BraveGirlsWearBoots:Interlude2

Interlude Two – Lives (Extra)Ordinary</u>


There were no words, no voices, nothing of the corporeal that could express a pain like this.  It was terrible in its familiarity; she had felt this twice before, and though she didn’t know if she could put just one name to it, she knew exactly what it meant.

Someone she cared about was being taken away from her.

She had stayed hidden in the wreck of the ghost town’s buildings, shivering and clinging to the ostrich-horse’s bridle.  Zuko had said to stay hidden, and there was real fear in his eyes when he told her he didn’t want his sister to find her.

So Song had stayed, and watched and waited…and now she gazed with wide and horrified eyes as cold fire caught Iroh in the chest…as he fell, slow and hard to the beaten earth.  She heard Zuko’s anguished cry mingle with her own shriek before she flew on frantic feet to the fallen General’s side.  She put her arms around him and clung.  The only sounds were her sobs and…

And Iroh’s breathing.

Stay, stay, stay, she chanted in her heart of hearts.  I’ve already lost so many; I won’t lose you too…  Please stay and I promise I’ll do everything I can to put you back together again.

And stay he did.

~~~

Laundry Talk

There was still work to be done when they all got home.  Dishes to wash, floors to sweep, meals to be made, laundry to be washed and hung and folded…

If they had been any other man and boy, Song might have been left to do it all by herself.

But it was Iroh, and this was Zuko, and if the latter failed to help out he could always be guilted or bullied into it by the former.  Though as their days spun by, there were some things that stopped being a chore.

One of these, for Zuko, at least, was doing laundry with Song.

She found he was uniquely suited to keeping the water in the copper hot, and he found she was the best at picking soaps that didn’t itch or abrade the skin.

In the building twilight on early closing days, they would stand side by side, their bodies swaying in an odd, unspoken grace as they lifted wet sheets and shirts, socks and slips from the basket to the line.  The nights were warm in Ba Sing Se and there always seemed to be a light breeze to dry laundry hung after dark.  It was in these in-between hours that Zuko really learnt to talk.

At first it was the mandatory requests for pegs or help with a particularly fiddly tablecloth…but as the days rolled on…

“How was your day?”

“Not too bad.  I learnt a new poultice for candleweed poisoning, and something we can carry with us for when Uncle next comes across White Jade…”

His laughter was a balm to busy days and irate patients.  When she smiled in echo to it, it made up for bad-tempered customers and bungled tea-orders.

This was real, and for a private increment of time, everything else was make-believe.


Little Crush

It was late, and out of a slightly convoluted sense of honour (somewhere, someone was laughing at him, he was sure) he walked Aneko home.

Her house was in the lower-middle tier, and as they made their languorous way down her street he felt somehow underdressed.  When he told Aneko this, she did the sensible thing and laughed at him.

When she opened the door, there was a spill of noise and light, and children’s faces peeking out from every corner.  Dozens of sticky smiles with missing teeth and bell-tone voices that called silly greetings…

And before he knew what was going on, two tiny people had grabbed his hands and were dragging him inside, the boy loudly retelling something called the “Battle of the Well”, the girl simply gazing up at him with big, dewy, green spangled eyes.

He spent the rest of the evening in the parlor with Aneko and the kids.  Ryo sat beside him, a little grinning lieutenant, while Tia, to his eternal mystification, curled in his lap and continued to gaze happily at him, as though he were her ultimate early Solstice gift.

And then, the next day…

“Someone’s got a crush…” Aneko sing-songed.

“What?”  He gave her an alarmed look.  “Who?”

“Tia, on you.”

His jaw hit the floor.  “She’s six!”

Aneko barked out a laugh.  “Pfft.  When has that ever mattered?”


Singers

In the early hours of the morning, Iroh and Uri sat, carefully out of the way as the bakers went about the serious business of preparing dough and pastry for the day’s sales.  They watched as custard was mixed for tarts, sugar was spun in to a million tiny gems for sweets and candied biscuits, red bean was added to sesame seed balls and donuts, almond minced into moon cakes for the upcoming festival, fruit was glazed and set like jewels upon three tiered cakes…

As he watched, Iroh also watched Uri, how her eyes widened, intense with rising joy, ragged bangs caught in the random drafts of hot air from the ovens.

A flash of something, and he remembered when Lu Ten was younger, with unruly hair and bright eyes.

