Traveling in Rings
It wasn't that Azula had a problem with Ba Sing Se. It was just that she had no idea how she got there.
Somewhere ahead of Azula, there came a call of, "Next!" It bounced off the dark stone walls of the underground receiving center, and the line of people shuffled forward one place. Azula moved with them, but her attention was elsewhere. For a moment, the echo had seemed oddly familiar. It wasn't the voice; Azula had been hearing it and several others at intervals for the last few hours since she got in line. There was something about the echo effect, the shadow-spawning rock around her, and the feeling of being below the surface of the Earth that seemed to resonate with her. Why would that be familiar?
Why would it give her a feeling of being hunted?
Azula shook her head and put the thought out of her mind. Her feelings of unease were not important. She had a mission. She had to focus on that. The mantra calmed her instantly.
There came another call of, "Next!" The line shuffled forward again.
As she moved, Azula was once again struck by the need to check her bag. It had come with her all the way from Kyoshi Island, and it would be coming with her into Ba Sing Se (and hopefully beyond). Azula peeked into the sack, and sure enough, the contents hadn't changed: several sets of brown clothes, a good supply of copper and silverish coins, her Kyoshi war fans, a knife, her passport and papers, and a map of Ba Sing Se that she had purchased at the Full Moon Bay Ferry station.
Azula had carried this bag from Kyoshi Island. Of that much, at least, she was sure. It made sense that she would bring her passport if she planned on traveling, the clothes seemed like something she would wear and buy, and there was no doubt that the coins would be useful. It's just...
Azula wasn't sure where she had gotten the coins.
She had escaped from Kyoshi Island on the Hidden Gem, and traveled through the former colonies in search of the rebels who might be able to help her discover the truth behind "Suki." She had gotten as far as Yang, and she was fairly sure that something important had happened in that city. She had... met people? The details were vague, but Azula was sure that she had succeeded at whatever she wanted to do there. There was a warm glow in her heart when she thought about it. With help, she must have managed to puzzle out some of what had been done to her, and figured out that there were people in the world who Zuko, Aang, and Sokka would have been forced to depend on in the plot to make her their slave. Those people would be much easier to get the truth out of, and the easiest of them all would be the Earth King. And so she set out straight for Ba Sing Se.
It was just... she should remember the journey all the way from the west end of the continent to the east.
Shouldn't she?
There were snatches. She recalled riding an ostrich horse, she recalled taking a ferry over a wide river. She had a strong impression of violence, of having to fight for her life, but...
Had someone died? Who?
Azula shook her head again. Her feelings of unease were not important. She had a mission. She had to focus on that. She was certainly used to gaps in her memory by now, and this didn't seem like anything important. Perhaps she had sustained a head injury during that fight she barely recalled. She could see a healer when she got into the city proper. At least she seemed to be getting better. She distinctly remembered her stay in the city of Huaqiao, with its odd mix of stolen Fire Nation culture and Ba Sing Se pretensions. She had indulged in paying for a real hotel, and got a very good night's sleep. From there, she had joined a convoy of refugees from the colonies heading for the Impenetrable City itself, eventually coming to Full Moon Bay. She distinctly remembered the dingy but well-stocked ferry that took her to this very receiving station, where she was now applying for entry to the city proper.
She also distinctly recalled what the other refugees had talked about on the trip. "They say that Fire Princess Azula has been sighted in the area," one traveler had said. "I heard about," a bodyguards-for-hire had replied, "it was right on the other side of the Great Lake." Naturally, just hearing her name spoken like that made her nervous, as it kept her at the forefront of people's thoughts and so more likely to get caught. There was some urgency, though. Some... some need to do... something. Why did she want to do something about those rumors and supposed sightings?
Her instincts must be guiding her. Telling her to deal with those rumors once she completed her immediate quest. Completely logical. Her feelings of unease were not important. She had a mission. She had to focus on that.
Relaxing again, Azula heard another cry of, "Next!" She found that she was at the front of the line and so, putting on a bland smile, she stepped towards the first open clerk's window and pulled her documents out of her bag.
