Canon broke my WiPs
Jun. 11th, 2014 12:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizbeeSo here are the two drafts drafts, plus notes on where they were going to wind up, and let's just assume I'll also be talking about the spoilers that broke them and why.
Bitter Tea
by LizBee
The first time I saw Pema, she was in her early twenties, as slim and graceful as a gazelle-cat. She looked delicate and sheltered and, standing beside Tenzin, almost fragile.
I hated her. And worse, envied her.
She walked into my office on a rainy afternoon more than fifteen years later. Slender fragility had been replaced by plump composure. She looked like a sleek, contented housecat.
Except, I saw, for the shadows beneath her eyes and the stray lock of hair that fell from her bun.
"Lin," she said, "I have a problem."
*
She was the second woman to enter the offices of Beifong-Sato Investigations that day. The first had arrived just after lunch, a tall, slender woman wearing a fox-seal coat. She paused in the doorway, her expression unreadable behind her dark sunglasses. Asami and I exchanged a glance. It had been a while since anyone with money had crossed our threshold.
Apparently finding us acceptable, she removed her cloche hat and sunglasses. Red hair -- red red, not the dark auburn common to Kyoshi Island and the Chin Peninsula -- tumbled to her shoulders. She blinked, fluttering her long eyelashes, and said, "I hear you two know how to help a girl out of a jam."
"That's us," said Asami evenly, like this woman's picture wasn't plastered on every wall in the city. "Take a seat and tell us all about it."
Our girl shed her fur coat and sank into a chair.
"My name's Ginger," she said. "And I'm being blackmailed."
She was an actress. A few years ago she had been one of hundreds of girls working in Republic City's theatres. Then she got into moving pictures, right around the time they figured out how to make talkies. Her good looks and husky voice helped, but beautiful women were plentiful in the mover business. Ginger was going nowhere fast until someone had the bright idea of dyeing her hair bright red. New hair, a new name, and she was on her way to fame and fortune.
Along the way, she had picked up some parasites.
"It's not the first time," she admitted. "I paid them -- a few thousand yuans, it was nothing -- and forgot about it. But now they're back."
"What do they want this time?" Asami asked.
"Eight thousand yuans. Or they'll sell the pictures to the scandal papers." Ginger's lips quivered. "There's a very strict morality clause in my contract. If the studio finds out about -- this -- I'll be out on the streets."
She pulled a folded sheet of paper from her purse and held it out to us. Eight thousand yuan in seven days or the public will get an eyeful of the real Ginger. The characters were all neat and even in size, yet subtly wrong to my eye.
"Can you see it?" I asked Asami.
"The stroke order's wrong?"
"Right. Our blackmailer is either self-educated, or he's trying to hide his handwriting." To Ginger, I said, "Where are you supposed to take the money?"
"To Sanctity. It's a nightclub."
"I know it."
"They phoned me. At work." A tear slipped down Ginger's face. "I know I've made mistakes, but I don't deserve this!" Her make-up smudged as she wiped the tear away. "I'm a country girl, really. I was new to the city. I was naive."
Her accent suggested she had grown up not far from here, but the official story was that she was a sweet farm girl who became an overnight success after she babysat for a studio executive. Who was I to argue with a good story?
"Why don't you take a moment and freshen up." Asami led Ginger to the office bathroom. "Take all the time you need."
"You're very kind."
"Not at all."
Once the door was closed, Asami turned back to me and said quietly, "It's a shame that morality clause didn't prevent her from participating in that -- that--"
"It's probably just a job to her."
"Yeah, just a job that makes her rich." Asami evicted Shu, the office cat, from the nest he had made in Ginger's fur coat. "The triads are involved in the mover business, aren't they?"
"There's money in it, isn't there?" I looked at the note again. "This seems pretty small-time, though."
"Eight thousand yuans is small-time?"
"Compared with what the mover industry deals with? We're in the wrong line of work, Sato."
"Oh, no." Ginger had emerged from the bathroom as I spoke. "Councilwoman Megumi spoke very highly of you both."
I felt my mouth stretch into something that wasn't quite a smile.
"I didn't realise you met the Councilwoman," I said.
"Research." Ginger fluttered her eyelashes. "I'm sure it seems very silly to you both, but I take my art seriously. I couldn't just play a role, I had to embody Megumi."
"And I'm sure you embodied her very well."
"You haven't seen it? Oh, you must come to my house for a private screening." Ginger reached out and clutched Asami's hand. "Although you're much prettier than the girl who played you."
Asami froze, her mouth half-open. Before she could say something we'd regret, I said, "When are you supposed to hand over the money?"
"Why, tomorrow night. Do you think I should go?"
"Yes. Hand over the money like there's nothing wrong. Asami and I will take care of the rest."
"And -- the pictures?"
"We'll deal with them."
"Thank you." Ginger looked like she was going to start crying again. "Megumi was right. You are wonderful."
I'd had enough. I reached for my walking stick and got to my feet.
"Asami will explain our rates," I said, and I retreated into my office before I said anything unwise. Alone, I leaned against the door, listening to Asami's low voice, trying to ignore my anger.
It was inevitable that Megumi's story -- a noblewoman on a crusade for justice takes on organised crime and political corruption -- would become part of our culture. There was a radio drama, and a novel, and two rival plays. But the film was the only one that didn't change the names, that claimed to be the true story.
I could refuse to see it, and I could pretend it didn't exist at all, but it was out there, my failings exaggerated and my humiliations made public. And Megumi seemed a heroine, as untouchable and dangerous as the day she watched a man murder my lover and leave me crippled.
Who was I to argue with a good story?
As I brooded on this, Asami knocked on my door and told me that Pema had turned up in the office and wanted a word.
*
We weren't friends, Pema and I, but we had achieved a quiet mutual respect. I had risked my life and sacrificed my bending for her family; in exchange, she had helped me escape the Equalist prison. Gratitude alone wasn't enough to make us close, but we could enjoy each other's company, even without Tenzin to act as a buffer. He insisted that she liked me. I was willing to take his word for it.
She had never sought my help before.
I said, "What's wrong?"
"It might be nothing."
"You didn't come all this way to ask me about a missing lemur."
"I was so sure this morning. Now--"
I had seen this before. Women -- it was nearly always women -- telling themselves that this problem didn't exist, that they were overreacting. Making trouble. Becoming a problem. They usually needed sensitive handling, a gentle voice and a sympathetic ear.
"Spit it out, Pema."
She stopped dithering and pulled herself together. Sat up straight, looked me in the eye and said, "Something very strange is happening."
*
"It started in summer, a few weeks after the council began the anti-corruption campaign. Phone calls, but no one spoke. I'd just hear breathing. If one of the kids answered, the caller would hang up. At first I thought they were just wrong numbers, but then I realised they only came when Tenzin was out.
"Then the letters started."
"Threats?"
"No. They were just blank. Like the phone calls. That went on for a few weeks, a letter every couple of days. And little things, the kind you'd forget if you weren't paying attention. I found a canister of kuding tea in the pantry, labelled as oolong. Jinora's allergic to kuding. If it touches her lips, they swell up. A few mouthfuls, her throat closes."
Pema's voice shook a little.
"And this. Another letter came this morning."
She pulled an envelope from her robes. Inside was a piece of cheap paper, folded in half. In the centre of the page, the character 憶. Remember.
"I don't understand it," said Pema. "Is it an instruction? Remember what?"
Any ideas I might have had evaporated as a sharp pain shot down my left leg. I kept my face still as I climbed to my feet and reached for the walking stick Tenzin had given me almost a year ago.
I made my way to the window and looked out at the wet street as I flexed my bad leg. When the pain had faded to a steady, grinding ache, I turned back to Pema and said, "Could it be a joke? One of the children?"
"It's not really their style." Guessing my next question, she added, "And Bumi's not that subtle."
