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Blue Mask	By : PatPat Category: Avatar - The Last Airbender > AU/AR - Alternate Universe/Alternate Reality > Het- Male/Female Views: 11106 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Blue Mask, Two Swords, and Sozin’s Comet
A New Life
By Pat Squared
________________________________________

Storyteller Li was half asleep when he felt someone lean up against him.

“Ty Lee,” he responded thinking that it was Madam Chi’s granddaughter.

The voice that responded sounded familiar but he could not place it.

“How did you know, Iroh?”

Shocked he looked over and saw a child about fourteen years old. His mind was trying to connect the face to a memory and figure out how someone recognized him after years of travel.

“I am sorry that I came to burden you with bad news. However, I have no where else to turn to, elder uncle. I came for your advice.”

He placed her. She was one of Azula’s playmates. She was there when Azula attacked him.

However, from the look on her face he knew that this was not the same little girl that did cartwheels for fun.

“Tell me about it.”

“I was ordered by Azula to track down a bandit who stole supplies from us. Bandits generally are troublesome, however they can be useful. They know who travels the roads, which persons are and are not locals, and are not squeamish about exploring a career in assassination. I found him working in a performance troupe as a magician. He was also a gambler and his concept of property ownership grew vaguer with respect to the wealthy.”

Ty Lee sighed, “Li started calling himself Jian Li and brought back the Fire Nation’s Oni Challenge. I knew that he was a fire bender, but he did he tricks with deception and alchemy rather than raw bending power. The first night I was in the crowd. He knew that I was after him. He called me down before the crowd and I was that his assistant as he performed the Blind Guardian Dragon of Agni.”

The storyteller was stunned. Li was the alias the Zuko used when they were traveling together. He was good with magic, but that good. The Blind Guardian Dragon was about as deadly as stage magic got.

“My heart went with him that day. I was afraid to approach him, yet I had to. I talked my way into a job as a high-wire girl and acrobat. I got to know him and yet I could not perform my task. I had to report to Azula and she told me to do whatever it took, including bearing his offspring, to recruit Jian to kill Zuko, you, and bring in the Avatar. I was walking towards the circus when I was pinned to the trees. Jian knew chi blocking, at least enough to paralyze me and my vocal cords.

“He tied me to the trees and I had to listen to Jian and Azula arranged for the assassination of you, the avatar, and Zuko. The price was ten pounds of high-end gemstones a head. Worse, as a deposit, they give me to him like I was a side of beef.”

“When I could move, I was laying on Jian’s cot. I expected to end up being raped and sold to a brothel when my body ceased to please him. I couldn’t fight. I couldn’t believe that someone I would have protected with my life would callously sell me to a total stranger for a promise.”

“Instead, he freed me from a fate that would have destroyed me. My real mother was one of my father’s many concubines. She was sold from pimp to pimp until my grandfather needed an experienced courtesan to teach my father how to wench like a true Lee. As part of the ‘interview’, my mother had to …”

She sobbed for a few minutes.

“My grandfather ensured that my mother’s womb was occupied for a couple months before she instructed my father. The man I call my father is my half-brother and … it gets confusing. Until he died, he blackmailed my mother to sleep with him or he would reveal that I was not my father’s daughter. He would have killed me if he knew the true, so mom had to comply. My mother would return late at night with bruises from entertaining my grandfather. When my father eventually caught them, I had to watch as he burned my mother alive. Grandfather was strangled long enough that he went into the death sleep until his body decayed from starvation. My nightmare was being swapped and bartered like my mother. My father made it a point to take his other concubines in front of me so that I would know my fate. He told me that if I did not attract a powerful husband willing to offer him a higher betrothal fee that Ozai would ever imagine accepting for Azula, I too would end up as he special pet. That was why I ran away from my home.

“Mai’s father did it to her when Zuko was banished. No one would marry Zuko's bethrothed and risk possible bad luck. I had to watch silently as the shy, innocent Mai who use to say ‘Zuko this, Zuko that, isn’t Zuko so great, I can't wait for Zuko and I to ...’ was twisted into something like Azula. I feared becoming just as dead inside as Mai was. I feared becoming something for which death and pain were its only pleasures.

“I know Jian Li was your nephew Zuko even before I saw the scar. That night, I talked with your nephew. He regrets have to separate from you so that Azula would not find you both. He regrets not being good enough to be worthy of your and his mother’s sacrifices. He feared not dying. He was resigned to dying alone and unmourned. What he feared was not having someone who would not plead to the god to have mercy for his soul.