Processing Clerk (First Class) Cheng Xu held back a sigh as the next refugee... er, immigrant stepped up to the window. She used to like her job- eight, ten years ago when it seemed like her ticket into the Middle Ring- but these days it was just depressing. It had all started with the last years of the Hundred Years War, when the Lower Ring had descended from just Ba Sing Se's most open community to a poor, overcrowded, crime-ridden slum. That, of course, was the Fire Nation's fault for attacking the Earth Kingdom and driving its people from their proper homes. Things were better when people stayed where their ancestors had put down roots. Then the war ended, and now instead of getting better, things were only going further into the dumps. These days, there were types like this young lady sliding her passport under Cheng Xu's gaze, types looking to put down roots in the greatest city in the world.
The woman's face might as well be a map of the Fire Nation. Never mind that reddish tint to her hair...
And these "colonials" were trying to flee the chaos they made for themselves back home, but still bringing it along with them to Ba Sing Se. What next, a Fire Nation embassy in the Upper Ring?
The immigrant woman- her passport said her name was Shingyung of Yang- smiled politely. "Is everything in order?"
Cheng Xu grunted and finished her examination. It was a proper passport all right, with all the right seals and stamps. It could have been printed in Ba Sing Se itself. "Yeah, yeah," she said as she put the papers down flat on her tray. "Ever been to the city before?"
Little Miss Shingyung shrugged. "This is my first time out of the colonies. I know people who immigrated during the war-"
"Well, things have changed since then." Cheng Xu stamped Little Miss Shingyung's documents and pointed to the far side of the receiving center. "Bring your papers and go into that door. That's where you'll take your entrance test. Your results will determine what permits you will be awarded. If you cannot take the test now, you can enter the Lower Ring, but you will not be allowed to travel until you complete the test. Those permits will also be needed to even take a job in the Middle and Upper Rings, so don't pin your hopes on some slumming Upper Ringer discovering you and taking you home. Understand?"
Little Miss Shingyung gave a short bow. "I do. Thank you."
Cheng Xu grunted again as the other woman turned and headed to the testing rooms. She calculated the hours until lunch, and then barked out, "Next!"
The Hidden Gem was, wonder of wonders, exactly where they left it. Meisai couldn't help but frown when the harbormaster escorted her and her father to the dock where they had moored the ship all that time ago. "And you just let it sit there waiting for us?"
The Harbormaster shrugged. "Its berth fees were paid up just before you left, sitting right on the desk in my office with a note. I'm not saying I can't be persuaded to overlook a minor rule or two with the right gifts, but I have one of the most honest ports in the colonies. As long as I have my money, I'll look out for you."
Well, that was hard to argue with. Meisai turned her gaze on her father, who was staring at his ship with a smile and what looked like misty eyes. Considering how long it had been since they last saw it, she could completely understand. "I don't suppose," she said, "you paid up before we were kidnapped?"
He dried his eyes and threw an askance glance over at her. "Where would I have gotten the money for that after the cargo we just bought before… the thing? But I'm not questioning gifts from the Spirits. Our ship is here, Meisai! We're going to be okay!"
The corners of her lips quirked upward at her father's enthusiasm, but Meisai still found the situation a bit worrying. The only people who could have possibly arranged this were the abductors themselves, but why would they do that? Between the kidnappers letting her and Father go free when they were finished with their business, and now this, they were proving to be the most considerate criminals in the entire world.
She was a sailor now, a member of her father's crew, but she still found herself professionally offended. Did those criminals think a soldier of her caliber was just going to accept all this? Well, she would have to for now. Suki- Azula- needed help.
Turning back to the harbormaster, she said, "What about the rest of the crew?"
The harbormaster shook his head. "When you didn't turn up, they had to find other work. No one left them a stack of coins. The first mate did leave a message, though. Said that if either of you two was ever found, to tell you the crew was just going to forget the details of life on the Hidden Gem. If I hadn't walked through your cargo hold myself, something like that would have had me suspicious."
Meisai had to fight off another urge to smile. There was more to life on that ship than the cargo, and her daily Firebending exercises were a major part of that. The crew were good people, and it would be tough to find another group that loyal. Unfortunately, they needed to find such a crew in short order.
They had to get to Suki before it was too late.
Azula was actually having fun with Ba Sing Se's entrance exams. There were questions of finance, of Earth Kingdom culture, of business custom. Currently, Azula was identifying the various elements of a certain classic Omashu poem that could be interpreted as symbolic and making her best guesses about what they represented. That didn't take long, and soon she was on the last set of questions. The answers came to her quickly; she easily figured out the mathematical questions, even the ones involving trigonometry, and had no trouble dredging all kinds of historical trivia out of her memory.
