Dark Puck - Blood Ties

On returning to Omashu, Kouji insisted they wait before visiting the Róng Yào agent in the city — what if it was a trap? Mai didn’t take much persuading, and spent the time while they waited writing and sending more of her carefully-coded letters.

After a few hours, Kouji relented, and followed the noblewoman. He was slowly becoming more comfortable around her — unlike many of the women and girls he knew, she didn’t constantly go on about how ‘adorable’ he was.

She led the way to the address Tù Zi had given them. It was in the middle of one of the worst parts of the city — a tenement apartment on a narrow, twisty street littered with garbage, pimps, whores, and beggars in various states of intoxication.

Kouji was, in some ways, still very much sheltered. Nervous, he drew closer to Mai, looking neither left nor right as he followed. She found the right building and led him up a rickety staircase — making a face at the cockroachrats skittering around — to a cracked, peeling door. The boy shuddered. “Should I knock?” he whispered, balancing on the balls of his feet and longing desperately for shoes.

“Go ahead.”

Silently, he moved past her to rap sharply against the door.

The door was pulled open and a single dark brown eye stared out at them. “…Not interested in whichever one of you’s being sold.” The door snapped shut.

Mai bristled a little — she wasn’t sure which was worse, being called a whore or being called a madam. Kouji made a face. “He isn’t cynical at all, is he?” He knocked a second time.

The door cracked open again. “I’m not interested in whatever you have to sell.”

Mai caught the door before it shut. “We’re not pimps or dealers.”

“We want to talk,” added Kouji, gingerly settling his right foot all the way down in case he had to bend.

“I got nothing to say,” the voice replied, trying to jerk the door shut.

“Oh, but we do,” Mai said, evenly.

“Should I…?” Kouji asked her.

“Can’t,” she muttered, indicating the wooden floor.

“Damn.” He glanced up at the man.

The brown eye peeking through the crack between door and doorframe was eyeing them calculatingly now. It was impossible to see what the body it belonged to was doing.

Kouji was waiting for Mai to take the lead, as he was uncertain of what he ought to do.

Quick as a flash, the man’s hand moved, and Mai stumbled back a step with a small gasp. Without the noblewoman to hold it, the door slammed shut. The creaky floorboards indicated that the man in the room was moving away from the door — possibly to a window or another exit.

A few seconds later they smelled smoke.

“Mai!” cried Kouji, wide-eyed as he caught her. “What—?”

She was pressing a hand to her thigh. “Bastard kn—” She froze, smelling the smoke. “Oh, hell. Oh hell! He torched the building.”

“Kick the door down or something, we have to go after him.”

The boy nodded and braced himself, then slammed his bare foot into the door. Five years of training with Toph, Li Shang, and occasionally Iroh had paid off; the door was opened before him, and he bolted after the occupant.

The flames were spreading fast, and the room was already filling with smoke.

“There, the window!” Mai shouted, following him.

Without hesitation, Kouji threw himself out the window after the Róng Yào agent, rolling as he hit the ground and taking off in hot pursuit.

Mai followed, a little slower, readying her pointies.

The agent, however, knew this neighbourhood like the back of his hand, and vanished among the winding streets. Swearing, Kouji stopped dead, closing his eyes and using his bending to seek out the man. His concentration was interrupted when an overly-made-up, strung-out whore who had seen clearly better (and younger) days tried to solicit him.

“Not interested,” he said hastily, wide-eyed and blushing, trying to keep track of the agent.

During that brief interruption, however, the man had either passed out of Kouji’s range or into a busier, more confusing part of the city.

“Damn it!” Kouji then turned his attention back to the matter currently at hand and tried to gracefully extract himself from the whore’s attentions.

Mai did it for him. “He’s with me,” she said, glowering at the older woman, who, seeing the knives and the expression on the noblewoman’s face, hastily retreated.

“Th-th-thank you,” he stammered, not quite looking at Mai.

“No problem,” she replied, shortly, one hand still pressed to her thigh. “I guess you lost him?”

“Y-yeah. Got… distracted.” His flush deepened. “Sorry. Are y-you all right?”

“Don’t know yet. But I’m not checking in this dung-hole. Let’s go back to our room.”

