I seriously owe Kimberly T. several shirtless Zukos for helping me with this rewrite. She pointed out several gaps in story logic, and after a couple of PMs, I'm feeling more comfortable with this. If I'm going to include Chem's POV, then I had better do it justice, and give him a full character, just like I would Katara and Zuko. This also does a better job of tying in with the third arc. This is the great part about writing: putting it out there, getting feedback, then revising. I love revising, just as much as I love constructive criticism. If you feel like something's off to you, or you're having a hard time believing what's happening, I would rather you say something than have it ruin the story for you.
Also, keep in mind that POV is highly subjective. Just because I think it looks like a cup doesn't mean that it can't also look like two faces kissing. And sorry to all those who JUST read this, and now I'm posting an update :( I'm planning on doing another update later this week, and wanted to get this one out there.
Chem stood in the middle of the camp and watched Inara greet the scouts at the perimeter as she made her way further into their campsite. There were easily one hundred and fifty tents of varying sizes—all in either black or dark green—pitched around the clearing. People milled about, eating and talking in small clusters. Nearly everyone was armed, even as they ate, and the place looked like nothing more than a camp of soldiers during a war. Which, essentially, it was. And Chem was at the center of it all. When she reached him, she bowed.
"Sir, there might be trouble."
"Is it something we need to talk about in private?"
Inara gave a firm no, and Chem nodded. Everyone who was at that camp was there for the same reason. The Fire Nation was their home, too, and Sozin's blood had done so much to damage it, everything about it. Because of their actions, Fire Nation was a dirty word in the Earth Kingdom, and gold eyes automatically denied you peace at the North Pole. Legally, no nation was allowed to deny entry because of nationality alone under one peace treaty or another, but there was no regulating the distrust and the dirty looks and the sneers and the hurt pride.
Azulon had stripped their islands of native traditions and forced them into the pathetic blandness of the capitol, and nothing had been done to rectify this, yet. So much needed to be fixed at home, and yet the Fire Lord chose to focus his attention elsewhere. Lies were still being spewed three years after the war ended, and now the people of the Fire Nation suffered. There was little refuge in the Earth Kingdom or the Water Tribes. The new Avatar was too young to understand the gravity of the crimes committed by Sozin and his descendants against the people of their own nation. It was too easy for him to overlook this in the face of the damage done to the rest of the world.
"What is it, Inara?" Chem asked, maneuvering them to an empty log by the fire
"I've played my part as I was told, and now I'm through. The rest is up to them, and to our own people." Inara sighed. "Fire Lord Zuko is sincere in his love for his mother and his attempts to rescue her. He's done a lot, sir—"
"He has done a lot for others, but not for his own nation."
Inara looked away, but she didn't look chastised at all. No. She wouldn't. She would side with Long and say that the best way to achieve their goals would be to join forces with the Fire Lord, but Chem knew that too many of Azulon's government officials still had their jobs. He'd worked with them before, and these were men who made their money on war. They wouldn't give up their positions so easily.
"You can't expect things to go back to the way they were before this whole business started." Inara put her hand on Chem's shoulder, but he slid back and away from her grasp.
"I don't expect you to understand the way Fire Nation politics is conducted—"
"Things have changed since you were banished, Chem! In Omashu they praise his levelheaded decisions."
"And in Ba Sing Se, they say he is responsible for the disappearance of King Kuei, that he has been reluctant to turn over war criminals because they are his close advisors, and he has steadily denied requests for monetary aid. Everyone knows the Fire Nation is still the richest of the nations."
"Everyone says it, but since none of us have been there since the war ended, how can we really know?"
"Because we know what he is! Because I saw him riding down the streets of Ba Sing Se next to Azula after the coup! I heard her tell the people that he killed the Avatar—"
"Who is clearly not dead—"
"I heard the Dai Li agents say that he turned the tide of that battle. If he had simply done nothing the Avatar and Ambassador Katara would have won." Chem stopped himself, breathing heavily. He was yelling, and people were looking in their direction. "You did not see the look of pain and hurt on the Lady Mother's face when her children marched under Ozai's banner…"
He and Ursa had escaped with a few other refugees nearly a month after the coup, but that month had been hell. She didn't want to eat, and she couldn't sleep. She had been confined to the house because even going out for groceries carried a high likelihood that she'd be caught and returned to Ozai. Even Chem didn't dare venture out, but living in constant fear and jumping at every knock of the door and walking with shoulders stooped and scanning eyes was taking its toll. Worse than the humiliation of sneaking out of the city in a dung cart was having to listen to Ursa cry herself to sleep when she could get to sleep, and lamenting her son's role in the takeover. She had known she was powerless to reverse Ozai's damage to Azula, but she had hoped and prayed that at least one of them was safe.