It was that realization that got her feeling uneasy again. Something about her success was wrong. But what could it be? There didn't seem to be any new elements to her state of mind, so what else could account for the change of mood? Azula ran through the memories she had since her awakening on Kyoshi Island, and it struck her that something was missing.
Why wasn't she feeling sick when she tried to recall information that Suki couldn't have known? Why was she instantly able to access academic skills that only a noble of a highly advanced nation would have been taught, when she still couldn't remember most of her life as a princess?
Strange.
Azula took a deep breath and let it out again. Her feelings of unease were not important. She had a mission. She had to focus on that. This test might be her ticket to Upper Ring access, and she was going to need that if she wanted to infiltrate the Earth King's palace. She needed only fifteen more minutes to complete the test, and then she rose from her desk and brought the papers up to her proctor.
While she waited for her grade, Azula took the time to review her map of Ba Sing Se. All the gates between the various rings were marked, and she was annoyed to find that there was a considerable distance between the palace and its nearest gate to the Middle Ring. If she were pursued coming out of the palace, which would be likely, she'd have a long trek before she could get back to narrow alleys and places to hide. She would have to account for that in her plans.
"Shingyung, your grade is ready." The voice of the proctor echoed off the stone walls, and Azula got that sense of déjà vu again. Shaking it off, she folded her map and reported at the official's desk. Without looking up from his stack of papers to grade, he handed her a set of stamped certificates. "Good job, perfect score. Here are your permits. Middle Ring living access, Upper Ring working access. You can only use the latter with stamped proof of employment. Welcome to Ba Sing Se."
Azula frowned. "I thought I got a perfect score. I still can't get into the Upper Ring without a job?"
The proctor finally met her gaze. "Your test score isn't the only thing that's considered. We don't normally let anyone from the Fire Nation into the Upper Ring, but your test grade was perfect, and so it was determined that your employment could benefit the city."
"I'm not Fire Nation, I came from the colonies."
"What's the difference?" The proctor rolled his eyes and then slumped over his desk again. "Have a nice life. Please respect the rules."
Azula ignored the burning in her heart and stomped off. Who needed their stupid permits anyway? She had walked straight into the Earth King's palace once in her life already, even if she couldn't remember it. She'd just have to do it again.
Her feelings of unease were not important. She had a mission. She had to focus on that. It struck Azula as odd that her little mantra would have come to mind in this situation, but it wasn't anything worth worrying about. Her feelings of unease were not important, after all, and she had a mission. She had to focus on that.
And with that focus, it occurred to her that maybe the easiest course of action would just be to just steal an Upper Ring job.
Meisai had never really liked stories about criminal adventurers or pirates. Her time as a soldier in the Fire Nation colonies had only turned that apathy into outright hatred, having seen what such types actually did for a living and the victims those crimes produced. Yet today she found herself strolling into an unfamiliar dockside tavern looking to hire a daring crew so that she could go save a princess. (Sort of.)
Life could be both cruel and benevolent, but it was also pretty weird, sometimes.
Meisai let her gaze travel over the tavern's interior. The air smelled to her of grog and smoke and stew, mixed with the ripeness of unwashed bodies. There was nothing special about either the worn wooden taproom or the people crowded into it, but that was okay. "Nothing special" could also translate to "nothing I'm not prepared for," a situation that all professional soldiers could appreciate. The patrons mostly looked like sailors, with the usual scattering of professional companions, and there was more variety in the tattoos they all displayed than in their faces.
Meisai drifted over to the bar itself while she scanned around for familiar faces, indications of honor, or signs of financial desperation. Any of those would get Meisai the trustworthy crew she needed. Without even looking at the bartender, she dropped a copper coin on the counter and said, "A mug of whatever won't kill me." Barely a second later, she heard the sound of a full wooden mug clunking down beside her coin. "Thanks."
Only then did the bartender speak. "A ship or a crew?"
"Excuse me?" Meisai turned to bring the man into view. As was usually the case in both stories and real life, he looked like an aged sailor who had cashed in his savings to buy a dockside tavern. (Meisai desperately hoped he was a spice merchant for whom life had taken an odd turn. A little variety would be nice, here.) He was examining the coin that Meisai had paid, but at her query he looked up again.