He nodded and followed her out. She led the way, limping, back to their room. Once there, she pulled her hand away from the stab wound to examine it. Thankfully, it looked clean, not showing any of the signs of a poisoned blade.

The red in his face slowly fading, Kouji vanished briefly, then returned with clean cloths, a bowl of warm water, and bandages. “Do you need help, Lady Mai?”

“No, I think I can handle it,” she said. “Thanks for the water.”

“All right.” He hesitated, then left.

Mai, meanwhile, carefully cleaned and wrapped the hole in her thigh. While she did that, Kouji paced in the next room over, worried about the noblewoman and Yui, shamed about losing the Róng Yào agent, and bored.

Once she’d finished dressing the wound with the limited supplies she had available, she called him back in. “All right. We need to figure out where to go from here.”

“I think all we can do is wait for Aang,” Kouji replied softly. “Finding that guy in this mess will be impossible.”

She nodded. “Especially since that building’s probably so much ashes by now.”

He sighed. “Yeah.”

“I’ve got some more bad news.” Ichiro was back, looking exhausted. And a mess. His clothes were scorched, his face was burned, and he swayed slightly as he stood in the door frame. “The local chapter’s pulled out.”

“Sit down,” Mai said curtly. “Kouji, get more water.”

Kouji ran to do as she said while Ichiro gratefully took a seat and groaned. “They did have Yui before she got loose,” he added.

“Bastard’s a boy,” Mai informed him. “We talked with his mother. She doesn’t know where the hell he is, only that he was taken from her. For good reason, bitch had more sake in her than most stores sell in a day.”

“I know where he is,” Ichiro replied, smiling slightly. “I persuaded the man who caught me to spill the beans. And my hunch was right — he vanished with Yui.”

“So she’s okay!” said the relieved Kouji as he brought the bowl to Mai.

“She was when she got loose.” Ichiro laughed. “I don’t know how she got hold of the keys, but damned if she didn’t take them with her when she left!”

Mai settled in to clean Ichiro’s burns. “You’re lucky, these aren’t that bad. But that still doesn’t tell us where either the kid or your sister is.”

“You should see the other guy,” the firebender told her. “Kouji, had anything from her?”

Kouji sighed and shook his head. “Just a dream about a tree fortress when we got here.”

Mai shrugged. “Doesn’t mean much to me.”

“Or me,” Ichiro added, then hissed in pain.

“…sorry…”

“Not your fault,” Mai said curtly, bandaging the burns as neatly as she could. “Now we wait for the Avatar to get back.”

“I love waiting games,” said Ichiro dryly, leaning back and closing his eyes. The young farmer found Mai quite attractive, and he didn’t trust himself not to do something stupid and probably pain-inducing if he had his eyes open while she treated his face.

“Don’t we all,” she muttered, hissing a little herself when she shifted awkwardly and pulled at the hole in her thigh.

Golden eyes snapped open. “Are you all right?” he asked, concerned.

“Got stabbed,” she said. “I’ve already cleaned and wrapped it. Hold still.”

He closed his eyes again.

She finished cleaning and bandaging the burn on his face, then set the bowl of water and bandages aside. “Any ideas that don’t involve sitting around and doing nothing?”

I’ve got one that will scar my brother for life and get me stabbed. “No.”

“We could exercise Qiang,” suggested Kouji.

“You two can, maybe,” Mai said, indicating her thigh.

“I’m not going anywhere on the overgrown lizard if I don’t have to.”

“Then that’s something for Kouji to do.”

Kouji looked from one to the other. “…you sure?” he asked, hesitantly.

“Sure, why not?” the noblewoman said. “I doubt even the Róng Yào are going to be able to get through a massive angry lizard that spits fire.”

“…will you two be all right?”

Ichiro waved a hand at him. “I’m a firebender and she’s a master of shuriken-jutsu. We’ll be fine.”

As a demonstration, Kouji suddenly found a shuriken quivering an inch deep in the wall, having passed so close to him he heard it.

“…okay then,” he said quickly, and fled the room.

Ichiro laughed.

Mai smiled faintly, then hopped over to the wall to retrieve her blade — she didn’t want to put unnecessary weight on her injured leg and make it start bleeding again.

“Nicely done,” murmured the farmer. “I think you scared him out of a years’ growth.”

“Sorry,” she said, hopping back to her seat.

