Mai was very careful not to make any complaint as she and Toph followed Piandao up to his home, which was a palatial looking castle overlooking some of Shu
Jing's admittedly spectacular scenery. It was very generous of the swordmaster to offer two young women dinner while they were staying in the area -
suspicious in certain ways, but Piandao's reputation on such matters was as stainless as could reasonably be hoped for - and refusing would give offense.
There was a minor concern that someone might stumble across M Bison, of course, but this late in the day it wasn't really any more likely than it had been
while the two of them were in Shu Jing and if someone did... Mai shrugged slightly. Too bad for them. The dark furred sky bison was so aggressive that she
sometimes half-expected him to start flying via firebending not airbending.
The gates into the castle bore a lotus symbol and the one on the left swung open as the three of them approached, revealing a dignified, rather stout man of
around Piandao's age. "Ah, Fat," Piandao said brightly. "As you can see, I have guests for dinner today. I hope I'm giving you enough
warning."
The man - Fat presumably - frowned but nodded and glanced up at the sun, now low in the sky. "Of course Piandao," he said with exquisite courtesy.
"Mai, Toph, this is my old companion Fat," Piandao offered in introduction. "We've been together many years and I would be quite lost
without him."
The girls bowed their heads towards Fat and saluted after the Fire Nation fashion. "I am Mai, and this is my sister Toph," Mai introduced herself,
glad that in their new clothes they looked reasonably respectable.
Fang returned the bow and then stepped aside to allow them all the enter. Inside it's defensive wall, the castle was clearly more residence than fortress,
functional buildings lining the interior of the wall and a luxurious looking pagoda residence that probably screened the castle's private gardens from the
entrance. Everything was built of the finest materials and Mai guessed that for all the huge prices charged for a Piandao sword, the man must have spent
staggering sums to build a house worthy of the highest nobility.
"Wow, your house looks magnificent," Toph said in an awed tone.
"Why thank you," Piandao replied and then paused to pinch the bridge of his nose. "That's your favorite joke, isn't it?"
"It never gets old," confirmed Toph with a nod of her head. "But someone told me recently that I should keep in practise."
"Sounds like a wise man," observed Piandao with a twinkle in his eye. "So, Lady Mai. Are you also skilled with war fans, like your sister."
"It's considered ladylike," Mai answered absently. "And our mother was always very concerned that we should know how to act like
ladies."
"Another weapon in your arsenal, no doubt," chuckled the man. He gestured for them to follow a path around the side of the mansion rather than up the
stairs to the front door. "Perhaps the two of you would be so good as to give me a demonstration of your skills before dinner. I find that a sparring
session sharpens the appetite."
Mai looked at Toph, who shrugged and tapped her new fan, where it was thrust through her belt. The message was clear: fans only. Mai nodded agreement and
produced her own pair from a fold of her own dress. One disadvantage of the new clothes was that they didn't allow her to conceal dart launchers in her
sleeves, but she had made up for it by hiding some thin blades in the soles of her shoes - which were much thicker than those of Toph's moccasins - so that
with a little adjustment the tips would extend just past her toes. That would be a nasty surprise to anyone she kicked.
Of course, in order for it to be a surprise, she would have to keep it in reserve. Like a lot of things, it was better a secret.
The back of the mansion, as Mai had suspected and Toph had known before she even entered the gates, did indeed face a private garden, on a sunken level well
below the back of the house. Between them was a paved terrace, suitable for any number of activities, including - obviously - weapons drills.
Piandao took a few steps out onto the yard and drew the sword that was so much a part of him that Mai had barely noticed he was armed when they were in the
shop. "If you would be so good?" he invited, holding the scabbard of his sword in his offhand.
Three fans snapped open in unison and the two girls... did nothing else.
They were already placed closely enough to support each other, already ready to move to defend or counter-attack accordingly. Offense was not even considered:
against a renowned master of the sword, they would want to know what they were dealing with first.
Piandao gave them a little lesson in that. For all his years, the man was fast and his wrist flexible. Mai's pair of fans gave her the best defenses of the
two, and he came very close to breaking through them with rapid thrusts of his sword. Toph automatically closed in from the swordsman's left, trying to get
inside the sweep of the sword, only to find her fan blocked by the scabbard in Piandao's left hand.
Toph's own left hand locked onto his wrist - not enough to prevent him from moving the arm, she was simply too small for that, but enough to hinder him and
Mai moved to exploit the opening only to find that there was no opening when Piandao uncoiled like a serpent, the jian's pommel coming within a
hairsbreadth of striking her squarely on the point of the jaw. At the same moment, Piandao forced his arm out in the simplest and most powerful of moves, a
punch that Toph's grip could do no more than divert past the side of her head at the cost of losing her grip.
