Hello again, my friends, and welcome to another installment of this story! Thank you all for the reads, follows, and reviews! Don't be shy about commenting and critiquing my stuff; I would love to hear from you, whatever it is.
Side note: Thinking of a title for this chapter took at least five tries over the course of an hour, so hopefully it's poetic and deep enough. It sounds nice, I guess. Maybe paying tribute to a previous U.S. President during the Civil War.
Please do enjoy!
Chapter Six:
he begins to build a house of cards, but divided it cannot stand
When the Fire Lord's ship finally arrived back on its mainland, Suki breathed a deep sigh of relief.
After a couple day of chaos, even returning to a broken Fire Nation was soothing.
As her duties dictated, she made sure that the Fire Lord was safely back wherever he needed to be before she rested for the day.
She kicked off her shoes and plopped onto the tatami mat of the common room that connected the rooms that the Fire Nation was lending of all the Kyoshi Warriors. The moment she sighed and lay back, her fellow warriors all realized that she was back and clamored to come see her.
"Suki! You're back! Finally!" Ty Lee said, walking out to greet her on her hands.
"Hey," she greeted back, softly and with the best smile she could muster.
Suki hated to admit it, but she was much too tired to really interact well with anyone.
"Suki!" Su Lin, Jena, and Riza joined the two of them out in the common room, sitting themselves in a circle around their leader.
"What happened out there? You were gone for a whole two days without us!" Ty Lee said. "Any crazy action happen?"
Suki snorted. "Too much crazy stuff."
"Tell us what happened!"
She closed her eyes and shook her head. "Sorry," she said, lying back down onto the floor. "I'm tired even just thinking about it all."
"Hey…" Riza said, leaning over Suki's prone body and meeting their eyes. "I've never seen you this down before!"
Suki put her hand over her face and admitted, "Sorry." She smiled. "I should be handling this better."
"It's okay—you've got us!" Jena reminded Suki. "If you don't want to talk about it now, it's okay—but just remember that you have us."
"You've dealt with really tough stuff before," Su Lin added. "I'm sure this isn't any different."
Ty Lee was oddly silent, as if she had read Suki's mind and knew precisely what kind of issues were marinating in the Kyoshi Warrior leader's head.
Later, after all the other Kyoshi Warriors left Suki to her own thoughts, the acrobat approached Suki.
"Mai told me that she broke up with Zuko," Ty Lee told her.
"Yeah," Suki said. "She broke up with him right before we left."
"What happened? She wouldn't tell me about it."
This is when Suki rolled over onto her stomach and groaned.
Ty Lee gave her a small laugh. "It was that bad, huh?"
The groan that Suki gave out afterwards was enough for Ty Lee to come to the right conclusion.
Ty Lee laughed again, but then her tone turned serious. "I'm worried about them, you know," she admitted to Suki. "They've never really had a proper relationship, you know?"
"What do you mean?" Suki mumbled, talking into the fabric of her sleeve.
"They've been on and off for Agni knows how long," the Fire Nation-native explained. "And if they are together, one or the other is mad at the other about something. But it isn't helping that Zuko is the Fire Lord…and you know Mai is trying to be supportive as possible for him." Ty Lee continued to rant. "It's really not fair for either of them—they really have to talk things over and figure it out. And I can't be the one mediating the entire conversation—Mai doesn't want to talk to me, and she keeps pushing me away, and Zuko keeps himself locked in his study room and just says that he's busy all the time—"
"So what do you want me to do?" Suki interrupted the acrobat's jabbering. She was already tired of hearing it—and as much as she tried not to be rude and to practice patience, she found that she was at her limit.
Ty Lee hesitated before replying. "I'm…not telling you to do anything. I'm just saying that it's really hard, and that I'm worried."
After a short silence, Suki sighed and rolled onto her back before sitting up to face her friend.
"I caused their break up, Ty Lee," she admitted.
The brunette was confused. "What?"
Suki sighed again. "Mai broke up with Zuko because he was talking to his father."
"Oh, that's not possibly entirely your fault, Suki! I mean—it's true that you were the one that told her about him talking to his father—" and here Ty Lee heard Suki sigh again. "—but Mai actually breaking up with Zuko was totally her own decision! It had nothing to do with you!"
