AN: Excerpt from Sophocles' "Antigone", translated by David Grene

Chapter 3: Night

Zuko waited outside Jin's workshop that night. The air was unseasonably brisk, chilling his back against the cobblestone wall. The street was poorly lit and oddly quiet compared to the bustle of the lower ring during the day. He cursed Jin yet again for being so idiotic and walking alone. It was all her fault that he was cold.

After a quarter of an hour the workshop door opened and about a dozen girls trooped out. Two at the front of the group noticed him and whispered to each other behind their hands. They walked away, arm in arm, peeking over their shoulders at him and giggling.

Jin was near the back of the group and she stopped and stared at him for a moment before marching past without further acknowledgment. He fell into step next to her and they walked in silence for quite some time.

He rather liked not having to come up with conversation topics. He could tell that she was irritated with him by the way she refused to make eye contact and by the frown she had forced onto her face. But he didn't really care. He was irritated with her too. Stupid girl. What would happen if she was attacked? Had she even thought about that? She was supposed to be smart.

Finally, Jin couldn't take the silence any more.

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm walking you home."

"You don't have to."

"Yes, I do."

"No, you don't."

"Fine. I don't. I'm doing this from the kindness of my heart and you'd better remember that."

"So now you think I'm indebted to you because you're following me around?"

"You're the one following me."

"Patronizing your place of business does not constitute following you."

"I'm walking with you. Deal with it."

"How did you know where I worked anyway?"

"My uncle."

"Ah."

Their silence was broken only by the sound of their footsteps against the street. Zuko risked a sideways glance at her and noticed the dark circles under her eyes. As if she had some sort of sixth sense, she met his gaze and he hurriedly looked away and cleared his throat.

She stopped walking. "What is on your back?"

"Dao swords."

"You're armed?"

"Of course I'm armed. I'm out here to protect you and to do that I'm armed."

"Spirits. You're taking this way too far."

"I told you, there are bad guys out here."

"And I told you that I know that."

"You don't act like you do."

"How am I supposed to act then?"

"Let me walk you home and stop being cranky."

"Cranky?"

"I'm just being nice. It's what anyone with any sense of chivalry would do, and I'm shocked that everyone you know is so uncultured that none of them considered doing it before me." Jin didn't know what to think of this. "It's not like we're friends or anything." Ok, that one was just insulting and also a big fat lie.

"You have an odd sense of chivalry."

"You're not sophisticated enough to know what you're talking about."

Jin chose to ignore this.

He grabbed her arm and pulled her into moving again.

They approached a building that he assumed was her tenement. It was a shabby wooden structure with several families worth of clothes lines hanging between windows and a few failed attempts at sprucing the place up (an ugly looking flowered plant, a recent layer of yellow paint that had dried unevenly, and a small wind chime).

"How much work do you have left to do tonight?"

"I have to memorize a passage to recite tomorrow and read three chapters from my history book."

"You look terrible. Are you really going to be able to do all that?"

"Yes."

"Can I help at all?"

"I thought you already helped by walking me home."

"I told you, that's just polite."

"You're never polite." They were standing in front of her door now, glaring at each other. She felt her already weakened willpower give way under his blazing glare.

"Do you know how to heat up stew?"

"Of course."

"Then you can make me dinner before you go."

"Fine."

It was strange letting him into her house. But she forgot all about him when she started reading her passage over and over.

Her home was small and dirty, reminding him of a beaver-mole nest. The first floor was one room that served as kitchen and dining room, and he guessed it would also be a living room if anyone ever spent time there. The upstairs was probably small bedrooms. The plumbing was probably outdoors.

Where was her family? Were they asleep? Did they work nights? Did she even have a family? He realized that he really didn't know much about her.

The main feature of the room was the large brick stove, where a pot of leftover stew sat on dying embers. He poked the coals with a stick and discretely fire bent the stove back to life. Jin was so entranced in her work that she didn't even notice when he sat her dinner down next to her. He fixed himself a bowl and sat across from her at the table.

When he finished his stew he spoke to get her attention. "Eat it or it will get cold."

"What? Oh. Thank you." She shifted the bowl closer and took an overly large mouthful before turning back to her scroll.

"Give it here."

"What?"

"Give me the passage you're supposed to be memorizing."

"I really don't have time for this."

"When I was in school we did a lot of memorization and reciting. It's easier to do when you do it out loud and it's easier when you have a classmate help you."

She blinked at him, hesitated, and then scooted the scroll across the table.

"Let me hear it."

"'Lucky are those whose lives know no taste of sorrow-'"

"No."

"Yes. That's right."

"No, you're doing it wrong. You need to sound confident."

"I'm not confident yet."

"That's why you need to sound like you are. Sit up straighter. Speak louder. You're smart, and pretty, and determined. Let people see that."

She paused before slightly adjusted her posture. "'Lucky are those whose lives know no taste of sorrow. But for those whose house has been shaken by God there is never cessation of ruin; it steals on generation after generation within a breed…'" She paused trying to remember the next part.

"There's more."

"I know there's more. I don't remember it. Give my scroll back." She reached for it and he pulled it further away from her.

