it was Father's book, so that makes it mine," Xue countered.
Had he been in reach, Mai would have kicked him for disrespecting his mother like that to her face (in front of a guest, no less!). 'What a day to be without my daggers,' she lamented, mentally adding another tally to her list of grievances against Sharanya.
"Yours or not, Xue, don't you think a gentleman and a future officer would show courtesy to his uncle and ask before entering his private quarters?" Zhì's tone was gentle but stern, her expression as serious as if she were mentoring a wayward ensign.
Xue stilled, gaping at her for a moment before his face went as red as her sash. "Yes…" he mumbled, staring at his toes.
Zhì touched his shoulder and smiled at him when he looked up at her. "I was the one who said I'd like to see the book, so I guess I'm partly to blame," she said. "Can I see it anyway?"
After a glance and an affirming nod from his mother, Xue shyly extended the tome to Zhì, who accepted it with a brief bow before opening the cover. A low whistle sprang from her lips. "First edition? Talk about a treasure! You've kept it in amazing condition, but I guess you knew that."
"Um, my uncle's been taking care of everything my father left me…" Abashed, Xue went back to examining his slippers.
"What a considerate uncle." Zhì handed the book back to Xue. "Tell you what: before I take you on board my ship, I'll send you a signed copy of the manuscript Admiral Pengfei wrote about the history of the Hui Jian, all four of them. It's only right that an officer is familiar with the ship he's about to board, right? And that way, you can start building your own library. Sound good?"
Xue beamed at her, his eyes eager and bordering on worshipful. "Yeah!"
"It might be a while before his schooling allows him a break for the tour, Lieutenant Commander, but we will keep your generous offer in mind," Chyou said. Mai was pretty sure she was the only one to pick up on the strained note in her aunt's courtesy.
'Just barge into their lives and stir everything up why don't you?' she thought, glaring at Zhì.
The woman must have had some sort of animal instinct for detecting hostility, for she suddenly looked directly at Mai, her hands flying to her belt as though reaching for a sword hilt. "Oh."
"Ah, Lieutenant Commander Zhì Shé, this is my niece, Lady Mai Sun. Mai, the lieutenant commander called on me today while her ship was in port; she once served under my husband as an ensign."
Mai fully expected Zhì to say something along the lines of "We've met;" the way her lip curled back from her teeth at the sight of Mai indicated that the officer had neither forgotten nor forgiven the "slight" Mai had paid her in the Palace courtyard. To Mai's surprise, however, the lieutenant commander bowed deeply, greeting her with a nonchalant, "A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Mai."
Aware of Chyou's watchful gaze, Mai bowed at exactly the same depth, replying, "The honor is all mine, Lady Zhì," ignoring her military rank.
Zhì jerked upright, eyes flaring with outright enmity. Still, she did not rise to the bait, but turned to Chyou, bowing once more. "I regret that I must beg leave of you, Lady Chyou; I must return to my ship for the change of the watch. Thank you for accepting me into your home today. Please regard me and my family kindly in the future and should you require anything of me, do not hesitate to ask."
"Please, Lieutenant Commander, no need to be so formal with me!" Chyou ever-so-subtly guided Zhì down the hall, past Mai, into the foyer, smiling all the while. "Consider us friends from today."
Gratified, Zhì's sunburned cheeks reddened further. "Thank you, Lady Chyou. I am honored to call you a friend!"
'Oh for Agni's sake, catch a clue and leave already.' Mai rolled her eyes as the attendant opened the door, revealing Zhì's mongoose-lizard, saddled and ready for departure, just beyond. She rolled them again as Xue followed the departing guest out the door, promising to write the moment his school had a break for him to visit.
After Thao had wrangled Xue back into the house and escorted him to his room, Chyou allowed herself a deep sigh of relief.
"She's like a typhoon, isn't she?" Mai suggested. "Loud, blowing through things without a second thought…"
Although her aunt raised an admonishing eyebrow, she chuckled at Mai's observation. "I suppose. Mai-dear, wrong as it sounds, it's considered improper to refer to female officers of the nobility by anything but their military rank; it's the same rules for men and women nowadays."
"Oh, didn't know that," Mai lied. "Should I apologize to her?"
"I don't think there's much point. But it might come up again in the future, so just be careful." Chyou beckoned for Mai to follow her back into the house. "You came sooner than I expected, though," she said as they climbed the stairs, heading toward her rooms. "I know my letter was sent too late to reach you before you left to meet Grandmother Sharanya, but I was certain Maha would have prepared something a little more… elaborate for you to wear if you agreed. Oh, I don't mean what you're wearing now isn't appropriate, but you know how it is when you make an appearance at a society event!"
