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In any setting, there are always tasks that are not exactly strenuous, or difficult, or time consuming, but still grate on every worker's nerve as the final straw between dutiful productivity and locking oneself in the head office with a lead pipe and a couple of hostages. Fortunately, with equal inevitability there must arise a class of subordinates who exist near solely to deal with these annoyances. Be they pledges, privates, or the new hire, they can not be trusted with any thing truly challenging but they dam well can copy out that pile of forms or shine all the boots. For the last two years at the Impenetrable City Legacy School for Young Ladies those people were Ayika, and right now she was dealing with gum.

Gum had struck suddenly and without warning, spreading from some inventive spark down in one of the hotter Lost Territories, and filling a small shelf in every shop throughout the city within a year. One day Ayika would find that inventor and kill him. The savvy United Republic importer had recognized the fashion for everything Jingdu amongst the city's young and jingling, slapping Fire Nation symbols and prominent 'Imported' labels on each package in an effort to help relieve those overloaded purses. It had apparently worked, since though she had never seen a single student with a package, the underside of every surface in the school had somehow managed to acquire a sticky, rocklike coating. In her heart she suspected demonic intervention.

As the shadows stretched outside in the day's lingering heat Ayika was hard at work instead of savoring the wonderful peace brought on by the students' evening dismissal. Attacking a particularly diabolical specimen wedged inside a crack in the aging wood, and contemplating the feasibly of convincing the gum's manufacturer to change the product's color to match the school's paint, she did not hear the approaching footsteps until a pair of boots stopped in front of her.

"Could you direct me to the office of Professor Chen Lizhen." The shoes' voice was authoritative and rasped like stone. There was a distinct lack of a question mark at the end of the sentence.

Ayika snapped upright and into a bow, hiding her scraping tool and bag of scraps behind her back. The speaker was a man dressed in the dark military greens favored by many of the older citizens. With his short grey-flecked hair and lined face he could be a man who had lived sixty peaceful years, or forty that were very interesting. The scars around his cheeks suggested the latter.

She said, "Of course sir, this way." There was something about this man's manner that suggested that he took a deep interest in everyone around him and that this was not a good thing. His presence deeply unsettled her, as if she felt something around him was somehow distorting an unheard sound. Ayika shifted her cleaning tools around so they were still hidden behind her body as she turned. "Er, you can both come."

The last was directed at the beleaguered young man following his master up the stairs, loaded with a large and irregular paper-wrapped package he clutched desperately to his chest. He might have looked put-upon but the twitching demeanor indicated one who could contrive to be oppressed in an empty room. His master barely seemed to register the youth's existence.

Crossing the walkway above one of the courtyards in front of the two, Ayika felt shivers down her spine and had to fight looking behind her. Why was walking near of that man so unsettling? She looked back. He did carry himself like an ex-soldier but there was something more that was not quite right. Ayika always had a quiet confidence in her intuition, and now it was telling her trouble, but in a very odd way. In fact it was giving her a headache.

As they approached their destination she could not help feeling worried for the Professor, so she decided to risk some questions. "Excuse me," She said, gently. "But could you give me your name. For the guest book, er, registry."

The granite face of the man following her was not amused. "I have already given my name to the doorkeeper and to another servant on the first floor. I feel confidant I have successfully introduced myself." He looked at the four doors in this part of the hall, and back at Ayika who was quietly waiting and giving no signal which held the Professor's office.

"I'm sorry, but it is, you know, the headmaster." Ayika chanced in another ploy for information.

The man looked down at Ayika and for an instant his eyes communicated something about long experience with ridiculous superiors and rigid orders. With an imperceptible relaxing he said, "Ma'er. Garden design." Catching her involuntary motion towards the nearest door he strode forward, sliding it open without permission. Ayika's raised eyebrow in reaction to the impropriety was met by assistant who gave a nervous shrug urging acceptance of an indisputable habit.

Lizhen was sitting at his desk in his usual state of shuffling though his papers, books and folios. He looked up with an expression of surprise that the rest of the world had decided to keep moving while he was busy.

