#theavatarbaang

He wiggled his fingers, creating whirls in the grey wisps that were sublimating off of him, forgetting all notions of practice immediately. Zuko opened his mouth to call him back to attention but he couldn’t  deny the ache of their exercise settling across his shoulders and maybe a break would do them both good.

Aang didn’t look up from his new-found skill of imitating a coalstack and instead turned to that age-old futile task: catching smoke with his hands. Settling down on one of the logs surrounding their training area, Zuko watched with head propped on hand and prepared to be amused.

He remembered how much such a thing had frustrated him, almost a decade ago, when he’d attempted the forms he was meant to be mastering and produced nothing but discolored smoke and not the smallest lick of flame. It had been disheartening, a sign of his failure and a mark of ridicule. Something he couldn’t control.

Aang brought his hands together, collecting the smoke between them with slight gusts of air. Zuko supposed it was fitting that an airbender would be one who could step over the line of what was possible. He recognized the way Aang’s eyes narrowed, the crook of his fingers as he slowly brushed the wisps of pale grey in the direction he wanted. Concentration furrowed itself across Aang’s brow until he was scrunching his face up so much Zuko had to wonder if he could even see what he was doing. A snort escaped him just as a swirling ring formed between Aang’s hands.

“Zuko, look! I did it!” Aang bounded over to him, the gently rotating loop of smoke almost blown away by the speed of his steps but he somehow managed to keep it intact. “Now if I add rocks…”

“This is firebending practice, not earth or airbending practice,” Zuko muttered, knowing already that he wasn’t going to chase after Aang. Perhaps this would simply have to be a lesson in control or precision or some other tenet that he could use to justify skipping the rest of the day’s drills.

As Aang set to work on whirling the small pebbles he’d pulled up out of the ground and adding them to the stream of smoky air, Zuko glanced down at his own hands. He’d never tried producing smoke on purpose, and he had a sudden itch to give it a try.

It was an odd sensation to do something wrong on purpose, especially something he’d worked so hard to do right in the first place. The familiar warmth that came with firebending tickled his fingertips as he tried to keep the fire repressed without tamping it down entirely. The smell came first, surprisingly, of something burning before a thick plume of smoke rose from his palm.

He passed his other hand through it, finding a slight heat to the haze as if it rose from a real campfire. It was unexpectedly relaxing, nothing like the anxiety of seeing it when he was a child.

Curling his fingers in the way he’d seen Aang do, he concentrated on the warmth that radiated with the smoke and felt it flicker in response. He almost closed his hand in surprise, the column of grey stuttering from his shock before it billowed out again when he called it forth. The more he focused on the way it languidly rose through the air, the more he could feel its shape in his mind, the currents that ran through it. It was perhaps the oddest thing he’d ever felt, the way it almost mimicked fire with its flickers and unpredictability.

He tried pulling it back in, to contain it, but the smoke dissipated into nothing. Curious now, he glanced over at where Aang was poking holes in his own insubstantial smoke with miniscule rocks, grinning all the while.

Watching the Avatar, Zuko let out a contemplative sigh. There was something to be said of experimenting, of taking detours and tangents, of having some fun with it. Puffing out his cheeks, he sought to find that hazy warmth again and blew. Smoke passed from his lips in streams, speckled with embers glowing in the shadow of the trees. He almost inhaled before thinking to breathe through his nose instead, wary of coughing from his own creation.

Seeing the way it wove through the air in curlicues and ethereal strands, a burst of elation rose inside him along with it. Now to see what he could do with it.

Taking a deep breath, he puffed out another bout of smoke and tried to channel Aang, to channel his sense of fun. There was nothing Aang couldn’t twist into a game or a wild ‘adventure’.

Zuko held still in case a stray movement messed up the process and as the smoke rose in front of him, he tweaked its path through the air. Just small nudges, it barely felt like he was doing anything with how gossamer thin the connection felt but it slowly drifted into shapes that might pass for a fat turtleduck, or a fire ferret.

He was just easing the fin on a sea serpent into place when he felt Aang’s eyes on him.

“Let’s have a contest! I want to try a lotus flower or maybe a Kiyoshi frowny face!” Aang’s exuberant shout was at odds with the way he slowly lowered himself in a crouch opposite Zuko. His grey eyes traced the edges of the smoky shapes and his trademark open-mouthed smile slid onto his face.

The training session was well and truly foiled by now, Zuko wasn’t even going to deny it. But maybe it was a mark of how much Uncle had affected him over the years that he stubbornly clung onto the idea of teaching through any means possible. It had worked on him, eventually, so why not on the Avatar himself? “You can practice your breathing while you do and don’t bend any other elements,” he ordered. Despite it all, he was already thinking of whether he could make a dragon out of smoke before the call for dinner came.

~*~

Zuko didn’t expect to find Toph in his mother’s old garden, leaning against the collapsing corner of the south wall with her meteorite bracelet tracing lazy shapes into the air in front of her. The sun spilled over the broken bricks beside her onto the only patch of green in the entire yard, a clump of weeds with bright pink flowers and spiny leaves.

“Hey hothead, your garden needs some serious work.” The comment was punctuated with a heel dug sharply into the dust at her feet. Stepping over the rocky outcropping that had sprung up in front of him, Zuko took a seat next to her and looked down at the bay just visible through the break in the wall.

“I’ll let my mom know about it when I find her,” he said, wondering if she’d even want to come back here. He had a handful of good memories, but even the one of this garden was hazy as smoke and just as hard to grasp. “If you wanted to remodel some parts of the house, feel free. Or demodel even.”

Toph grinned, sliding her feet across the ground, as a pillar rose up in the center of the yard and resolved itself into the shape of her in a triumphant pose, complete with boulder hefted in her hand.

“My contribution for when she gets back, a statue of the real Melonlord gracing her garden.” Grabbing her still-twisting bracelet from the air, she stretched it between her fingers like sticky taffy. “What was it like? When you met the dragons?”

Zuko fell silent at the sudden question and found himself staring at the stone Toph’s large belt buckle and interestingly defined muscles. He’d almost have thought it looked like the Ember Island Player’s version of Toph, buff and tall despite the reality sitting next to him. She was larger than life in many ways, but sometimes it was startling to remember she was really only twelve.

“Why do you ask?” he finally hedged, if only to have more time to figure out how to put it into words. He’d been speechless then too and nothing had changed since, how did you describe what they’d seen or what they’d felt?

“I guess I want to know if they were like the badgermoles. They didn’t speak to me, but I felt like I knew what they meant when they moved the earth and shook the core of the mountain.”

The badgermoles… He’d heard of them, had considered them to be legend until now like the dragons and sky bison were, but he’d been wrong about those too. Running his hand along the sunset-goldened terracotta beneath them and feeling the warmth they still leaked, he thought of the solemnity he and Aang had faced, and the momentary panic at the zenith of the mountain facing such ancient beings, and the colors of the fire that had surrounded them.

“The dragons were the same, they showed us what they wanted us to see.” He looked over at her and sighed, kneading his forehead as he wracked his brain for some way to make his words make more sense. “I mean, like all the different things fire can be.”

“Besides fire? Last I checked you still can’t bend lightning like your psycho sister,” Toph said, drumming her feet against the brick wall and sending tremors along the foundation in a steady beat.

Her bracelet lay between her fingers, odd spikes and whorls jumbled together into a mess of a shape. Reaching out, he paused before he touched it.

“I’ll try to show you.” He poked the sharp end of a spike, gingerly. “With this.”

Toph passed it over, barbs and all.

“It needs to be flat.”

Spreading out her fingers like she was pressing down a scroll or the pages of a book, Toph bent the metal into a sheet as thin as paper. Zuko looked along the edge, discreetly seeing if it would bend, but it remained as straight as an arrow.

Placing it on his knees, he held up a finger and focused on the sun warming his back, the waning strength that nevertheless burned all the same. A jet of fire appeared at the tip of his index finger, red as the crushed bricks beneath his shoes.

That was good enough to start.