Inara sighed and covered her face with her hands. "I didn't want to get into a political discussion with you, Chem."
Until this mission, he hadn't dared to set foot in the Fire Nation, afraid of money hungry bounty hunters who would track him down and turn him in, or worse, use him to get to Ursa. Like others, he'd been forced to live on kernels of truth and half truths about the Fire Nation, desperate to figure out what was going on with his home. He'd heard about the burning of the lotus lily fields on Kirachu Island—where he and Ursa were born—a whole year after it happened. They'd heard the news while they were on a trading ship, only days after their escape from Ba Sing Se, and it hit Ursa hard when no one could tell her what became of Wei and Qiao, her parents, once the most powerful family on the island that supplied the Fire Nation with one third of its food. She didn't think he heard her, but she'd cried and told the sea that she'd dreamed of her parents meeting her son and showing him the fields she'd so loved as a girl.
Nine long years he spent running with the Fire Lady Mother Ursa, trying to stay one step ahead of Ozai, who finally realized she was the one to hold all of his secrets and, Chem assumed, who was intent on killing her.
Inara was yawning and scratching her head. She meant well, Chem knew, and she was just ready to go home, but he was, too. While Inara would have them waltz into the Fire Nation with nothing but hope and love, Chem knew that caution was necessary. So what if he had become the Avatar's firebending teacher? It very well could have been a spat over the crown that drove him to his father's enemies. It wasn't unheard of. Ozai had clashed with both Azulon and Iroh many times about his right to rule, and those fights had been vicious, especially between Iroh and Ozai. It landed the younger brother in the doctor's on more than one occasion.
"It has been a long night," Chem said, calling a truce. They didn't need to argue amongst themselves. Not now. Not when he felt they were so close.
"Chem," Inara said slowly, "Fire Lord Zuko thinks this is the Phoenix Brigade."
Thoughtfully, Chem folded his arms inside his sleeves. The Phoenix Brigade was like a bunch of bad weeds. No matter how many times you removed them from the field, they kept coming back year after year. Chem and Ursa had seen them destroy an entire town. They'd been hiding in that town when it was razed, though there was never any indication that the Phoenix Brigade knew they were there. Nothing had been heard from them in months. When one of Ursa's friends came to him with the suspicion that she might be in their custody after he'd gone a year and a half without seeing her, Chem wasted no time gathering the necessary forces to free her.
"I wish you could tell me otherwise, Inara." Chem closed his eyes, started to ask her if the very existence of the Phoenix Brigade wasn't enough to still question this Fire Lord, then thought better of it. "How many are there?"
"Fifty, at least. The building's fairly small."
He shifted his feet on the ground, recalled the last time Ursa had a run in with Ozai's military friends. They were brutes, all of them, supposedly loyal generals in Ozai's division of the army, but the moment Ursa showed herself to be more influential, they grew angry. They grew vengeful.
"Fifty…" Chem sighed. He must think positive. "Fifty is not one hundred."
They had been afraid that Ursa would steal Ozai away. They blamed her for the emergence of words like treaty in Ozai's vocabulary, sometimes replacing attack. They came for her in the dead of night, and they hurt her worse than anyone should have ever been hurt. She lost the child she was carrying—Ozai's child, their commander's child, their prince's child, and that she'd poisoned them all in front of the royal family, watched their faces blacken and their eyes bulge was little consolation for the pain and the lingering scars that would never ever heal. And all this before the Phoenix Brigade was even conceived. She was greater than they were. Since she'd been banished, she managed to take out one hundred of them. She never answered when he asked how she managed to do so.
"Skill won't help where numbers are involved," Chem said, but Inara looked skeptical. "She just needs to hang on for one more day, then she can be free of it all."
"Is it safe to let Fire Lord Zuko and Ambassador Katara go in there alone?"
"We won't let them die. We can't afford that. It would break the Lady Mother Ursa's heart to see her treacherous bastard of a son dead. It would send our nation into civil war between second and third cousins with no real claim to the throne, nothing would get accomplished. Besides, this one comes with the noose already around his neck." Chem's shoulders slumped. "The people want continuity—the blood is passed from father to son, and so long as he keeps his sister drugged and her bending suppressed he is the only legitimate heir. Let us take heart in the noose around his neck that is the beautiful Lady Katara."
Chem ignored the distasteful look on Inara's face. She crossed her arms and stared into the fire. He knew exactly what she thought about the Fire Lord drugging his sister. What she called rumor, he called substantiated. Too many people argued that the Lightning Princess wasn't insane at all for it to be a rumor.