I returned to my desk and eased myself back into my chair. I picked up the letter again. Too late to wonder about fingerprints. The calligraphy was exquisite. The work of a professional, or at least a talented and dedicated amateur. I pictured myself interrogating the city's calligraphists.
"Have you said anything to Tenzin?" I asked.
"Not yet. I was going to ignore it -- keep on ignoring it -- but I was just so mad when I saw that envelope in the mail this morning. Even before I read the message. And, Lin, with everything happening at the moment -- if Tenzin thinks we're in danger, he might drop the anti-corruption committee. And he's the only member worth a damn."
Tenzin's fellow committee-members were the councilman for the Dragon Flats borough, who was pleasant but ineffectual, and Megumi. Under the circumstances I found her reformist zeal convenient rather than convincing. Tenzin, with his airbending and his island, was a man apart. Unbending. But not unbreakable.
"You deal with this," said Pema, "and Tenzin can take care of the city."
My surprise must have been obvious, because she added sharply, "Just because I have kids doesn't mean I stopped paying attention to the world beyond Air Temple Island. I grew up around here. I know what happens when the Triads run the city."
I found a notebook and a pen.
"I need the names of everyone on Air Temple Island. Residents and any visitors you remember. Anyone with access to your house and pantry."
Tenzin's family lived apart from the Acolytes, just as Aang and Katara had. But there would be people in and out all day, working, using the library, stopping by the kitchen for a fresh pot of tea… I lived in a self-contained apartment that had once been a single wing of an old-fashioned courtyard house. The courtyard was communal. That was about as much sharing as I could take.
The floorplan had been sent in an unremarkable envelope, as cheap and anonymous as the paper. The postmark was that of the Central City Post Office, the city's busiest. The half-yuan stamp bore a picture of the Southern Water Tribe Cultural Centre.
I paused, a memory tickling to life.
"I heard a rumour that the chief of the Northern Water Tribe was coming to stay."
"Bumi has a big mouth," said Pema. "Chief Unalaq's been corresponding with Tenzin since we lost Korra. He's an expert on the spirits. And he's Korra's uncle, too."
Pema, I noticed, still spoke of our lost Avatar in the present tense.
"Since he was coming to Republic City anyway, Tenzin invited him to stay with us." She paused, her pen hovering over the list she had compiled. "You don't think this is some kind of Southern Water Tribe … campaign, do you?"
"To what purpose?" Water Tribe politics was a tangled mess, but a campaign of harassment against Unalaq's hostess, starting three months before he arrived, seemed unlikely. "And who benefits?"
"It's too subtle for the Triads, though." Pema sounded like she was thinking aloud. "You'd expect a brick through a window, not … silent phone calls and blank pages. 'Remember'." She pushed the notebook towards me. "This is everyone. But I can't believe -- I mean, the Acolytes are like family to me. I'm one of them."
"Maybe someone's jealous." But some of these names were as familiar to me as my own. I hadn't quite grown up on Air Temple Island, but it was close. "Mother Yeng must be a hundred years old."
"Ninety-eight, she says. Officially, she still looks after the bison, but these days she mostly sleeps in the sun."
"Well, she's earned it. Who are these ones you've circled?"
"Children. Acolyte children, I mean. Obviously they can't be involved, but I thought you should have their names."
"And in -- what, a week? A week and a half? You'll have all these people, plus the Water Tribe visitors. This Unalaq, is he bringing an entourage?"
"Just his two kids. He says it's an informal visit." A hint of a smile touched Pema's face. "That means he's only attending four diplomatic banquets a week."
"Right." The best thing about losing my bending and walking away from my career was that I was no longer expected to turn up at formal parties.
As if reading my mind, Pema said, "We're hosting a reception for Unalaq next week. You should come."
Throwing myself off a cliff would have been preferable, but it would be an interesting opportunity to observe the people around Pema.
"I should be going." Pema stood up. "If I can catch Tenzin at lunch, I can tell him about … this."
"Stuff like this is hard to trace. And it usually comes to nothing."
"I know. I don't expect you'll find anything, really. I feel better just knowing I've told you."
I was touched. "Thank you."
I escorted her out of my office into the little reception area outside. Asami had vanished. The cat opened his eyes, looked us over, and went back to sleep.
"I didn't know you lived in the Dragon Flats borough," I said. "Close by?"
"Yes," said Pema, opening the door, her face suddenly unreadable. "I grew up in the Number Four Orphanage."
The door swung shut behind her.
*
My old contact at the telephone company had retired six months earlier, and it took me the better part of an hour to persuade his replacement to keep an eye on calls going out to Air Temple Island. By the time I was done, Asami had returned, a stack of film magazines in her arms.
"By tomorrow," she said, "I plan to be an expert on every aspect of Ginger's career. Including," she held up Cinema, "her beauty secrets."
"Probably whitens her face with lead, like my great-grandmothers did."
"Your family really was into metals, huh? Want to see a mover tonight? I think Slum Princess is still playing."
"I'd rather kiss a platypus-bear." I glanced at the clock. "You okay to close up here? I have an appointment."
*
"Does it hurt, darling?"
"No. It's numb."
"Numb? Or tingling?"
"Numb," I snapped.
"Oh, darling." Zhen shook her head. "Your chi is badly blocked." She reached for another needle, summoning a small flame to sterilise it. There was a sting as it pierced my flesh. Then the pain vanished and the numbness deepened. I exhaled, trying to relax. I couldn't feel my knee. I could barely feel anything at all.
"It's not just the injury, of course," Zhen said as she worked. "Whatever Amon did to destroy your connection to your element, it damaged something deep inside you. You're out of balance." She patted my arm. "It's a wonder you're not sick."
"Are you going to tell me that I'm not working hard enough to overcome this?"
"I'd never insult you, dear. If sheer force of will could fix you, you'd be whole. I'm afraid it's more subtle than that." Zhen walked away, and I heard the clink of jars behind me. "I'm making you something for the pain. You can't build a wall, Lin, you have to let it flow over you like water. Are you swimming every day?"
"When I have time."
"Make time, darling. Swim every day. It's good for you. You still need that morphine?"
"Hardly ever."
"Good."
"Makes me itch like hell. Can't figure out why people would take it for fun."
"We all have our addictions, Lin. Are you still having hot flushes? I'll make you another tea."
As she worked, I said, "Zhen, do you ever prepare tea for Tenzin and his family?"
"Of course. I see Tenzin and the older girl regularly. Pema … I don't see very much of her. I think she finds me old fashioned." There was a sour note in Zhen's voice. "Maybe she heard some of the less flattering rumours about me." The sourness vanished; Zhen's laughter sounded natural.
There were lots of stories about her, though. Tenzin had listed a few when he recommended her services, a couple of weeks after I got out of hospital. People said she was the secret illegitimate daughter of Princess Azula, or a disgraced Fire Sage. Anh and Skoochy, my streetkid informants, insisted that she was a witch, banished from the Fire Nation after putting a curse on the Fire Lord back when she was just the Crown Princess. All I knew for sure was that, at ten years my junior, she probably wasn't Azula's secret bastard offspring, and anyone who managed to curse then-Princess Ursa would have been lucky to escape the Fire Nation alive.
But she might have been a Fire Sage. It was said that the Sages practised the probably-mythical art of fire healing, and without a doubt, Zhen was the best apothecary and acupuncturist I had ever known. Had she been a waterbender, she might have been a better healer than Katara.
Or maybe the absence of pain in my leg was making me delirious.
"Jinora's allegic to kuding tea," I said.
"Yes. Tenzin told me, oh, five or six times. I wouldn't give it to a child, anyway. It's far too bitter, even for an airbender."
Kuding was supposed to clear the lungs and enhance an airbender's connection with his element. I had tried Aang's once, and found it vile, but Tenzin forced himself to drink cup after cup until he developed a taste for it. Bumi had laughed, but he couldn't even swallow a mouthful.
