...
The Impenetrable City Legacy School for Young Ladies lay just outside the gently milling foot traffic of a nearby brick-paved square. Its two stories were topped with soot darkened tiles and fronted by a large pillared gate gleaming with rigorously applied paint striving to disguise the aging wood that made it up. Skirting past the main entrance and around the school's courtyard wall Ayika saw a crowd of people loitering restlessly in front of the aging storefronts that occupied the first floors of the dark wooden buildings across the street, once desirable apartments now decreased in value in concert with the general decline of this neighborhood. Tracing her hand along the stones of the school wall she felt scraps of paper and residue of glue from hastily ripped down bills or posters. She sighed as she tugged open the side gate in the alley. The headmaster had assured his workers that all the commotion outside would soon quiet down but today those idle would-be troublemakers appeared to have received reinforcements. So much difficulty for hiring one teacher who was willing to say kind words about the Fire Nation.
Inside the cramped scullery the other servant girls were all bustling about the preparations of the day, though those who could spare the time sent dirty looks her way. Ignoring those glares, Ayika slid into a pair of demure slippers and quickly made her way to the little alcove in the corner that served as their changing room, beginning to pull off her street clothes as she moved. With the uniform dress in shades of grey and dark green still halfway over her head she shuffled back to awkwardly lean out of the way of two other late arrivals who were twisting each-others' strait and shiny black hair into the regulation school-staff bun in the same small space. Yet rather than feel gratitude at Ayika's attempt to make the cramped corner bearable they decided to somehow take offense and let out mirroring hrmfs of condescension. With Ayika's mouth full of hair combs she was trapped for response as she blindly loosened her hair from its previous arrangement, wrestling with her dark brown lengths into something that she hoped resembled the required formation.
She winced as a rough and authoritative voice rang through the crowded space. "Hop to it girls! We've got bare an hour till the little ladies arrive and half my staff apparently decided to sleep it in! Frizzy-hair, has the dusky sluggard shown up yet?"
Frantically tying the sash at her hips Ayika cast a desperate look at the other two tardy girls, pleading for some solidarity against a woman who refused to learn the names of any of her workers. For half a second she thought that their smiles were good news until they both picked up nearby trays and dashed out in a flurry of pretend work. The lading figure said, "Oh we were waiting for her forever, but she just snuck in right before you got here." The other nodded knowingly.
Five levels of hell would not be enough to effect their punishment. Unfortunately Ayika's problem was less metaphysical and more immediate. At the present it was striding tall and wide through the parting waves of girls in uniform; a matronly monolith, and one who already held a remarkably dim view of the young tribal girl's character.
Ayika snapped up into a facsimile of attention before the head of staff. "Mrs. Jiangsu! It's true, I was a few minutes past when I usually arrive. I had trouble getting to the tram station today because of some sort of a procession, I mean there was the funeral of the.."
"Leave it, Dusky." Jiangsu replied, already turning to look around the room as if her attention was elsewhere. "I do not really care if it was your own funeral, when what I need is a girl out there in the halls polishing the woodwork. So hop to it without taking the time to flap your yap for once now so help me are we clear?" This too was delivered in a seemingly impossible mixture of malice and unconcern that equally disregarded the addressee and punctuation.
Ayika widened her eyes in disbelief and gestured down in the direction of her sash which was revealed to be the wrong way out. "But I've just got on my servers uniform! And how am I supposed to keep it from being mussed before the students get here while I'm crawling around entire place with polish?" There was a touch of panic in her voice; the penalties for stained uniforms were quite steep, supposedly to 'discourage sloppiness'.
Those watery, malevolent slits turned back and Ayika involuntarily swallowed as though trying to recapture those escaped sentences. Mrs. Jiangsu bore what on her passed for a smile. "I fail, girl, to see how that is my concern. Out with you now!"
There were scattered titters from the other servants as Ayika gathered up the supplies and rushed out of the scullery into the main halls. This was how she found herself laboring with rolled up sleeves over screens and banisters and pillars in the impossible task of disguising decades of wear with a clean shine. The mansion that the Legacy School for Young Ladies occupied had once been the elegantly apportioned city house of some wealthy trader or minor government functionary but it had seen many years and several owners since that period. The slow decline of this neighborhood in the middle ring had been mirrored in the slow increase of well disguised chips and scrapes in the woodwork as money for replacements had evaporated. So the process had gone until the property fell within the budget of an ambitious but unsuccessful university graduate who had hoped that a school for young ladies of means but no name would salve the disappointment of his failure to secure a government appointment. The man himself, Headmaster Gang, could always be seen sneaking around his school stealing panicked glances towards every corner, as though any unobserved section would immediately descend into disastrous squalor.