He’d never been an artist but drawing on metal with only a pinch of fire turned out to be easier than he’d expected. It burned a clean trail across the sheet, turning from a curling half-moon to a jagged squiggle. Concentrating, he pushed the heat higher, hotter, until it turned from red to a brighter orange and seared the metal in a line of sizzling sparks.

Toph leaned closer, face turned toward her statue while she held the edge of the plate in her hand.

“I can tell there’s a difference,” she muttered, voice as hushed as he’d ever heard it.

Zuko took that as his cue to keep going. Careful to angle the flame away from her, he slowly pulled in a breath as he sought to raise the temperature even more. Azula could do it without breaking a sweat, he could remember their teachers’ excited and awed whispers when she’d first turned her flame blue, the sign of a true prodigy. The flame wavered at a clear orange, before finally tipping over into a pale purple bordering on white. It bit into the metal with an audible hiss, scorching the metal into patterns that glowed in the afterimage of its sizzling wake.

By now, he’d abandoned the jet of flame and instead drew with a searing corona haloing his finger, pressing it against the metal like he was fingerpainting. He could feel the heat in the metal, both from touch and as a fire encased underneath the surface, seething inside the sheet and a hairsbreadth from his control.

A thought rocked him back on his mental heels as he realized the similarity to how Toph had once explained her discovery of metalbending. Seeking out the element, in whatever form or shape it took and reaching out for it, bending the edges of what people thought was possible. That was Toph’s modus operandi in the end. He wondered how close metalbending and firebending could get, how thin the line was that separated them and if this was what Aang meant about the balance that he felt between all of the elements.

“I like it.” Toph broke the silence, pulling Zuko from his reverie as he lifted steaming fingers away from the design now marked on the asteroid metal’s surface. He couldn’t capture what the dragonfire had looked like exactly, but then again that wouldn’t do Toph any good anyway. But the harshly etched lines were formed from what he’d learned from them, the range of color and heat that fire could present and the control it took to keep the flame inside you.

“I mean, you’re not Aang-level, have you seen his noodle portrait of Ozai?” Toph continued, “That’s talent. But you got a spark, hothead, I get what you were going for.”

Zuko looked down at the burned lines and handed the sheet back to her, shaking his hand in an effort to cool it back to normal. As soon as she touched it, the metal rolled up into a scroll and wrapped itself around her forearm in a wide band, the edges of a deep groove showing along its face.

She ran her fingers along the burn ridges and smiled, huffing out a laugh before socking him in the shoulder.

“You still owe me a fieldtrip, don’t forget.”

“Yeah, I know.” He glanced at the statue again, before nudging her back.

“Shouldn’t you have made that boulder a melon?”

“Good point, hothead, I’m on it.”

~*~

The next time wasn’t as lighthearted of an occasion. His fingers were growing numb as he watched Katara pull the girl, little more than a child, over the edge of the ice floe and into their boat.

It had started as an excursion to show him ‘how the water tribe has a good time’ and went downhill from there faster than if you’d used an otter penguin as a sled. Sokka’s reassurances of how often he and Katara had gone out on their own before they met Aang did nothing to reassure Zuko. With that much water around, he thought his nervousness was rather warranted.

And he’d been right. Two hours in and the only thing they’d fished out was a child who looked on the verge of death.

“Zuko, hold still. You’re making the boat shake.” Katara’s voice was as calm as ever, steady as the ocean and just as unwavering. Her hands traced the girl’s body and pulled water out of the furs and cloth that bristled with frost. The face hidden under the hood was a sickly ashen brown, the lips purpling amidst shallow breaths.

Zuko grabbed hold of the boat’s sides, struggling to come up with something to do. He could only watch as Katara took the extracted water and blanketed her hands in it before trying to heal the girl with an expression that defied resistance. A familiar glow spilled over the worn wood of the boat, flickering in synchrony with Katara’s graceful curl of her hand from the girl’s brow down to her feet.

Katara was the embodiment of the dichotomy between water and ice, how it could turn from something that gave life to something that could steal it away just as insidiously, always with the same gentle but unwavering force. She could turn what flowed from her hands to protect and fight to something that slipped inside your body to heal or to hurt. She refracted as much as the surface of a stream, deeper than it looked.

But the crease along her brow only deepened.

“I can’t heal what’s not damaged. We need to get back to the village,” she finally declared, looking up at him with a gaze that could chisel rock. “Watch her, I’ll steer.”

Zuko didn’t argue, only shifted his weight forward until he sat next to the girl in the middle, leaving the stern free for Katara to stand up in and spread out her arms.

As the boat lurched forward with the swell of a wave spread out behind them, Zuko checked the girl’s breathing. It was alarmingly shallow, with her skin as cold as shadowed marble. Wrestling his way out of his parka, he laid it over her and hoped the layer of fur would do some good. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as thick of a coat as it could have been; after the Boiling Rock, he’d found it was easier to endure lower temperatures as long as he conserved his energy. And sitting around in a boat hardly counted as exercise.

Gingerly resting a hand on the girl’s head, he tried to imagine how Katara would do it, how she managed to fix what could not be seen. His first attempt produced a sweaty palm inside his glove but nothing more. It did no good for him to be warm unless he could share it with her as well. Heating up the air around her would do no good either, not with the breeze blowing by as they sliced through the frigid sea waves.

It was a foolhardy idea but he’d always gone for those anyway. It was almost his trademark.

Taking his glove off, he held his palm an inch away from the front of the girl’s parka and pictured the way Katara moved. He’d seen her do it hundreds of times now, had felt it when she healed his own wounds too, but what paltry comparison was that to truly knowing how to do it, and being able to.

His fingers grew cold and stiff as he focused on what felt stupid and most of all impossible.Containing the spark inside his own body, protected from the outside and unquenchable, was different than to kindle it in someone else’s.

He wanted to close his eyes, keep himself from seeing his own clumsy movements, but he thought of new forms and old advice. The first motion was too fast, rushed and embarrassed. On the second attempt, he forced himself to slow down, to keep each awkward jerk of his hand as he watched himself play pretend. By the third, he could feel the drag of a current against his fingers, of something catching in the girl’s body and drifting with him for just an instant, numbing the tips of his fingers in just that instant. Her peaceful face reminded him of Azula’s, when she’d been young enough to sleep peacefully.

The fourth time, he searched for the snag that he’d felt before and gently pulled it up to the surface from her core deep inside, coaxing it slowly from its kernel with a promise of returned warmth. Starting from the forehead and down to her wrapped fur boots, he pushed the cold away inch by inch in waves of as gentle a heat as he could muster, the tendons in his fingers aching from the tension of fine control and the energy draining from him. His thoughts narrowed to the glowing current from the girl’s body he thought he could sense, spreading like a river when it widens down her limbs in a warm flow of heat.

The boat bumped into the jetty with enough force to throw him against the side and jarred his concentration into scattered embers as the girl was lifted out of the boat and carried away by a team of healers and who could only be her parents. Zuko waited until his balance felt ready for dry land, or as dry as it could be in the south pole, and stepped onto the dock in a daze.

A hand across his back and Katara’s face swam into view in front of him, smiling even as she steadied him.

“Takes a lot out of you, huh? I’ve been there,” she said, pulling his arm across her shoulders and leading him back towards the tent they had been staying in. “How does it feel to steal my moves?”

“You can have them back, they don’t fit me very well,” he muttered, eyes straining to stay open against the fatigue settling into his bones. It had crept up on him, too immersed in what he’d been trying to do to see what he was using up in the effort, and now Katara’s hand across his own felt like the faintest of pressures while a swarm of scorpion bees seemed to prick at his numb skin.

She’d helped him like this once before, the night he’d fallen to Azula for the last time and had risen from there to Firelord. It had been thanks to her that he still breathed the sooty air of a burning city and saw his sister’s descent into crazed anger. He’d thought he knew what effect his choice to join the Avatar had had, but he’d been wrong, been blind to what they taught him, to what they changed in him, to what they made him see more clearly. And it happened more times than just what he can clearly remember, it happened during the travels on Abba, during silly antics and the scrapes that they got into, in the little moments and the hidden ones. And Uncle would have been proud.

“Maybe once you sleep this off, I can give you a lesson or two on what not to do.”