“He could do with a good scare. Can’t have him catching me up.” He grinned at her.

She gave him a tiny smile back. His grin widened, and he got up to glance out the window. “So, how’d you get stabbed?”

She briefly summarized what Tù Zi had told her and Kouji, and their subsequent trip to the tenement. “Then we lost the bastard in the crowd.”

“Pity, that,” Ichiro murmured. “My trip out was just as eventful — I found the local chapter of Róng Yào as they were pulling out. I guess between Yui’s escape and the kid’s disappearance — which mysteriously happened simultaneously — they thought they’d been compromised.” He hesitated, then took a scroll from his jacket and handed it to Mai. “I took this off the guy who caught me watching.”

She unrolled it and examined it again. “…And, of course, it’s in code. I’ll work on this, see what I can get out of it.”

“That would be why I came back,” Ichiro admitted. “I suck at figuring puzzles out.”

“Good thing you did,” she said absently. “These bastards are widespread, well-organized, and managed to take Zuko out of the palace itself five years ago and then hold him near a week, when they’d had months to set themselves up. You’d’ve been killed in minutes.”

The young man paused, and then whistled. “Damn. You’re right. Imagine how much better they’ve got since.” He shuddered. “Bastards.”

“Exactly.”

Ichiro fell silent, watching Mai.

For her part, she seemed focused on the scroll he’d handed her, looking for patterns in the encryption.

After awhile, the young man rose and made dinner for three, placing a bowl beside Mai and taking a second back to his chair; the third he left on the table for Kouji. She accepted the food with a brief nod of thanks, then returned to working on the scroll.

Some hours later, Ichiro got to his feet with a frown. “I’m gonna see what’s taking Kouji so long,” he told Mai. “He should’ve been back by now.”

“Good idea,” she said.

Silently, the firebender slipped outside, and took the twisty route to where they’d left the black dragon. She was there, curled up around the young lord, and raised her head with a faint, annoyed growl at Ichiro. He held up his hands. “Relax, mistress. I was just looking for your pet.”

She eyed him suspiciously, but didn’t make any more threatening gestures.

The farmer lowered his hands and watched his sleeping brother silently for several minutes.

Qiang lowered her head again and sighed faintly.

“Can it, mistress,” he told her. “I knew him first.”

She blew an irritated smoke ring at him for response.

He ignored her, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against a tree. He froze when Kouji murmured something about flying, but relaxed when the younger boy just rolled over and snuggled closer to Qiang.

After awhile, Ichiro cracked a small smile. “You turned out all right, didn’t you, little brother?” He turned and left.

Qiang rolled her eyes, then let them shut and drifted off to sleep herself.

Ichiro drifted through the streets of Omashu, deftly avoiding the ladies — and the men — of the night, and returned to their small room. “Kouji fell asleep on his overgrown lizard,” he announced.

“Mmm,” she replied, half-asleep with attempted translations scattered around her.

He looked at her. “Any luck?”

“Not yet,” she said, shaking herself a little to bring back a little alertness.

“Maybe you should get some rest,” he suggested.

“I’m going to try one more thing, then I’m going to bed,” she replied.

He nodded and sat down across from her. She dug around for a relatively fresh piece of paper, and made a rather vexed sound when she realized she’d have to get up again to fetch more. “Let me,” he told her, rising and getting her some more.

“Thanks,” she said, shook herself again, then started trying her next idea.

Ichiro watched her in silence for awhile, then let his mind wander. About a half hour later, the quiet paper-rustling drifted to a stop. When he looked up, he saw that Mai had fallen asleep at the table, with small ink smudges decorating her forehead and hands.

The young man smiled slightly and got to his feet. Gently, he touched her shoulder. “Lady Mai?”

“Wha…?” She jerked awake at his touch.

“I think you should go to bed now.”

She nodded. “Yeah…” She yawned and stood up, wavering a little.

Ichiro hesitated, then very gently scooped her up into his arms.

“Hey…” she protested vaguely, still about half-asleep.

“Shh,” he said softly, carrying her to her room. “You can stab me in the morning.” Just as gently he laid her down on the bed and pulled the sheets over her. She was back asleep before she could respond to that. Ichiro spent a moment watching her, gave himself a mental kick, then went to bed himself.

She isn’t for you.