"Ma'er! What are you doing here?"

"Hoping you had finally come to sense, for one." The intruder growled. He stepped heavily forward towards the desk, his sandals slapping slightly under his dark robe. "Even you can see what is going on outside this place, and yet you insist on infuriating me! I would have thought that getting kicked out of the University would have been enough for you to get the message."

Lizhen narrowed his eyes. The little, shiny-faced man at most times seemed as steady as a kite on a gusty day, but now Ayika could see the steel that hid beneath. "And I suppose you are here on your garden tending business? Well, I have will have to tell you that I am quite content with my chosen course of action. Balance can be managed if there is delicate hand." He lifted a paper he was reading back up in front of him.

It was snatched out of his hands. "Not for long it won't. You know how the things are shifting; the stalk that sticks up gets chopped down. Especially if it insists on publishing." The man called Ma'er spoke tersely, the tension of a restrained furry boiling behind his lips.

Lizhen smiled softly and slowly got up out of his chair. He turned to look out his open window at the dipping sun that was slowly painting the endless sea of tiled roofs red on its way to its evening terminus behind the city wall. "You people never could get a grasp on walking out of the shadows. Minister Erliao's anti-trade cronies and the old lords might fear an assault on our world, but I do not see the death of our spirits under a foreign tide. I see new things, new things becoming normal. If people can immigrate than so can gods."

Ma'er slammed his hands on the table with a force that sent it rattling. Ayika thought that his posture showed someone with fighting training. This man was dangerous. "You damn...You have no idea what is happening! You don't truly know them! You don't see them marshaling their forces! This city is a tinderbox and you want to... want to tell people to be accepting! And spirits..." He stepped back and regained his composure with effort "You didn't go to Naruhamma's funeral." The question was a statement.

A shadow crossed Lizhen's brow. "No, Sage Huitzlan was...particular about formalities of the Ambassador's funeral. Friend as I was to Aza, I did not think attending the procession only to be locked outside the temple in the noonday sun was the proper gesture. I wish his smoke safe passage though, as they say." The professor seemed to get even smaller. "I heard they were considering deifying him as city-god of the Exclusion. They could do worse."

The visitor repeated a single word, "Particular." He leaned closer to the professor. "We have much to discuss." Ma'er turned to his assistant who was lurking in the corner with his burden. "Leave the package and stand outside," he commanded. His glare swept a bit farther to settle on Ayika who had unsuccessfully been trying to stand in the doorway without appearing to do so. The assistant was shaken by this dismissal and looked very unsettled but he complied, after a few false starts he set the heavy package down on the office table and heading for the door with great reluctance that Ma'er seemed not to notice.

The Professor was shaken from his thoughtful revere, once again noticing for the first time that there were other people in the room. Smiling he motioned at Ayika "Ah, yes. Be a dear, um, Ayika?...and you can go back to your duties, thank you."

Reluctantly, not wanting to leave such a kind man with someone who looked could not have looked less like a gardener in full armor, Ayika nodded to the Professor and made her way out, shutting the door behind the fleeing assistant. She kept her eye to the closing door crack but the stone faced man watched steadily for her to leave, refusing to give a single hint more of his planned discussion. Outside, frustrated, Ayika glared at the nervous young man who's current position so near the doorway meant that she had no chance of eavesdr...accidentally hearing anything.

Ayika clutched her hands in anger. The was no way she could let that man stay alone with the professor after making all those barely veiled threats. The man seemed like a Public Safety agent, a rabid one. He was trying to make the professor give up his writing! So what if the Professor was saying the Kingdom should emulate the Fire Nation? He did not deserve this! Ayika paced up and down the corridor, growling to herself as she wrestled with her powerlessness, only stopping when she noticed the assistant flinching each time she drew close. She stood in front of him. He seemed very nervous, now that she looked. Not in a general manner but as if he was standing outside a lion cage where very soon he was going to have to enter and practice amateur veterinary dentistry. And he had been the one to give sweets to the lion in the first place. The boy was trying to lean away from her, her compact height and his position against the wall leading him to invent an untested method of shrinking upwards. One of his hands was twitching to his side as though searching for something it could not find. She leaned in closer, glaring at him.