"I did like you said. I told her Hau sometimes sent me men, complimented his looks, and she got very possessive."
"Was she possessive like a lover or possessive like an overprotective mother figure? We must be very sure of this. They say she is motherly towards the others, though if that is the case, I am sure we can still work something out."
"It most certainly wasn't possessive like a mother figure. As far as I know, their relationship has never been like that. Something having to do with them starting out as enemies."
"Then she will be amenable to our plans," Chem said. "And so the noose draws a little tighter."
"Do you have to refer to it like that?"
"The leash, then? They say she brought him back from the dead with her bending—"
"Her and the Avatar—"
"With all the royal family's talk of honor, he will feel indebted to her. And perhaps they even feel a little more for each other. We will be doing them a favor."
"For Agni's sake, Chem, you can't ignore things you don't want to hear!"
People were looking at them again, though the camp was winding down. Those who'd been on guard during the night were turning in, and fresher faces were peeking out of the tents, seeing if it was time for their watch. Chem did not answer the quizzical looks and raised eyebrows. Most didn't even bother looking in their direction beyond seeing that it was Chem and Inara arguing again.
"It is not ignoring what I don't want to hear, child, it is putting aside that which is irrelevant."
The only thing Chem would ever admit that former Fire Lord Azulon did right was pick wives for his sons. He had the brilliant idea to find a wife who would manage the temperament of his child. When Iroh was wild and fond of women and drink, Azulon chose a wife who was stern and commanding. She would reign him in when he got too out of control, and together they were stronger. The Lady Mother Ursa was young and challenging, and it completely confused Ozai. Where he allowed himself to be ruled by his emotions, Ursa came in with a firm hand and much needed logic. She'd known how to make up for his losses, and Ozai became dependent on her. He was forced to bow to her superior will.
The only shortcoming was that Ursa was not a bender, and she could not completely balance Ozai's madness. This, Chem intended to rectify. The first Fire Lady since the death of Fire Lord Sozin's wife, Fire Lady Hai, would have to be a bender at least on par with the current Fire Lord. She would have to be strong willed, but kind hearted. She should not bow to him. She would need to be the eyes and ears, keeping tabs on the Fire Lord as Princess Jian had kept watch over Iroh before her death, and as Ursa kept watch over Ozai before her banishment.
"I've seen them together one other time, when I was stationed on a minor outpost close to the South Pole," Inara said hesitantly, scratching her arm. She stared into the fire, then looked up at the stars. She was stalling, probably mulling over whether or not she should tell him anything. Chem would need to have her watched. "They are comfortable around each other. They are very close, whether as best friends or as lovers, what does it matter. Just don't ruin it."
"You would have withheld this?"
"It is not a matter of withholding, it is a matter of deciding what is relevant, and what is not."
Chem narrowed his eyes at her smug smile. "We will get to the Lady Mother Ursa before they do."
He congratulated Inara on a job well done, made sure she got a hot meal, then told her she should speak to the two trackers, Fei and Long, to see what they found out.
"One more thing, Inara," Chem called before she went too far. "Do they suspect anything about you? That you are aware of their identities?"
"No. I'm sure of it."
"Good."
As he walked around the camp, he nodded to the supporters he'd gathered. As Ursa swore her oath first to the Fire Nation, then to her new family, he had sworn his oath first to Ursa's parents, then to Ursa herself. Her will was his command. Many of the gathered had been banished or driven out of their corrupt nation, and their numbers were great, their talents many. It didn't matter that a large portion of them couldn't tell you how Ursa looked, or that even more weren't concerned with politics on the same level as he was. They'd sworn to him that they were determined to see their nation restored to some semblance of peace and prosperity as it was in the years before Sozin. They were loyal to him, and he was loyal to Ursa. She was the banner under which they'd gathered, whether they knew it or not. Ursa would be the symbol of all that was, is, and will be, great and beautiful and lovely about the Fire Nation.
Chem grunted as he moved aside the flap to his tent. His body didn't have the strength it used to. He'd never been a fighter. He was a secretary by trade, a spy and a master of secrets by practice. His birds flew across the four nations; he had been preparing for this moment for a long time. If he was to convince this Fire Lord, he needed to bring something heavy to the table. He scratched his grey beard as he eased himself to the ground. The Phoenix Brigade was a right nasty piece of work. With two master benders—one with alleged homicidal tendencies—they just might have a chance at freeing her.
He would risk the Lady Mother's wrath to see her saved later. She would come to understand in time.