They stepped over the threshold into the room with fire-warm furs inside and his nod was lost to the covers of the bed, Aang’s excited questions failing to penetrate his hearing as he blinked up at the ceiling.

I

She already knows, as the walls split before her, that she ought to have rejected the invitation. What’s another year on the run, when she looks at her life in hindsight? The only problem is, where would she go?

Azula fidgets, her nails biting into the worn leather of the reigns that she holds, her back ramrod straight as she passes through the first ring of imposing walls (as easy to invade as the last time that she was here), trying to force herself to be calm. Trying to will her shoulders to fall and her easy confidence to return. It’s been fourteen years. There’s no way that they could possibly recognise her. Not in Earth Kingdom green. Not leading a retinue of Earth Kingdom soldiers, and not with her mother’s face plastered over her features.

She chews her bottom lip covertly, turning her attention upward at the towering walls of each section of the city. The men behind her, who due to complaints of the heat have been lagging since their trek across the desert, now walk a little more lively than before. Their attentions, too, are caught on the grand splendour that is the first ring of an even grander city to come. They do not notice her discomfort.

That is all just as well.

She hears the scrape of the ostrich-horses’ claws on the stone walkway and listens in the distance to the way the wind off of the mountains whooshes through the hollow spaces of the agricultural ring. An ostrich-horse snorts at her right elbow. She turns in time to see her second in command draw even with her, a grin on his otherwise rather plain face. Azula cocks an eyebrow.

“Well?” His smile stretches perceptibly wider.

“Well, what,” she returns in question, watching as Guangting’s gaze sweeps the vast expanse of the outer ring around them. He returns his attention to her.

“You said you’ve never been to Ba Sing Se before,” he points out with a sense of ease that Azula wishes were her own, “what do you think?”

She thinks that she’s already made a big mistake in coming here. She could have excused herself from the meeting. Feigned illness. But she did not. Azula notes that her hands have tightened once more against the reigns, and she loosens them consciously while she mulls over her response in her mind.

“It’s very grand,” she says after much deliberation, “probably too grand for someone like me.”

Even though the Earth Kingdom is and has always been much different from the Fire Nation, the city of Ba Sing Se reminds her of her childhood in Caldera…But Hui Yin, the commander of the hundred-and-eighty-seventh regiment of the Earth King’s army, has never been somewhere so ostentatious as Ba Sing Se. She has spent her life in the backwoods of the Earth Kingdom, scraping by, using her superior intelligence to make a name for herself in the army after the death of her farmer parents.

And that is how it must remain.

“Well it has to be, doesn’t it,” Guangting says then, “it is the capital city of the Earth Kingdom.”

In name, Azula thinks.

In truth, their reach is not as far stretching as it should be for the Earth King to be effective, but she is slowly remedying this for him. Slowly. Being the commander of a notably small force of soldiers is hardly worth much salt, just enough to get her noticed and summoned here.

“I suppose so,” she answers distractedly.

She feels Guangting grow covertly closer to her, glancing briefly over his shoulder at the men following their lead before he closes the gap between them.

“Don’t be so nervous. You’re being lauded for your part in the King’s efforts to unite the Earth Kingdom. This is a joyous occasion.”

Azula turns and offers Guangting a tight smile.

“I’ve never done well in cities,” she excuses.

Guangting snorts.

“It’ll be okay. I’ll show you the ropes.”

Azula laughs, smirking at him.

“That’s right, you grew up here, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. Lower ring though. Not a great place to be but…well, I got out of there, and I made a name for myself. And my parents can afford to be in the middle ring now and — Sometimes it’s just nice to be home, even if you don’t have fond childhood memories of the place.”

Her stomach twists. She presses her mouth into a line and looks back at the second wall looming before them—the wall to the lower ring of the city proper. The part of the city  that Guangting originates from, that houses the city’s poor.

She remembers thinking in her youth that it was a rather clever system, the segregation of the classes by walls. No one had to see the squalor that some people had to live in. It was easier to keep the city under control that way too, the Dai Li’s ultimate role.

Thoughts of stone hands flying out of the shadows and enveloping her before she can call out invade her thoughts momentarily.

Azula trains her eyes on the horn of her saddle, watching the passage of the clouds

overhead on its surface.

Guangting’s rough-knuckled hand comes and plants itself over her own. Azula looks over at him. The silent And it’s all thanks to you sits between them unspoken.

Then, he says,“You should meet my parents before we go.”

Azula feels her face heating, just a little, and swallows against a suddenly thick throat, her heart fluttering.

“I wouldn’t want to impose on them when they haven’t seen you in so long,” she replies, training her attention on the ground beneath her ostrich-horse’s feet.

“Nonsense, I’ve written to them about you. They’ll be eager to meet you.”

Her heart clenches. She clears her throat, and then finally, reluctantly, nods.

“If you say so, then of course I’d be honoured,” she lies. This is something for which she will feign illness.

He’s placated for the moment, however. Besides — it would be a lie to say that she is not flattered by the notion that he wishes for her to meet them, or that they would ever wish to meet her. They wouldn’t, but he’s being polite.

Azula pushes the thought back into the recesses of her mind. She can examine that later.

They slow to a halt at the second set of guards posted outside of the lower ring’s walls. The men there stare at them stonily for a moment before nodding and parting the newest set of walls with their bending. The earth trembles; Azula can feel the vibrations all the way to the top of her skull.

For a brief moment, she hesitates. The sounds and sights of the city waft on the breeze toward them, revealed through the now present giant gate. It’s accompanied by the strong scent of human living, and she makes a conscious effort to breathe through her nose.

With a sense of finality, Azula urges her party forward, and they pass onward into the lower ring of Ba Sing Se.

*

Azula is combing out her freshly washed hair with some effort when the official arrives at her door. Guangting’s footsteps pad across the floor and down the hallway to her private suite after a brief few minutes, identifiable even from where she sits alone in the room. She watches him come through the circular porthole, a missive in his hands, scrolled and sealed with forest green wax.

“What’s that?” Azula continues in attempting to tease the knots from the bottom of her hair, wincing at each tug of the comb from her careless hands, still watching Guangting’s expression in the surface of her mirror.

“Mm, something pretty official looking,” Guangting answers distractedly.

Azula raises a dark eyebrow in response. Her hands have paused in her hair, and she watches as Guangting crosses the space between them and settles himself beside her. He looks up at her with his black eyes, smiling briefly before he returns his attention to the scroll in his hand. He breaks the seal, unravelling the paper.

Azula returns to her work, waiting.

“Ah,” he says after a moment of silence, “the King’s second cousin, Lord Shenlong, has invited you to a gathering of the nobility and high ranking ministers of the city.”

Her eyebrows raise.

“A party?” She doesn’t quite manage to hide the disdain in her voice. Or maybe it’s apprehension. She has enough experience with high society parties that she’d be hard pressed to truly enjoy one now. She knows all  too well what goes on at functions featuring the nobility.

“Yes.” He smiles, rolling the scroll back up and setting it down on the vanity. “A party.”

Azula’s right eyebrow raises a little higher than the left in response, and she purses her lips. Guangting snorts.

“Don’t be like that,” he says with a laugh, “they like you. They’ve heard all of the stories and they want to rub elbows with you. Not bad for someone from some farming village in the Northern Earth Kingdom, no?”

A smirk tucks itself into her cheek.

“I’m not very interested in rubbing elbows with most of high society,” she answers. “I don’t suppose that we can refuse?”

He leans back on his hands next to her, bemused.

“Making connections here will only be good for us,” he points out, too logically for Azula’s taste, “we could get a lot of help and a lot of supplies if you impress enough of the rich people here in Ba Sing Se. I should hardly think I’d need to tell you that, though, oh wise commander.”

She offers him a withering look for the mocking way in which he uses her title.

Turning from her second, Azula goes back to pulling the turtle shell comb through her tangled mass of damp hair one handful at a time. She winces as she catches yet another knot, closing her hand a little tighter around the offending section, working at picking the matt out with one of the comb’s fine teeth.

“Hui Yin…” Guangting takes her hand in his broad palm, wresting the comb from her and shuffling yet closer, going to work himself on her hair. She lets out a sigh, and allows him the intimacy. “We cannot afford to offend these people.”

