A. N. : It's been a while, but we're going back to Ba Sing Se for this chapter. Things are slowly escalating all over the place, what with Ozai's plans, after all. Also, I missed Smellerbee haha - if anyone's in the same case, I do still have that OS called "Of blue shells and scarab-bees" I posted a few years back for a Viper-lizard anniversary. On my end, thing are gonna keep on being busy for a little while still I think, especially with how I'm starting an internship at the museum soon. I can't wait, but it's going to be a lot of work on top of the Masters.
Something strange is going on.
Smellerbee wouldn't be able to say what, exactly, but – there's something weird going on with the Dai Li.
Of course, maybe she's wrong and it's all just more ashmaker occupation pig-bullshit – Longshot raises an eyebrow and Smellerbee shrugs. Hey, she's just saying, she doesn't know everything that could be going on inside these traitors' heads is all. But yeah, he's right, it's all very suspect.
The agitation of the troops makes sense. One of the adults working the docks – Gou, she thinks, and stop laughing Longshot, it's not her fault the kids have way more memorable names – anyway, he said he heard some navy guys complain about all having to go to Ba Sing Se when it fell, even though Chameleon Bay still wasn't secure and blah blah blah, and now they all have to head north instead to prepare for the comet and the taking of the Northern Water Tribe and boohoo, can't the higher-ups just please make these plans in advance, this is the army and not the postal service, and so on and so forth.
If they hate their jobs that much, they should just stop invading cities and killing people, Smellerbee thinks, but what does she know ? She rolls her eyes, Longshot smiles.
Anyway, most of the Fire Nation is leaving between now and the next month or so, which is great. Gives the new Freedom Fighters – they tried voting on a name a few times, but no one would agree on anything, so that's what Smellerbee's calling their little community for now – a chance to kick out the Fire Nation in the meantime, and organize to keep them out for good.
The problem is the Dai Li.
The problem is always these bastards, these traitors, sons of monkey-dogs and their kidnappings and weird brain bending thing, and what are they doing with the city's food stock ?!
The Fire Nation packing up food and rations for their journey up north, fine – well, no, not fine, they're stealing food that should go to the people, but like, it makes sense they would.
What Smellerbee wants to know is why the Dai Li seems to be preparing for a drought or something.
Security's been tightened around the reserves, when before it was… ah, maybe lax isn't the right word, but sometimes it kind of felt a little less like the Spirits were on her side, with luck and near-miracles and the blue mask under Li's floor, and a little more like some of the Dai Li guys just, didn't really feel like doing their job. Like the ashmakers on the docks, or like they just remembered they're all Earth and letting the city starve so the Fire Nation can steal even more food would be an even worse betrayal than opening the Walls to the ashmakers in the first place.
Security's been tightened, and the rationing has gotten more strict, and the kids told her they've seen the Dai Li moving food all around the city, even to the underground, like squirrel-frogs hiding food everywhere so that even if someone finds one cache, the rest will be safe.
One of the earthbenders – old man Tàn, she knows this one – says he has trouble sleeping these days because the ground keeps on moving, deep inside. She wouldn't have thought anything of it – guy's old, half blind, and smoked out of his mind a bit too often to be reliable for anything – but he also said it reminds him of the time the Dragon of the West breached the Outer Wall and the Dai Li and the city guard bended underground tunnels to hide the people most at risk until things got solved, in case of a disaster.
Kind of ironic that they ended up becoming the disaster themselves, but oh well.
Point is, old man Tàn had a house and a job at the time and didn't need his pipe for moral support or whatever, so unless he's hallucinating now, something's going on underground.
And Smellerbee doesn't know what, and Longshot doesn't have any idea either, and with how all over the place the Dai Li's new reserves are, maybe they don't either and are just prepping for the worst, whatever that might be.
Out of habit, Smellerbee looks at the wall where they put Jet's hooks. They don't have the answers, but seeing them reminds her of the forest, of what Jet taught her that she can use, and what he taught that she refuses to.
Be clever and plan ahead. Don't waste resources, if you can use something, do it – so long as it doesn't hurt the people you want to protect, she's amended after the dam. Be aware that plans can go wrong, and learn to adapt.
If you can use something, do it, Smellerbee thinks, a hand on the mask hidden against her chest. Be clever and plan ahead – but to do that, she needs information that neither the kids nor the adults can provide.
She'll have to dig deeper, and trust the Spirits won't leave her side now.
Longshot stares at her. She looks back.
He nods.