She spun, arm jabbing out for Piandao's belly, feeling the vibration that showed he was stepping back beyond her reach, right arm sweeping around. Toph
ducked, the sword cutting a few strands of hair from her pony tail, and Mai, temporarily seperated from Piandao by her sister, flung one fan in a spinning arc
over Toph's head. The swordsman brought up his sword to parry the weapon and his scabbard down to deflect Toph's foot as she rolled between his legs,
one foot thrusting upwards like a spear towards his pelvis.
She rolled free of course, bounding to her feet with Piandao bracketed between the two of them. He stepped aside, towards the garden, parrying in two
directions, glad that Mai was missing a fan and had elected for whatever reason, not to produce any of the other weapons that he knew she carried.
"To parry and to cut," Piandao commented as they broke, the three of them moving around, seeking opportune positioning to resume the spar. "I
had expected that - also thrusting, which is not your habit, I see. I confess I had not considered the use of a fan as a thrown weapon."
"Nor do a lot of people," agreed Mai and dodged around a cut towards her leg, too low for her fan to reach down and parry. That was one problem with
the weapons: lack of reach. Behind Piandao, Toph scooped up the fan Mai had thrown and ran towards the swordman's back. He wheeled right, using his sword
to intercept the attack and keeping his scabbard pointed towards Mai.
The wood of the ornate scabbard cracked as Mai took the opportunity to crack a sharp blow against it., driving it aside and then lunging closer while Toph
pushed Piandao's sword up above her head with one fan, slashing with the other.
The three of them all came to a halt. Mai's fan was almost touching Piandao's left eye, but she knew he had released hold of the scabbard to drive a
punch that had halted just barely in contact with her throat. On the far side of him, Toph had the edge of the fan pressed into his thigh, perfectly placed to
sever the major vein there, but he had recovered from her parry with such swiftness that the edge of his sword lay against her ribs.
An approving smile crossed the swordmaster's face. "Most formidable. I applaud you both." He withdrew both sword and hand, relaxing.
After a moment, Mai closed her fan, Toph following suit and stepping around Piandao to return Mai's fan to her. Both bowed to Piandao. "Thank you for
the lesson," Mai told him.
"Not at all," he assured her. "Thank you both for the demonstration."
From the door leading into the mansion, Fat cleared his throat. "Dinner," he announced, "is served."
.oOo.
If the meal served for them by Fat was typical of how Piandao ate, then his diet had a great deal in common with his tates in architecture: the food was of
excellent quality but rather simple fare overall. Rice, with boiled vegetables and fried beef made up the main course after a thin and heavily spiced soup
starter that Toph found rather hotter than she had realised, cooling her mouth with iced tea provided by Fat, who diplomatically refrained from smirking at the
girl's expression.
"Not to your taste?" Piandao asked from where he was kneeling at one end of the low table.
Toph shrugged. "I didn't each much soup when I was younger, it took a while to learn how to eat it. I didn't realise this one was quite so
spicy." She took another spoonful and washed it down with more tea. "It is good though," the young earthbender admitted, nodding in
acknowledgement to Fat.
Piandao chuckled. "Indeed. Cooking is one of the arts where I humbly recognise Fat as being the true master in this household. Are either of you inclined
towards that particular art."
Mai's lips twitched. "I'm not particularly domestic," she admitted. "Toph seems to follow my example in that as well."
"Nor am I," the swordmaster admitted. "I'd been living of army slop for years, so eating my own cooking didn't seem like much of a
sacrifice when I first moved here. But then Fat offered me his home-cooking if I'd take him on as a student. I was convinced after the first bite."
"I take it that you negotiate more forcibly over your swords," Mai observed. "Considering the prices you charge."
"Oh well," he said, giving the impression he would be waving dismissively, if he wasn't holding a bowl of rice in one hand and chopsticks in the
other. "I only charge so much to try to discourage so many people from asking me for swords. It's all very well to make them, but there is only so
much time in the day and after I started selling swords to pay for all this, well, I barely had time to do any of this until I set the prices to where they
are." His lips quirked. "Of course, now most of my customers buy the swords as decoration or as talking points, rather than using them as
weapons."
"Is that some reference to some sort of philosophy?" Toph asked.
Piandao swallowed a mouthful of rice. "I suppose it is," he said thoughtfully. "A sword is a weapon, the most versatile of weapons. Any fool
could make a sword-shaped piece of metal to hang on a wall. I like to think that my swords are more than that."
Toph used her own chopsticks to feed herself some beef. "Bloodthirsty," she observed before she'd finished chewing on it. It was hard to tell,
with her mouth full, but Mai suspected that there some ambivalence on her part as to whether she approved or not.
"I would rather that they were treated as weapons of war," Piandao said drily. "That is not quite the same as desiring that weapons of war be
made use of. Then again, my customers are paying dearly for the privilege of not following my wishes on the matter, so I suppose that it not in my hands."