"'For the future near and far…'"

"Oh yeah. 'For the future near and far, and the past, this law holds true-'"

"Good."

"Thanks."

"No. The word is 'good' not 'true'."

"'True' sounds better."

"That's not the issue here."

"Screw you. 'For the future near and far, and the past, this law holds GOOD: nothing very great comes to the life of mortal man without ruin to accompany it.'"

After an hour she had it down, and so did Zuko. He actually had it memorized before she did, but he hadn't had a very strenuous day. He didn't like the passage. It was obnoxious.

She gave him a very tired smile. "Thank you for your help, but I don't want to keep you out any later."

"You're not really going to start reading history now, are you?"

"Yes. And I don't think you can help me with that."

"You should go to bed."

"No. I still have work."

"If you don't get enough sleep your oration will suck and all the work you've done tonight will be worthless."

"I'm used to not getting much sleep."

"Because you're weird. Go to sleep. If it's that important, do it tomorrow or get notes from one of your classmates."

"You're a bad influence."

"Then quit following me around."

"You're the one that followed me home."

"Then I'll leave." He stood abruptly and headed for the door, shouting "Later" over his shoulder.

Jin sat in the empty room and stirred her cold stew once. She decided maybe she could do her history reading tomorrow.

The next night he was there again. He was still armed, and they did not speak for several blocks.

"How did your recitation go?" His voice was hesitant, almost as if he was apologizing for something. That was ridiculous. He didn't have anything to be sorry about. He cleared his throat.

"It went very well, thank you."

"How much work do you have to do tonight?"

"I don't have to do anything, but I should study a bit. My finals probably won't be so bad, but I like to be thoroughly prepared."

"Over achiever."

"Over achiever who's going to graduate."

"So? I graduated. It's not hard."

"I'll be the first in my family to do it."

"Oh." Zuko trailed off in embarrassment.

"Is this going to become a daily thing? You coming all the way out here just to walk me home?"

"Do you know anyone else who can look after you?"

"I can look after myself."

"Maybe we should get you a knife. I can show you how to use it."

"So those broad swords aren't just for decoration?"

"No."

"If giving me a knife will get you to go away, then that works for me."

"You're right. I should keep walking you home."

She glared at him. "Fine. I don't care what you do. Walking around in the dead of night. If this is what you do in your spare time it's no wonder you don't have any fun."

He made a noise that sounded a bit like a growl.

When they reached her front door she paused. She really didn't have a reason to invite him in and he really should go home.

"Well, I …"

"Later," he said dismissively, and turned without another word to stroll off down the street. She was left standing with her hand on the door and a surprised look on her face as she watched him disappear into the dark. He was so weird.

Jin found her mother sitting at the table, apparently waiting for her. "Hello, dear."

"Hi, momma." Jin bent down to kiss her mother's cheek before moving to the hearth and dishing herself some rice and pork-beef. "What are you doing up so late?"

"Work kept me up. When I finished I thought that I could stay up a bit more until you came home. It feels like I haven't seen you in ages." Jin smiled and sat at the table. "How was your day?"

"Alright. I did a recitation in class and it went well. Then I'm almost finished with my dress. Just the hem is left and I'll be done."

"That's good." Her mother gave her a tired smile. A flicker of pride and possibly tears danced in her eyes.

"Thank you, momma."

"And who was the boy who walked you home?"

"That's just Lee. He's got it into his head that I can't walk home alone."

"Sounds like a nice boy."

"Yeah. He sounds that way."

Her mother smiled knowingly. "I love you, Jin. And I'm very proud."

"Thank you, momma."

The next night Jin actually looked happy to see him as she came out of the workshop. Finally, she had dropped the irritated act she had been attempting, and accepted that he was right and she was wrong. Victory was his.

She grabbed his elbow to hold him in place until the other seamstresses left, and then forcefully pulled him into the workhouse, slipping back in before the door finished closing. She led him quickly across the large work room. It was a high ceilinged, dark room full of tables and rolls of fabric and human models that rose out of the dark like specters. It was a bit too quiet, leading Zuko to suspect that they were doing something illicit.

Jin wove down the aisles with confidence and stopped in front of a messy table and a model of a woman's torso covered by an amazing gown.

"It's finished," she whispered.

He didn't know anything about dresses or sewing, but he easily recognized that this was a work of art. It was a deep green color that almost seemed to glow in the moonlight from the high windows. There was spectacular, detailed embroidery that accented the hip and waist. Then there was the fact that instead of a high necked collar, the dress rested off the shoulder, showing three scandalous back vertebrate.

"It's beautiful." His voice too was quiet, almost reverent. Neither of their eyes left the dress. "Who's going to wear it?"

"Lady Fae. She paid six thousand gold pieces. It took me weeks, and I have a huge back log now. But that's alright."

"You get six thousand gold pieces?"

"Oh no. I just get my wages."

"When do you give it to her?"

"I don't. I give it to the manager tomorrow and he'll take it up to the shop in the middle ring to give it to her."

"You won't get to see her wear it?"

"No." Her voice held the smallest hint of sadness. "But at least I get to show it to you."