Chapter Text
"That one," the grizzled old General grunts to the Madam Azari, his hairbrush moustache twitching as he points at her, "she'll do."
Yusheng peers at him from under darkened lashes. He's a war veteran, that much is clear, he stands with the commanding air of a man who expects to be obeyed and the rigidity of a practised soldier. Not one of those pampered play Generals, she thinks as she observes him. There are callouses on his hands, rough and coarse, and his voice lacks the serpentine slide of a politician.
It is dark in the harem, a sinful twilight where the orange-fire glow of the lanterns reflects off miles of porcelain skin. The air is thick and perfumed; the cloying-sweet scent of opium hanging in a cloud of heady musk. Around the room the courtesans of the court lounge on beds of sumptuous red silk cushions, their eyes dazed or calculating as they take in the armoured man.
She rises slowly in a ripple of sinuous motion, her crimson robe slipping slightly open to reveal the slightest hint of rounded creamy flesh. The man pays no notice, his golden eyes are sharp and unwavering as he takes her in. He not here for a night with one of the Fire Lord's women, that much she knows just by looking at him. He eyes her not with the salacious leer of lust she has grown used to, but the impassive gaze of a man surveying livestock: considering, but slightly bored.
She glides towards him, her full hips swaying in a seductive saunter, half-lidded eyes meeting his cold ones. The other women watch uninterested, this is a ritual that happens every day: customer and saleswoman, client and product, man and whore.
"Your name," he asks, his voice brusque.
"Zarin," she purrs, the word tasting like ashes in her mouth, a filthy Fire Nation name given to her to replace her own.
He nods sharply, the air around him smelling of smoke and war, "You are to accompany me tonight to the Fire Lord's birthday celebration. You are to be silent and respectful. The Madam assures me that you are the best for this task."
She inclines her head dutifully in assent, fine black strands of hair drifting in front of her eyes. This is different, she thinks as she looks at him with consideration. He's not ugly per se, old yes, with grey hair and severe lines, but not unattractive. His irises are the fierce gold common amongst the upper classes and his jawline firm and handsome, it begs the question as to why he has no wife to take to this event. If he were a widower, it would not be questioned for him to be alone, but for him to choose one of the scandalous beauties of the harem, well, it's unusual to say the least.
She has heard, however, in between whispers, of men who prefer men; of soldiers who seek the warmth of their own sex to distract themselves from the fire and blood of war. She wonders looking at this man, if he is one of them, hiding his shameful secret in her beauty from a people who would condemn him.
He turns abruptly and walks off, his soldier's stride setting a hard pace to follow. She trails after him through the dimly lit passages of the palace, taking in the reddish glint of gold that adorns every wall and the lacquer dragons that dance in their frames. She rarely leaves the clandestine confines of the harem, when she does it is only for the men that come for her. The fat, privileged courtiers with soft hands and bulging perfumed skin, the vicious men-children who take pride in fucking a woman with no choice. They paw and grab at her flesh, poisoning her with every disgusting, lustful touch: little pig eyes hungry, little claw hands sharp.
They twist and turn through the gloomy corridors, the further they go, the heavier and more ornate the decor becomes. She recognises this part of the palace, it's for the honoured guests and personal friends of the Fire Lord. The lavish carvings and writhing, flame-like designs were paid for by blood money, gold gained in the smouldering wrecks of burnt-out villages.
Like volcanic glass pulled from the ashes of an eruption.
They enter a spacious suite of rooms and are greeted by a team of nervous-looking serving women, their worn red uniforms standing out against the scarlet silks of their surroundings.
He turns to them with an impassive gaze, "Make her presentable," he commands sharply before striding through another door.
They turn to her as one, their dull amber eyes trailing up and down her form, assessing. She knows what she looks like, she wears nothing save a crimson silk robe and a scrap of material that barely covers her womanhood. Whore, their minds must whisper at them, filthy harlot, painted tart, vice and sin. She can see the very moment it registers, the disgust creeping in behind the wrinkle of their noses and the sneers pulling at their mouths. She smirks back at them salaciously, making a point of roving her gaze up and down their bodies as if she were undressing them in her mind. These women know nothing, they clean and primp and tidy before going home to their happy families and safe lives, their good fortune built on the corpses of her people.
They move toward her cautiously, silent and taking care not to speak. The younger girls eye her nervously, as if they're afraid she'll eat them up, while the elders are hesitant to touch her skin.
They dress and undress her quickly and efficiently, taking her robe and removing the cheap combs and pins that hold her hair up in a mimicry of court style. They layer her in ornately decorated folds of cloth, pile her hair high with jewels. Her face is painted like a dolls', all snow-white skin and tastefully rouged lips. Tiny silk slippers are slipped onto her feet.
When they're finished, they step away to allow her to view herself in the mirror. She could cry upon catching sight of her reflection, as it is, she cannot help but gasp. She is wearing more luxury than she has in years, hand-stitched layers of lavish silk that ripple down her body like flames. Her hair is expertly twisted and braided into intricate designs; each piece held firmly in place with pins of priceless rubies. She could almost pass for a noblewoman dressed like this.