He signalled for Fat, who was sitting at the bottom of the table, to refill their tea cups, the level of which was below the median point. "So, what
brought the two of you to Shu Jing?"
"Trying to avoid Toph being drafted into the army," Mai lied smoothly. Since Piandao had departed the Fire Nation's army on his own terms, it
didn't seem likely that he would be particularly offended by the notion of a family not wanting their younger and blind daughter to be compelled to serve
the Nation, as all fire benders were unless they could obtain an exemption. Such exemptions were typically granted only to noble families concerned about
keeping a line of blood descent safe from combat and almost invariably required bribes almost as great as the cost of purchasing one of Piandao's swords.
"I'm still not convinced that they'd bother," Toph objected half-heartedly. "What would the army want with a blind fire bender?"
"In my experience it would be less a matter of wanting you to be in the army than it would be a matter of not wanting to set a precedent of rejecting a
fire bender due to a disability," Piandao explained. "Bureaucrats are generally reluctant to innovate without a significant financial incentive, in
my experienced. You realise that refusing a summons to serve is a criminal offense?"
"Failure to receive a summons is not," Mai explained. "If we cannot be located, we cannot receive notice that Toph has been called to serve and
therefore cannot be held to be in refusal of a summons."
Piandao nodded thoughtfully. "But no one can run forever, young ladies."
"And if no one knows where we are headed, no one can share that information with bureaucrats," answered Mai.
To his credit Piandao did not seem offended by the implied lack of trust. "It is a sad day when such caution is required between countrymen," he said
simply. "But it must also be admitted that there have been many sad days of late." Before the mood could become gloomier, he proved his bona fides as
a host and changed the subject. "So, do either of you play Pai Sho?"
"A little," Mai conceded.
Toph visibly weighed her options before admitting: "As long as you don't mind me touching the board to keep track of the tiles." Unsaid was the
fact that most players would reasonably fear that Toph would - intentionally or otherwise - move tiles while doing so. There was a degree to which her earth
sense could guide her - most tiles and boards were stone - but she would hardly admit that under these circumstances.
"Then perhaps, after we are done eating, we can play a game or two," Piandao offered hospitably. "I am sure that a warrior so skilled with a war
fan will make no careless mistakes upon a mere Pai Sho table."
.oOo.
"An interesting man," Mai threw back over her shoulder as M Bison flew through the barely pre-dawn sky. They would be out of sight of land before the
sun was high enough to give a good chance of spotting them, and this leg of the journey would keep them out of that sight for longer than she was entirely
comfortable with. The charts that she had were either from the water tribe, relating largely to currents that she couldn't track from the air, or copies of
Air Nomad charts that were a hundred years old and based on air currents that she was barely aware of when she was in them.
"Does Spiky have a crush?" asked Toph sleepily from under a blanket where she was curled up inside the arc of the saddle. She had seemed distracted
during and after the walk from Piandao's castle to their campsite - while accepting the swordmaster's hospitality would have allowed them to sleep in
actual beds for once, no properly brought up fire maidens would have done so - and as she had been awake when Mai roused herself, it was possible that she had
yet to actually sleep. Oh well, it wasn't as if daylight was liable to keep her awake.
"I'm not the one who monopolised him all evening," Mai replied. While she had accepted defeat after two drubbings on the Pai Sho table -
humblingly while Piandao was playing Toph on a second board - and accepted the offer of some light reading from Fat (who appeared to be addicted to an
seemingly endless series of cliched romance scrolls that had entertained the marginally literate of the Fire Nation since Mai's mother was a girl); the
younger girl had played against the swordsmaster well into the evening, apparently undeterred by his unbroken string of victories against her.
Toph grumbled something unintelligable and rolled herself over to find the edge of the blanket. Upon success, she extended one hand directly upwards, holding
something small for Mai to see it. "He gave me this when we left."
With the rising sun coming from behind them, Mai had to squint a little to make it out. "A white lotus tile?" A chill went down her spine and for a
moment her mind took her back to a tower cell in Omashu. "Little sister, for the first time I really wish Zuko was here."
"I don't think he knows anything more than we do really," Toph told her. "When he talked to Bumi he was fishing for information and I
don't think he got anything significant."
"That doesn't mean that he didn't know anything specific." Mai rubbed at her face. "His uncle had a white lotus tile, Piandao gave you a
white lotus tile and both Zuko and Mad King Bumi seem to consider white lotus tiles to have some significance. What, you think there's a secret society of
Fire Nation Pai Sho players?"
Toph wrapped the blanket closer around her. "Maybe not just the Fire Nation." A moment later, when Mai didn't reply, the twelve year old began to
snore softly.
Mai watched the sky, the sea and the compass she'd bought in a Fire Nation port as soon as they'd reached civilisation. The water tribe and the air
nomads could follow currents as much as they wanted, she wanted something that reliably pointed the same direction at all times.
