"Why do I get the feeling she didn't just ask to become his student, but got a marriage proposal instead?" Mai snorted.
"Association," the princess replied with a smirk and an expression that practically screamed, I am the queen of the world. And once again, I've hit the jackpot. Envy me!
"Huh." Zuko shook his head. "What else don't we know about you, Fire Herald?"
"Hmm..." I pretended to think about it. "There might be another thing or two. But I'm not telling you about them, Zuko."
"What about me?" his sister immediately challenged.
"You? Absolutely." As soon as I figured out what, exactly. I had no intention of revealing the dragons. Because that would be a bad idea. A very bad idea.
"Oh, heh-heh." Fortunately, Toph came to my rescue, giving such a meaningful chuckle while glancing between Suki and me that the entire subject immediately veered in a very particular direction, and... the teenagers sitting around the room began experiencing extreme awkwardness. And urgently changing the subject, yes.
Well then, I supposed the conversation had gone pretty well. More importantly, I'd accomplished what I wanted and seemed to have "changed Iroh's mind." And the fact that I'd exposed one of my own secrets in the process... Well, it would've come out sooner or later anyway, and this had actually been a pretty good moment for it. All that remained was the tiny matter of peeling an ecstatic Ty Lee off me, and then I could go to bed.
***
A couple of days later.
"Ahem... Azula, don't you think this kind of... well... slightly blows our cover?" I quietly asked the princess.
"Just shut up, smile, and enjoy yourself," the girl replied in a tone like a contented cat's purr.
"But... you do remember that you put me in command, right?"
"Of course." Her slender fingers gracefully steepled in front of her chest while her yellow eyes, radiating incredibly smug cunning, gazed off somewhere to the side. "You may command... our operation. But right now, shut up and smile."
"..." Poor General Chin, watching the two of us whispering together, was doing his best to pretend he wasn't there at all—or, if he was, that he was blind, deaf, and mute. The whole reason was that Azula, with her customary tact and consideration, had simply presented everyone with a fait accompli: Li would be sitting on the throne with her. Because he needed to get used to it. Obviously.
"This is revenge for that portrait, isn't it?"
"How nice of you to remember all by yourself. We'll definitely discuss that painting... later." The lady's satisfaction increased even further, though she continued pointedly looking anywhere but at me.
Actually, quite a lot had happened over those two days.
Starting with my talk with Suki, who had simply smiled, given me a couple of kisses, and said something along the lines of, "We already talked about this, and everything is going exactly as it should, so don't worry," and ending with a demonstration match against Toph. Because yes, our companions wanted to see with their own eyes how a firebender handled earth.
Well, they saw it. Although Toph had clearly interpreted the assignment somewhat differently than intended, so instead of demonstrating how I bent earth, I mostly demonstrated how heroically I could survive while preventing a little blind girl from flattening me into a pancake. Naturally, the vicious little dwarf completely ignored all pleas and attempts at reasoning, merely cracking jokes about how she was helping me show off all my talents in front of my fiancée. And my fiancée, the wicked thing, just egged her on and made snide remarks while watching me suffer.
In the end, of course, I did manage to get my hands on Toph and even pin her down before she could escape by swimming through the earth, but I wasn't allowed to punish the little bandit as she deserved. Her accomplice in the dark business of punishing my beloved self came to her rescue and fought me off.
And why was Azula punishing poor, innocent me? Well, because that awful Chan had hidden something like this from her! He hadn't shown her his full strength! He'd been holding back during our training spars! Unforgivable! He Must Suffer!
Basically, those two were in cahoots now.
And now poor "Li" was being presented to the public as something resembling the "concubine" of a tyrannical and despotic lady. Everyone else just laughed at the sight and put on their best nothing to do with me faces. Even Zuko, who'd been denied a seat on the throne.
Iroh alone remained a holy elder and beacon of virtue in this den of iniquity, but even he couldn't save me, merely offering moral support while observing the whole disgraceful spectacle with the expression of a man who had attained Zen and perfect harmony.
Meanwhile, the drill crawled slowly but inexorably toward the wall of Ba Sing Se.
"Any sign of the Avatar?" Mentally conceding defeat in this particular battle, I asked the experienced officers gathered on the command platform.
"Not yet..." The general shook his head.
"Oh!" Toph suddenly perked up.
"What is it?" Azula turned toward her.
"Several dozen people are crawling toward us," our sensor reported. "From over there." She waved a hand toward the Wall, slightly to the right of our course.
"Hmm. Sharp eyes you've got..."
"Heh..." The Blind Bandit puffed up proudly, appreciating the joke about her eyesight.
"Maybe you should take care of them yourself, then?" Mai suggested.
"I could knock down the wall while I'm at it." Miss Beifong demonstratively flexed her fingers.
"...What?"
(End of Chapter)
P@treon: /SadRaven
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