The bartender started to reply, stopped, and then squinted at her. "By the First Mud. You're a woman." He blinked his surprise away a moment later and relaxed again. "Anyway, I was asking if you were looking for a ship or a crew. You've had your eyes washing over everyone here since you stepped in the door. And if you were looking for someone specific, you would have found 'em by now."
"Fair enough." Meisai nodded and took a sip of whatever was in her mug. It was awful, of course, and tasted like it had the alcohol content of the stuff they had used to clean the treads of the Fire Army's tanks. "I'm looking for a crew. Got a cargo we have to pick up in Ba Sing Se, and the offer will expire very soon."
The bartender nodded and his expression turned expectant. Meisai waited a few heartbeats for his reply before she finally realized what was going on, and then she dropped another coin on the counter. In response, the bartender put a smile on his face and leaned forward to palm the tip. "Got a few people here looking for work. You got a preference for red or green?"
"Let's say I'm colorblind."
"Then your pickings aren't bad. Most of the people here were born with Earth under their feet, but there's a group of steamers who are landlocked until they can get a hold of parts to fix their ship. Small metal tub, decommissioned Fire Navy. I hate those things. But I'm not saying nothing about having a certain color preference, hear? The steamers in red seem ex-military. That kind is more disciplined, you know? But it's your choice."
That was certainly true enough, but the chill that ran up Meisai's spine felt strong enough to quench her Inner Fire. Ex-military types in red were people who could possibly recognize her name from the publicized lists of deserters; she might even have a small bounty on her head. But she was just one of many such fugitives, and she had typically worn a face-obscuring helmet back in her enlisted days. It might just be worth the risk.
Swallowing, Meisai dropped another coin on the counter. "Point them out to me."
The bartender twitched his head towards the far corner, where the most shadowy booth was situated, then nabbed the coin and moved off to service another customer. Meisai held back a sigh and began making her way towards her supposed prize, preparing for a fight even as she burrowed through the crowd. She had hoped to approach the fire sailors unobserved, but just as the booth came fully into her view, one of them turned to look right at her with eyes like a hawk.
She stopped in place and had to stifle a gasp. He was tattooed, like most of the tavern's patrons, but his tattoo was on his face.
It was the mark of the Yu-Yan Archers.
The man made a hand motion and the rest of the group immediately stopped their quiet conversation and turned to look at her. They were an odd group, especially for one that was supposed to be ex-military. In fact, they looked more like pirates, an eccentric group of five heavily muscled men with beards and clean chins and bald heads and one who had feathers sticking out of his topknot. One thing that united them, though, was that all looked mean.
Meisai knew she couldn't back down now. Taking a deep breath, she finished her approach. "I heard you were all looking for work. My captain needs a crew for a fast trip to Ba Sing Se. We'll pay the standard rates."
The men all exchanged glances. The one with the feathers growled, "Ba Sing Se is a long way. (Don't sing it, Ogodei.) Why should we leave our ship to go along with you?"
Meisai blinked at that. She had thought that they would be more than eager to earn some money while their boat was out of commission. But she could be surprising, too. "Because there are only so many places where civilians can buy parts for Fire Nation ships, and no one is paying you to go to Yang City."
The men all exchanged glances at that, and then because it was the way things worked in the pirate adventure stories, the guy with the feathers shrugged. "Fine. When do we depart?"
"As soon as you're on the boat. We're the Hidden Gem, the cargo junk on the east dock. I'm Meisai, speaking for Captain Toru."
Feather Guy nodded. "I'm Mongke. That's Ogodei, Yeh-Lu, Kahchi, and the tattoo-face is Vachir. Looks like you have a crew."
The Ba Sing Se Receiving Center opened directly into the first station on the city-wide train line, and even that little glimpse of the city nearly overwhelmed Azula with a crushing sense of people. Old people, young people, fat people, thin people, men and women in pale tunics with patches, men and women in rich robes lined with what could have been real gold. Azula stood in their midst, the only one with a reddish tinge in her hair, and could do nothing but hope that her face was as much a cipher to them as it was to herself.
She had conquered this city. How much of it had she seen? Had she stood in this station, dressed as a Kyoshi Warrior, and boarded a train to the Upper Ring?
The station stood elevated over the rest of the buildings, with the wall facing the city opened into a series of arching windows, and the sprawl of Ba Sing Se rolled off into the horizon. Azula could make out the other side of the Inner Wall in the hazy distance, but it was easy enough to mistake this view for a glimpse at a limitless vista.
