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At any job there is always a task that isn't exactly strenuous or difficult but still grates on every worker's nerve; that 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 will arise a rank of employees who exist solely to deal with these annoyances. For the last year at the Ba Sing Se Legacy School for Young Ladies that employee was Ayika and right now she was dealing with gum.
Chewing gum had struck suddenly and without warning, spreading from some inventive salesman down in one of the hotter Lost Territories to fill a shelf in every shop across the city within a year. Ayika dreamed of one day finding that man and killing him. Though she had never seen a single student holding a package the underside of every surface in the school had still managed to acquire a sticky, rocklike coating. In her heart she suspected demonic intervention.
As the afternoon shadows stretched, Ayika was hard at work instead of savoring the wonderful peace brought on by the end of classes. As she attacked a particularly diabolical specimen wedged inside a crack in the aging wood she contemplated the feasibility of convincing the gum's manufacturer to change the color to match the school's paint. She didn't hear the approaching footsteps until a pair of shoes stopped in front of her.
"Could you direct me to the office of Lizhen Wen." There was a distinct lack of a question mark at the end of that sentence.
Ayika snapped up into a bow as she hid her scraping tool and bag of scraps behind her back. The man before her was dressed in the dark military greens favored by many of the city's older citizens. With his short, grey-flecked hair and lined face he could be someone who'd lived sixty peaceful years, or forty that were very interesting. The scars around his cheeks suggested the latter.
Ayika said, "Of course, sir. Right this way."
The man said nothing in reply. There was something about his manner that suggested that he took a deep interest in everyone around him and that this was not necessarily a good thing. His presence was unsettling, as if something around him was somehow distorting an unheard sound.
Ayika shifted her cleaning tools around to her far hand so they were still hidden as she turned to gesture down the hallway. "Er, you can both come."
That last bit was directed at the beleaguered young man following his master up the stairs, with a large and irregular package he clutched desperately to his chest. He looked put-upon but he also looked like someone who might find a way to be oppressed in an empty room. His master barely seemed to register the young man's existence.
Ayika led the way towards Wen's office, crossing the walkway above one of the school's garden courtyards. As she walked in front, Ayika felt shivers down her spine and had to fight looking behind her. Why was just being near of that man so unsettling? Who was he? She looked back. The master carried himself like an ex-soldier but there was something more that wasn't quite right. Ayika always had a quiet confidence in her intuition. In fact the tension was giving her a headache and prickles across her neck.
As they approached the office she couldn't help feeling worried for Professor Wen, so she decided to risk some questions. Strictly speaking it was not within the scope of her duties to say much more than 'Yes, sir' and 'No, sir' but this man was suspicious.
"Excuse me," she said, gently. "But could you give me your name? For the guest book, er, registry." That was a lie but it was a believable one. The school had once had such a book until a sufficiently rich parent had complained about having to sign in to see their own daughter.
The man was not amused. "I've already given my name to the doorkeeper and to another servant on the first floor. I feel confident I have successfully introduced myself."
"I'm sorry, but it's, you know, the headmaster. Rules and that," Ayika pleaded.
He looked back down at Ayika and for an instant his eyes communicated something about long experience with ridiculous superiors and rigid orders. The he relaxed imperceptibly and said, "Ma'er. Garden design."
Ayika barely had time to register her own disbelief at this title before he pushed past her. Ma'er strode forward, sliding open Wen's door without permission. This office was smaller than the classrooms, and was nearly filled by a desk, a table, and a few chairs lit by the open window. The far wall was covered with shelves that held Wen's collection of foreign ritual objects, along with other small paintings and sketches from his studies. Professor Lizhen himself was sitting at his desk in his usual state of shuffling through his papers while muttering quietly to himself. At the sound of the door he looked up, surprised that the rest of the world had decided to keep moving while he was busy.
"Ma'er! What are you doing here?"
"Hoping you'd finally come to sense, for one," the intruder growled. He stepped heavily forward towards the desk as he gestured out the professor's window. "I would have thought that getting kicked out of the University might have been enough for you to get the message."
Lizhen narrowed his eyes. The short, shiny-faced teacher 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're 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. This nation needs someone to say that change does not have to destroy our identity. I'm confidant the city can survive little old me." He lifted a paper he had been reading back up.
It was snatched out of his hands. "Survive," Ma'er said with a bitter twist. "You know that the stalk that sticks up gets chopped down. Especially if it insists on publishing." Ma'er spoke tersely, a restrained furry boiling behind his lips.
Lizhen only smiled and instead slowly got up out of his chair. He turned to look out his open window at the dipping sun that slowly painted the endless sea of roofs.