Half a year or so ago, she'd turned her back on her birth family and boredom in favour of an adopted sister and what promised to being interesting and
possibly an adventure. She'd certainly not envisaged trying to navigate over the trackless ocean via flying bison after spending an evening sparring with
and then getting trounced at Pai Sho by a famous swordmaster, but Mai had to admit: it wasn't boring.
She looked back at Toph, a surprisingly small bundle of blankets and child, long black hair spilling from one end and then thought back to the last time she
seen the Fire Lord Ozai, on one of his rare public appearances. The Fire Lord had cut an imposing figure in long, heavy crimson robes and a gold-trimmed black
breastplate and while his mastery of fire was known more by legend than by public demonstration, it was beyond doubt that he had years of experience wielding
it.
And then there were the almost endless numbers of the Fire Nation's army, raised from it's teeming population, and the weapons of war designed by its
traditional artificers before being copied in hundreds of factories.
Well, if dramatic convention required adventurers to face a seemingly unstoppable enemy, the spirits would appear to have provided such to Toph.
.oOo.
Hundreds of miles away, the Fire Lord had risen with the sun and was now breaking his fast over reports that had arrived over night from his spies within the
capital.
Ozai ate alone. His wife, Ursa, had not shared his bed in over a decade and had departed the palace entirely to enter seclusion in one of the royal
family's many small lodges upon the first news that her eldest child had vanished. Her husband could not recall off-hand where she had even gone, although
it would appear in reports from further afield than the capital if she had left, or done anything else of note.
Those reports would wait until later. Only events within the city that sprawled around the palace of the Fire Lord could be reported swiftly enough for him
consider them in any sense urgent. All else he would either need to react to with orders that would again be delayed in transit, or anticipated and therefore
covered already by the existing instructions he had given.
Ozai's orders upon the reports of Zuko's reappearance had merely been assign responsibility. The outcomes - if Zhao was reporting truly or if he was
not - were equally predetermined and the notion of mitigating the death sentence of Zuko, were he a traitor, or of Zhao, were he maligning a member of the
Royal Family simply did not occur to Zuko's father.
Zhao had returned to the capital the previous day and was currently ensouced in his family home, being treated for his frost burn. The prognosis was that while
he was in no real risk of dying at this point, it would be most of a year before the Admiral was restored to fighting form. Ozai made a note to see if there
was some tedious bureaucratic task to foist off on the man. Something to divert at least some of his attention away from politicking.
There was a discreet knock at the door and a servant entered on silent feet, carrying a tray stacked with more scrolls. Ozai didn't look up - the knock was
not a request for permission to enter, it was a confirmation from one of the guards outside that the servant was recognised and not a possible assassin. Such
signals were part and parcel of the Fire Lord's life.
The servant sorted the scrolls neatly into the space left by those that Ozai had already examined and collected those that had been discarded. Ozai picked up
the first scroll she had brought and cracked the seal, noting that it was his daughter's. The servant flinched at the harsh chuckle behind her as she left
the room.
Ozai set his dishes aside for a moment and examined the letter again, reading between the lines. So Lu Ten had shuffled more of the fleet under his own control
and Azula was feeling the pressure. Good. His family did their best work when there was a threat to motivate them and it wouldn't do for his daughter to
succeed in Ba Sing Se too quickly or easily. She still had much to learn and a canny opponent such as this Long Feng, would be an excellent way for her to
learn.
The Fire Lord was hardly unaware of the conflict raging between his daughter and his nephew over the succession. Indeed, he approved wholeheartedly when that
same contest could be turned to his own benefit. In this case, Azula would be desperate to secure Ba Sing Se and the attendant glory in order not to be
overshadowed should Lu Ten succeed in capturing her traitor brother or the young Avatar.
Either one of the pair would be a notable victory for the young admiral. Not that either or even both would be enough to persuade Ozai to name Lu Ten as the
heir apparent: it was bad enough that the presumption that Zuko, as his eldest child, was the heir had ruined the boy. No, as far as Fire Lord Ozai saw, there
was no reason at all to make any such declaration. The two contenders could fight that out until one eliminated the other and whether they did so before or
after his own eventual demise was a matter of indifference to him. For that matter, he was not an old man and if it was ever convenient to do so, some
additional heirs might very well make their appearances. Twenty or thirty years from now, who could say what offspring he might have.
Not via Ursa though, Ozai thought, setting the letter aside at last. Azula was promising, but Zuko was clear evidence that Roku's bloodline could not be
relied upon for strength or for loyalty. Still, there was no lack for other noble families who would be happy to receive his favour through a marriage. For
that matter, maybe it was time to think about Azula's suitors... or rather, the abysmal lack thereof.
Honestly, the way that she had been pouting about Lu Ten's choice of bride, Ozai was beginning to think that his daughter batted for the other side.