Back in the tea shop’s smaller kitchen, they began planning their own recipes.  Sweet sesame balls and egg custard tartlets, but nothing to over power the tea.  Barbeque pork bao, because every one loved it.  Dishes of candied oranges and pears, to compliment the more fragrant teas.  Savory duck pasties, coriander and chicken dumplings with soya sauce to go with the harder black teas…

Uri was humming.

Iroh listened, a strange kind of realization brewing in his chest.

Leaves from the vine…

He reflected that if Azula had been born lucky and Zuko lucky to be born, then Uri had come into the world clean out of luck.  Her bending was, to put it bluntly, awful.  There was no power in it.  Her katas were full not of tongues of flame the way Zuko’s were, but showers of sparks, gusts of hot air.  If power and control could be expressed as a scale, then Uri sat down the teetering end of extreme control, only the tiniest measures of power trickling through.

Falling so slow…

And yet…

Like fragile tiny shells…

And yet perhaps because of this, she excelled at baking.  She could adjust the temperature of the oven with the flick of a finger, caramelized the top of a custard tart with a single gentle breath, where Zuko would have incinerated it.

Drifting in the foam…

“Where did you learn that song, Uri?”

She glanced a smile at him before concentrating back on the dumplings she was pressing closed.  “My mom sang it to me when I sick.”

Hui-ying…

She hummed a little more and sang the last two lines, altered slightly.

“Little soldier girl, come marching home
Brave soldier girl, comes dancing home…

“She said a friend in the military taught it to her.”

Iroh smiled.

Oh my son, whatever made you think you couldn’t tell me?  I would have understood…

“Gener – Mr. Mushi, are these alright?”  Uri was holding a tray of coriander and chicken dumplings for inspection.

“Yes, my dear, they are just perfect.”


Complicated

It had been a good sort of day, and now it was a good sort of evening.

As the last of the customers had drifted home and he and the girls began packing up for an early closing, Jin and Song had arrived with takeaway steamboat baskets full of steamed bok choi, rice and fried shrimp wrapped in banana leaves, fried dumplings, black bean beef and a packet of honey-roasted lychee-nuts.

They had all pulled cushions out of the back storage cupboards and settled in a circle on the floor, even Iroh, despite his complaints of stiff knees.  Zuko had rolled his eyes, saying only, “Uncle…”

Iroh threw up his hands.  “Alright!  You’ve convinced me!”

Much giggling had followed.

As the evening wore on the food had been passed around, the tea had flowed, and something akin to contentment had settled upon Zuko’s shoulder – however temporarily.

The stars were coming out when they had packed up and set off for home.  Jin caught his hand as he stepped out of the shop.

“Jin?”

“Hang on a second.”

“I should really – Uncle and Song –”

“Are waiting, I know.  I won’t take long, I promise.”  She gave him a small reassuring smile.  “Look, about that night…”

He was immediately uncomfortable.  “Jin, I know that you…felt something.  And I’m sorry I ran out on you, but…”

“No, that’s not it.”  She bit her lip, the corner of her mouth still curled up in a half smile.  “I get it, really I do.  No, let me finish.  I know you don’t feel anything for me.  It’s okay.  What you do feel though…”

She leaned to one side, looking pointedly at Song, who was carefully putting out the green lanterns either side of the tea shop’s front doors.

Zuko felt himself flush.

“What you do feel,” Jin smiled again, “is complicated.”


Brother

Looking back, Zuko couldn’t really pinpoint the first time Uri called him ge-ge.  And over time, it was simply another fact of this new life that he could accept.

Speaking of…

“Ge-ge!”

And in she burst, brandishing a plate and waving the contents under his nose.

“Look!  Look!”

“…they’re bao.”

“Yes!”  She flailed, and would have upset the plate if he hadn’t thought to take it from her.  An expression came over her face that, disturbingly, reminded him at once of his uncle when he was about to annihilate someone in a Pai Sho match and Azula when she was about to flat out annihilate someone.

“Yes,” she said.  “But they’re perfect.”

And they were.

Soon after, half they plate was gone, and Zuko found himself uncomfortably full.

“This is all your fault,” he muttered to a smug Uri.

“You’ve only yourself to blame, ge-ge.”


Shan

Zuko hadn’t been sure what to make of him.  Before, he’d only really seen Shan in passing; a tall, slightly bowed figure in a well-patched blue overcoat, hair pulled back into a tightly bound queue, that extraordinary blue gaze sharp and fleeting.

He remembered, quite vividly though, the one day he’d spent any length of time in the tea shop.  They had closed the clinic for the day, and while the girls and Zuko drank tea, indulging in a dish of Uri’s candied fruit, Shan had settled down with Iroh, and begun a game of Pai Sho.