Suki didn't say anything.
"I just—I'm sorry if I'm not making you feel any better—I'm just worried about Mai, that's all," Ty Lee concluded. "And I was going to ask you if Zuko was fine."
"He's surviving," Suki finally said, after a beat.
"We'll just have to make sure that both of them are okay while we're here, huh?" Ty Lee said, brightly.
"It's not our responsibility," Suki reminded her.
"Oh please," Ty Lee said, waving off Suki's comment. "You and I both know that we care about our friends enough to go above and beyond our responsibilities."
And as much as Suki hated to admit it, she knew Ty Lee was right.
The Kyoshi Warrior leader thought back on her time at seas with the Fire Lord, being part of the discussion among the most powerful people in the world, and practically manipulating the Avatar and her boyfriend's sister—and she felt a tiny bit worse.
She was trapped—there was no way that she wasn't going to help her friend out—but she wasn't doing things that she felt completely comfortable with. She was doing things that she would normally never allow herself to do and throwing away her ethical boundaries all for the sake of her friendship with the Fire Lord.
And what for?
But Suki reminded herself that she was no better than Zuko.
After all, just like how Zuko had told her to talk to Aang and Katara for him, she had told Mai about Zuko talking to his father when in fact, she should have been the one to confront the Fire Lord herself.
later in the afternoon
Although technically there weren't any guarding assignments for Zuko during the daytime, Suki—after some reflective time and some help from her friends to raise her mood—couldn't help but go check in on Zuko.
She made her way toward the Fire Lord's study room, tracing her fingers lightly along the cold marble walls of the palace, growing disturbed as she ventured deeper into the royal halls, as it grew quieter and felt more empty—nothing like how Suki would have imagined the grand center of the Fire Nation would be.
The Fire Nation seemed like it was flourishing from the outside, full of tropical goods, welcoming people, and prosperous businesses—but it was rotting from the inside, the soul of the nation crumbling from its very core.
Suki stopped as she approached the double doored entrance to the Fire Lord's study, peeking as much into the room as she could through the small crack of the open door.
It was dark on the inside—she wouldn't have known that anyone was in there if she hadn't heard the sound of a light turn of a page. Suki slowly bumped the door open, slipping into the room.
"You made it worse," the Fire Lord said, as she came into the room.
Suki blinked. "Excuse me?"
"I got a message from the Avatar today," he explained, head still facing down to his desk. "According to the Avatar, King Kuei is going back on his deal. Apparently they had talked to him to make sure that colonies would have the same amount of independence as they had when they were governed under the Fire Nation. Kuei was mad that Aang and Katara seemed to be cutting me slack and called off the entire damn thing."
"The entire thing?"
"Yeah, he's going back to the original plan—everyone in Yu Dao must leave and be resettled in the Fire Nation mainland. And he's also cracking down on all the other colonies too. He's giving us just six months to move out."
"You made it worse," he summarized, his golden eyes now looking up, trained on her.
The Kyoshi Warrior tried her hardest to not just erupt in the middle of the room.
Just when she had thought she had gotten over the entire fact that she—
He was the one that told her to go talk to the Avatar in the first place! How the hell was this her fault? At most this was just a personal problem between Kuei and Zuko—even Aang and Katara had nothing to do with this! This was something that the two nation rulers were going to have to figure out for themselves!
"Well. You shouldn't have brought me into this," she said, as calmly as she could, her hands tightly clasping behind her back.
His amber eyes flickered, and his mouth turned downwards slightly. "Oh, I'm not mad at you. I was just…I'm sorry if you thought I was blaming you," he said, softly and apologetically. He turned his eyes back down to the letters on his desk.
Suki blinked again. Why the hell did he say it like it was all her fault then?
You made it worse.
How was she not going to take offense to that?
Some strange type of silence passed over them, and Suki took the opportunity to step towards the firebender's desk, standing just before him. The yellow desk light seemed to enunciate the bags under his eyes, making them more hollow, and etched a few more wrinkles onto his face.
She could almost see the text on the papers on his desk—likely the letter that the Avatar had sent him telling him about the Earth King's decisions.