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
Jing's admittedly spectacular scenery. It was very generous of the swordmaster to offer two young women dinner while they were staying in the area -
suspicious in certain ways, but Piandao's reputation on such matters was as stainless as could reasonably be hoped for - and refusing would give offense.
There was a minor concern that someone might stumble across M Bison, of course, but this late in the day it wasn't really any more likely than it had been
while the two of them were in Shu Jing and if someone did... Mai shrugged slightly. Too bad for them. The dark furred sky bison was so aggressive that she
sometimes half-expected him to start flying via firebending not airbending.
The gates into the castle bore a lotus symbol and the one on the left swung open as the three of them approached, revealing a dignified, rather stout man of
around Piandao's age. "Ah, Fat," Piandao said brightly. "As you can see, I have guests for dinner today. I hope I'm giving you enough
warning."
The man - Fat presumably - frowned but nodded and glanced up at the sun, now low in the sky. "Of course Piandao," he said with exquisite courtesy.
"Mai, Toph, this is my old companion Fat," Piandao offered in introduction. "We've been together many years and I would be quite lost
without him."
The girls bowed their heads towards Fat and saluted after the Fire Nation fashion. "I am Mai, and this is my sister Toph," Mai introduced herself,
glad that in their new clothes they looked reasonably respectable.
Fang returned the bow and then stepped aside to allow them all the enter. Inside it's defensive wall, the castle was clearly more residence than fortress,
functional buildings lining the interior of the wall and a luxurious looking pagoda residence that probably screened the castle's private gardens from the
entrance. Everything was built of the finest materials and Mai guessed that for all the huge prices charged for a Piandao sword, the man must have spent
staggering sums to build a house worthy of the highest nobility.
"Wow, your house looks magnificent," Toph said in an awed tone.
"Why thank you," Piandao replied and then paused to pinch the bridge of his nose. "That's your favorite joke, isn't it?"
"It never gets old," confirmed Toph with a nod of her head. "But someone told me recently that I should keep in practise."
"Sounds like a wise man," observed Piandao with a twinkle in his eye. "So, Lady Mai. Are you also skilled with war fans, like your sister."
"It's considered ladylike," Mai answered absently. "And our mother was always very concerned that we should know how to act like
ladies."
"Another weapon in your arsenal, no doubt," chuckled the man. He gestured for them to follow a path around the side of the mansion rather than up the
stairs to the front door. "Perhaps the two of you would be so good as to give me a demonstration of your skills before dinner. I find that a sparring
session sharpens the appetite."
Mai looked at Toph, who shrugged and tapped her new fan, where it was thrust through her belt. The message was clear: fans only. Mai nodded agreement and
produced her own pair from a fold of her own dress. One disadvantage of the new clothes was that they didn't allow her to conceal dart launchers in her
sleeves, but she had made up for it by hiding some thin blades in the soles of her shoes - which were much thicker than those of Toph's moccasins - so that
with a little adjustment the tips would extend just past her toes. That would be a nasty surprise to anyone she kicked.
Of course, in order for it to be a surprise, she would have to keep it in reserve. Like a lot of things, it was better a secret.
The back of the mansion, as Mai had suspected and Toph had known before she even entered the gates, did indeed face a private garden, on a sunken level well
below the back of the house. Between them was a paved terrace, suitable for any number of activities, including - obviously - weapons drills.
Piandao took a few steps out onto the yard and drew the sword that was so much a part of him that Mai had barely noticed he was armed when they were in the
shop. "If you would be so good?" he invited, holding the scabbard of his sword in his offhand.
Three fans snapped open in unison and the two girls... did nothing else.
They were already placed closely enough to support each other, already ready to move to defend or counter-attack accordingly. Offense was not even considered:
against a renowned master of the sword, they would want to know what they were dealing with first.
Piandao gave them a little lesson in that. For all his years, the man was fast and his wrist flexible. Mai's pair of fans gave her the best defenses of the
two, and he came very close to breaking through them with rapid thrusts of his sword. Toph automatically closed in from the swordsman's left, trying to get
inside the sweep of the sword, only to find her fan blocked by the scabbard in Piandao's left hand.
Toph's own left hand locked onto his wrist - not enough to prevent him from moving the arm, she was simply too small for that, but enough to hinder him and
Mai moved to exploit the opening only to find that there was no opening when Piandao uncoiled like a serpent, the jian's pommel coming within a
hairsbreadth of striking her squarely on the point of the jaw. At the same moment, Piandao forced his arm out in the simplest and most powerful of moves, a
punch that Toph's grip could do no more than divert past the side of her head at the cost of losing her grip.