It was Mr. Gang's flights of ambitious fancy that saved Ayika now, as the headmaster on one of his consistently unsurprising surprise inspections decided it would be unbecoming for the inflowing students to see the only 'employee of noticeable ethnicity' as the lone visible laborer. It was this same desire for cosmopolitan credentials that had allowed a well spoken, when she wished to be, girl of the Water Tribe to achieve employment there to begin with, as well as securing the immediate ire of all those other working city girls who had schemed for such a cushy job. Ayika ignored the glares of her coworkers with practiced ease as she took her new station manning the tea station on the second floor. After the initial flurry of adjusting window screens to let in air but block any breeze that might ruffle the professor's papers and placing an extra desk and chair in the designated classrooms as per the day's instruction, her job fell to demurely welcoming in the students and insuring a steady supply of full cups. Since the older girls had by that point in their education realized that leaving for the lavatory during a professor's lecture was strongly frowned upon there was little cause to refill the tea cups except for those of the professors themselves. This allowed Ayika her favored activity of lingering in the back of the room with her perfunctory teapot and listening to the lectures themselves.
Most of her fellow workers considered the school to be ideal employment because Mr. Gang's pursuit of an aristocratic appearance had left the building rather overstaffed, leaving much free time for gossip. However, Ayika loved simply being near the classrooms. She had attended her back-ally schoolmaster longer than most children of the Bed, those that bothered at all. She had only ceased begging coppers off her mother when at eleven she could no longer spare the time with her hours in the maid-service; by the time she returned from work the ragged writing-master was inevitably sunk deep in his bottle. As a consequence she could read better than anyone on her street though her brushwork had never advanced beyond a childish scrawl of smudged characters. But with her opportunity at the school she had discovered something beyond mere skills in the art of education.
So now she stood behind the carved wooden screen behind the lecturer's desk, her uniform finally put to rights, listening to her favorite educator speak. Professor Lizhen was a small grey-haired man, prone to fiddling with things in his hands as he listened or thought. One might think him meek until you heard him begin to speak on his subjects of passion. His soft voice nevertheless modulated its self with such care and emotion that no one could help but give their attention. He called himself a seeker of truth in all forms and places, a policy that when combined with a tendency to publicly advocate whatever truths he might discover explained his current service at such an institution so diminished from his former post at the Royal University.
At the moment Ayika could hear him lightly treading back and forth behind his desk before his slightly awestruck students. His manner of teaching the subject of history was so far removed from the memorization of titles and names that had thus far filled their educational history that those girls who were not enraptured by the man still maintained careful attention out of fear they were somehow missing the expected rote material.
"Now there is still merit to author Chongqin's analysis of the personalities of the Fire Lords of the western islands and how they influenced the course of the wars." The Professor continued, flicking down the prepared readings with a decisive slap."However, it my observation that behind these individual men there lies a developmental, one might even say historical, inevitability to the conflict that the esteemed and approved author simply does not give proper weight to." Ayika silently grinned at the usual uncomfortable shifting from the students that always accompanied the professor's forays into his trademarked taboo theses. Peeking out between the carved patterns she could see the varied reactions, a nervous twitchiness from the girls who expected Public Safety agents to burst in at any moment, a relaxed laying down of brushes from those who had realized that the professor would not be permitted to place his own theories on the approved tests, and from the back of the room, the newly added chair being inched forward in eager anticipation.
Now that he had left the official material Professor Lizhen began to hit his stride, gesturing broadly at each important point as though he was still addressing the university hall where he had until lately held sway. "Sozin started the war but conflict had been probable for years. No, the cause must inevitably be traced to the confluence in the Fire Nation of an incredible burst of alchemical inventiveness and a newly centralized leadership that actively supported those new enterprises. In the fifty years before the First Aggression the population of the western islands of the Fire Nation had increased by up to twenty percent, and ship production is reported to have increased by a nearly unbelievable three hundred percent! These being, in the latter years, steam powered ships mind you, a concept our own navies have just in recent decades begun to put into practice."