Ayika snapped her fingers in epiphany. She had it! Ignoring the sharp knock of the startled young man's skull against the cross beam, she turned away from his tumbling collapse. The professor's window had been open. Someone standing at the back of the classroom behind his office would likely be able to hear everything being said within. Ayika was not exactly sure what she could do with the information she would gather but she was not about to let that sweet old man get shaken down by the secret police without a friend by his side.

Leaving the tumbled adolescent mass behind her she made a show of walking down the hallway to the classroom door with the exaggerated normality of one acting 'naturally'. Three more steps at a skip and she was at the door. Now to get over to the window and...Ayika stopped. There was already a girl standing in that corner, pressed against the professor's wall near the open window. The student jolted with a nervous start of guilt, that moment of surprise causing her arms to rise into what looked like a fighting stance until she looked at them and hurriedly put down her fists. For a moment Ayika and the Islander girl Mizumi stared attach other in an identical mixture of outrage and embarrassment. Quicker to the draw, Ayika raised an accusatory finger drawing in breath for denunciation of this espionage, sparing no considerations for any potential irony.

"What are you doing?!" She exclaimed. "Are you spying on the profess…?"

"How dare you!" The foreign girl interrupted, instantly wincing at the volume of her voice. She began with more deliberate calm and precise enunciation."I was merely...exploring the building. This is my first day in attendance so I wanted to familiarize and why am I explaining myself?"

Ayika looked on skeptically "Well then, I would be happy to assist your exploration. This is an unused classroom and if you take your pretty little head towards the exit and continue down the hall you may reach areas where students are allowed to be at this time."

A voice behind her interrupted, "Ugh, is there anywhere in this school that does not have the help loafing around?"

Ayika continued to address Mizumi, gesturing over her shoulder "And you can take…"

She bit down on her breath, chewing and swallowing it as she recognized the complaining voice behind her. She spun, transferring her glare to a longer established adversary.

Lili Gaoli worked hard within the confines of the school code to display the grasp of up-to-the-minute trends that had won her position at the top of the upper girls class game of social combat. Her raven black hair, while tied up into the requisite bun, was secured in place with imported pale coral clips that matched her milky skin and projecting from beneath her uniform dress were slippers woven in the slightly curved Fire Nation style that had seized the city recently. As she moved, the tall and slender girl appeared to operate on a slightly faster time frame than those around her, giving her motions a jumpy quality. As always she had friends at her side. Well, friends she called them, and so they called themselves, but in the upper crust of the blade and dagger social world of rich teenage girls those words amounted to a ceasefire at best. This week's lifelong companions bracketed their leader like wolves in harness; appreciating the steak, never failing to watch for weakness.

"I swear, my father would be furious if he saw how our tuition is wasted on these servants. You certainly never see them cleaning." Lili addressed this to Ayika without ever showing sign that she recognized her presence. Her mouth continued to work up and down between sentences in the telltale rhythm of gum. Ayika wondered if setting someone on fire with her mind would be grounds for dismissal.

The skinnier of the orbiting sycophants tittered obligingly. "Oh, be fair now! Look at her hands. With skin like that how would she know if they were clean!"

Ayika folded her hands behind her back and lowered her head so they could not see the vibrating rage she thought she had learned to control. Getting angry now would only risk getting fired, and would do nothing to make her feel better. Any display of weakness would only need be maintained for a few moments.

"Yes, those uniforms are just not the color to do her favors." Lili joined in, though a tightness in her voice indicated her discomfort at the direction this conversation was taking. "Not that they are anyone's. I still can't believe the restrictions they put on us here. Such boring dark colors, and they expect us to learn to be elegant members of society!"

The other satellite picked up on this new cue, casting a deliberate look across the room to emphasize the lack of an effort to bring their new foreign classmate into the conversation.