She rolls her amber eyes up at the ceiling.

“I am aware,” she responds flatly, “but it doesn’t make me want to do this any more than I did in the first place.”

If she had still been a princess she could easily have refused the invitation. Gone to bed early. Done whatever she liked rather than go to the party, really. As a peasant girl from the Earth Kingdom, who has worked her way up the social ladder to Commander, she has no right to do as much. There are precious few times that she has missed being the princess that she once was, in all honesty, but now she longs for the privilege.

That same privilege is also part of the problem, however. She has no doubt that there will be those among the guests who would have lived through her coup of the city. There are those that might even think they recognize her from somewhere or other, surely. At least with only a court proceeding to attend, she would run less of a risk of being recognized. She’d bow before the Earth King, far enough away from most of those in the palace that anyone who could possibly identify her would not be able to clearly see her face...

Azula takes a steadying breath and tries not to think of the what ifs. This is happening, whether she likes it or not. She must simply prepare herself the best that she can.

Her scalp tingles at each pass of first the comb and then Guangting’s fingers through her hair. His kind, dark, eyes catch her gaze in the mirror once more. She feels the curve of her spine relaxing downward.

“Your parents would have been proud of you,” he tells her quietly. Azula feels her stomach sink, but keeps her expression passive where she meets his eyes in the mirror.

No, she thinks, but  forces the briefest of smiles, and makes certain it reaches her eyes for the full effect.

“Perhaps,” she says out loud, forcing lightness into her tone, “It’s certainly not the life they could have possibly pictured me living.”

“Maybe not,” he concedes, “but certainly any parent would be happy to see their child succeed in the way you have done.”

She closes her eyes, and tries to will herself not to think of her mother or father.

When she opens her eyes again, Guangting is smiling, and he settles her combed out hair carefully against her back.

“You’ll need a nice dress,” he comments. Azula glances at the scroll where it sits loosely folded against the vanity’s surface. She grimaces.

“Surely one of my nicer uniforms will do?”

Guangting snorts at her.

“You don’t know the nobility like I do,” he says, “you will need something nicer than that. Something that doesn’t shout military across the room. Something…refined. Lucky for you, I’m better at managing your stipend than you are. You have more than enough for something modestly presentable.”

Azula rolls her eyes again but cannot help the smile that splits her face from cheek to cheek briefly.

“What would I do without you, Guangting?” she asks.

Azula sighs, fluttering her eyelashes prettily at her second in command. The man raises his eyebrows and sets her comb aside.

“Go hungry, probably,” he answers dryly, a twinkle in his eye.

*

Despite the relatively dry heat of this region of the Earth Kingdom, Azula finds the room humid.

It is the press of bodies and the mingling voices that make it so. She remembers a hundred parties in her youth spent regulating her own temperature with her bending for just this reason. Now that it’s no longer there, held just beyond her reach, she finds the pressing heat nearly unbearable.  

The people are even more unbearable, if that is possible.

The invitation, when she had deigned to read it, had implied that this soiree was, in fact, a celebration of her accomplishments. But, as is often the case of gatherings featuring the world’s most wealthy and haughty elites, it had been a front for the catty sort of gossiping nosy nellies who would show up just to see someone allegedly as low born as herself stumble over her own iniquities amongst high society.

How lucky for her that she has not entirely forgotten her courtly etiquette. She doesn’t see how she could have, not with years spent at that finishing school under her belt. And surely not with years spent trying to make certain that everything she did in deed and words was perfect.

Azula doesn’t remember it being quite so exhausting, however.

Eventually, she will purposefully allow herself to slip. She can’t let rumours spread.

Guangting is a shadow at her right elbow, hovering close. He looks far more overwhelmed in this setting than she had imagined he would. He always seems so collected. It’s why she’d singled him out for promotion amongst her officers when she had first earned rank. But his floundering shows in this crowd.

Azula keeps her hands clasped firmly either at her back or at her sides, resisting the urge to reach out for him in the sea of people. She feels dangerously normal in the silk robes they’d managed to find at the shop earlier in the day, and she wants to anchor herself back to her new normal. She doesn’t dare act on the impulse in front of a crowd.

To her left, some noble women glance at her from behind their open fans, leaning in to whisper to one another. To her right, some men let out a raucous laugh and continue on in their private conversations. She is not wanted in either crowd.

Azula turns to look at Guangting, and though she is careful not to let too much slip, he reads the exasperation in her features all the same. He offers her a tight smile.

“Should I get you something stronger?” he asks, nodding at her cup. Azula glances down at the cleverly disguised glass of water that she holds poised between her fingers, and then shakes her head.

“No. I wouldn’t want to lose my composure around these people.”

He nods, surveying the room with a sweeping glance.

“Hard to make friends and connections when everyone is avoiding you,” Guangting says then.

Azula scoffs. “I feared that it might be this way,” she answers.

Guangting looks at her in surprise. She realises she’s slipped up. She backtracks.

“I just mean that when you’re born outside of privilege, it’s not as though the privileged in this country are all that interested in raising you up to be their equal.”

Guanting nods again, expression softening to understanding of the observation. Azula takes a sip of her water.

Out of the crowd, a man wades toward them, his dark hair slicked back into the long braid that seems popular still amongst the Earth Kingdom elites. His face closely resembles what she remembers of the build of the Earth King’s features. Azula turns to face him, expecting that she is finally about to be greeted by the party’s host.

When he stops before her, she is proven correct.

“Commander Hui Yin,” he bows just slightly, hands out before him, “it is truly a pleasure to finally meet you.”

Azula returns the gesture, bowing far lower, knowing her place. The ornamentation on the top of her head strains at her scalp, pulling at her hair with the downward momentum of her bow. She frowns at the floor before schooling her features as she straightens once again.

“I am Lord Shenlong, Grand Secretariat of Ba Sing Se. I am so glad that you could make it to this small gathering of mine.”

The title shocks her somewhat. Azula manages to keep her expression schooled, unaffected, but her heart thunders loudly in her ears, fluttering behind her rib cage. She knows what the title truly conceals, and it is as though her worst nightmares  have come to life before her eyes, staring at her in apathetic interest.

Shenlong, Grand Secretariat; Leader of the Dai Li.

She knows that her posture has stiffened. She can feel the strain in her shoulders and her gut. She forces herself to smile cooly, demure.

“Lord Shenlong,” she greets, bowing her head once more, “it is an honour to have been invited to mingle with so many members of Ba Sing Se’s upper echelons. I am flattered by the thought you have spared for me.”

“Yes, well…You are an anomaly,” he says with an oily smile of his own, “and when I heard that you would finally be visiting our fine capital, I knew that I could not let the opportunity to meet you face to face go to waste.”

Azula forces a light, lilting, laugh.

“My Lord has spared far too much thought for one so lowly as myself,” she tells him. “Growing up, I could not have imagined myself in a place like this.”

“I would guess not,” Shenlong answers. When he smiles it is knife thin and insincere.

Azula feels herself relax. This is a game that she knows.

His intrigues are, like those of all of the nobles in this room, of the lowest brow imaginable. At least in this context. She can feel the disdain dripping from him at the idea that someone as lowly as Hui Yin has made it as far as Azula has managed to push herself. From backwoods foot soldier to ranking officer ready to receive accolades and appointments from the court. The intrigue is petty, and ill thought out, and predictable. Perhaps the worst offence of all, especially in the hands of the leader of the Dai Li, whose power Azula knows first hand.

She takes another sip from her cup, unruffled, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

For the first time, she notes the presence of a couple of other noblemen, hovering by Shenlong’s elbow, waiting to see what happens, or to participate if they feel that they might be able to do so.

“And how do you like the upper ring,” he asks then, “if I heard correctly down the grapevine, and I always do, you are to receive more than just accolades for your accomplishments. My cousin is set to award you a title as well. Soon you’ll be the honourable Hui Yin. Perhaps a military minister even.”

When she is certain that she will be able to speak without the wavering of ambition and excitement in her voice, Azula opens her mouth to answer, “It is very fine; I’m unused to such luxuries, even with my rank. There’s little that could be described as glamorous about manning a desert outpost or wading through mud in the Southern swamps.”