He looked around the room, attempting to meet the eyes of his uncertain looking students, searching for an eagerness for learning he was not likely to find. Undeterred, he continued anyway. "These two cultures, theirs and ours, developed separately for centuries. When they met again as equals, they shared too few commonalities. Their guardian spirits were those of ambition and change, ours were those of tradition and order. Their newly unified nation, emerging from centuries of disorganization and internal strife, looked out at a world where our kingdoms had enjoyed such a long period of prosperity and expansion. The following aggression could be seen as the natural readjustment of the world to the new balance of power as our culture's time of ascendancy gave way to another's, just as the raiding Sea People's time had given way to the might of the Kingdoms long ago."
There was a break in the professor's oration as he began to shuffle amongst the papers of his desk for some chart or map, a task which frequently took inordinately long due to his customary fiddling. In this pause one of the students hesitantly began to raise her hand to ask a question, a custom that at this school was only tolerated by Professor Lizhen. The professor interrupted his search with delight as he saw the motion and gestured for her to stand.
"Yes, Ms. Gaoli?"
Lili Gaoli, normally an insufferably energetic if not particularly diligent student, was wilting under this unusual teaching method. Hidden as she was, Ayika could smile bit. Mister Gaoli had been a good employer to the Bao boys but everything she had seen about Lili cemented her in Ayika's mind as a pretty little spoiled rich brat. The pale, dark haired girl stood slowly, her resolve visibly melting away. She began, "If the Islanders had their day of..., that is, if they were on top during the long war because of their machines and boats and things and everyone has their turn, then when we won the war wouldn't that mean that they were back below us? Except I know that you have been saying that our government should learn from the Islander's culture...I mean that you, I heard..." At that point her bravery gave out and her legs folded her back down into her seat, her face bright red with embarrassment.
The Professor did not seem to notice her stammering delivery at all and instead leapt into an enthusiastic answer in his customary longwinded fashion. "An excellent question, Ms. Gaoli! Yes, from what I said it might seem that I was referring to a simple cycle of nations inevitably trading supremacy, making my proposed reforms for our nation to adopt Fire Nation methods and practices seem odd indeed. Why would I wish to assume aspects of our erstwhile enemies if we have been proved to be their superiors? However, you girls must take care not to walk into the trap into which so many scholars have fallen and take the observation of a pattern in events to mean that the pattern is the cause of the events. The cycle is merely a convenient representation of the consequences of gradual cultural, political, and magical innovation. But as for the question you actually asked I have another of my own..." And at this moment he placed his normally trembling hands down firm on the desk. "Why do you say that we won the war?"
There was another flurry of reactions ranging from a few jaded sighs, to a flock of outraged words dying on young lips, and one poorly masked grin from the new student in the back row. Several hands shot up but this time the Professor waved them down.
"Yes, yes. I know that was needlessly dramatic phrasing, but it is necessary to illustrate the danger of letting assumptions creep into your analysis. Yes, the Fire Nation's navies withdrew and the government in Jingdu no longer appoints the rulers of the western territories or indeed claims any ownership over those former colonies and that doe match the goals our armies were fighting for. But why did this happen? Was there a great battle our kingdom won, or a weakness that our enemies fell to? No. The decision to end the war was made by those who first started it, when Fire Lord Ozai was overthrown in an internal coup by his son and the pro-trade faction. And so while our city still smoldered in the aftermath of riots and occupation, the winning side quietly changed the rules. We celebrate Liberation Festival, but no one who looks closely can claim that the Territories of the newly proclaimed United Republic of Nations are independent of Jindgu when its leaders are the Fire Lord's closest friends. Even here at home, you only have too look in an import shop to see that the day of the Islanders' culture is not over. But the secrets of their success are tricks that we can easily duplicate."
Lili had been slowly gathering confidence from the shared supportive looks from the girls around her, having somehow been silently elected the dissenting student body's representative. Ayika scowled at the the little hand signs, the students expressing ill-founded contempt for their teacher from the half hidden position under their low desks. Lili's hand rose back up, and was rewarded by Professor Lizhen with a nod.