"… What?" Mai asked as they entered the sitting room that occupied one half of Chyou's quarters. Its windows, stretching the whole length of wall opposite the door, commanded a less grand view than that from the veranda outside the dining room, but the breezes coming in over the caldera rim from the sea ensured that it was one of the most comfortable rooms in her uncle's mansion, no matter how hotly the summer sun might burn. It only made sense, this having been the guest room back when her Aunt Di'u, Peizhi's wife, was still alive. Mai was glad her uncle had insisted Xue was old enough to have his own room on the first floor, since she doubted she could put up with the boy listening in on their conversation.
"The charity concert the Institute and your Academy is putting on tonight. The invitations went out before I left for Liao Yang, but that was nearly three weeks ago. With everything that's happened in the last couple of days, I thought it best to send you a reminder." Chyou sat down in one of the two chairs beneath the window, Mai taking the other. "You… came straight here from Grandmother Sharanya's house?" She took Mai's silence for an affirmative. "Ah. Well. Since you're here, Mai-dear, would you please come? I know it's very short notice, but I think you'll enjoy it – there will be plenty of your old classmates attending, and it would be fun to see what they've been up to, don't you think?"
"Not really," Mai said, a sudden sneaking suspicion stealing over her. Chyou looked the picture of innocence, but Mai knew all sorts of plots could be brewing behind that mask.
Chyou's face fell and she sighed. "A pity. Since I'm chairwoman of the event, I was given the prime box; you know, the one next to the one reserved for the Fire Lord, right over the "flower path"? You can look out over the entire theater and no one can see you from the floor or any of the other boxes."
"Yes, I know that one," Mai agreed, doubly certain now that Chyou was up to something. "If you're the one in charge of the show, I'll bet it'll be a good one.
"Oh, yes – all the best students from both schools will be performing. One girl in particular: Sundari of the Lài clan is…" Chyou touched her finger to her chin. "Then again, since Xue refused to go, I suppose it's for the best. He needs someone to look in on him, to make sure he's doing his studies rather than reading those other books. Mai, do you mind paying me back a favor and…?"
"But who likes hearing about concerts second-hand anyway?" Mai interrupted, just a little too quickly. When Chyou played the guilt tile, she was plotting in earnest, and Mai knew better than to try and maneuver around her aunt when she got like that. 'Boring as any concert might be, like hell I'm going to baby-sit Xue!' "But I might not have the time to go all the way back home and…"
"Mistress, please pardon my rudeness, but a parcel has arrived for Lady Mai." Chyou's maid appeared at the door, burdened with a cedar clothes chest Mai recognized as one (among many) she had taken to Omashu.
'… She totally planned this.' Mai shook her head, more impressed than annoyed.
"Ah, your Maha really is the perfect steward, don't you think?" Chyou asked, pretending she had not noticed. "Linh, put that in my room and set the garments out, then go and tell the attendant to draw the bath for my niece. I imagine nothing would feel better than a relaxing bath after your trip, right, Mai-dear?"
A bath sounded like heaven right about now; it would be a relief to wash away the dust and aches from her trip to Sharanya's. 'At least Aunty's gracious in victory,' she conceded. "Thanks Aunty, that would be wonderful."
Chyou smiled and patted her hand. "Take your time, Mai-dear – I'll take care of everything else."
'I don't doubt it.'
"You know, you should wear your hair like this for festivals and other events; it looks so pretty on you!" Chyou said as she put the finishing touches on Mai's hairstyle. Returning from her bath as the sun set, she found Chyou had laid out various hair ornaments she had purchased in expectation of Mai accompanying her to the theater. Among them was a bronze piece and pair of gilt hair-sticks that reminded her of the ones she had used when she, Azula, and Ty Lee had infiltrated Ba Sing Se disguised as Kyoshi Warriors. Seeing Mai's interest, Chyou immediately offered to put them to use, since they would match perfectly with the robe Maha had sent along. With a brief description from Mai, Chyou easily replicated the hairstyle, adding a few embellishments of her own, to include a golden butterfly pin at the base of the bun piled high on her niece's head.
Mai, sitting straight and still, watched her aunt in the mirror. Chyou had taken off her veil so as not to get any makeup on it and looked years younger for its lacking. She sang softly as she worked, an old song about a lady whose hair was so beautifully black, the starlight would get trapped in it when she went out at night, gradually turning it silver. It was silly, but Mai could not help but think about the times she had sat in her mother's lap as a little girl, the hairdresser putting Mother's hair up, her mother combing Mai's hair and tying those stupid ribboned kerchiefs on either side of her head. Mother could not sing, but she had always hummed, mostly melodies from popular songs, but every once and a while, a lullaby slipped in there…
"Mai, are you all right?"