"Ma'er, you people never could get a grasp on walking out of the shadows. Violence is all you see. Minister Liao's faction fear the downfall of our spirits and our society and they are infecting this city with that fear. But if humans can immigrate than so can spirits, and perhaps our gods can reform as we do. You just have to trust people. You never know, we might even get back some of what we've lost."
Ma'er slammed his hands on the table with a force that sent it rattling. "You damn fool. You have no idea what's happening! 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 the spirits..."
He stepped back and regained his composure with effort "You didn't go to Naruhama's funeral." What might have been a question was once again a statement.
A shadow crossed Wen's brow. "No, Sun Sage Huitzlan was...particular about new formalities of the Ambassador's funeral. Friend as I was to Aza Naruhama, I didn't think attending the procession only to be locked outside the temple was the proper gesture. I wish his smoke safe passage though, as they say in the east." The professor seemed to get even smaller as he sagged. "I heard they were considering deifying him as city-god of the Exclusion. They could do worse."
The visitor repeated a single word, "Particular. Yes." He leaned closer to Wen. "We have something new to discuss." Ma'er turned to his assistant, lurking in the corner with his burden. "Tian, leave the package and stand outside."
Ma'er assistant was shaken by this dismissal and looked very unsettled but he complied. After a few false starts he set the wide package down on the office table and heading for the door with great reluctance that Ma'er seemed not to notice.
Professor Lizhen was shaken from his thoughtful revere, once again noticing 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."
She didn't want to leave Lizhen with someone who looked could not have looked less like a gardener in full armor, but nevertheless Ayika nodded to Lizhen and made her way out. She kept her eye to the closing door crack but Ma'er watched steadily for her to leave. Outside, Ayika glared at the nervous Tian whose position so near the doorway meant that she had no chance of eavesdr...accidentally hearing anything.
Ayika clenched her hands at her sides. There was no way she could let that man stay alone with Professor Lizhen after making all those barely veiled threats. Ma'er acted like a Public Safety agent, and a rabid one at that. He was trying to make the professor give up his writing! So what if Lizhen was saying the Kingdoms should emulate the West? He didn't deserve this! Lizhen was the only one at this school who treated her like a normal person.
Ayika paced up and down the corridor quietly growling to herself before she noticed that Tian flinched each time she drew close. She stopped in front of him. The young man seemed very nervous, as if he was standing outside a lion cage where very soon he was going to have to practice amateur dentistry. And he'd been the one giving sweets to the lion in the first place.
Tian tried to lean away from her, however Ayika's compact height and his position against the wall leading him to invent an untested method of leaning upwards. One of his hands was twitching to his side as though searching for something it couldn't find. Ayika edged in closer, glaring at him.
Then she snapped her fingers in epiphany. Ignoring the sharp knock of a startled young man's skull against a cross beam, she turned away from his tumbling collapse.
Wen's office window had been open. Someone standing at the back of the classroom next door would probably be able to hear everything. Ayika wasn't exactly sure what she could do with after hearing but she knew she wasn't about to let that sweet old man get shaken down by the secret police without a friend at least somewhat by his side.
Leaving Tian's tumbled limbs behind her, Ayika made a show of walking down the hallway with the exaggerated normality of one acting 'naturally'. Then three more steps at a skip and she was at the empty classroom. Now to get over to the window and...
Ayika froze. There was already a girl standing in that corner, pressed against the wall near the open window just as Ayika had planned to do.
Mizumi jolted at being discovered, her arms jerking up into what looked like a fighting stance. For a moment Ayika and the Islander girl stared at each other in an identical mixture of outrage and embarrassment. Then, quicker on the draw, Ayika raised an accusatory finger.
"What are you doing?!" she hissed. "Are you spying on-?"
"How dare you!" the foreign girl interrupted before 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 raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Well then, I'd be happy to guide you. This is an unused classroom so if you take yourself towards the exit and continue down the hall you can get to areas where students are actually allowed at this time."
A voice behind her interrupted, "Ugh, is there anywhere in this school that doesn't have the help loafing around?"
Ayika continued to address Mizumi, gesturing over her shoulder. "And you can also take-"
Then she bit down on her breath, chewing and swallowing it as she recognized the new voice. She spun, transferring her glare to a more established obstacle.
Lili Gaoli worked hard within the confines of the school uniform to display the grasp of up-to-the-minute fashion 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 regulation bun, was secured in place with imported pale coral hair combs that matched her milky skin and projecting from beneath her uniform dress were slippers woven in the slightly curved Islander 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 cloak and dagger social world of rich teenagers those words amounted to a ceasefire at best. This week's lifelong companions, Huamei and Jiayi, bracketed their leader like wolves in harness; appreciating the steak while 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, Huamei, tittered obligingly. "Oh, be fair now! Look at her hands. With skin like that how would she know if they were clean?"