“So I would imagine…” he says, eyebrows arched.

There is a calculated look in his eye that has Azula’s spine crawling. It’s a look that she knows from childhood. Her father’s look, the look of Long Feng, their last Grand Secretariat. Probably a look that Azula has worn a hundred times in her life or more. He is trying to discern something about her, or figure out what might be her weakness. How to get under her skin. How to control her; find her vulnerable underbelly so that he can turn her iniquities to his own advantage.

Or, he already knows something and the Dai Li are lying in wait for her back in the borrowed house that she is staying in.

She wonders how good Guangting would be in a real fight. They’ve hardly seen the sort of battle that Azula was used to in the war. They’ve mostly been herding peasants and quelling their unorganized uprisings. She looks down briefly at the toes of her silk slippers, peeking out from under the robes that she purchased for the party.

Guangting’s an earth bender. He will be better than nothing.

“I must say that I am surprised commander,” Shenlong says then.

Azula looks up at him once more, eyebrows raised in a mild expression.

“I had heard rumours of your beauty,” Shenlong continues, “but I had thought them greatly exaggerated. It’s strange enough that a woman should be serving in the army at all, let alone one with a face such as yours.”

Recognition of the slight flickers briefly through Azula’s mind, and then a sharp smile spreads her red painted lips thin against her teeth. She holds herself perfectly still, feeling the anger tremble in her pulse despite her best efforts. Ah ha. He had found an edge to pick at after all.

“I’m afraid that I have no idea what you mean, my Lord. What do my looks have to do with it?” She plays dumb, though she is coiled tight as a snake, ready to spring at a moment’s notice.

“Well, surely it is just the novelty of a woman strategizing like a man that has gained you such recognition,” he posits casually. Around him, the men that have come to hear her speak look at one another, snickering, hiding smug smiles behind their sleeves as though she has not already seen them.

In the Fire Nation, Azula reflects, no one would have had the gall to say such a thing to her, whether she had been the princess or not. A fighting body was a fighting body, and military talent was prized amongst men and women. What her face looks like would have had nothing to do with it.

She feels her smile strain at the edges, and at her elbow, Guangting shifts. She thinks perhaps he might say something on her behalf, so she quickly responds before he has the chance to defend her.

“You are probably right,” she says, forcing her voice to steady sweetness. With his lean features and pointed beard (the slope of his nose), Shenlong reminds her once again of her father. Or perhaps it is merely his words which are playing a trick on her mind.

Even when he had been lifting her up, her father had had the uncanny ability to make her feel lesser than.

“But even this lowly woman’s tactics have led my men to many victories for the Earth Kingdom, in the name of your second cousin, our benevolent King.” She bows again, hands folded against her thighs this time. The soft ties of her deep green, waist high, ruqun strain at her middle as she breathes deeply into her gut, settling her anger.

“That is all of the assurance that I need to know I am following the correct path in my life, my Lord.”

He says nothing, but Azula can feel the force of Shenlong’s gaze against the crown of her head.

“Of course,” he says, “you are so humble. Our great hero.” There is a sneer in his voice, but he remains as poised as Azula. Around him, the men that have gathered to listen murmur their agreement, hiding their own disdain behind their politicians’ facades once more.

“Come, Commander. Walk with me. Let’s leave this hubbub so that we might speak more privately. I’ve been just dying to pick your brain.”

Azula straightens, searching his expression for any hint of what might be to come. There is no hint there.

She nods finally, gesturing to the Grand Secretariat to lead the way. Shenlong accepts the invitation, wading through the crowd. It parts before them once everyone has noticed who is trying to get through. She is glad for the warmth of Guangting at her back.

They step out of the large gathering hall and onto the walkway which overlooks the estate’s grand gardens. Azula has grown appreciative of such things in her adulthood. She breathes the sweet scent of late summer blossoms in through her nose and smiles briefly before she returns to the task at hand.

Namely, what Shenlong is planning, and how she will avoid it, if she can.

He comes to a halt, hands folded at his back whilst he observes the full spread of his gardens.

“Remind me, Commander, where was it that you’re from again?”

“Nowhere that my Lord would likely have heard of,” she answers simply, coming to stand even with him at the edge of the walkway. A breeze brushes against her cheek, cool. It comes off of the mountains. They might be in for a storm.

“Humour me,” he requests.

Azula smiles again, bemused. He suspects something, she thinks, but she isn’t certain what tipped him off. It could have been any number of things, she supposes. The colour of her eyes comes to mind, though there are plenty of men and women with something akin to them in the Earth Kingdom. A hundred years of colonization will do that.

“Northern Chu Li,” she answers finally. A place that had long been occupied by the Fire Nation. The best choice for someone who looks like her to say they’re from, if they’re lying.

“And your parents?”

“Passed on, my Lord. They were farmers.”

“Simple farmers?” He sounds slightly surprised by the news. She had thought that her fabricated story would be more well known by now. Then again, perhaps he is lying, just like her. “And yet you have such a military mind.”

Azula lets her smile grow mild, tolerant.

“Just because we were farmers does not mean that we are not capable of thought, my Lord.”

Behind her she can hear Guangting shifting his weight from one leg to the other.

“I suppose that is true,” he answers in a drawl. She sees Shenlong look sidelong at her out of the corner of her eye. “Did you know that the man who was cultural minister of Ba Sing Se before myself came from a similarly remote province. Similarly small. He also came from nothing, and yet he managed to become Grand Secretariat of Ba Sing Se…”

Shenlong turns his attention back to the garden, and Azula waits for him to make his point, bemused. Of course she had known at the time. His history had been written all over him. She had seen his struggle in the lines of his face, and the way in which he had stubbornly clung to power despite knowing already that he had lost.

“No my Lord,” she answers simply, “I didn’t.”

“Yes…He was a powerful man, too, but in the end it was nobility who overthrew him, and it is nobility now who stands in his place. Better at his job than he ever was.”

She might contest that, but Azula does not know Shenlong all that well, and anything is possible. Long Feng had not been the best of the best but he had been close. Anyone could be overthrown given the correct circumstances.

“I don’t think I am following your point, Lord Shenlong,” she says after a moment, sounding a little bored. Azula looks over at him, straining her chin upward to take in his full height. He looks at her too, green eyes crinkling at the edges in a smile.

“My point is that you enjoy quite a bit of power now, and will likely enjoy more, but given your humble beginnings I have no doubt that eventually you will fumble in that power. It was not meant for one such as you. But I can help you hang onto it as long as possible, and perhaps set you up for life after that power is gone.”

Azula raises her eyebrows, amused.

“That is a very generous offer, my Lord. What exactly would you want me to do for you, should I accept the invitation?”

“Errands…Taking care of things here and there for me when I cannot take care of them myself…” He gestures lazily with a hand, pursing his lips.

Azula swallows a laugh and a smile.

“..May I consider the offer at length and come back to you with my decision,” she inquires.

Shenlong looks at her for some time, expression inscrutable, and then finally nods, seeming satisfied with the answer.

“Of course. Is a week long enough? You should be on your way back to your station by then, yes?”

“That’s correct,” she replies, “I will have my answer for you by then.”

This time he does smile, and he reaches out a hand toward her, seeming confident already that she will agree to his terms. Azula accepts his hand, and they shake firmly for a moment. Not exactly an Earth Kingdom tradition, but it’s as good as anything to seal a verbal contract.

Shenlong slips his hands into his sleeves, and bows his head briefly toward her.

“Enjoy the rest of your evening, Commander. I look forward to hearing your answer,” he says, turning to walk back in to the party.

Azula watches him go, expression smooth as glass, and only when he has disappeared into the crowd does she look at Guangting, raising her eyebrows. She smirks. He returns the expression, though he seems considerably more troubled by what has just happened than she is.

*

The evening ends in a fashion that is not entirely uncommon these days. Her back pressed against a wall, and Guangting’s mouth on hers as they paw at one another’s clothing. When they break for air, panting, Guangting picks Azula up off of the floor to lumber with her over to the bed. He smiles broadly before tossing her down to the soft mattress.