Almost, but not quite.
Her neckline is too low, gaping open to show the valley of flesh between her breasts and her face too painted. She is a parody of court style, just lavish enough to fit in but not conservative enough to belong. The General, it appears, still wanted a courtesan, a woman with loose morals and a seductive smile, just one that wouldn't embarrass him. She smirks slyly at the mirror, she can work with that, she can be exotic and forbidden, straddling the line between scandalous and acceptable, she's been wearing that mask for years after all.
It is then that the General returns, his presence filling the room with the screams of the dying as his golden eyes meet hers. Her green irises are cold in the firelight: hard and unrelenting as marble, sharp and textured as agate. They mark her out more than anything as Earth Kingdom, as Earth Kingdom nobility.
Jade, her mother had told her, the stone of kings (Dead, the men who come to her whisper, dead like half your nation).
He gives her a quick once over before dismissively pronouncing, "Satisfactory," and offering her his arm. She slinks toward him in a ripple of shimmering fabric, draping herself over his armoured bicep and peering coyly up at him through her lashes. He gives her performance no notice and she scowls internally at his lack of reaction, her acting will go to waste if he doesn't play his part.
As they turn to leave, the serving women bow their heads in deference, their postures submissive and docile. She sneers cruelly at them as they pass, Must be painful, she thinks, to bow for a whore.
They make their way through the halls of the palace quietly, weaving through dark labyrinthine passages and red-hued rooms. The General slows his pace so she can cling to him comfortably but fixes his gaze firmly ahead and says not a word. She's never been one for superfluous noise, but between the echo of their footsteps and the rhythmic hush of their breathing, she feels as though she's drowning in the silence.
The corridors grow grander as they reach the public areas of the palace, the carvings more opulent and the gold more impressive. It's oppressive in its extravagance. The crimson walls bow under the weight of their own grandeur and the frozen eyes of bejewelled dragons and dead men peer from every surface.
The people drift around like fire lily petals, robed in silks of scarlet and midnight, with their headpieces glinting in the lantern light.
She stands out in her attire, and she can feel the scornful eyes of the Fire Nation elite crawl over her body, taking in her exposed flesh and rouged lips with hawk-eyed gazes. Their stares feel like naked flames running over skin. The women look at her with upturned noses and whisper words of scandal and hate behind their satin fans. The men trailing predatory, appreciative leers along her curves.
She takes a sick sort of pride in their stares.
Her face stretches into a sly smile and she makes sure to meet the eyes of everyone she passes. The colour of her irises tells all who look that she is Earth Kingdom, and there is a kind of power in that. As a prisoner of war, for her to be here she must be either uniquely beautiful or uncommonly powerful; she knows, with a pang of twisted vanity, that she is both.
Beauty is a woman's armour, she remembers her aunts whispering, and she thinks, with a beguiling smile, that she has learnt to wear hers well.
As she and the General step through an imperious crimson doorway, she takes a deep breath from where languishes over his arm. She knows how to work a court, how to weave intricate nets of pretty words and empty promises, but she is sorely out of practice. It seems almost a lifetime since she sat with her mother and aunts in the parlour to learn the secrets of powerful women. She knows, deep down, that she can run rings around these people. Their fiery personalities and heated impatience make the movements of politics quick and brash, and long-term planning is a foreign concept.
It’s so different to the Earth Kingdom, where deception and treachery sink into every stone of Ba Sing Se, and some of the best power plays are decades in the making.
They enter a huge hall in the centre of the palace, the walls are the colour of fresh blood and pillars of obsidian support bright gold dragons that spiral down from the ceiling. The sides are draped with tapestries of sun gods and bloodshed, shimmering scenes of flickering bonfires and rapturous peasants bowing to Agni, the two-headed fire god. It is decadent and overbearing and she longs for the clean elegance and calming tones of the Earth Kingdom.
There are more people here and the stares grow more intense. She pouts and sways her hips with every step, but her eyes are vivid and calculating. The General (who she now knows is called Khan) must be influential, as despite (or perhaps because of) her presence he is approached time and again. There are stiff-looking army men with their harsh faces and ragged scars, waifish matrons with pinched features and shrill voices, and gluttonous politicians with flowery words and pudgy, jewelled fingers. She studies each person intently, measuring their importance in the way they stand and the gleam in their eyes, reading between the lines and analysing the nuances that only she can see.
She was told to be silent and so she is, watching and listening as she learns. She can feel the delicate filigree of it come together in her mind as she pulls together the Fire Nation social scene. Gossamer threads of alliances and nets crafted of secret enmity spreading out before her in complex silken webs.
Much of the night is spent in this manner, standing as a silent beacon for the jealous ire of women and the covetous gazes of men. She entrances with her eyes, bewitches with the secret seductiveness in her smile and her walk is cultivated to entice. The General, however, barely gives her a second glance. His standoffishness is preferable by far to the cocksure arrogance of those who see her as no more than a pair of breasts and a pretty face, but she feels the stirrings of feminine anger at being so easily dismissed.