She spun, arm jabbing out for Piandao's belly, feeling the vibration that showed he was stepping back beyond her reach, right arm sweeping around. Toph
ducked, the sword cutting a few strands of hair from her pony tail, and Mai, temporarily seperated from Piandao by her sister, flung one fan in a spinning arc
over Toph's head. The swordsman brought up his sword to parry the weapon and his scabbard down to deflect Toph's foot as she rolled between his legs,
one foot thrusting upwards like a spear towards his pelvis.
She rolled free of course, bounding to her feet with Piandao bracketed between the two of them. He stepped aside, towards the garden, parrying in two
directions, glad that Mai was missing a fan and had elected for whatever reason, not to produce any of the other weapons that he knew she carried.
"To parry and to cut," Piandao commented as they broke, the three of them moving around, seeking opportune positioning to resume the spar. "I
had expected that - also thrusting, which is not your habit, I see. I confess I had not considered the use of a fan as a thrown weapon."
"Nor do a lot of people," agreed Mai and dodged around a cut towards her leg, too low for her fan to reach down and parry. That was one problem with
the weapons: lack of reach. Behind Piandao, Toph scooped up the fan Mai had thrown and ran towards the swordman's back. He wheeled right, using his sword
to intercept the attack and keeping his scabbard pointed towards Mai.
The wood of the ornate scabbard cracked as Mai took the opportunity to crack a sharp blow against it., driving it aside and then lunging closer while Toph
pushed Piandao's sword up above her head with one fan, slashing with the other.
The three of them all came to a halt. Mai's fan was almost touching Piandao's left eye, but she knew he had released hold of the scabbard to drive a
punch that had halted just barely in contact with her throat. On the far side of him, Toph had the edge of the fan pressed into his thigh, perfectly placed to
sever the major vein there, but he had recovered from her parry with such swiftness that the edge of his sword lay against her ribs.
An approving smile crossed the swordmaster's face. "Most formidable. I applaud you both." He withdrew both sword and hand, relaxing.
After a moment, Mai closed her fan, Toph following suit and stepping around Piandao to return Mai's fan to her. Both bowed to Piandao. "Thank you for
the lesson," Mai told him.
"Not at all," he assured her. "Thank you both for the demonstration."
From the door leading into the mansion, Fat cleared his throat. "Dinner," he announced, "is served."
.oOo.
If the meal served for them by Fat was typical of how Piandao ate, then his diet had a great deal in common with his tates in architecture: the food was of
excellent quality but rather simple fare overall. Rice, with boiled vegetables and fried beef made up the main course after a thin and heavily spiced soup
starter that Toph found rather hotter than she had realised, cooling her mouth with iced tea provided by Fat, who diplomatically refrained from smirking at the
girl's expression.
"Not to your taste?" Piandao asked from where he was kneeling at one end of the low table.
Toph shrugged. "I didn't each much soup when I was younger, it took a while to learn how to eat it. I didn't realise this one was quite so
spicy." She took another spoonful and washed it down with more tea. "It is good though," the young earthbender admitted, nodding in
acknowledgement to Fat.
Piandao chuckled. "Indeed. Cooking is one of the arts where I humbly recognise Fat as being the true master in this household. Are either of you inclined
towards that particular art."
Mai's lips twitched. "I'm not particularly domestic," she admitted. "Toph seems to follow my example in that as well."
"Nor am I," the swordmaster admitted. "I'd been living of army slop for years, so eating my own cooking didn't seem like much of a
sacrifice when I first moved here. But then Fat offered me his home-cooking if I'd take him on as a student. I was convinced after the first bite."
"I take it that you negotiate more forcibly over your swords," Mai observed. "Considering the prices you charge."
"Oh well," he said, giving the impression he would be waving dismissively, if he wasn't holding a bowl of rice in one hand and chopsticks in the
other. "I only charge so much to try to discourage so many people from asking me for swords. It's all very well to make them, but there is only so
much time in the day and after I started selling swords to pay for all this, well, I barely had time to do any of this until I set the prices to where they
are." His lips quirked. "Of course, now most of my customers buy the swords as decoration or as talking points, rather than using them as
weapons."
"Is that some reference to some sort of philosophy?" Toph asked.
Piandao swallowed a mouthful of rice. "I suppose it is," he said thoughtfully. "A sword is a weapon, the most versatile of weapons. Any fool
could make a sword-shaped piece of metal to hang on a wall. I like to think that my swords are more than that."
Toph used her own chopsticks to feed herself some beef. "Bloodthirsty," she observed before she'd finished chewing on it. It was hard to tell,
with her mouth full, but Mai suspected that there some ambivalence on her part as to whether she approved or not.
"I would rather that they were treated as weapons of war," Piandao said drily. "That is not quite the same as desiring that weapons of war be
made use of. Then again, my customers are paying dearly for the privilege of not following my wishes on the matter, so I suppose that it not in my hands."