It’s too soft. She misses the solid ground under a thin cot.

“I suppose after tomorrow I am going to have to start calling you ‘my lady’,” he says playfully, climbing in after her. The mattress bounces with every movement he makes, crawling up over her body.

Azula checks covertly for anyone watching in the shadows, amber eyes flashing about the room to see if the Dai Li stand waiting for them. Waiting to begin her undoing, waiting to take her to Lake Laogai and brainwash her on behalf of Shenlong. They are not there.

Guangting's dark hair has fallen from its top knot, her own handy work. It’s a curtain about them. Azula can feel one of the pins in her own hair digging into her neck uncomfortably. She ignores it and returns her full attention to what she’s doing in the moment once again.

“Don’t call me that,” she says flatly, neck tilting back to expose more flesh to his searching lips while he trails wet kisses along her skin to her collar.

“Mm…what? You don’t like the idea of being a lady,” he teases. Azula digs her nails into his sides and a hiss of breath sucks its way through Guangting’s teeth. It’s her turn to smile, knife thin and satisfied.

“No,” she answers, breathless. Her expression has turned wicked.

If anyone asks, she had not been looking for whatever it is that exists between herself and Guangting. Certainly, she’d almost been actively avoiding it her entire adult life. But whatever sits between herself and her second-in-command seems to come as naturally as breathing to them. And it does feel good to give in, every now and then.

His tongue traces the raised skin of an old scar which runs like a crevasse over her abdomen. She shivers, gasping out involuntarily. Azula bites her lip and lets her head tip back against the silk pillows of the borrowed bed in their borrowed apartments. Her borrowed apartments.

He brings his head back up, hovering close in the ever dimming light of the few candles that still burn in the room. She can feel his breath against her face.

“Well, Lord Shenlong was right about one thing.”

She raises her eyebrows, unimpressed. He is very quickly killing the mood, and she’s so very rarely in the mood in the first place.

“And what might that be?” she asks, snappish.

“You do have a face that’s meant for portraits.”

She snorts, rolling her eyes.

“Is that so?”

“It is.” He grins at her, and Azula cannot help but find it…slightly endearing. Slightly.

I

Her footsteps thud heavily against the dusty dirt road, and her breath is noisy in her ears. The earth is packed down from the passage of hundreds of pairs of feet, jarring through her small frame at each pump of her legs in her steady jog from the marketplace and back up the steep mountain incline toward the dojo that she calls home.

Beneath the sound of her breath her heart thunders, buzzing with her excitement.

The girl barely feels the weight of the basket of supplies which pulls down on her reedy arms and at her back and neck.

A bright grin peels back her cheeks, the wind whipping past her in her progress toward the dojo at the North edge of the town which she has called home since birth.

The precious jars that sit at the bottom of the basket, ensconced in the bright green fabric of her freshly made kimono and hakama, still manage to clack against one another with every impact of the soles of her sandals against the ground. They jangle like bells calling her forth to the battlefield. She feels them sing inside of her blood.

“Slow down or you'll hurt yourself!" Kenji’s chesty voice comes out to greet her as she passes his estate. She looks over her shoulder briefly with a nod of deference to the town’s elder. He peers back at her anxiously from the open gate that stands before his house.

“I’ll be careful,” she promises as she returns her attention to the road before her, not once breaking pace. She can almost hear him shaking his head and mumbling about young people and their inability to slow down and take the world a little bit at a time. Always in a hurry.

It doesn’t take long to reach the dojo despite the distance. The roofline climbs up over the crest of the hill as the girl ascends, swooping out like a dragon’s wings. The earth tones of the building’s wooden exterior contrast with the blazing autumn colours around it, stark and familiar. She smiles, her lungs expanding and contracting comfortably despite the exertion of her run.

The girl follows the familiar path down to the entrance of the main building, toeing off her sandals before she pounds barefoot across the wood of the deck and stops to bob a quick bow to the small shrine at the head of the room before she speed walks across the soft tatami to where the familiar figure of her mother sits before it, lighting incense methodically.

Mio is not a tall woman, by any means, nor is her appearance all that remarkable. Her chestnut hair hangs low on her back, collected partway down into a soft, green, piece of material to keep it out of her way. Her kimono is practical and well worn. Dark forest green contrasted with a simple obi in dusty rose.

“Mom I’m back!”

The woman turns to face her, her soft, narrow, middle-aged features almost unrecognizable without the signature warpaint of Kyoshi. She smiles at her daughter.

“Suki, welcome home.” She rolls to her knees, turning around on the mats to face the twelve-year-old and her burden.

“You got everything?”

“Yes mom,” she answers obediently, immediate, beaming proudly.

A small, amused, smirk tucks itself into her mother’s cheek before the woman reaches out her hands for the basket, finally relieving Suki of its burden.

Her mother grunts at the weight.

“You carried this all by yourself?” Mio seems almost surprised, and Suki flushes.

“That’s how it’s supposed to be done,” Suki points out, stomach fluttering, “isn’t it?”

Another smile spreads across the Kyoshi Warrior’s face, warm and slow.

“Yes, that’s right.” There’s more her mother wants to say. Suki can see the desire behind her blue-green eyes, but as per usual the Captain of the Kyoshi Warriors is silent on anything further to do with the matter.

“Are you ready for tonight then,” Mio questions.

Suki’s heart rate rises once again and, breathless, she nods her head in agreement.

“Yes, mom.”

Her mother’s expression remains soft. Suki thinks that there is even something sad behind the look in her eye. Something that Suki herself cannot name. All she feels is excitement.

Nerves.

She’s going to prove herself.

“Good,” Mio finally says, “remember that you’ll need to rest. There’s no use in wearing yourself out,” her tone is pointed at Suki’s flushed cheeks and shining eyes, “not when there will be plenty of that this evening when you take the next steps on your journey.”

Suki tries to put on a serious face, and she presses her lips together, nodding her head decisively.

“Yes mom, I know.” But it’s difficult, she thinks, to even consider standing still. A warrior must be able to plant themselves like a tree; serene but always ready to bend with the changing wind. Her whole body is abuzz with energy. Suki thinks she could keep going for days and days with all of the energy that courses through her.

She wonders if it’s the same for all of the girls who are about to become fully fledged Kyoshi Warriors. She wonders if even the women that her mother trained were the same. She wonders if her mother was the same.

“Mom —?”

Her mother pauses in the midst of getting to her feet, basket in hand, looking expectantly at Suki.

“…What was your ceremony like?”

“Mine?”

“Yes…Yours. Do you remember?” Suki thinks it was probably so long ago that maybe her mother does not recall what it was like to go from novice to master.

The woman snorts, standing fully and resting the basket at her hip with ease.

“Of course I remember. I think everyone does.” She gestures at Suki with her free hand. “Come on, we’ll walk and talk.”

Suki follows her mother eagerly from the training hall and into the hallway in the interior building, the two of them slipping their feet into grass slippers before they make their way down the hallway and toward the kitchen.

The smell of wood smoke permeates the space, drifting from rooms where other Kyoshi Warriors are living, boarding with them rather than going home to their families on the other side of the island. For some, it is worth saving themselves the three hour trip by foot between the far larger settlement that the dojo inhabits and the smaller one on the Northern side of the island.

Paper screens obscure any hint of what might go on beyond them, but here and there, where one of the women has opened her second door onto the outside, a shadow can be seen. A silhouette of a figure going about their morning routine.

Like a play put on with shadow puppets.

Suki’s eyes dart back to her mother who has pulled ahead of her somewhat, and she hurries her steps to catch up, matching her mother’s stride after a moment.

“So?”

The woman looks down sideways at her, an amused expression in place on her fine features, full lips parting after a moment.

“I was nervous,” she says, “but excited.”

Suki nods. That’s exactly the way that she would describe her own feelings on the matter.

“I wasn’t as young as you are,” she admits, “but I was young enough. My own mother didn’t really think I was ready, but the others convinced her that I was prepared for my trial. I’m glad that they did. I think that, even if I wasn’t quite ready, it helped me move forward with my training. It was the next step in my journey. I learned a lot merely going through the trial itself. From the mentor who I battled, and about myself.”

