Dark Puck - Blood Ties

Kouji searched all of Omashu and found no trace of his sister.  He was all for backtracking to find her, but Ichiro refused to let him do that.  “It’ll be easier if we wait for her here,” he argued.  Their third day in the city, Mai got a letter from home. She tossed the hawk that had brought it a morsel of meat and tore the letter open. She swore and passed it to Kouji, to read next.

The boy went absolutely still.  “Those bastards.”

“What is it? What happened?” Aang asked.

Kouji passed him the letter, not wanting to say it aloud.

The Avatar’s eyes went round. “Oh no…”

“Give me that,” said Ichiro, plucking the paper from Aang’s hands.  “…shit.”

“It seems we were right about the bastard,” Mai said quietly.

“Looks like,” the farmer replied.  “Which makes it all the more imperative that we find them both.”

She nodded, and collected pen and paper to write a carefully-worded response, obliquely suggesting the possibility of a royal bastard.  While she did that, the brothers argued quietly over splitting up – or rather, which flying animal would go where. Aang, for lack of anything better to do, listened in on their conversation, interjecting helpful suggestions whenever he came up with them.

Eventually it was decided that Kouji would, for the time being, remain in Omashu; Ichiro would head out on foot to search for Yui.  Aang was free to do as he chose.  Aang and Mai discussed this quietly for a long time, then decided that Aang would head off on Appa to make discreet inquiries with his friends all over the world, and Mai would stick with Kouji for the time being — she knew the city better than any of the others, having lived there for several months at the end of the war.

Ichiro remained only long enough to purchase more travel supplies, then he was off.  Aang left the following morning, heading for Kyoshi Island. It was as good a place to start as any. From there, he’d go to the South Pole, then work his way northward.

Kouji was very much unhappy to have to wait in Omashu and do nothing.

Mai set up her room in the inn they were camped out in as a sort of base of operations, discreetly contacting everyone she knew on both sides of the ocean, after grilling Kouji for the name of the bastard’s probably mother, to see if anyone knew what had become of her.  The boy was more than happy to give her the details, even if he did blush slightly while answering.  He’d come a long way in five years, but he still tended towards shyness around the so-called gentle sex.

Two weeks after Ichiro and Aang left, one of her attempts struck gold — a woman of the same name and a similar description had apparently settled in a town not far away, just a few short weeks ago.

Kouji was more than happy to loan Qiang to Mai — the dragon and the noblewoman got along quite well — or, even better, take her himself.  He was bored.  “We should both go. You actually met this woman, you can confirm it’s her.”

It went without saying that Mai was far better at getting information out of reluctant sources than Kouji could ever hope to be.

“Right,” he said, not bothering to conceal his relief at being useful again.  “Let’s go.”

She nodded, and the two of them took off on Qiang.

They reached the town — really more a village — shortly after dawn the next day.  Kouji landed Qiang a ways outside so as not to alert people to his presence, and chirped the signal for her to remain as hidden as she could.  She blew an affectionate smoke ring at him, then lumbered off to conceal herself in the shadows. There were times when it was a blessing she was black, rather than the more common blue or red. 

Kouji then turned to Mai and bowed.  “Lead the way, my lady.”  She nodded, and led the way into the town.

The house they were looking for was a small one, close to the edge of the village. Mai tapped on the door. No answer.  Without urging, Kouji moved around to one side and peeked through the window.  There was someone in there, apparently asleep on the couch; he signalled as such to Mai.

“…Might as well wait, then,” she said, and settled down on the stoop to do so.

He nodded and joined her silently.  One of them checked every ten minutes or so, but it was nearly three hours before whoever was on the couch finally woke up.

This time, it was Kouji’s turn to knock on the door.

From inside the room came sounds of someone stumbling around, and what seemed to be glass breaking. At length, a rather dishevelled-looking woman pulled the door open, squinted in the sunlight, and said, with ill grace, “What?”