He signalled for Fat, who was sitting at the bottom of the table, to refill their tea cups, the level of which was below the median point. "So, what
brought the two of you to Shu Jing?"
"Trying to avoid Toph being drafted into the army," Mai lied smoothly. Since Piandao had departed the Fire Nation's army on his own terms, it
didn't seem likely that he would be particularly offended by the notion of a family not wanting their younger and blind daughter to be compelled to serve
the Nation, as all fire benders were unless they could obtain an exemption. Such exemptions were typically granted only to noble families concerned about
keeping a line of blood descent safe from combat and almost invariably required bribes almost as great as the cost of purchasing one of Piandao's swords.
"I'm still not convinced that they'd bother," Toph objected half-heartedly. "What would the army want with a blind fire bender?"
"In my experience it would be less a matter of wanting you to be in the army than it would be a matter of not wanting to set a precedent of rejecting a
fire bender due to a disability," Piandao explained. "Bureaucrats are generally reluctant to innovate without a significant financial incentive, in
my experienced. You realise that refusing a summons to serve is a criminal offense?"
"Failure to receive a summons is not," Mai explained. "If we cannot be located, we cannot receive notice that Toph has been called to serve and
therefore cannot be held to be in refusal of a summons."
Piandao nodded thoughtfully. "But no one can run forever, young ladies."
"And if no one knows where we are headed, no one can share that information with bureaucrats," answered Mai.
To his credit Piandao did not seem offended by the implied lack of trust. "It is a sad day when such caution is required between countrymen," he said
simply. "But it must also be admitted that there have been many sad days of late." Before the mood could become gloomier, he proved his bona fides as
a host and changed the subject. "So, do either of you play Pai Sho?"
"A little," Mai conceded.
Toph visibly weighed her options before admitting: "As long as you don't mind me touching the board to keep track of the tiles." Unsaid was the
fact that most players would reasonably fear that Toph would - intentionally or otherwise - move tiles while doing so. There was a degree to which her earth
sense could guide her - most tiles and boards were stone - but she would hardly admit that under these circumstances.
"Then perhaps, after we are done eating, we can play a game or two," Piandao offered hospitably. "I am sure that a warrior so skilled with a war
fan will make no careless mistakes upon a mere Pai Sho table."
.oOo.
"An interesting man," Mai threw back over her shoulder as M Bison flew through the barely pre-dawn sky. They would be out of sight of land before the
sun was high enough to give a good chance of spotting them, and this leg of the journey would keep them out of that sight for longer than she was entirely
comfortable with. The charts that she had were either from the water tribe, relating largely to currents that she couldn't track from the air, or copies of
Air Nomad charts that were a hundred years old and based on air currents that she was barely aware of when she was in them.
"Does Spiky have a crush?" asked Toph sleepily from under a blanket where she was curled up inside the arc of the saddle. She had seemed distracted
during and after the walk from Piandao's castle to their campsite - while accepting the swordmaster's hospitality would have allowed them to sleep in
actual beds for once, no properly brought up fire maidens would have done so - and as she had been awake when Mai roused herself, it was possible that she had
yet to actually sleep. Oh well, it wasn't as if daylight was liable to keep her awake.
"I'm not the one who monopolised him all evening," Mai replied. While she had accepted defeat after two drubbings on the Pai Sho table -
humblingly while Piandao was playing Toph on a second board - and accepted the offer of some light reading from Fat (who appeared to be addicted to an
seemingly endless series of cliched romance scrolls that had entertained the marginally literate of the Fire Nation since Mai's mother was a girl); the
younger girl had played against the swordsmaster well into the evening, apparently undeterred by his unbroken string of victories against her.
Toph grumbled something unintelligable and rolled herself over to find the edge of the blanket. Upon success, she extended one hand directly upwards, holding
something small for Mai to see it. "He gave me this when we left."
With the rising sun coming from behind them, Mai had to squint a little to make it out. "A white lotus tile?" A chill went down her spine and for a
moment her mind took her back to a tower cell in Omashu. "Little sister, for the first time I really wish Zuko was here."
"I don't think he knows anything more than we do really," Toph told her. "When he talked to Bumi he was fishing for information and I
don't think he got anything significant."
"That doesn't mean that he didn't know anything specific." Mai rubbed at her face. "His uncle had a white lotus tile, Piandao gave you a
white lotus tile and both Zuko and Mad King Bumi seem to consider white lotus tiles to have some significance. What, you think there's a secret society of
Fire Nation Pai Sho players?"
Toph wrapped the blanket closer around her. "Maybe not just the Fire Nation." A moment later, when Mai didn't reply, the twelve year old began to
snore softly.
Mai watched the sky, the sea and the compass she'd bought in a Fire Nation port as soon as they'd reached civilisation. The water tribe and the air
nomads could follow currents as much as they wanted, she wanted something that reliably pointed the same direction at all times.