"So what are you going to do?" she asked him.
He never rose his bronze eyes up to her, instead looking off to the corner of his table.
"I don't know," he admitted, under his breath.
Suki pursed her lips, quietly waiting to see if he'd say anything more. This clearly wasn't an answer that he would be giving to a subordinate. Was he talking to her as a friend?
He closed his eyes and slowly rubbed his forehead with his right hand, as if he was trying to massage the stress out of his mind—more so, his life.
"My father's right, you know," he continued, still staring off into a dark corner of the room. "I can't make decisions, and when I do, I don't trust myself to make them."
"I'm not worthy of being Fire Lord," he concluded, a moment after.
Suki took one slow breath in and out.
"I think you're doing the best job you can, given the situation," she said, having engineered her statement so that it was as supportive as possible, while not passing over any boundaries.
She had learned her lesson. She was going to try to stay away from this as much as possible. She hadn't liked manipulating Aang and Katara, and it didn't even turn out the way that Zuko had wanted—she wasn't going to involve herself any further, and she wasn't going to let Zuko involve herself anymore.
He didn't buy her words. "My father was right," he repeated. "My father was right about everything."
"Ozai was a terrible man," she said, stiffly. "Why are you even taking his words seriously?"
"He was the Fire Lord," Zuko said, softly. "Maybe he wasn't the most righteous of all rulers, but he knows the pressures of the throne…and he held the Fire Nation together for longer than I can even try." He paused for a moment and then turned toward Suki, meeting her eyes. "He's the only one that understands."
The Fire Lord's golden eyes were much too intense for Suki to keep staring at, so she looked off to the side at another dark corner of the room.
"Hell, I'd even ask Azula…" he said, laughing dryly. "But she's not in the right state of mind."
Even just the name of the blue-lightning firebender sent chills down Suki's back. Azula…
And suddenly even Ozai seemed tolerable.
"Why don't you turn to your uncle?" she asked, remembering that even Aang sometimes mentioned the man. "Uncle Iroh?"
Zuko gave her a look.
And within that second, she realized that she had made a big mistake.
"I'm sorry," she apologized. "I didn't realize…"
"It's okay," he said, before she could finish her sentence. "Sometimes I forget that he's gone, too."
He sat there, and she stood there, in silence for a moment, before Zuko suddenly rose from his chair and walked towards the exit of the room.
"Come," he said warmly, looking back and stopping to wait for her. "Let's go visit him."
The Kyoshi Warrior followed after the man, deciding that she should pay her respects to the late uncle as well. The Fire Lord took her left and right around a couple of corners and through a few corridors, until they stopped in front of a door—the only doorway in that hallway.
He opened the door, and the scent of incense and mahogany greeted them, wrapping her in an earthy aroma as she entered into the room after him.
There wasn't much in the room. It was dark, much like many of the other rooms in the palace, but in this room, the dark was warm and welcoming, peaceful and serene. The room didn't look used at all, except for the small shrine that stood against the wall directly across from the door. The shrine was simplistic, not holding much except for a framed portrait, a few candles, and a small pot for incense sticks.
The firebender looked at the painted portrait of his late uncle for a long while, and Suki could only do the same. The portrait depicted a stern Iroh, his lips flat and serious, and his facial wrinkles pointing downwards. It wasn't a look that suited Iroh, whose eyes often sparkled and whose mouth was always turned up into a smile. The general had probably unwillingly and only obligingly agreed to have a portrait painted of him—one that would illustrate him as a fierce Fire Nation army commander, rather than wise and serene as probably best described him.
It was interesting that this was the only visible relic that the Fire Lord had of the uncle that he greatly adored. After all, what the Fire Lord respected the most about his uncle was everything outside of his role as a war general for the Fire Nation.
"He always told me that he wanted peace and quiet when he passed," Zuko told her. "That's why I try not to talk to him too much about my troubles—it's the least that I can do for him."
Suki chose her words carefully. "I'm sure he would love to hear from you though."
Zuko didn't seem to hear her. "The Jasmine Dragon is still open for business, of course," he said, with a small smile. "The Jasmine Dragon was his tea shop—his biggest dream in life was to own a tea shop and just drink tea in peace."