Zhen began to remove the needles from my leg. I held my breath, waiting for the pain to return, but when it did, it was a shadow of its former self.
"Swim," she ordered as I paid her. "Every day. If you're tired, just float. Let the water carry you away."
*
I took the streetcar home instead of a cab that night, and barely limped as I walked the two blocks from the stop to my house. I was thinking about cooking a real meal, not instant noodles or leftover rice and fish. But I was barely inside before the phone started ringing.
"Beifong."
"Lin."
Tenzin. "I figured you'd call. Pema spoke to you?"
"Yes."
I sat down, stretching my bad leg and enjoying its new, temporary flexibility.
"It's probably nothing," I said. "Sometimes these things escalate, but most of the time, it's just some loon with too much time on his hands. He gets a new job, or a new hobby, or finds some other woman, and he goes away."
"And when he doesn't?"
"I'll be there." With my walking stick and all. I changed the subject. "I didn't know Pema grew up in the Number Four Orphanage."
"She told you that? I mean, she did, but she doesn't like to talk about it."
"I don't blame her."
"I'm surprised you didn't find out," said Tenzin. "All that digging you did when--"
"The records were sealed when the place was shut down. My mom insisted. I wonder if--"
"Don't press her, Lin." Tenzin sounded serious. "Please."
I stopped.
"I'll keep her safe, Tenzin."
"Thank you."
We spoke for a few minutes more about work and the city, and then he let me go. He was working late, and he wanted to say goodnight to his kids before they went to bed.
I cooked and ate my soup, but I barely tasted it. I was thinking about the Number Four Orphanage. Pema must have been in her mid-teens when the police closed it down, one of two dozen children wrapped in blankets and hurried away to safety. Maybe I had walked right past her.
I had come home that night sick to my stomach. It wasn't the first time my work had driven me to tears or rage, but it was one of the worst. I picked a fight with Tenzin and locked myself in the bathroom for the evening, taking three showers to try and get the smell of the place off my body. It was very late when I emerged, my hair still dripping. I had climbed into bed and wrapped myself around Tenzin, and he didn't say anything. Just held me until, many hours later, I fell asleep.
Twenty years later, I got into bed alone. It was a long time before I slept.
*
I have an extra scene handwritten somewhere, but I can't find it; it's basically Lin going to a fabulous Art Deco indoor swimming pool (which was loosely based on this one in Hannibal which I understand is the Toronto YMCA) and clarifying what went down at the Number Four Orphanage -- specifically that the people running it were selling their charges into sweatshops, slave labour on fishing boats, and prostitution. (I think I stalled there because I was trying to come up with a proper name for the Orphanage, because the number four is hugely unlucky in Chinese culture, and would have been avoided until the scandal broke.)
Basically, the Pema plot was to the effect that she had survived a few years in the orphanage with a minimum of trauma, and wound up with a comfortable life -- a husband she loves, children, the material security of life as an Air Nomad. And one of the other survivors is targeting her to take all of that away, having already murdered two ex-residents whom she felt had forgotten their roots. At this stage, the villain was going to be Zhen, the kind and nurturing acupuncturist. (I was fairly amused that Lin undergoing acupuncture is also a big deal in book 3.)
Meanwhile, Ginger is being blackmailed, which was mostly a chance for me to get my Old Hollywood on. That story was going to resolve with the revelation that Ginger -- who is a serial dater of her leading men -- is in fact in a committed relationship with another woman, and the studio is keeping that quiet because they're making a lot of money out of her image as a sexually available goodtime girl. But a man who knew her as a child recognises her "personal assistant" as her long-time partner, and has decided to make some yuans. Hitch is, he's a police officer.
With Unalaq on his way to Air Temple Island, I was planning for one of those large, awkward parties that I love writing. Unalaq -- still amoral and judgmental, but also still human since Harmonic Convergence passed without incident -- has been corresponding with Tenzin about the likely whereabouts of the Avatar, but he actually despises Tenzin for ... well, you know, his entire approach to dealing with Korra, and also his inability to access the spirit world. Meanwhile, his kids are creepy, Varrick is being outrageous, Bumi started drinking within an hour of meeting Unalaq, and Lin is trying really hard to figure out if anyone there might be targeting Pema, and is also having trouble not punching Megumi. And it all ends when Tenzin collapses, poisoned.
BASICALLY, the kuding tea Tenzin has been drinking is laced with thallium, which is a heavy metal that was a popular rat poison/murder weapon in the first decades of the 20th century. (I had some vague ideas re: heavy metals and metalbending, but I was going to have to find some kind of science-knowing-person to help me work out whether or not they were viable.) And the first thought is that Pema has poisoned him, and Zhen the acupuncturist/tea person has vanished. There was going to be a scene at Lin's house, where the family have congregated because it's closer to the hospital, while the kids sleep and Pema and Lin wait for Katara to arrive. I wrote this fragment of dialogue:
"It's silly," Pema said, "but I used to worry that -- that he didn't really love me. That I was a way for him to have a family, and then he'd go back to you. I'd just be part of your story."
I thought of Tenzin, tears in his eyes, telling me, "I just don't love you anymore."
"No," I said. "That was never going to happen."
And then there was going to be some kind of plot, or something or other, and it would end with Pema defeating Zhen herself, but neither of them surviving. Because I really like endings where Lin has succeeded and failed at the same time, and her failures growing steadily more devastating.
Split the World Open
by LizBee
but there’s a storm outside your door
and I’m a child no more
Vienna Teng, "Landsailor"
"Letter for you, Tenzin."
His father dropped it by his breakfast plate without a second look. Tenzin put down his spoon and frowned.
The mail from Gaoling usually arrived mid-week. This letter was early. And worryingly thin.
With deep misgivings, Tenzin opened the envelope.
Meet me at the badgermole warren as soon as the new moon sets.
If you don't come, I'll hitchhike to Ba Sing Se and join a gang.
And don't tell anyone.
"Are you okay, Tenzin?"
"Fine," he said quickly, avoiding his mother's penetrating gaze. He picked up his spoon and concentrated on his congee, swallowing his breakfast without tasting it.
With a sinking sensation, he realised the new moon was that night.
*
Lin threw her bag into Oogi's saddle and said, "I'm not going back."
"Um--" Tenzin was barely on the ground before he was knocked aside by a badgermole. It ignored him, but permitted Lin to rub her nose against its own.
"You I'll miss," she said. Then she climbed up into Oogi's saddle and scowled down at Tenzin. "Are you coming, or what?"
When they were in the air, Tenzin asked, "Why are you running away this time?"
"I'm not running away. I'm moving out."
"Why? What happened?"
There was no answer. Lin was asleep, curled into a ball with her knees almost touching her chin.
*
She was awake before they reached Air Temple Island, and her angry bravado had vanished by the time they landed.
"Are Bumi and Kya at home?"
"Bumi's on a training exercise, and Kya's at the North Pole."
"Good."
Lin squared her shoulders and marched up the path that led to the living quarters.
"It's just gone mid-morning in Gaoling," she said. "They're probably still searching for me in town."
"Uh, Lin?"
Two men, resplendent in their Bei Fong livery, were sunning themselves in the courtyard and flirting with Jie, one of the Acolytes. Tenzin recognised the older one as Shu, Lao Bei Fong's secretary. He stayed seated while his companion bowed, and gave Lin a weary look.
"Your grandfather is inside."
"I guess this means we won't be staying for lunch after all," the younger one said to Jie.
"How fast can we get to Ba Sing Se?" Lin asked Tenzin, but he just shook his head.
"You might as well get it over with. Dad won't let him carry you off right away."
"Wanna bet?"
"Not scared, are you?"
"No."
He didn't believe her, but she marched up the steps and inside, and he had no choice but to follow.