"I'm fine, Aunty," Mai said, getting to her feet. "Thank you for doing my hair."
"You're welcome…" Her aunt seemed on the verge of saying something, changed her mind and told Linh to fetch her makeup case. Mai only took a bit of rouge for herself, and let Chyou line her eyes with kohl and the barest hint of gold-dust. The maid helped Mai dress, since the long sash and the belt accompanying it required a rather finicky knot in the back to fall properly; the trailing loops of silk drooping from her waist were silly in Mai's opinion, but they were the current theater-going fashion, according to Chyou. 'Should I be worried that Maha already had an outfit like this on stand-by for me?' Mai wondered. 'I'll bet my best dagger this is what that "discretionary expense" entry was in the ledger for last month...' Then again, Maha had also sent along her gloves, gauntlets and small thigh holsters (containing five knives each), so she supposed she could just chalk it up to him being the "perfect steward." 'Maybe it's worth it to let him call me "Young Mistress" after all…'
Chyou raised her eyebrow at the gauntlets and knives, but said nothing as Mai put them on, the wide brocade trim of her over-robe doing a better job of concealing them than even her customary clothes did. "I don't suppose Grandmother Sharanya asked for any gossip while you were over there?" she said suddenly.
Mai clicked her left gauntlet in place and shrugged the bell of her sleeve over her hand. "No. She doesn't seem the gossipy type," Mai replied evenly, pretending to adjust her bodice.
"That's… true," said Chyou. "I suppose you're like her in that way." Mai flinched, but Chyou had turned to pick up her fan from the dresser and missed it. "Your uncle mentioned something interesting he heard in the Ministry of Justice yesterday. Not quite gossip, but maybe something to intrigue Grandmother Sharanya. Governor Niran's daughter is going to make an appearance before the Fire Lord and the Court soon. Maybe she would be interested in attending."
"Who?" Mai asked offhandedly, just in case Chyou was about to start quizzing her on just what, exactly, she and Sharanya had talked about.
"Oh, Suchin of the Kuo clan, the daughter of the governor of Wǎn Territory. Rumor has it that she's coming to testify about the state of affairs in her father's territory in his place."
That got her attention. "A governor refuses a Fire Lord's summons, then sends his daughter instead?" she demanded.
"It's not unprecedented," Chyou observed soothingly. "She's his eldest and, by all accounts, his favorite. A suitable hostage if something… untoward happens."
"That's assuming he actually cares that much about his daughter," Mai said under her breath.
"There's also the assassination of Governor Niran's wife, Lady Mi, six months ago. The investigation was concluded, but the official findings were never reported to the Court. Perhaps he saw it as a way to send her safely out of danger and yet make it seem he still has control over his territory."
Mai felt sick to her stomach all of a sudden. "She's coming to report on her mother's murder? To the whole Court?"
Chyou tilted her head, holding her palms up. "That's what Peizhi thinks, at least. Rather cruel, I agree. But I've also heard that her coming here has nothing to do with that at all, that she's actually the Kuo candidate for the Fire Lord's wife."
The sick feeling vanished immediately. "Oh?"
"And with the Teng clan candidate, that would make her the second governors' daughter to be a candidate. Third, technically." She gave Mai significant Look.
"I," Mai said coldly, "am not a "candidate" for anything, least of all to be Fire Lady. I am the one Zuko loves. And that's all that matters."
"I sincerely hope so," Chyou said in a quiet voice.
"Mistress?" Linh came into the room (Mai had not noticed she had even left) carrying a veil of very fine, almost translucent, white silk. "Master Peizhi has returned, and asked me to tell you that he will be accompanying you and Lady Mai to the concert after all. He asks that you give him a little while to prepare."
"Of course! Please tell him that I am glad he found the time to come!"
"Aunty…" Mai began after Linh had bowed and gone to carry out her mistress's bidding.
"Yes, Mai-dear?" Chyou asked, pinning the last fold of silk in place, the blush on her cheeks not the product of any rouge.
"… Never mind." 'I suppose it's up to her how long she plans to keep wearing it. Maybe it's the only way to keep the clan from forcing them to marry…'
A/N: Well, hello there, slew of social conventions. People talk about how Mai seems to dislike being a noble of the Fire Nation. While I would qualify that assertion, I decided to present a sample of reasons why that might be...
Anywho, I'll be taking a hiatus from this fic - at least two weeks, but likely a month. Real life and all that.