Ayika silently folded her hands behind her back and lowered her head so they couldn't see the rage she thought she'd learned to control. Getting angry now would only risk being fired and would do nothing to make her feel better. This was nothing new.
"Yes, those uniforms are just not the color to do her favors." Lili joined in, though a tightness in her voice indicated some discomfort at the direction this conversation was taking. Little miss fancy didn't like criticizing the shade of someone's skin? Surprising. Perhaps her importer father had drilled in some lessons about finding value beyond the city walls. "Of course, not that these colors are anyone's. I still can't believe the restrictions they put on us here. Such boring dark uniforms, and they expect us to learn to be elegant members of society!"
The shorter satellite, Jiayi, picked up on this new conversational cue, casting a deliberate look across the room to emphasize that they were completely ignoring Mizumi.
"But Lili, you still manage to look great. I mean some people have no ability whatsoever, even factoring in their... innate limitations." Jiayi now smiled at Mizumi. "Are those actually trousers under your dress?" Sharks and humans were the only things that could smile like that. And now that the focus was back on Mizumi, Lili seemed to have lost her brief attack of conscience.
Ayika found herself surprised to feel a small twinge of pity for the torment Mizumi was in for. Even if the girl had been creeping around. The Islander's uniform had some strange accents and tailoring but nothing about her could be called unattractive. Her lean athletic build made her look a little broad-shouldered but with her smooth skin and delicate features, the slightly boyish fit of her uniform only contributed to the air of the exotic beauty. Ayika was even more surprised when Mizumi answered back in the other girls' same poisonous sweet tone, only slightly warped by her accent.
"Well, we cannot 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? We in the Nation are certainly behind the fashions of the Earth Kingdom, are we not?"
Lili's face grew to such a mortified red as her companions stepped back to inspect the offending imported footwear that Ayika let out an suppressed snort of amusement. When Lili whipped her head back towards her, Ayika's face was once more smooth and placid. Lili's jaw worked silently on its gum chewing as she vibrated slightly with indecision. Then she said, "Come on girls, let's 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 you all? As you said, I could use some help on fashions. I had no idea that you could repurpose a coral pet brush as a hair comb and yet you wear it so well, Lili!"
The three girls accelerated in their retreat and the Islander chased after them. Just as she left the room Mizumi looked back at Ayika, and her lips curved up into a smile. Before Ayika could decide how to respond, Mizumi was gone and Ayika was left blinking. Why had that girl been here at all?
Ayika started as she remembered why she herself was here. Moving quickly and silently she slid over to the corner by the open window. She'd only managed to raise her ear to the gap when Ayika heard a crash from within the Professor's office. She rushed back out into the hallway as quickly as she could, but as she approached Wen's office door the gardener stormed out.
"Call your allies if you wish," Ma'er snarled at Wen. "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 him stalk off towards the stairs as she hurried into Professor Wen's office. The little man was pacing before his window, his lips moved in some silent continuation of the argument. He was clearly agitated, and he glanced several times at the package that the visitor had left on his desk before he eventually noticed Ayika hovering uncertainly in the entrance.
"Professor, is everything ok? I…" Ayika began.
"Oh, yes, everything is perfectly fine my dear," Lizhen said. "My...that man just delivered some news to me that was...well, not exactly surprising given recent developments but...I wouldn't have thought that any of the Fire Nation would dare..."
"Um, Professor?"
"Huh?" Lizhen said, startled out of his muttering revery. "Oh, yes. I'm 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'm intending to write a letter I would appreciate if they could see delivered. Get someone who would not attract the attention down in the Kuang Harbor Exclusionary District."
"Of course, sir," Ayika said, bowing. She paused before she added, "If I could do anything else for you I'd…" She trailed off.
Professor Lizhen stopped pacing and smiled through his worry. "I'm sure you would. But at the moment I am perfectly fine. Just have the boy come up shortly to collect the letter. Oh, and send another boy who will be able to do some quick shopping for me." He wrung his hands. "There's much to be done and I just hope I remember the forms to do it. And after all my championing of Western culture and spirituality, huh, I suppose this might be considered ironic. Especially considering who I learned this ritual from." 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 Professor Wen. He had returned to his desk, shuffling papers and pens in a search for some which would somehow be different from their identical compatriots. Something was going on; something more than just the protesters outside the building.
It sounded like Ma'er had threatened him and it somehow all tied back to Wen's political statements about the Islanders. And now the Islanders were doing something? Ayika bit her lip, worried and frustrated. There was nothing she could do. She was just a servant. Her grandma had taught her a few charms and rituals of questionable veracity but none of them even claimed to deal with spirits ranking high enough to influence politics. As Ayika gently closed the office door, it crossed her mind to really wonder if the Islanders had brought any of their own spirits with them across the sea. Did they know they were supposed to stay in the Exclusion?
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