His parents were seated at the family table, tea and cakes spread neatly before them. To Aang's right, facing the door, was Lin's grandfather.
"I won't go back," she said, but her voice shook a little. She was poised on the balls of her feet, ready to run.
"Of course not," said Tenzin's mother, rising. She gave Lao a quick, cold look before sweeping Lin into a long, tight hug. "Come and eat something. You look starved."
Over Lin's shoulder, she gave Tenzin a look that promised a world of trouble for later. But he could live with that. He sat down beside Lin, and their hands brushed as he passed her a cup.
*
Sweet cakes and flakey custard and fruit pastries. Lin's mood began to lift as soon as she sat down, hopelessness and fear giving way to more productive emotions. She tried one of everything, and when Katara offered seconds, she accepted with a smile, ignoring her grandfather's scowl.
"More tea?" Aang asked.
"Thank you, Avatar Aang," she said demurely, just to remind her grandfather whose house they were in.
"Enough," Lao said, standing up. "Thank you for your hospitality, Avatar, and for your indulgence, but I am taking my granddaughter back to Gaoling."
Lin put her cup down.
"I told you," she said, "I'm not going back." She turned to Tenzin. "Didn't I say that?"
"Repeatedly."
"So it's settled." She reached for the last custard tart with her fingers and crammed it into her mouth.
"Your grandmother--"
"Can put down her needle, because I am never wearing those stupid embroidered shoes again."
"Young lady--"
"And tell the Wongs I'd rather marry Tenzin's flyingn bison than their son." She swallowed the last bit of pastry and looked around the table. Aang had stiffened, his jaw set; Katara's arms were crossed, her lips thin. "Oh yeah. He," she waved a sticky hand at her grandfather, "is trying to marry me off. That's why I left. I can stay, right?"
*
Lin always stayed in the same room on Air Temple Island. It looked out over the cliffs, with a clear view to the city.
"You know where everything is," Katara said. "Nothing has changed. Except you." She touched Lin's braid. "You're almost grown up."
"Yeah." Lin sank into the chair by the window. "I don't feel grown up."
"Not at all?"
"Well … sometimes. I'm a master earthbender, now. Learned everything I could from the idiot Grandfather hired, then went to the badgermoles." She scowled, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees. "I'm probably a better earthbender than Mom by now."
It was the first time she had said it out loud. She took a quick look at Katara, but there was no disapproval there, only sadness.
"Have you learned metalbending yet?"
"No. I left that for Aang to teach me. If he wants to."
"Of course he will." Lin always forgot that being around Katara meant enduring constant hugs, like people would just vanish if she wasn't always touching them. But she put up with this one, because Katara was saying exactly what she had wanted to hear: "Aang would want nothing more than to teach you metalbending." She scowled. "Right after he talks some sense into your grandfather."
*
Tenzin had barely even started meditating when he heard Lin throw herself onto the ground beside him.
"Wake up," she said, poking him.
"Are you going to keep p- ow!" Rubbing his arm, he said, "If you're going to be living here, there's some etiquette you have to learn about interrupting meditation."
"Why? I only plan to interrupt yours." She stretched out on the ground, face tilted up to the sunlight. "And I might not get to live here. Granddad's being difficult."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I knew this would happen. I'll just keep running away until he gets the message."
She sounded resigned, and way too tired and cynical for a person of only seventeen.
"Did you get in trouble?" she asked.
"Me? Lin, I'm eighteen. They can't exactly send me to my room." Tenzin straightened his legs, trying to ignore the part of him that was relieved at the interruption to his meditation. "Mom says I'm supposed to look after you, whatever that means."
Lin sat up. "Really," she said.
"Which doesn't mean I'm going along with whatever stupid plan you have now."
"I don't have any stupid plans, Tenzin. I never have stupid plans."
"There was that time--"
"Occasionally I have plans that are strategically flawed."
"I see."
"But this one is brilliant." She climbed to her feet, pulling him up with her. "Because we're not breaking any rules, or doing anything dangerous."
"So no one's thought to forbid it yet."
"Why would they? I just want to go look at a street."
"Why -- oh. Oh, Lin, no."
"Yes." Lin crossed her arms, all levity evaporated. Quietly she said, "I don't want to go by myself, and I don't trust anyone but you."
"That's -- but--"
"Tenzin, please." She grabbed his arm. "Take me to see where my mother died."
*
"I thought there'd be more."
Lin looked around the courtyard and up at the council building. Then she turned to Tenzin, as if waiting for him to pull something out of his pocket.
"What were you expecting?" he asked.
"I don't know. People are just walking past, and they even know or care what happened here."
"There's a plaque."
"It's just part of the scenery." But Lin ran her fingers over the metal, tracing the characters. In this place, Councilman Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe and Police Chief Toph Bei Fong lost their lives. Then the dates.
"My uncle died, too, that day."
"I hadn't forgotten," Lin snapped. "It's not a competition."
"No, I just meant that I know how you feel. A bit."
"Do you?" Lin rounded on him. "Did you wake up and go to school and think everything was normal -- and then get pulled out of class because, oh no, your mom's been killed -- and it wasn't even a proper fight, she just got bloodbent to death as an afterthought while Yakone escaped!"
"I--"
"And then it turned out your mom didn't even have a will, she was just so arrogant she thought she'd always win. And it's not like you have a -- a father to take care of you, so you have to go live with your grandparents, and they dress you up and make you a lady, and then announce their business partner has a son--"
She stopped to draw a ragged breath. Tenzin put his hands on her shoulders, unsure of what to say or do next.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I had no idea. I'm an idiot."
Lin shrugged his hands away and wiped her eyes with her sleeve.
"I'm sorry about your uncle. I miss him, too." She attempted a watery smile. "Are people staring at us?"
"Yeah."
It probably wasn't every day people got to see a boy -- a man with airbending tattoos confronting a shouting, crying girl.
"Do you want to go for a walk?" he asked.
Lin shook her head. "I want a change. Take me some place fun."
*
So firstly, Vienna Teng's "Landsailor" is kind of the ultimate and perfect Beifong family song, right down to the "make me a lawbender" line, which works on a bunch of levels. So there.
Anyway, this kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind of still fits, except that I can't get my head around this Lin having a sister, and leaving her behind when she escapes. (I think Su is about five years younger than Lin? So she'd be about 12-ish here. If she existed. Which she doesn't.) And it needed some work to draw this Lin closer to the 30-years-older canon version.
So Tenzin's idea of "some place fun" would turn out to be the University of Republic City, where we meet a friend of his and learn about the escalating prank war between URC and Ba Sing Se University. Tenzin strenuously denies any involvement, but it seems unlikely that that automobile could have wound up on top of the statue of Aang in the harbour without the help of an airbender.
Lin and Tenzin have an afternoon of angst-free bonding, and wind up getting home late after a make-out session. Lau Bei Fong is NOT overjoyed, and this is exactly why he wanted to keep his precious granddaughter away from the Avatar; she will end up just like her mother, etc. It emerges that Lin kiiiiiiiiiiiiiind of maybe exaggerated the arranged marriage, but it's also clear that she's not a good fit with her grandparents. And there is a LOT of guilt on Aang and Katara's part that they even let her go in the first place, even though they had no right to stop the Bei Fongs, but they were distracted by their own grief.
It's resolved with a Zuko ex machina that I was totally going to set up properly I promise, where Zuko arrives because his drama senses were tingling, and Lau is persuaded that the Fire Nation royal palace is a suitable place for Lin, and she is not completely against the idea. So she's going to live in the Fire Nation for a couple of years, and visit Republic City and her grandparents regularly, and all is well. Except, Lin points out, as soon as she is able, she's coming back to Republic City to live, because it is HER city and she belongs there.