"But Lili, you do such a great job of working under those obstacles. You look great. I mean some people have no skill whatsoever, even factoring in their... innate limitations." She now smiled at Mizumi. "Are those actually trousers under your dress?" Sharks and humans are the only things that can smile like that.

Ayika found herself surprised at a twinge of pity for the torment Mizumi had presumably found herself in for. Even if she had been spying. Though the foreign girl's uniform did have some strange accents and tailoring, nothing about her could be called unattractive. In fact, with her smooth skin and delicate features, the slightly boyish fit only contributed to the air of the exotic. Ayika was even more surprised when the Islander girl answered back to Lili in the same poisonous sweet tone, showing a confidence that had been invisible only a moment before when Ayika confronted her. "Well, we can not all be such keen masters of fashion. Miss Gaoli, I admire your daring most of all. Did you know that when I was last in Jingdu I saw those exact slippers you are wearing? And that there in the capital they are only worn by boys? My, we in the Fire Nation are certainly behind the fashions of the Kingdoms, aren't we?"

Lili's face grew to such a mortified red as her companions stepped back to inspect the offending footwear that Ayika let out an suppressed snort of amusement. When Lili whipped her head back towards her though, Ayika's face was smooth and placid. Lili's jaw worked silently on its gum chewing as she vibrated slightly with indecision. Then she said, "Come on girls, lets get back to somewhere private so we can talk without interruption."

As the three turned to exit through the door, Mizumi followed. "Oh, can I come with? Like you said, I could really use some pointers in fashion. I had no idea that you could repurpose a coral pet brush as a hair comb and yet you pull it off so well, Lili!"

The three girls accelerated in their retreat and the Islander girl chased after them. Just as she left the room she looked back at Ayika, and her lips curved up into a smile of unknown intent. Before Ayika could decide how to respond, the new student was gone. But why had that girl been here at all?

Ayika blinked as she remembered why she had come into the room. Moving quickly and silently she slid over to the corner by the open window. She had only managed to raise her ear to the gap when Ayika heard a crash from within the Professor's office which caused her to rush back out the into the hallway as quickly as she could. But as she approached the office door the dark robed stranger stormed out. Ma'er walked briskly, pausing only for a final rejoinder at the office he had departed. "Call your allies if you wish." he snarled "It will make no difference. You may be a man of honor, but such men rarely fare well against those who are willing to strike. I will return."

Ayika watched the man stalk off towards the stairs before she hurried into Professor Lizhen's office. The little man was pacing before his window, looking out at the courtyard below. He was clearly agitated, and he looked several times at the large wrapped package that the visitor had left on his desk before he eventually noticed Ayika hovering uncertainly in the room.

"Professor, is everything ok? I…" Ayika began.

"Oh, yes, everything is perfectly fine my dear," the professer said. "My...that man just delivered some news to me that was...well, not exactly surprising given the developments I have kept abreast of but with the current climate it is always rather hard to tell so...I would not have thought that the Fire Nation would..."

"Um, Professor?"

"Huh?" Lizhen said, startled out of his muttering revery. "Oh, yes. I am sorry my dear, I am rather distracted at the moment. You could…in fact you could send up one of the porter boys in a moment. I am intending to write a letter I would appreciate if they could see delivered. Get someone who would not attract the attention of the Exclusion."

"Of course, sir." Ayika said, bowing. She paused before she added, "If I could do anything else for you…" She trailed off.

Professor Lizhen stopped pacing and smiled. "I am sure you would. But at the moment I am perfectly fine. Just have the boy come up shortly to collect the letter. I will start on it now. Oh, and send another boy who will be able to do some quick shopping for me." He wrung his hands. "There is much to be done and I hope I remember the forms. Oh, he would be furious if he knew what they were doing. And after all my championing of the Fire Nation's culture and spirituality, huh, I suppose it might be ironic." He was talking to himself again and Ayika could follow none of it.

Ayika bowed again and backed towards the door. As she reluctantly slid out the exit, she spared one last worried glance at the man. He was settling at his desk, shuffling papers and pens in a search for some example of each which was somehow different from their identical compatriots. He looked at once small and large in different ways.

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