Rising and smoothing her dress in the failed haughtiness that only a self confidant teenager can produce, Lili Gaoli began again. "Surely the lessons we can learn from their culture are what mistakes to avoid. I mean, they were cruel to the point that their royal family to tore its self apart over the kingship. Even without a big defeat, they could not keep together enough to continue the war, so they degenerated back to being merchants. Even if we didn't strictly win..." By the sound of it that was a enormous concession made under duress. "...they still lost." She sat back down clearly proud of the argument which was obviously going to make the professor have to go and reshape his theories according to the revelations of a fifteen year old girl.
Behind the screen Ayika scowled at the insolence but Professor Lizhen simply beamed. "Soundly reasoned, Ms. Gaoli!" He smiled, "And many authors have made that point, although I am not sure your father would like to hear you belittling the merchantine profession." There was snort of laughter from the back of the class but Lili's venomous searching glares found no culprit. The Professor continued without pause, "Continuing on the point of opening our minds to other views of thought, we have a unique opportunity today! Ms. Miohuito?" All the student's sleek and neatly coifed heads turned as one to face the back of the classroom. One girl in the back row, until now leaning forward with a lazy smirk against her new desk stuffed in the corner, was now wearing a frozen smile at the sudden and unexpected attention.
Professor Lizhen noticed none of these details, still soaring in the rapturous world of academic debate. He eagerly gestured for the new odd student out to rise, which she did, slowly. "Yes, Ms. Mizumi Miohuito, if you would be so kind. I know this is your first day with us but your father's far reaching business dealings must have given you a broad perspective on the attitudes in many places and I am sure we would all be fascinated to hear your unique perspective. In your personal experience how is the end of the wars considered today back at your home in the Fire Nation?"
That girl was an Islander? Ayika pressed her eye against a hole in the carved screen. Living in the Bed amongst the communities of refugees who had never found their way home when the fighting was over had given her a very liberal view of what look constituted a normal citizen of the kingdoms, but now that she was pressed, the differences jumped out at her. The girl's eyes were a light hazel, and her hair was different from the classical kingdom black, instead shaded with the color of silken rust in the strait locks falling to frame her face. Her cheeks were flushed with embarrassment in a color that suggested her tanned skin was backed by ripe grain rather than blood. Her narrow carved eyes widened in surprise and perhaps fear as she stood but the girl's rise was smooth and sharp as the parade march of a royal guard.
"Of course Teacher, I would be pleased to." The girl Mizumi's voice was calm and smooth under the rolling buzz of her accent but from Ayika's angle she could see her knees shaking slightly under her dress. The poor girl straitened into what resembled a military posture with her hands behind her back and spoke cheerfully, her eyes locked onto the Professor. "There are of course those who disapprove of the Fire Lord agreeing to make peace with the Earth King when victory was at hand, particularly those of the military lineages. However most people know that the nation is doing much better without having to pay for constant war. The Colonies in the United Republic sell us materials as easily as when they were sworn to the Fire Lord, and now the military does not requisition it all. The Impenetrable City is more valuable as a customer than as a subject or a pile of cinders, even if we have to come as...merchants...this time." Her rigid stance was broken to flash a mocking smile at the Gaoli girl, who fumed back. The Fire Nation girl made a small bow and sat back down at her desk, fussing with her dress like someone who was used to wearing less restrictive clothing.
The rest of the students did not like the assumptions of that speech and even the professor was beginning to perceive that this topic was stirring up some dangerous emotions. "Yes, well the economic dominance in the coastal areas is unquestionable but..." The black haired Earth Kingdom merchant's daughter was back up on her feet, shooting a glance down at a few notes she had hastily scrawled on her worksheet. Slightly overwhelmed Lizhen motioned for her to speak, which she began to do so before he had completely raised his hand. Lili presented the class a winning smile with all the friendliness of a manticore.
"Of course I thank my classmate for sharing her delightful experience in a foreign culture." Foreign was pronounced like the name of a puppy that had done something embarrassing on a carpet. "But, Professor, you have always said that we must examine the ultimate source when determining the truth of any account, and..." A glance downward, "Professor Ma...wrote in his essay in our readings that the government in Jingdu has a great deal of influence over the course material and publications in the Islands. As for the... the thesis that Fire Nation culture is still in a dominant cycle I think it would be interesting to look back at.." A scrap of paper appeared in her hand from one of the neighboring desks. "...Liu Baixing, where he described how the numbers and talent of the Islander benders steadily decreased as their cultural morality deteriorated in war, as evidenced by their drafting of women into their military."