Grey eyes went wide as he took in her appearance.  “Tù Zi?”

“…Yeah, that’s my name.”

“She’s the one, milady,” Kouji said softly.

“The one what?” Tù Zi asked, blinking blearily at him.

Kouji smiled slightly.  “I guess you don’t recognise me.  But it’s been five years, and I’m not heaving into a bush.”

“…Little Lordling Kouji?” she said, after staring at him for a long moment. “Huh. What d’you know.” She turned back into her house — not inviting them in, but not shutting the door, either.

Little Lordling?  How long had people been calling him that?  Kouji followed her inside.  Mai followed as well.

Tù Zi was digging through a pile of empty glass bottles. “Aha!” she finally said, pulling out one that was still half-full. She then turned back to her visitors. “What d’you want, then?”

“We wanted to talk to you,” Kouji said carefully.  He wasn’t sure how much of a gamble he could take here.

“What about?” she asked, taking a sip from her bottle — it smelled like cheap sake.

Mai, for the moment, hung back, watching the older woman.

“…your child.”

“What makes you think I have a kid?” Tù Zi asked, her eyes darting from him to Mai and back again, and her hands trembling a little. She almost dropped her bottle.

“You did. Just now,” the younger woman said, quietly, shutting the door with a faint click.

“We only want to talk,” said Kouji softly.

“He’s not here,” she finally said. “Leave me alone.” She finished her sake bottle and started digging around for another.

“Where is he?”

“Beats the hell out of me. I brought him where they told me to bring him, then they wouldn’t let me stay.”

“They?”

“Yep. They,” she said, darkly, then swore under her breath when she couldn’t find a bottle with any wine left in it.

“Who are ‘they’?”

“You know,” she said, making an airy gesture. “Them.”

“How long have they known about your son?” Mai asked.

“Since before he was born.” She flashed a grin over at them. “I went to them as soon as I was sure I was pregnant. I figured Peacemaker’s bastard had to be worth something to them, right?”

Kouji was very quick to get between the two women.  He still couldn’t get the metal image of Mai slitting that one man’s throat so coolly out of his head.

“The Róng Yào,” the younger woman said, quietly, steely.

“They promised they’d take care of me,” Tù Zi complained. “Give me everything I wanted. Then they took Mikoto away from me. What the hell is up with that?”

“And you started drinking?” Kouji asked.

“No, I started drinking after he was born and they shut us up in the big house. For our protection, they said. All we ever saw was each other and the guards. Then a couple weeks ago they said bring him, so I brought him. And they took him away.”

Kouji looked over his shoulder at Mai.

“Where did you bring him, Tù Zi?” the noblewoman asked, evenly.

“The other house. They wouldn’t let me stay with him. They brought me here and said this was my house now, and told me who to go to if I needed money.”

“Where is the other house?” Kouji asked gently.

“Like hell I remember,” she scoffed. “That was weeks ago.”

“Who do you go to when you need money?” Mai asked, hard on her heels.

“Some guy in Omashu.”

“What’s his name?”

“Lee.”

Kouji groaned.  “Of course it is.”

“How do you get in touch with him?” Mai asked, a faint bite of impatience in her voice now.

“I go to his house, obviously,” she muttered.

“And where is his house in Omashu?”

She gave them an address, after much searching for the paper it had been written on.

“Thank you,” said Kouji politely, all but dragging Mai away.  He didn’t want to witness another murder — especially because Tù Zi was clearly a pawn.

Mai had, however, come to the same conclusion. “Pathetic. No wonder they took the kid from her.”

He nodded.  “I can’t help but feel sorry for him,” Kouji said.

She nodded. “None of this is his fault. Hell, he can’t be more than four or five.”

“If I’ve got the math right, he’s just barely five,” the boy agreed. “Let’s go talk to this… Lee.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Together, the two nobles returned to Qiang, and then to Omashu.