Suki smiles brightly at the thought. Learning about herself. She likes that sentiment.

“Mio?”

Both Suki and her mother turn toward the voice that comes from one of the rooms at the end of the hall. Her mother’s second in command, Haru, has poked her round face out of her door, and she looks expectantly at the two of them. Mio turns with a smile to face her more fully.

“Yes?”

“When you have a moment I had wanted to speak to you about the preparations for tonight,” Haru says seriously.

Suki sees her mother suppress a sigh before nodding soberly at the other woman.

“Of course, Haru. I will be back to speak with you soon. Will you still be in your quarters?”

“For now, yes.”

“Alright.”

Both Mio and Suki turn from Haru, starting on their journey down the hall once more.

They reach the quieter interior of the large building that their family has kept up for generation; it feels homier here, in Suki’s opinion. There is less of the hustle and bustle of the every day.

Sometimes, as a child, she had wished that she could have siblings to fill up the interior halls too. She had wished that it wasn’t so quiet. Now, she appreciates it. The idea that she does not have any siblings to take their mother’s attention off of her on a day which is so important for Suki.

It would have been nice to have her father though.

In companionable silence, the two of them reach Suki’s room, and her mother pulls the paper screen away from the opening, kneeling and settling the basket on the soft tatami floor before entering and beckoning for Suki to follow.

She kicks off her slippers, lining them up perfectly alongside her mother’s on the hall floor, and comes to kneel in the interior of her room, sliding the door closed again before she returns her attention to her mother.

The commander of the Kyoshi Warriors has moved to the center of Suki’s room and is taking the contents of the basket out to lie on the floor.

The green wool kimono that they’d sent to the tailor for two weeks previous, stitched with expertise. Suki had managed to take a look at the work before she’d got home, and she knows well enough that the stitches are so small in the seams that one can barely tell that they’re even there at all.

She wishes her own sewing were so skilled. Alas, it isn’t her strong suit. The kimono is followed by the deep green ceremonial hakama. Her mother lays them both out cleanly, smoothing away the wrinkles of transport.

They’re followed by terracotta jars, painted with lacquer and gold leaf. Their war paint is contained within. The chalky scent of the white and red face paints will follow her everywhere today, once she has been readied. A smell that she has always associated with her mother and her aunties.

Suki kneels, waiting patiently for her mother to finish with her task, trying not to fidget. A warrior can remain completely still and serene, calm even in the face of battle.

“In an hour you will take the sacred bath,” her mother says as she puts the finishing touches on her display in the center of the room, “and wash away your impurities. Then you will go to the temple and meditate until sundown.”

Suki knows all of this, of course, but it is her mother’s duty to remind her, and it is her duty to listen. She takes a deep breath and settles where she is sitting, nodding seriously at her mother’s instructions.

“No food or drink will pass your lips until the feast tonight, to remind you of the hunger that those we are meant to serve suffer.”

This, of course, is symbolic too. Their people do not suffer from hunger like in the old days, and the hand of Kyoshi no longer stretches outside of their island. Suffering, however, is meant to be understood by a good acolyte of Kyoshi, and Suki is willing to suffer the hunger that is required of her for her trial.

“Yes, mother.”

Mio’s expression softens again, and she reaches forward, taking one of Suki’s hands between her own. She sighs heavily.

“Look at you, growing up right in front of me.” Mio turns her head away, retrieving one of her hands to wipe at the corner of an eye.

Suki smiles back at her mother, her chest feeling fit to burst.

“Don’t cry, mom.”

“I’m not,” Mio denies, grinning at her daughter when she turns back to her. A wet trail runs down her cheek.

“Yes you are.” The girl gets onto her knees and shuffles toward her mom, bringing her hands up to wipe her tears away. “No one can stay a kid forever.”

Her mother laughs. Suki wishes she wouldn’t, but at least it isn’t tears.

“That is very true,” she says, taking Suki’s wrists between her fingers and turning her face to kiss her palms.

Mio stands, releasing her as she goes.

“One hour,” she reminds Suki.

“I know mom.” Suki smiles back at her, face turned upward as the other woman makes her way back to the door of her room.

“We’ll all be waiting.”

Suki feels her heart racing in her chest, the clack of the door closed behind her mother sounding more final than she had ever thought possible. She takes a deep breath.

*

Suki had never thought that meditating for the better part of a day could leave her so tired and disoriented. She can barely think straight as her tabi’d foot slides onto the tatami of the dojo floor, soft and silent.

She doesn’t feel like the same person.

Her skin itches under her layers of makeup, and her shoulders and middle feel overly weighted with the traditional armour which covers her uniform. In the silence of the room, filled to the rafters with people come to witness her test, the only thing that Suki can hear is the tinkling of her headgear.

She comes to kneel before her mother, and the two other warriors situated at the front of the room, before the shrine to their predecessors. Suki bows low, forehead pressed to the backs of her gloved hands.

The rustle of fabric as everyone else in the dojo bows as well is deafening.

“Suki of Kyoshi Island,” her mother begins, voice booming in the silence which follows, “Avatar Kyoshi calls you forth to begin your trial. Do you accept her call?”

Suki straightens to look at her mother, still half-bent in her deference.

“Osu!” Her assent echoes around the room, resounding in her ears. Confident. Suki bows again, forehead touching the mats.

She straightens.

“Do you accept the responsibility of defending our people and all innocent people who cannot defend themselves from harm, as is our way?”

“Osu!” Another bow. Straighten.

“Do you understand the gravity of the power which will be handed to you should you succeed in your trial, and receive the golden belt which will brand you forever more a Kyoshi Warrior?”

“Osu!”

“Then please stand, and let the trial begin.”

Suki is glad for her empty belly, though it pangs with every movement. She thinks that if it had been full, she might have thrown up. Suki closes her eyes and breathes, bowing again before she moves to the center of the room. She forces herself to grin, falling into a ready stance.

This part of the ceremony, like the rest, is relatively predictable. Weeks before she had been assigned an opponent to take her trial with — an elder who she wished to follow in the footsteps of once she has been granted her status as a warrior of Avatar Kyoshi. Riko, one of the younger warriors, with a broad smile and a cheerful disposition, had volunteered to be her mentor.

So Suki waits for her to rise from her seat at the side of the room, and to join her on the mats to test her skills.

“Challenger,” Mio announces, her voice ringing through the quiet hush that has settled over all of those who have come to spectate, “please proceed forward.”

Suki glances her way only briefly before returning her gaze to the empty space before her, hands free and up in a defensive position, ready. Riko shifts in her seat, ready to stand, and then stops. She looks wide-eyed at the front of the room. Suki looks again, frowning.

Her stomach drops as, from the assembled commanders at the front of the dojo, Haru stands. Her heart starts to thunder in her ears.

This is unheard of.

Her mother looks at Haru, but in the end she says nothing. Suki can see that she is not pleased with Haru’s actions. A scowl pulls at her features, making her look more severe than usual.

The girl trains her gaze forward again, feeling herself begin to sweat in her uniform. She tries to guess what this means, but most of all, she doesn't know how to proceed. Haru is not her partner or her mentor, Riko is. Does this mean that she has been ousted? What will happen if Suki fails against Haru?

What will —?

There is precious little time left to consider the ramifications of what is about to happen. Haru comes to a stop before her, her arms outstretched, mirroring Suki’s position.

No signal is given to start their match. Suki looks owlishly at Haru even as she chooses to attack her from the front.

One on one competitions like this one usually have a structure. A technique that is meant to be practiced over and over until it is ingrained in the muscles. The challenge that Suki faces now, however, is up in the air.

Of the hundreds of techniques that she knows, she must draw on her knowledge and use it to her advantage to win the fight. Suki can barely think, let alone act, and a frontal attack looks deceptively easy.

She acts.

Suki flows with the strike, pivoting all the way around, the weight of Haru’s knuckles brushing against her palm before she takes a firm hold of Haru’s wrist.

Her toes dig into the soft grass mats. She shoots forward with her hips. She throws the other woman well across the room with the momentum of their shared movements.

Suki’s mouth hangs open.