Bitter Tea
by LizBee
The first time I saw Pema, she was in her early twenties, as slim and graceful as a gazelle-cat. She looked delicate and sheltered and, standing beside Tenzin, almost fragile.
I hated her. And worse, envied her.
She walked into my office on a rainy afternoon more than fifteen years later. Slender fragility had been replaced by plump composure. She looked like a sleek, contented housecat.
Except, I saw, for the shadows beneath her eyes and the stray lock of hair that fell from her bun.
"Lin," she said, "I have a problem."
*
She was the second woman to enter the offices of Beifong-Sato Investigations that day. The first had arrived just after lunch, a tall, slender woman wearing a fox-seal coat. She paused in the doorway, her expression unreadable behind her dark sunglasses. Asami and I exchanged a glance. It had been a while since anyone with money had crossed our threshold.
Apparently finding us acceptable, she removed her cloche hat and sunglasses. Red hair -- red red, not the dark auburn common to Kyoshi Island and the Chin Peninsula -- tumbled to her shoulders. She blinked, fluttering her long eyelashes, and said, "I hear you two know how to help a girl out of a jam."
"That's us," said Asami evenly, like this woman's picture wasn't plastered on every wall in the city. "Take a seat and tell us all about it."
Our girl shed her fur coat and sank into a chair.
"My name's Ginger," she said. "And I'm being blackmailed."
She was an actress. A few years ago she had been one of hundreds of girls working in Republic City's theatres. Then she got into moving pictures, right around the time they figured out how to make talkies. Her good looks and husky voice helped, but beautiful women were plentiful in the mover business. Ginger was going nowhere fast until someone had the bright idea of dyeing her hair bright red. New hair, a new name, and she was on her way to fame and fortune.
Along the way, she had picked up some parasites.
"It's not the first time," she admitted. "I paid them -- a few thousand yuans, it was nothing -- and forgot about it. But now they're back."
"What do they want this time?" Asami asked.
"Eight thousand yuans. Or they'll sell the pictures to the scandal papers." Ginger's lips quivered. "There's a very strict morality clause in my contract. If the studio finds out about -- this -- I'll be out on the streets."
She pulled a folded sheet of paper from her purse and held it out to us. Eight thousand yuan in seven days or the public will get an eyeful of the real Ginger. The characters were all neat and even in size, yet subtly wrong to my eye.
"Can you see it?" I asked Asami.
"The stroke order's wrong?"
"Right. Our blackmailer is either self-educated, or he's trying to hide his handwriting." To Ginger, I said, "Where are you supposed to take the money?"
"To Sanctity. It's a nightclub."
"I know it."
"They phoned me. At work." A tear slipped down Ginger's face. "I know I've made mistakes, but I don't deserve this!" Her make-up smudged as she wiped the tear away. "I'm a country girl, really. I was new to the city. I was naive."
Her accent suggested she had grown up not far from here, but the official story was that she was a sweet farm girl who became an overnight success after she babysat for a studio executive. Who was I to argue with a good story?
"Why don't you take a moment and freshen up." Asami led Ginger to the office bathroom. "Take all the time you need."
"You're very kind."
"Not at all."
Once the door was closed, Asami turned back to me and said quietly, "It's a shame that morality clause didn't prevent her from participating in that -- that--"
"It's probably just a job to her."
"Yeah, just a job that makes her rich." Asami evicted Shu, the office cat, from the nest he had made in Ginger's fur coat. "The triads are involved in the mover business, aren't they?"
"There's money in it, isn't there?" I looked at the note again. "This seems pretty small-time, though."
"Eight thousand yuans is small-time?"
"Compared with what the mover industry deals with? We're in the wrong line of work, Sato."
"Oh, no." Ginger had emerged from the bathroom as I spoke. "Councilwoman Megumi spoke very highly of you both."
I felt my mouth stretch into something that wasn't quite a smile.
"I didn't realise you met the Councilwoman," I said.
"Research." Ginger fluttered her eyelashes. "I'm sure it seems very silly to you both, but I take my art seriously. I couldn't just play a role, I had to embody Megumi."
"And I'm sure you embodied her very well."
"You haven't seen it? Oh, you must come to my house for a private screening." Ginger reached out and clutched Asami's hand. "Although you're much prettier than the girl who played you."
Asami froze, her mouth half-open. Before she could say something we'd regret, I said, "When are you supposed to hand over the money?"
"Why, tomorrow night. Do you think I should go?"
"Yes. Hand over the money like there's nothing wrong. Asami and I will take care of the rest."
"And -- the pictures?"
"We'll deal with them."
"Thank you." Ginger looked like she was going to start crying again. "Megumi was right. You are wonderful."
I'd had enough. I reached for my walking stick and got to my feet.
"Asami will explain our rates," I said, and I retreated into my office before I said anything unwise. Alone, I leaned against the door, listening to Asami's low voice, trying to ignore my anger.
It was inevitable that Megumi's story -- a noblewoman on a crusade for justice takes on organised crime and political corruption -- would become part of our culture. There was a radio drama, and a novel, and two rival plays. But the film was the only one that didn't change the names, that claimed to be the true story.
I could refuse to see it, and I could pretend it didn't exist at all, but it was out there, my failings exaggerated and my humiliations made public. And Megumi seemed a heroine, as untouchable and dangerous as the day she watched a man murder my lover and leave me crippled.
Who was I to argue with a good story?
As I brooded on this, Asami knocked on my door and told me that Pema had turned up in the office and wanted a word.
*
We weren't friends, Pema and I, but we had achieved a quiet mutual respect. I had risked my life and sacrificed my bending for her family; in exchange, she had helped me escape the Equalist prison. Gratitude alone wasn't enough to make us close, but we could enjoy each other's company, even without Tenzin to act as a buffer. He insisted that she liked me. I was willing to take his word for it.
She had never sought my help before.
I said, "What's wrong?"
"It might be nothing."
"You didn't come all this way to ask me about a missing lemur."
"I was so sure this morning. Now--"
I had seen this before. Women -- it was nearly always women -- telling themselves that this problem didn't exist, that they were overreacting. Making trouble. Becoming a problem. They usually needed sensitive handling, a gentle voice and a sympathetic ear.
"Spit it out, Pema."
She stopped dithering and pulled herself together. Sat up straight, looked me in the eye and said, "Something very strange is happening."
*
"It started in summer, a few weeks after the council began the anti-corruption campaign. Phone calls, but no one spoke. I'd just hear breathing. If one of the kids answered, the caller would hang up. At first I thought they were just wrong numbers, but then I realised they only came when Tenzin was out.
"Then the letters started."
"Threats?"
"No. They were just blank. Like the phone calls. That went on for a few weeks, a letter every couple of days. And little things, the kind you'd forget if you weren't paying attention. I found a canister of kuding tea in the pantry, labelled as oolong. Jinora's allergic to kuding. If it touches her lips, they swell up. A few mouthfuls, her throat closes."
Pema's voice shook a little.
"And this. Another letter came this morning."
She pulled an envelope from her robes. Inside was a piece of cheap paper, folded in half. In the centre of the page, the character 憶. Remember.
"I don't understand it," said Pema. "Is it an instruction? Remember what?"
Any ideas I might have had evaporated as a sharp pain shot down my left leg. I kept my face still as I climbed to my feet and reached for the walking stick Tenzin had given me almost a year ago.
I made my way to the window and looked out at the wet street as I flexed my bad leg. When the pain had faded to a steady, grinding ache, I turned back to Pema and said, "Could it be a joke? One of the children?"
"It's not really their style." Guessing my next question, she added, "And Bumi's not that subtle."
I returned to my desk and eased myself back into my chair. I picked up the letter again. Too late to wonder about fingerprints. The calligraphy was exquisite. The work of a professional, or at least a talented and dedicated amateur. I pictured myself interrogating the city's calligraphists.
"Have you said anything to Tenzin?" I asked.