He hadn’t really been paying attention, and then…

“I see you favour the White Lotus gambit.  Not many still cling to the ancient ways…”

He had tensed, brilliant eyes switching back over his shoulder towards the two men.

Shan was smiling his bittersweet smile.  “No, not many, but those who do can always find a friend.”

“Lee,” Aneko whispered, sensibly not risking the use of his real name in the shop, “what’s up?”

“Shh,” he’d muttered back, eyes hooded and focused on his uncle and the master healer.  “Watch…”

And then their hands were a blur of planned movement, each tile put down without hesitation, seemingly without conscious thought…familiar and dance-like.

When the last tile was set, Iroh sat back a small serene smile on his face.  “Well, journeyman, you have done well.  The White Lotus opens wide to those who know her secrets, and it would appear, mine.”  Somewhere in his uncle’s voice there was a subtle question…

…and Shan’s answer contained a reassuring reply.  “I’m not a huge fan of secrets, personally.  The Lotus, bless her sacred petals, knows this.  She also knows one can never have too many good friends.”

Iroh grinned.  “A man after my own heart.”

“Holy spirits,” Zuko muttered.  “They are everywhere!”

“Who’re everywhere?” said Aneko.


Scolder

There were only two people in Zuko’s life who got away with the line: “Stop that!  No more snacking – you’ll ruin your dinner!”

One of them had been his mother.

The other was Aneko.


Dee-Dee

“Uri,” Aneko said to her flatmate one day.  “Any particular reason for Dee-Dee’s name?”

After Uri’s arrival in the City, Aneko had moved out of her parents’ house and gotten a reasonable apartment with Uri just inside the Lower Ring.  The two of them got on – no pun intended – like a house on fire.  Dee-Dee, it seemed had taken an especial shine to Aneko.

“It’s just cos he thinks I’m a soft touch whose gonna feed him.”  To the puma twining about her legs: “Aww, someone thinks they’re getting fed…wraaaung!”

Uri looked up from their dinner of Udon noodles.  “Um, well, Dee-Dee isn’t his actual name.  It’s a nickname.  His real name is…longer.”

“What is it?”

“Uh, promise you won’t laugh?”

“…sure.”

“Well, you know how white is a funerary colour in the Fire Nation?”

“Yeah…”

“And see how Dee-Dee’s mostly white?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And how he’s real quick-like, almost like…a ninja?”

“Sure…”

“Well.”  Uri winced.  “Dee-Dee’s full name…is Ninja Death Kitty.”

Aneko stared at her.  Uri winced again.  Then a grin bloomed on the other girl’s face.

“Uri,” she said.  “That’s AWESOME!”


Kitsune

Jin’s father had run a Pai Sho house, one of the few in the Lower Ring.  He had been kind, popular and well liked, and as far as she could see, there was no possible reason that he could’ve been murdered by anyone in their neighbourhood.

But he had been.

One night, he went out to visit friends, and didn’t come back.  His body, headless, was found in an overgrown courtyard two days later.  They had to identify him from his hands and clothing.  The Pai Sho house was shut down.  In order to support themselves, Jin and her mother went to work in her uncle’s vegetable shop.

Seven days after his death, Jin came home and fell into bed, feeling the not-yet-exhausted tears gather in her eyes.  Through this grievous film she espied an unfamiliar smudge of green on her bedside table.

It was a jade fox, and upon the little statue’s underside was her father’s name beside the stamp of a white lotus.


Waking Nightmare

It begins with his voice in the doorway, and Zuko’s angered response.

“They’re firebenders!  I know it!”

“You want a show; I’ll give you a show…”

Then there is the flashing of blades, of breaking wood, of smashing teacups and flying splinters.

Iroh pulls her back from the fight, stands before her, shielding her with his body…

Her mother’s voice – breathless – “Hide, Song, quickly!”

…and she clings to his shoulder, gazing with useless fear as the two boys fight.  They barrel out into the street and she dashes forward, following.  Aneko is there, wide-eyed.

“What in the heck…?”

She hears Iroh’s voice beside her in the burbling crowd.  “Please son, you’re confused. You don’t know what you’re doing!”

Still the blades flash, and neither will let up – Jet because he knows something he shouldn’t, Zuko because he never gives up (not without a fight), and both of them because they worry for her when neither of them should.

Desperate, she cries, “Jet!  Lee!  Stop this, please!”

She registers Aneko’s incredulity.  “You know this psychopath?”

“He was on the ferry with us…”

And then it stops being a memory and starts being something else.  Suddenly Jet has the upper hand; his tiger-head hooks fly out, Zuko cannot move away fast enough…

Then there is blood, and someone screaming, and it’s her – and all she can see is his eyes, his blank gold eyes, blood moving in two slow runnels along the rims of his eyelids –