The night is drawing to a close by the time the Fire Lord and his sons finally head toward them. The monotony and endless drivel of meaningless conversation has taken its toll on her, and she thinks longingly of her small bunk back in the harem.
The sight of Fire Lord Azulon, however, is more potent than the strongest tea, and she shunts her weariness to the side to engage all her mental faculties on the coming conversation.
Fire Lord Azulon walks with a proud arrogance: straight-backed, stiff and commanding. His face is angular and handsome, the lines sharp and cruel. There is a stark harshness to his features, a paradoxical mix of pampered nobleman and weathered warlord.
She studies him as close as she dares. Watching as his gold eyes burn with a singular viciousness that is both terrifying and alien. Dragon eyes, she thinks, remembering the old legends about the Fire Lords, the eyes of the beast.
She knows, looking at him, that this is a man who would happily let the world burn, and not out of madness, but indifference.
Lightning, she surmises observing him discretely, the cold fire.
The Crown Prince, however, is a different creature. Short where his father is tall, smiling where his father’s face is cold; the fine lines at his eyes those of laughter. His form too, strangely enough, is not unlike an earthbender’s: compact, powerful muscles meant for standing firm rather than the lithe, precise grace of a firebender. His features are rounded, softer, and while his eyes are the same terrible gold, there is a jovial spark within them, a good humour amidst the fire.
But, for all the deceptive friendliness, there is still an inherent sense of danger that runs molten underneath. Prince Iroh is a man not to provoke. There is a fierce and deadly intelligence under his smiles, the mind of a man who is already a successful battle commander; carving his own trail of blood and fire across her homeland.
Bonfire, she decides with a considering glance, warm and comforting but deadly when mishandled or provoked, the slow burn.
However, it is the second prince that catches her attention.
He stands slightly back from his father and brother, looking somewhat swamped by the ornate heaviness of his crimson robes. He is only sixteen, still a baby, still a child. But there is something about him that catches her focus.
He looks like his father, the same height, the same piercing features and the same elegant grace. However, it's clear just by watching that he's used to being ignored, being overlooked in favour of his charismatic older brother. His tall form is hunched over ever so slightly, and his eyes are just the tiniest bit downcast, he is lesser in the eyes of those around him and he knows it.
She searches around her mind for his name, the second prince is rarely talked about amongst the yiji, innocent as he is, and has not been mentioned at all this evening. Ozai, her mind supplies after some mental digging and she watches him closely to try and figure what it is about him that captivates her so.
She studies him through her lashes, under half-lidded eyes as General Khan and the Fire Lord discuss the war. She is in a prime position to hear it all -no one pays attention to a courtesan- and so she can form a fairly comprehensive picture of troop movements across the western Earth Kingdom. Not that it will help anyone, she thinks sardonically. The conversation flows by as she continues to watch Prince Ozai, she still cannot tell why she instinctively finds him so intriguing. If anything, he looks no different to the other young noblemen that crowd the hall.
But then he looks up and his eyes meet hers.
Wildfire, she thinks immediately as she looks into the vivid gold of his eyes, passion and power, fierce and untamed.
This is why he captures her attention, the ambitious ferocity lurking the molten swirl of his irises, the edge of animal intelligence and predatory fire churning in their depths. There is danger and cruelty and smooth calculation behind the gold, and she is helplessly drawn in, mesmerised by the burn. She sees herself reflected back at her: a younger, less jaded version with all the power in the world so close yet so far, slipping through his fingers like ash.
Him, she thinks looking at him, him.
He is young, oh so very young, but there is potential there, potential for greatness. She can see where his rough edges need to be refined, where his manner needs to be changed, but underneath, underneath, there is a drive and a will and she can work with that.
She can iron out his creases and mould him between her fingers, sculpt the timbre of his voice so that no one will ignore it and give him a presence that cannot be overlooked. His father is old and dead inside, lacking passion and care and his brother is too complacent, too content with his place in the world. But Ozai, Ozai she can tell from studying him has needed to fight to be seen.
She gives him her most bewitching smile, one part seductive, two parts secret and uses her beauty like a knife. His eyes grow wide watching her, obviously not used to the attention, and his pupils dilate with lust. Success, she crows inside, for all that he is a prince he is still a teenage boy and she can use her body in this dance.
Even as he and his father and brother walk away, she can feel his eyes on her for the rest of the night, the molten heat scouring her skin and burning through the layers of her dress. She catches his eyes several times and loads her own with sinful intent, taking advantage of his lack of familiarity with attention to ensnare him with her smile.
Inside, she feels a giddy delight begin to build and fights down the bubbles of laughter that threatens to break through. She finally has a purpose, a goal, a power. A chance to exercise her formidable mind to its fullest potential, to grasp some of the future that she lost when they took her name and her family. Vengeance will be sweet, her revenge on the world for its mistakes and treachery. They thought they could forget her, shove her in a harem and change her name and forget the power that she holds, the power of her forebears.
But no.
With this boy-prince she will shape the future, use the simmering hate and madness in his gaze to craft the world. She will tame the wildfire, release it to blaze unchecked and watch as it burns.
Yes, she thinks with relish, let's play.