"Not yet. I was going to ignore it -- keep on ignoring it -- but I was just so mad when I saw that envelope in the mail this morning. Even before I read the message. And, Lin, with everything happening at the moment -- if Tenzin thinks we're in danger, he might drop the anti-corruption committee. And he's the only member worth a damn."
Tenzin's fellow committee-members were the councilman for the Dragon Flats borough, who was pleasant but ineffectual, and Megumi. Under the circumstances I found her reformist zeal convenient rather than convincing. Tenzin, with his airbending and his island, was a man apart. Unbending. But not unbreakable.
"You deal with this," said Pema, "and Tenzin can take care of the city."
My surprise must have been obvious, because she added sharply, "Just because I have kids doesn't mean I stopped paying attention to the world beyond Air Temple Island. I grew up around here. I know what happens when the Triads run the city."
I found a notebook and a pen.
"I need the names of everyone on Air Temple Island. Residents and any visitors you remember. Anyone with access to your house and pantry."
Tenzin's family lived apart from the Acolytes, just as Aang and Katara had. But there would be people in and out all day, working, using the library, stopping by the kitchen for a fresh pot of tea… I lived in a self-contained apartment that had once been a single wing of an old-fashioned courtyard house. The courtyard was communal. That was about as much sharing as I could take.
The floorplan had been sent in an unremarkable envelope, as cheap and anonymous as the paper. The postmark was that of the Central City Post Office, the city's busiest. The half-yuan stamp bore a picture of the Southern Water Tribe Cultural Centre.
I paused, a memory tickling to life.
"I heard a rumour that the chief of the Northern Water Tribe was coming to stay."
"Bumi has a big mouth," said Pema. "Chief Unalaq's been corresponding with Tenzin since we lost Korra. He's an expert on the spirits. And he's Korra's uncle, too."
Pema, I noticed, still spoke of our lost Avatar in the present tense.
"Since he was coming to Republic City anyway, Tenzin invited him to stay with us." She paused, her pen hovering over the list she had compiled. "You don't think this is some kind of Southern Water Tribe … campaign, do you?"
"To what purpose?" Water Tribe politics was a tangled mess, but a campaign of harassment against Unalaq's hostess, starting three months before he arrived, seemed unlikely. "And who benefits?"
"It's too subtle for the Triads, though." Pema sounded like she was thinking aloud. "You'd expect a brick through a window, not … silent phone calls and blank pages. 'Remember'." She pushed the notebook towards me. "This is everyone. But I can't believe -- I mean, the Acolytes are like family to me. I'm one of them."
"Maybe someone's jealous." But some of these names were as familiar to me as my own. I hadn't quite grown up on Air Temple Island, but it was close. "Mother Yeng must be a hundred years old."
"Ninety-eight, she says. Officially, she still looks after the bison, but these days she mostly sleeps in the sun."
"Well, she's earned it. Who are these ones you've circled?"
"Children. Acolyte children, I mean. Obviously they can't be involved, but I thought you should have their names."
"And in -- what, a week? A week and a half? You'll have all these people, plus the Water Tribe visitors. This Unalaq, is he bringing an entourage?"
"Just his two kids. He says it's an informal visit." A hint of a smile touched Pema's face. "That means he's only attending four diplomatic banquets a week."
"Right." The best thing about losing my bending and walking away from my career was that I was no longer expected to turn up at formal parties.
As if reading my mind, Pema said, "We're hosting a reception for Unalaq next week. You should come."
Throwing myself off a cliff would have been preferable, but it would be an interesting opportunity to observe the people around Pema.
"I should be going." Pema stood up. "If I can catch Tenzin at lunch, I can tell him about … this."
"Stuff like this is hard to trace. And it usually comes to nothing."
"I know. I don't expect you'll find anything, really. I feel better just knowing I've told you."
I was touched. "Thank you."
I escorted her out of my office into the little reception area outside. Asami had vanished. The cat opened his eyes, looked us over, and went back to sleep.
"I didn't know you lived in the Dragon Flats borough," I said. "Close by?"
"Yes," said Pema, opening the door, her face suddenly unreadable. "I grew up in the Number Four Orphanage."
The door swung shut behind her.
*
My old contact at the telephone company had retired six months earlier, and it took me the better part of an hour to persuade his replacement to keep an eye on calls going out to Air Temple Island. By the time I was done, Asami had returned, a stack of film magazines in her arms.
"By tomorrow," she said, "I plan to be an expert on every aspect of Ginger's career. Including," she held up Cinema, "her beauty secrets."
"Probably whitens her face with lead, like my great-grandmothers did."
"Your family really was into metals, huh? Want to see a mover tonight? I think Slum Princess is still playing."
"I'd rather kiss a platypus-bear." I glanced at the clock. "You okay to close up here? I have an appointment."
*
"Does it hurt, darling?"
"No. It's numb."
"Numb? Or tingling?"
"Numb," I snapped.
"Oh, darling." Zhen shook her head. "Your chi is badly blocked." She reached for another needle, summoning a small flame to sterilise it. There was a sting as it pierced my flesh. Then the pain vanished and the numbness deepened. I exhaled, trying to relax. I couldn't feel my knee. I could barely feel anything at all.
"It's not just the injury, of course," Zhen said as she worked. "Whatever Amon did to destroy your connection to your element, it damaged something deep inside you. You're out of balance." She patted my arm. "It's a wonder you're not sick."
"Are you going to tell me that I'm not working hard enough to overcome this?"
"I'd never insult you, dear. If sheer force of will could fix you, you'd be whole. I'm afraid it's more subtle than that." Zhen walked away, and I heard the clink of jars behind me. "I'm making you something for the pain. You can't build a wall, Lin, you have to let it flow over you like water. Are you swimming every day?"
"When I have time."
"Make time, darling. Swim every day. It's good for you. You still need that morphine?"
"Hardly ever."
"Good."
"Makes me itch like hell. Can't figure out why people would take it for fun."
"We all have our addictions, Lin. Are you still having hot flushes? I'll make you another tea."
As she worked, I said, "Zhen, do you ever prepare tea for Tenzin and his family?"
"Of course. I see Tenzin and the older girl regularly. Pema … I don't see very much of her. I think she finds me old fashioned." There was a sour note in Zhen's voice. "Maybe she heard some of the less flattering rumours about me." The sourness vanished; Zhen's laughter sounded natural.
There were lots of stories about her, though. Tenzin had listed a few when he recommended her services, a couple of weeks after I got out of hospital. People said she was the secret illegitimate daughter of Princess Azula, or a disgraced Fire Sage. Anh and Skoochy, my streetkid informants, insisted that she was a witch, banished from the Fire Nation after putting a curse on the Fire Lord back when she was just the Crown Princess. All I knew for sure was that, at ten years my junior, she probably wasn't Azula's secret bastard offspring, and anyone who managed to curse then-Princess Ursa would have been lucky to escape the Fire Nation alive.
But she might have been a Fire Sage. It was said that the Sages practised the probably-mythical art of fire healing, and without a doubt, Zhen was the best apothecary and acupuncturist I had ever known. Had she been a waterbender, she might have been a better healer than Katara.
Or maybe the absence of pain in my leg was making me delirious.
"Jinora's allegic to kuding tea," I said.
"Yes. Tenzin told me, oh, five or six times. I wouldn't give it to a child, anyway. It's far too bitter, even for an airbender."
Kuding was supposed to clear the lungs and enhance an airbender's connection with his element. I had tried Aang's once, and found it vile, but Tenzin forced himself to drink cup after cup until he developed a taste for it. Bumi had laughed, but he couldn't even swallow a mouthful.
Zhen began to remove the needles from my leg. I held my breath, waiting for the pain to return, but when it did, it was a shadow of its former self.
"Swim," she ordered as I paid her. "Every day. If you're tired, just float. Let the water carry you away."