The Islander girl was back on her feet the instant her opponent was seated. Professor Lizhen just blinked rapidly at this sudden enthusiasm which the new student decided to take as permission. "I welcome my new friend's pointing out the cultural error of deciding that women have a brain between their ears, and I particularly welcome the compelling personal evidence she is demonstrating." Snickers and scowls showed the hit had landed. "And though I had not heard of it before I would love to read that author's obviously detailed account of the results of the Kingdom's campaign of execution and mutilation of firebenders!"
Lizhen could see that this was out of hand and tried clearing his throat repeatedly to attract the lost attention of his class, but the Lili Gaoli was already up and speaking, wielding a smudged sheet of notes like a bloody dagger. "I would be happy to share some well written sources to my spirited classmate, as I am sad to hear that such things have not made it across the sea. Perhaps they got lost amongst the paperwork for the slave labor camps! Of course all those were regrettable mistakes that must happen when their priests, er, sages are fighting alongside their theocratic dictatorship! I fully agree with Author Cao that in such an environment the common people could not be blamed for bad men rising to the top." Ayika could not help but be impressed. She had never seen Lili Gaoli put this much effort into a class before, taking the energy she usually used to navigate the shifting swamp of social status that was a girls school and now channeling it in new ways. Flush from fighting to savage a new girl's reputation she did not even spare a moment to brush aside the hairs that had slipped out of her elegantly done hairdo, shuffling through her once neglected notes with a manic gleam in her eye.
Mizumi snapped up from her seat with such speed that her teacup made a rattling journey towards the edge of the desk before it reconsidered. She was vibrating with the outrage of someone arguing with a well researched idiot, wishing they could remember more pithy facts to support the obvious truth. She made her attempt anyway, "Just as no one in this city could be blamed for the predations of their Dai Li Secret Police who practiced brainwashing and summary execution of innocent civilians!". Across the room Lili made a motion suggesting she was preparing to continue the volley, but the foreign girl slammed her hands down on the desk with the ceramic rattling of her shifting teacup. "And now I think we should give our attention back to our teacher so we can hear someone who actually knows something! Thank you teacher!" She crisply bowed and folded down heavily in the silence that followed, punctuated by a gentle tinkling crash as her shifting cup finally took its threatened plunge.
Ayika shook herself out of the spectators' daze and realized that she actually had a job to do. As she scooted to the back of the classroom she heard Professor Lizhen clearing his throat once again. "Ahm, uh yes. Thank you girls for your...input. I think now might be a good time to start writing your...um, essays. First I want you to get out your..."
As Ayika knelt down to gather up the cup shards in a thick rag she glanced up at the foreign girl beside her. Mizumi's face was locked forward on the professor, very deliberately not looking at the source of the quiet whisperings that were fluttering in the other corners of the room. The joints of the hand that gripped her ink brush were white and vibrating, but under the anger there was a quiet despair. Suddenly those hazel eyes met Ayika's own and she hurriedly looked down, mopping up the spill as quickly as she could. Somehow being that close to her felt like spying at an actor behind the curtain.
Returning behind the screen, she cast a look back through one of the openings and saw Mizumi staring fixedly in her direction, although from where she stood Ayika could not tell if she was looking at the Professor or at her through the carved wood behind him. Stepping away, Ayika quietly left through her little servant's door, and motioned to the other servant who was leaning against the wall by the maids' station, signaling about the wet rag in her hand and her need to swap out of that room for a moment. She was rewarded with a dirty look, but then again when was she not, and the other serving girl made her way towards the classroom.
Dumping the shards in a receptacle, Ayika glanced out one of the tiny ventilation windows that studded the narrow corridor. It overlooked one of the streets, as the screens of the actual class rooms would never dare to open to anything but one of the several small but elegant courtyards in the middle of the compound. That suspicious crowd on the street had spilled out of the dim cafes and there were now furtive knots loitering in the side streets as well. As she watched, one of the men noticed her looking down and tossed a bit of rubbish with absentminded malice over the wall in the general direction of the school. She made a rude hand gesture and was rewarded with an equally rude invective about foreigners. Ayika heard that Professor Lizhen had never been married and though she loved the man, the ease with which ill feeling seemed to spring up around him did appear to offer an explanation. She swung the slats shut with a click.
(Author's note: Any and all reviews or comments are welcome. Suggestions too.)