Half a year or so ago, she'd turned her back on her birth family and boredom in favour of an adopted sister and what promised to being interesting and
possibly an adventure. She'd certainly not envisaged trying to navigate over the trackless ocean via flying bison after spending an evening sparring with
and then getting trounced at Pai Sho by a famous swordmaster, but Mai had to admit: it wasn't boring.
She looked back at Toph, a surprisingly small bundle of blankets and child, long black hair spilling from one end and then thought back to the last time she
seen the Fire Lord Ozai, on one of his rare public appearances. The Fire Lord had cut an imposing figure in long, heavy crimson robes and a gold-trimmed black
breastplate and while his mastery of fire was known more by legend than by public demonstration, it was beyond doubt that he had years of experience wielding
it.
And then there were the almost endless numbers of the Fire Nation's army, raised from it's teeming population, and the weapons of war designed by its
traditional artificers before being copied in hundreds of factories.
Well, if dramatic convention required adventurers to face a seemingly unstoppable enemy, the spirits would appear to have provided such to Toph.
.oOo.
Hundreds of miles away, the Fire Lord had risen with the sun and was now breaking his fast over reports that had arrived over night from his spies within the
capital.
Ozai ate alone. His wife, Ursa, had not shared his bed in over a decade and had departed the palace entirely to enter seclusion in one of the royal
family's many small lodges upon the first news that her eldest child had vanished. Her husband could not recall off-hand where she had even gone, although
it would appear in reports from further afield than the capital if she had left, or done anything else of note.
Those reports would wait until later. Only events within the city that sprawled around the palace of the Fire Lord could be reported swiftly enough for him
consider them in any sense urgent. All else he would either need to react to with orders that would again be delayed in transit, or anticipated and therefore
covered already by the existing instructions he had given.
Ozai's orders upon the reports of Zuko's reappearance had merely been assign responsibility. The outcomes - if Zhao was reporting truly or if he was
not - were equally predetermined and the notion of mitigating the death sentence of Zuko, were he a traitor, or of Zhao, were he maligning a member of the
Royal Family simply did not occur to Zuko's father.
Zhao had returned to the capital the previous day and was currently ensouced in his family home, being treated for his frost burn. The prognosis was that while
he was in no real risk of dying at this point, it would be most of a year before the Admiral was restored to fighting form. Ozai made a note to see if there
was some tedious bureaucratic task to foist off on the man. Something to divert at least some of his attention away from politicking.
There was a discreet knock at the door and a servant entered on silent feet, carrying a tray stacked with more scrolls. Ozai didn't look up - the knock was
not a request for permission to enter, it was a confirmation from one of the guards outside that the servant was recognised and not a possible assassin. Such
signals were part and parcel of the Fire Lord's life.
The servant sorted the scrolls neatly into the space left by those that Ozai had already examined and collected those that had been discarded. Ozai picked up
the first scroll she had brought and cracked the seal, noting that it was his daughter's. The servant flinched at the harsh chuckle behind her as she left
the room.
Ozai set his dishes aside for a moment and examined the letter again, reading between the lines. So Lu Ten had shuffled more of the fleet under his own control
and Azula was feeling the pressure. Good. His family did their best work when there was a threat to motivate them and it wouldn't do for his daughter to
succeed in Ba Sing Se too quickly or easily. She still had much to learn and a canny opponent such as this Long Feng, would be an excellent way for her to
learn.
The Fire Lord was hardly unaware of the conflict raging between his daughter and his nephew over the succession. Indeed, he approved wholeheartedly when that
same contest could be turned to his own benefit. In this case, Azula would be desperate to secure Ba Sing Se and the attendant glory in order not to be
overshadowed should Lu Ten succeed in capturing her traitor brother or the young Avatar.
Either one of the pair would be a notable victory for the young admiral. Not that either or even both would be enough to persuade Ozai to name Lu Ten as the
heir apparent: it was bad enough that the presumption that Zuko, as his eldest child, was the heir had ruined the boy. No, as far as Fire Lord Ozai saw, there
was no reason at all to make any such declaration. The two contenders could fight that out until one eliminated the other and whether they did so before or
after his own eventual demise was a matter of indifference to him. For that matter, he was not an old man and if it was ever convenient to do so, some
additional heirs might very well make their appearances. Twenty or thirty years from now, who could say what offspring he might have.
Not via Ursa though, Ozai thought, setting the letter aside at last. Azula was promising, but Zuko was clear evidence that Roku's bloodline could not be
relied upon for strength or for loyalty. Still, there was no lack for other noble families who would be happy to receive his favour through a marriage. For
that matter, maybe it was time to think about Azula's suitors... or rather, the abysmal lack thereof.
Honestly, the way that she had been pouting about Lu Ten's choice of bride, Ozai was beginning to think that his daughter batted for the other side.
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.