*
I took the streetcar home instead of a cab that night, and barely limped as I walked the two blocks from the stop to my house. I was thinking about cooking a real meal, not instant noodles or leftover rice and fish. But I was barely inside before the phone started ringing.
"Beifong."
"Lin."
Tenzin. "I figured you'd call. Pema spoke to you?"
"Yes."
I sat down, stretching my bad leg and enjoying its new, temporary flexibility.
"It's probably nothing," I said. "Sometimes these things escalate, but most of the time, it's just some loon with too much time on his hands. He gets a new job, or a new hobby, or finds some other woman, and he goes away."
"And when he doesn't?"
"I'll be there." With my walking stick and all. I changed the subject. "I didn't know Pema grew up in the Number Four Orphanage."
"She told you that? I mean, she did, but she doesn't like to talk about it."
"I don't blame her."
"I'm surprised you didn't find out," said Tenzin. "All that digging you did when--"
"The records were sealed when the place was shut down. My mom insisted. I wonder if--"
"Don't press her, Lin." Tenzin sounded serious. "Please."
I stopped.
"I'll keep her safe, Tenzin."
"Thank you."
We spoke for a few minutes more about work and the city, and then he let me go. He was working late, and he wanted to say goodnight to his kids before they went to bed.
I cooked and ate my soup, but I barely tasted it. I was thinking about the Number Four Orphanage. Pema must have been in her mid-teens when the police closed it down, one of two dozen children wrapped in blankets and hurried away to safety. Maybe I had walked right past her.
I had come home that night sick to my stomach. It wasn't the first time my work had driven me to tears or rage, but it was one of the worst. I picked a fight with Tenzin and locked myself in the bathroom for the evening, taking three showers to try and get the smell of the place off my body. It was very late when I emerged, my hair still dripping. I had climbed into bed and wrapped myself around Tenzin, and he didn't say anything. Just held me until, many hours later, I fell asleep.
Twenty years later, I got into bed alone. It was a long time before I slept.
*
I have an extra scene handwritten somewhere, but I can't find it; it's basically Lin going to a fabulous Art Deco indoor swimming pool (which was loosely based on this one in Hannibal which I understand is the Toronto YMCA) and clarifying what went down at the Number Four Orphanage -- specifically that the people running it were selling their charges into sweatshops, slave labour on fishing boats, and prostitution. (I think I stalled there because I was trying to come up with a proper name for the Orphanage, because the number four is hugely unlucky in Chinese culture, and would have been avoided until the scandal broke.)
Basically, the Pema plot was to the effect that she had survived a few years in the orphanage with a minimum of trauma, and wound up with a comfortable life -- a husband she loves, children, the material security of life as an Air Nomad. And one of the other survivors is targeting her to take all of that away, having already murdered two ex-residents whom she felt had forgotten their roots. At this stage, the villain was going to be Zhen, the kind and nurturing acupuncturist. (I was fairly amused that Lin undergoing acupuncture is also a big deal in book 3.)
Meanwhile, Ginger is being blackmailed, which was mostly a chance for me to get my Old Hollywood on. That story was going to resolve with the revelation that Ginger -- who is a serial dater of her leading men -- is in fact in a committed relationship with another woman, and the studio is keeping that quiet because they're making a lot of money out of her image as a sexually available goodtime girl. But a man who knew her as a child recognises her "personal assistant" as her long-time partner, and has decided to make some yuans. Hitch is, he's a police officer.
With Unalaq on his way to Air Temple Island, I was planning for one of those large, awkward parties that I love writing. Unalaq -- still amoral and judgmental, but also still human since Harmonic Convergence passed without incident -- has been corresponding with Tenzin about the likely whereabouts of the Avatar, but he actually despises Tenzin for ... well, you know, his entire approach to dealing with Korra, and also his inability to access the spirit world. Meanwhile, his kids are creepy, Varrick is being outrageous, Bumi started drinking within an hour of meeting Unalaq, and Lin is trying really hard to figure out if anyone there might be targeting Pema, and is also having trouble not punching Megumi. And it all ends when Tenzin collapses, poisoned.
BASICALLY, the kuding tea Tenzin has been drinking is laced with thallium, which is a heavy metal that was a popular rat poison/murder weapon in the first decades of the 20th century. (I had some vague ideas re: heavy metals and metalbending, but I was going to have to find some kind of science-knowing-person to help me work out whether or not they were viable.) And the first thought is that Pema has poisoned him, and Zhen the acupuncturist/tea person has vanished. There was going to be a scene at Lin's house, where the family have congregated because it's closer to the hospital, while the kids sleep and Pema and Lin wait for Katara to arrive. I wrote this fragment of dialogue:
"It's silly," Pema said, "but I used to worry that -- that he didn't really love me. That I was a way for him to have a family, and then he'd go back to you. I'd just be part of your story."
I thought of Tenzin, tears in his eyes, telling me, "I just don't love you anymore."
"No," I said. "That was never going to happen."
And then there was going to be some kind of plot, or something or other, and it would end with Pema defeating Zhen herself, but neither of them surviving. Because I really like endings where Lin has succeeded and failed at the same time, and her failures growing steadily more devastating.
Split the World Open
by LizBee
but there’s a storm outside your door
and I’m a child no more
Vienna Teng, "Landsailor"
"Letter for you, Tenzin."
His father dropped it by his breakfast plate without a second look. Tenzin put down his spoon and frowned.
The mail from Gaoling usually arrived mid-week. This letter was early. And worryingly thin.
With deep misgivings, Tenzin opened the envelope.
Meet me at the badgermole warren as soon as the new moon sets.
If you don't come, I'll hitchhike to Ba Sing Se and join a gang.
And don't tell anyone.
"Are you okay, Tenzin?"
"Fine," he said quickly, avoiding his mother's penetrating gaze. He picked up his spoon and concentrated on his congee, swallowing his breakfast without tasting it.
With a sinking sensation, he realised the new moon was that night.
*
Lin threw her bag into Oogi's saddle and said, "I'm not going back."
"Um--" Tenzin was barely on the ground before he was knocked aside by a badgermole. It ignored him, but permitted Lin to rub her nose against its own.
"You I'll miss," she said. Then she climbed up into Oogi's saddle and scowled down at Tenzin. "Are you coming, or what?"
When they were in the air, Tenzin asked, "Why are you running away this time?"
"I'm not running away. I'm moving out."
"Why? What happened?"
There was no answer. Lin was asleep, curled into a ball with her knees almost touching her chin.
*
She was awake before they reached Air Temple Island, and her angry bravado had vanished by the time they landed.
"Are Bumi and Kya at home?"
"Bumi's on a training exercise, and Kya's at the North Pole."
"Good."
Lin squared her shoulders and marched up the path that led to the living quarters.
"It's just gone mid-morning in Gaoling," she said. "They're probably still searching for me in town."
"Uh, Lin?"
Two men, resplendent in their Bei Fong livery, were sunning themselves in the courtyard and flirting with Jie, one of the Acolytes. Tenzin recognised the older one as Shu, Lao Bei Fong's secretary. He stayed seated while his companion bowed, and gave Lin a weary look.
"Your grandfather is inside."
"I guess this means we won't be staying for lunch after all," the younger one said to Jie.
"How fast can we get to Ba Sing Se?" Lin asked Tenzin, but he just shook his head.
"You might as well get it over with. Dad won't let him carry you off right away."
"Wanna bet?"
"Not scared, are you?"
"No."
He didn't believe her, but she marched up the steps and inside, and he had no choice but to follow.
His parents were seated at the family table, tea and cakes spread neatly before them. To Aang's right, facing the door, was Lin's grandfather.
"I won't go back," she said, but her voice shook a little. She was poised on the balls of her feet, ready to run.