She watched the firebender play with something at his neck. When she snuck a glance to see what it was, she realized that he was fingering a white chip with a design that even she recognized—the Order of the White Lotus. The white chip hung off a simple gold chain around his neck, something that Suki didn't realize that Zuko wore, even after all the time she spent guarding him.
The Kyoshi Warrior redirected her eyes to General Iroh's portrait.
"Maybe the Order could help you?" she suggested, pretending that she hadn't noticed his pendant.
"The Order first serves the Avatar," Zuko replied, almost immediately, as if he had thought about the possibility already. "Not a warring nation that is going against the will of the Avatar."
"But you're not defying Aang."
"I feel like I am more and more…just like…" he trailed off, but Suki knew that he would have said like my father. "I mean, look at what I just did—I just made you convince the Avatar to talk to the Earth King again…in order to manipulate a better outcome for a Fire Nation colony."
She couldn't believe that she was going to defend his actions. "Well," she said. "I agreed to talk to the Avatar in the first place."
He didn't take the excuse for himself. "I just tried to deceive and manipulate through the entire thing."
And, as if he was going to continue on the same track because there was no use in turning back to the good, the Fire Lord suddenly made a decision that Suki couldn't say that she would have been completely comfortable with.
"I'm not going to tell them," he said.
"Tell who what?"
"I'm not going to tell the colonies that they have to move out," Zuko declared.
Suki's eyebrows furrowed. This wouldn't go over well in the future. Everything was going to eventually crash and fall on him. It would be much much worse than it was now.
"You're not going to tell them?" she confirmed, as if she was making sure that he actually had declared such a risky idea.
"I'm not lying to them," Zuko defended.
She could already see the deep grave that Zuko was digging himself.
And he didn't seem to really give a fuck.
"It'll buy me time," he continued. "I'll work it out with the Earth King. The colonist will never have to know."
She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times before finally getting her words out.
"I think you should just be honest with the colonists," she said. "I think they'll appreciate the transparency…as opposed to a last-minute resettlement." She waited for him to say anything before continuing. "It'll be easier to deal with them now than later."
"You make it sound so easy," he sneered.
This comment shut her up, but she wasn't pleased at his curtness. She folded her arms and turned away from him, back towards the portrait of his uncle.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I…I shouldn't have said that. I didn't mean it."
She knew that he was right—everything was easier said than done, but he didn't have to be snarky about it all. She took the opportunity to dismiss herself and exit the room.
Just before she completely stepped out of the room, he spoke again.
"I'm sorry," he apologized again, then suddenly desperate. "Wait…you're not…leaving for good, right?"
The tone of his voice reminded her of when he was begging Mai not to go.
She stood there at the doorway, turning her head back.
"No," she said, almost bitterly. "I have nowhere else to be."
that night
At least, Suki thought she had nowhere else to be until the Kyoshi Warriors received an urgent message from Kira.
Ty Lee was the first to tell Suki, running into Suki's room that night as the Kyoshi Warrior leader was about to ready herself for rest.
"Suki!" the acrobat exclaimed, popping her head into Suki's room.
"Ah!" gasped the called-upon brunette, who instinctively wrapped her arms around her toweled self. She had been in the middle of changing into the silk pajamas that her skin had been waiting to slip into after a rather long day.
Ty Lee quickly apologized for the inconvenience, closing the door behind her and approaching the Kyoshi Warrior leader with a scroll in her hand.
Suki studied Ty Lee's chocolate eyes for a moment, and she could tell it was a serious matter.
"What happened?" Suki asked.
"I don't know," Ty Lee replied. "But it's from Kira."
Kira? Was something going on back on Kyoshi Island?
"You can open it," Suki assured the Fire Nation-native. "I trust you with whatever information is in there. Kira wrote to all of us, didn't she?"
Ty Lee shook her head. "No, it's specifically addressed to you."
Oh noes, mayhaps there are troubles overseas! Whatever shall Suki do?
P.S. – I hope you don't find Suki too OOC throughout this chapter! I think I've exposed a side that we don't usually experience to how we normally find her in the AtLA world—then again, the series doesn't revolve around her 24/7—anyway, let me know what you think about that too!
thir13enth