Haru rolls, spinning on her knee to face Suki once more. She looks — determined.

Haru launches herself back toward Suki. Suki meets her head-on, catching her in the crook of an elbow, sending her back onto her rump once again.

Haru grabs her ankle, foot hooking behind Suki’s knee.

The girl falls as well. The other warrior scrambles to get atop of her, fist ready to strike down at her face. Suki cocks her hips, grabs onto the wrist of the hand twisted in the front of her gi.

They roll backward.

When they recover, it’s Suki straddled on Haru’s chest. Her elder looks surprised, if only for a moment. Haru bucks. Suki tries to dig her toes into the mats. She feels her body tip in the unseating.

She rolls out of the way. Back on her feet. Suki thumbs at her nose. Maybe a little too cocky. The older warrior’s face could have been flushed under her makeup. Suki cannot tell…But there is a familiar set to her jaw. as though she is frustrated; annoyed with Suki’s show of confidence.

The two of them breathe harshly in the quiet of the dojo.

There’s tension from the crowd. Suki reminds herself to ignore them.

Haru strikes from overhead.

Suki feels her heart jump in her surprise. Muscle memory takes over. She catches the strike, leading hand on Haru’s elbow. She twists, pushing the other woman back. She grabs her hand and pivots. Turns back. Haru collapses backward with but the twitch of Suki’s hand against her own and she moves to roll the other warrior to her belly.

Her grip is not what it should be.

Haru catches Suki behind the knees again, the two women crying out (Suki in surprise) as once again the younger finds herself on her back. There is noise from the crowd. They’ve started to get excited. Suki breathes out sharply.

Haru allows her to stand, and the two of them pant, facing one another, hands at the ready. Haru seems calmer than before. It makes Suki uneasy.

Haru falls back into a defensive stance. Suki changes her own stance, gaze hardening in resolve when she realises that she is being invited to attack first.

A Kyoshi Warrior must attack as well as defend. This is a foundational principle.

Ready for anything. Stop the situation before it gets out of hand.

Suki comes forward, chopping down from the side with the blade of her hand. Haru catches her. Solid. Suki just manages to block the fist that comes toward her face to distract her. Haru’s other hand brushes her attacking arm away. The second in command comes in close, her dominant arm heavy against Suki’s chest. She feels her spine strain. Her body is pulled back by Haru’s hand at the nape of her neck.

Her body sways left. Haru throws her right.

Suki rounds her back, breaking the fall with a slap of her arms against the mats, but it is resounding anyway. Her chest feels tight for a moment before she has recovered and flipped herself back onto her feet. She pivots as Haru comes toward her in another attack, catching her arm and letting the momentum of the other woman continue to propel her forward passed Suki’s position and precariously close to the assembled warriors knelt to the side of the dojo mats.

Suki’s hands come back into a ready position, her blue eyes trained on Haru as she recovers.

The older Kyoshi Warrior laughs. It sounds pleased in spite of her apparent determination to…Well, Suki’s not sure what. Haru grabs hold of a wooden staff, hidden from Suki’s sight by the group of other warriors. She dances out of the way of the first swing of the wooden weapon toward her.

To the side. Step. Down as she swipes at her head. Step. Suki bends back out of the way of another swipe, this time at her throat. She feels her momentum backward. Rolls rather than fall on her rump.

She finds herself close enough to the extra weapons that they house on the far wall of the dojo that she can reach out and grab her own short staff.

She catches Haru’s next strike with a backward swipe of her weapon. It turns in her hand. She strikes out, stopping short of Haru’s throat.

Her mother’s second in command stops abruptly, eyeing down the length of Suki’s weapon. She lets out a burst of breath through her teeth, and swipes the staff aside with her own, backing off.

Suki falls into a defensive stance with the staff once again, stepping back with each strike of Haru’s weapon against her own in the thick silence of the dojo. Suki feels the turn of the battle’s tide as it happens. Her spine strains, her balance off as she retreats.

Haru bears down on her until Suki cannot keep hold of her weapon any longer, disarmed by an expert thrust and parry. Sent to her back again with a sharp strike to her stomach which winds her. Suki struggles to draw in breath even as she raises her hands in front of her face, trying to shuffle back. She digs her heels into the mats to propel her away from Haru.

The second in command is not deterred. She makes to strike again.

“Enough!”

Haru’s weapon stops before it can descend, and Suki feels the tension in her own limbs lingering even as the second in command looks over at her mother, lowering her weapon and stepping out of her offensive stance.

“The trial is over. Warriors, back to your marks,” she instructs firmly, levelling a glare at Haru.

Suki sits up in a flurry once Haru has backed down, scrambling wearily to her feet, hearing a ringing in her ears. She sways but stays standing, at the ready. Mirroring one another the two of them fall to at ease and then bow. Haru exits the mats. Suki cannot help but catch the brief, satisfied, tug of her mouth into a smile before she has schooled her expression again and turned back to the gathered audience, sitting back in her assigned place.

Suki turns to face the front of the room and her mother.

“Candidate Suki.” Her mother’s voice has softened again, her expression too. Suki is glad for the makeup that obscures the flush she feels rushing to her cheeks at the marked difference. “You have done well. You are free to wash and take some time to yourself whilst we deliberate on the outcome of your trial. Please, be excused.”

Suki bows again, her heart even louder in her ears than before, if possible. She walks steadily from the dojo, but she feels faint. She will not faint. She will not make a fool of herself. She will not —

Safely out on the terrace, hidden behind the paper shoji that obscures the majority of the dojo, Suki allows overwhelmed tears to slide down her painted cheeks, streaking her makeup further than her sweat has already done. Something inside of her knows that the test was more than just a simple test to see if she is ready. She knows that Haru meant to hurt her, if she could get away with it. That she wanted to prove something to her mother and had used Suki as a vehicle to do so.

Perhaps it is simply to show that Suki is neither ready nor skilled enough to earn her gold belt yet. Perhaps that she will never be ready?

Will she ever be ready?

Her thoughts reeling, Suki finds her way to one of the many empty public courtyards in close vicinity to the dojo and sits on the bench provided there, taking in sharp breaths, trying to even her pulse and stop the sobs that threaten to be loud enough to wake the island’s very dead.

A dull scrape sounds behind her. Suki jumps, turning to see who might be lurking, remembering her eyes and wiping at them ineffectually. All it serves to do is smudge red and white all over her gloves. It’s Kenji.

The old man shuffles his way over to her, silent until he occupies the space that sits empty beside the little girl, grunting out almost dramatically as he sits. His knees crack loudly.

Suki looks sidelong at him again, bowing her head, shame heating her face once more.

“That was an impressive display in there,” he begins conversationally, “you’ve worked so hard and come so far, Suki. Imagine a young girl like you holding her own against a seasoned warrior. Your mother must be very proud.”

Suki sniffles, brow furrowing.

“I didn’t — “ she protests. He interrupts her.

“And with Miss Haru not holding back like that — she must have been so frustrated to find that you would not go down so easily. Or maybe she was impressed.”

Suki’s brow furrows yet further, but her blue eyes fix on the elder, hands fidgeting in her lap.

“You think so…?” she asks hesitantly.

Kenji smiles, the gaps in his teeth stark.

“I think so.”

“I don’t really think that Haru likes me,” she admits then, turning her face back toward her lap, and smoothing out the dark green fabric of her hakama.

“Haru’s always been a grump,” Kenji says with a harrumph. “She’ll get over it, and she’ll warm up to you for it too. I can guarantee as much.”

“If you say so,” Suki agrees reluctantly.

Kenji smiles again, reaching over to place his arm around her narrow shoulders. He hugs her tight to him, and breathes in deep, looking up at the dusk sky where the stars have already started to appear in pinpricks of distant light above them.

“Your dad would be so proud too.”

“My dad?"

“Yes. Ryuichi was smitten with your mum because of her skills as a warrior. Amongst other things. I bet he’s beaming with pride in the spirit world for what you’ve accomplished today. His own little girl.”

Suki’s face scrunches a little, and she feels the urge to cry sticking in the back of her throat once again. She swallows, working the tight ache of it away. She smiles. She feels her limbs soften.