~~~

That morning, Zuko watched her with cautious, knowing eyes.  “Are you alright?”

Her smile was small, but over-bright.  “I’m fine, why wouldn’t I be?”

He held her gaze, steady, determined.  “You were crying in you sleep.  Uncle snores, but I could still hear you.”

She began to shake.  “In my dream, he killed you.”

He stepped forward and without having to be asked, put his arms around her as she breathed unsteadily into his shoulder.  The sunlight touched them, warmed them, and he held her until Iroh called them both for breakfast.


Hui-ying

Uri had always found it difficult to forgive, and now was no exception.

Curled in her bed in the little room opposite Aneko’s she listened for the other girl’s slow breathing as well as the soft rasps Dee-Dee made as he slept.  She curled tighter, and her fingers reached blindly for the bracelet on her right wrist.

If you had been home, this never would have happened.

It wasn’t the most beautiful thing she’d ever owned, but it was the most beloved.  A small seven-sided pendant of rare yellow jade, a fire lily engraved on one side and a white dragon blossom on the reverse, strung on a simple length of black obsidian beads, each no bigger than a pea.

If you had been home, I never would have run away.

Her mother gave it to her when she was seven, just after returning from the Siege of Ba Sing Se.  Now, she passed her thumb over the lily and blossom, ran the beads through her fingers.

If you had been home, I never would have met Zuko, or Song, or Iroh, or Jin, or Aneko…

There were forty-nine of them in all and each one passed through her thumb and crooked forefinger.  She counted under her breath and pretended they were the days until she would see her mother again.


Boy

The first time he dropped a tray, it was Aneko who rushed forward smiling to help.  At first he thought she was laughing at him – how he’d snarled at her!

Aneko, who knew his secret very well by then, simply brushed it off and with great pragmatism, got down to cleaning up the tea.  His shame was brief but scorching.

His fellow waiter saw this, and at that very moment, started them down the path of easy sibling affection that would define their relationship for the rest of their lives.

“Gad Zooks,” she said, smiling again.

To his everlasting shock, she tweaked his nose.

“What are we going to do with you, hmm?”