Lowering her line of sight, Azula saw the city's lanes pulsing with the life of moving crowds like the flow of blood through veins. Had she once looked out over this pulsing city, as she announced the Fire Nation's victory to the populace, and felt like she had conquered the whole earth for her father? Or had she holed up in the deposed Earth King's palace and hid from this intimidating and almost bloody view while the Dai Li kept the bureaucracy running?
It was strange, actually knowing something about her life but lacking any useful details. She had no scraps of memories about her time in Ba Sing Se, no familiar feelings or flashes of insight. All she knew was what Suki had been told, on the occasions of her visits to Ir- Unc- Iroh's teashop, but now that she was here she found that she really didn't know anything at all. Had that been purposeful? Was the lack of details meant to keep her Azula identity suppressed? Then why tell her anything at all? Why even bring her here? Was it a cruel joke, or had Sokka not yet begun to tire of her?
Her feelings of unease were not important. She had a mission. She had to focus on that.
Azula took a breath and focused her attention on the arriving train. She moved with the crowd, careful not to jostle anyone and draw attention to herself as she boarded. By the time she was in the train car, all the seats along the walls had been taken, so she was forced to stand while the train started moving. A conductor came through to check everyone's ticket, and several stops later, he came again when the train was ready to pull out of the station built into the Wall between the Lower and Middle Rings. Azula let him inspect her travel documentation then, but she knew she would be politely thrown off the train at the station leading to the Upper Ring without proof of employment.
Long before that, though, she had finalized the details of her plan.
She had surreptitiously examined the other passengers in this train car, and watched the ebb and flow of the crowd at every stop. There were three who had come up from the Lower Ring and stayed on down the whole line, their clothes betraying their low economic class. Two had wide sleeves that hid their hands, while a third had a handbag next to her on her seat. Were they servants who either wouldn't or couldn't live with their masters in the Upper Ring? Or did they have other ways of getting access, for some arcane reason?
It didn't matter to Azula. What mattered was that two of those Lower Ring workers made the mistake of carrying their documentation in their sleeves.
At the last stop before the train was to enter the Upper Ring, Azula took advantages of the mass debarking to finally get herself a seat. She walked past one of the Lower Ring'ers on the way, and just as the woman came into grabbing distance, Azula very purposefully and gracefully tripped over her own feet and went down.
She let herself hit the floor hard, her bag bouncing against her back, but it was no inconvenience. Even as Suki, she could take a beating, and the prize would be worth any bruises. The worker woman immediately leaned over her with concern evident on her older face. "Are you okay, dear?" There was no hesitation as she put her hands on Azula in order to help her up.
Azula let herself be lifted up into a sitting position, and smiled. "I'm okay, thanks." She shook her head and gave a little laugh. "Being clumsy isn't anything new for me. Thank you again for your help." The worker woman pulled Azula up to her feet, patted her hand, and then settled back into her seat.
Without her papers.
Azula sat down further down the car in the open seat, and made sure she didn't flash any sign of the employment papers she had snuck out of the other woman's sleeve and into her own. That had been simple enough. Unsuspecting victims were the best kind.
The sheer oddity of that thought threatened to drop Azula's jaw. Since when did she think like that? In fact, she had just stolen difficult to obtain permission from an innocent woman that would likely make her lose her job. It struck her that this was completely inconsistent with her character since she awakened on Kyoshi Island. The guilt she had carried since then... what she had done to her father's face, the lives lost in her escape... lying to... to Captain Toru of the Hidden Gem. Her mind began dancing with that last thought, like it was significant in some way, but she pushed past it.
All of those things had made her feel guilty, but not the crime she had just committed. Was she reverting back to the true Azula?
She almost expected to feel that old nausea that always filled her when trying to access her forbidden memories, but it did not come. Instead, she just remembered that her feelings of unease were not important, she had a mission, she had to focus on that.Calming herself, Azula made sure she didn't react as the woman made a little scene when she couldn't find her papers for the conductor and had to be escorted off the train, nor when she showed those very same papers to the very same conductor and pretended that they were her own.
And so she entered the Upper Ring, home of the Jasmine Dragon, the Earth King, and all the answers she needed to figure out her life.
TO BE CONTINUED