"Of course not," said Tenzin's mother, rising. She gave Lao a quick, cold look before sweeping Lin into a long, tight hug. "Come and eat something. You look starved."
Over Lin's shoulder, she gave Tenzin a look that promised a world of trouble for later. But he could live with that. He sat down beside Lin, and their hands brushed as he passed her a cup.
*
Sweet cakes and flakey custard and fruit pastries. Lin's mood began to lift as soon as she sat down, hopelessness and fear giving way to more productive emotions. She tried one of everything, and when Katara offered seconds, she accepted with a smile, ignoring her grandfather's scowl.
"More tea?" Aang asked.
"Thank you, Avatar Aang," she said demurely, just to remind her grandfather whose house they were in.
"Enough," Lao said, standing up. "Thank you for your hospitality, Avatar, and for your indulgence, but I am taking my granddaughter back to Gaoling."
Lin put her cup down.
"I told you," she said, "I'm not going back." She turned to Tenzin. "Didn't I say that?"
"Repeatedly."
"So it's settled." She reached for the last custard tart with her fingers and crammed it into her mouth.
"Your grandmother--"
"Can put down her needle, because I am never wearing those stupid embroidered shoes again."
"Young lady--"
"And tell the Wongs I'd rather marry Tenzin's flyingn bison than their son." She swallowed the last bit of pastry and looked around the table. Aang had stiffened, his jaw set; Katara's arms were crossed, her lips thin. "Oh yeah. He," she waved a sticky hand at her grandfather, "is trying to marry me off. That's why I left. I can stay, right?"
*
Lin always stayed in the same room on Air Temple Island. It looked out over the cliffs, with a clear view to the city.
"You know where everything is," Katara said. "Nothing has changed. Except you." She touched Lin's braid. "You're almost grown up."
"Yeah." Lin sank into the chair by the window. "I don't feel grown up."
"Not at all?"
"Well … sometimes. I'm a master earthbender, now. Learned everything I could from the idiot Grandfather hired, then went to the badgermoles." She scowled, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees. "I'm probably a better earthbender than Mom by now."
It was the first time she had said it out loud. She took a quick look at Katara, but there was no disapproval there, only sadness.
"Have you learned metalbending yet?"
"No. I left that for Aang to teach me. If he wants to."
"Of course he will." Lin always forgot that being around Katara meant enduring constant hugs, like people would just vanish if she wasn't always touching them. But she put up with this one, because Katara was saying exactly what she had wanted to hear: "Aang would want nothing more than to teach you metalbending." She scowled. "Right after he talks some sense into your grandfather."
*
Tenzin had barely even started meditating when he heard Lin throw herself onto the ground beside him.
"Wake up," she said, poking him.
"Are you going to keep p- ow!" Rubbing his arm, he said, "If you're going to be living here, there's some etiquette you have to learn about interrupting meditation."
"Why? I only plan to interrupt yours." She stretched out on the ground, face tilted up to the sunlight. "And I might not get to live here. Granddad's being difficult."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I knew this would happen. I'll just keep running away until he gets the message."
She sounded resigned, and way too tired and cynical for a person of only seventeen.
"Did you get in trouble?" she asked.
"Me? Lin, I'm eighteen. They can't exactly send me to my room." Tenzin straightened his legs, trying to ignore the part of him that was relieved at the interruption to his meditation. "Mom says I'm supposed to look after you, whatever that means."
Lin sat up. "Really," she said.
"Which doesn't mean I'm going along with whatever stupid plan you have now."
"I don't have any stupid plans, Tenzin. I never have stupid plans."
"There was that time--"
"Occasionally I have plans that are strategically flawed."
"I see."
"But this one is brilliant." She climbed to her feet, pulling him up with her. "Because we're not breaking any rules, or doing anything dangerous."
"So no one's thought to forbid it yet."
"Why would they? I just want to go look at a street."
"Why -- oh. Oh, Lin, no."
"Yes." Lin crossed her arms, all levity evaporated. Quietly she said, "I don't want to go by myself, and I don't trust anyone but you."
"That's -- but--"
"Tenzin, please." She grabbed his arm. "Take me to see where my mother died."
*
"I thought there'd be more."
Lin looked around the courtyard and up at the council building. Then she turned to Tenzin, as if waiting for him to pull something out of his pocket.
"What were you expecting?" he asked.
"I don't know. People are just walking past, and they even know or care what happened here."
"There's a plaque."
"It's just part of the scenery." But Lin ran her fingers over the metal, tracing the characters. In this place, Councilman Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe and Police Chief Toph Bei Fong lost their lives. Then the dates.
"My uncle died, too, that day."
"I hadn't forgotten," Lin snapped. "It's not a competition."
"No, I just meant that I know how you feel. A bit."
"Do you?" Lin rounded on him. "Did you wake up and go to school and think everything was normal -- and then get pulled out of class because, oh no, your mom's been killed -- and it wasn't even a proper fight, she just got bloodbent to death as an afterthought while Yakone escaped!"
"I--"
"And then it turned out your mom didn't even have a will, she was just so arrogant she thought she'd always win. And it's not like you have a -- a father to take care of you, so you have to go live with your grandparents, and they dress you up and make you a lady, and then announce their business partner has a son--"
She stopped to draw a ragged breath. Tenzin put his hands on her shoulders, unsure of what to say or do next.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I had no idea. I'm an idiot."
Lin shrugged his hands away and wiped her eyes with her sleeve.
"I'm sorry about your uncle. I miss him, too." She attempted a watery smile. "Are people staring at us?"
"Yeah."
It probably wasn't every day people got to see a boy -- a man with airbending tattoos confronting a shouting, crying girl.
"Do you want to go for a walk?" he asked.
Lin shook her head. "I want a change. Take me some place fun."
*
So firstly, Vienna Teng's "Landsailor" is kind of the ultimate and perfect Beifong family song, right down to the "make me a lawbender" line, which works on a bunch of levels. So there.
Anyway, this kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind of still fits, except that I can't get my head around this Lin having a sister, and leaving her behind when she escapes. (I think Su is about five years younger than Lin? So she'd be about 12-ish here. If she existed. Which she doesn't.) And it needed some work to draw this Lin closer to the 30-years-older canon version.
So Tenzin's idea of "some place fun" would turn out to be the University of Republic City, where we meet a friend of his and learn about the escalating prank war between URC and Ba Sing Se University. Tenzin strenuously denies any involvement, but it seems unlikely that that automobile could have wound up on top of the statue of Aang in the harbour without the help of an airbender.
Lin and Tenzin have an afternoon of angst-free bonding, and wind up getting home late after a make-out session. Lau Bei Fong is NOT overjoyed, and this is exactly why he wanted to keep his precious granddaughter away from the Avatar; she will end up just like her mother, etc. It emerges that Lin kiiiiiiiiiiiiiind of maybe exaggerated the arranged marriage, but it's also clear that she's not a good fit with her grandparents. And there is a LOT of guilt on Aang and Katara's part that they even let her go in the first place, even though they had no right to stop the Bei Fongs, but they were distracted by their own grief.
It's resolved with a Zuko ex machina that I was totally going to set up properly I promise, where Zuko arrives because his drama senses were tingling, and Lau is persuaded that the Fire Nation royal palace is a suitable place for Lin, and she is not completely against the idea. So she's going to live in the Fire Nation for a couple of years, and visit Republic City and her grandparents regularly, and all is well. Except, Lin points out, as soon as she is able, she's coming back to Republic City to live, because it is HER city and she belongs there.
no subject
Date: 2014-06-11 12:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-11 01:37 pm (UTC)And I'm not just saying that because I liked the first story and what you have set up here.Though yeah, watching the new season, whenever it might be, would be great. Might give you new ideas!
...Yeah, spoilers have kinda done a number on that second story.
no subject
Date: 2014-06-11 11:13 pm (UTC)