“I still don’t know why I did what I did. I spiked his drink with a drug that makes fire water seem as potent as spring water. I surrendered my virtue two months ago and now I carry our child.”

The storyteller looked into the eyes of Azula’s former playmate. There was no deception in her eyes.

“Does Zuko know?”

“When I was certain that I was with child, I was making my way back when I stopped at an inn to lodge for the night. Everyone was cheering that the exiled Fire Nation prince was dead. Azula has personally delivered his head and mother’s pendant to Lord Ozai in the traditional presentation box. She was quickly proclaimed heir to the dais. Unless Lord Ozai has her executed first for trying to take over his throne, the next ruler of the Fire Nation is going to be Lady Azula. I did not want to believe it. Even when I heard about the pendant, I did not want to believe it. However I must accept it as the truth. Zuko would never let that pendant out of his possession.”

Ty Lee took a deep breath.

“When I left him that night, I thought that I was ready for the consequences of raising our child alone. However traveling alone showed me that unless the world has a sudden need for pregnant acrobats...that I had no real skills that I could use to make coins and the skills I do have don’t matter since many would not bother to hire a mixed blood. I have made this vow to provide him a child so that his spirit would have someone to pray favor from the gods. Now I don’t know what the think.

“In between all the throwing up, I am going crazy. One second I am bubbling with joy, the next I want to kill everyone I encounter. I don’t know what I am thinking half the time and half the time it doesn’t matter what I think. I have these crazy thoughts that it was just a trick. That it was just another one of Azula’s lies so that she would inherit what was rightfully his birthright. However, they are crazy thoughts by a scared little girl.”

Iroh looked down at the mother of his future grandnephew or grandniece. She was exasperated, tired from the stress of being responsible for two lives and losing someone who was significant in her life.

“You are not going crazy, no matter what we guys say. It’s part of the natural orders of things. Your body is preparing for the demands of giving birth and raising a child. You instinctively want to set up a safe place to have your child and you are mourning the loss of someone special. Before my son, Lu Ten was born; my wife was driving me to frustration preparing our room for the arrival of our child. Don’t worry; you will know what to do when the time comes.”

Ty Lee stood up, “I’m sorry that I could not share any good news about Zuko.”

Iroh look at her in tears, “No, you gave me the best news you possibly could.”

Ty Lee stared at the obviously demented man.

“Since his mother disappeared, Zuko lived a life circumscribed by tradition. If Zuko was not banished he would have to live a life that seemed so grand to outsiders and yet be its own hell. Imagine being unable to trust your children because if they kill you they get all the wealth and power. Imagine not knowing if your wife really loves you or if she just married you just because her family told her too. You have given him the greatest gift that could be given a man cursed with the birthright of royalty. He died knowing that someone loved and appreciated him for just being the pigheaded lout that only we know. He died with something that my brother and father never had.”

Storyteller Li held back a sob.

“Ty Lee, I will miss nephew’s little dark cloud moods.

"I will miss his constant pig-headedness.

"I will miss the chance to tease him about not playing the horn on music night or not sharing tea.

"He was my second son. I thought after losing Lu Ten that I would never be a father. Zuko became my second son. He now wanders with his cousin, probably figuring out what is the prank they will pull on me when it’s my time to enter the underworld. Come with me – I would be thrice damned if I ignored fate and let you go wandering off. A mother needs family at times like this. Let me help you get settled in. Just let Uncle Li Mushi do the talking and remember that your mixed blood family comes from Yamaguchi village near the old Fire Nation boarder. Your father was the village smith which explains your familiarity with weapons. My mother was a merchant’s daughter who eloped with my father and that is why we have some education.”

Ty Lee nodded as she followed him to a large house.

________________________________________

“Madam Chi, this is Li Tai Mei, my niece. She was the wife of my nephew, Jian.”

Madam Chi quickly picked up on Storyteller Li’s the use of the past tense.

“My child, what happened?”

Iroh stepped in. The girl was that slow on the uptake managed to let her tears do the talking.

“Fire Nation ambush - A patrol found the ashes of his patrol just north of Xi’an. Please be gentle, she is expecting and she had to identify his remains.”

Madam Chi was starting to prepare tea.

“Tai Mei, please have some herbal tea and relax. Do you have any family?”

Ty Lee shook her head, “Only Uncle Li.”

“Do you have any skills?”

“I was a midwife’s apprentice for six years and have some experience with healing herbs, setting bones, and sewing up cuts. However my teacher died before I could finish my training in the surgical delivery process. The only other thing I could do is teach the little ones how to read, make their letters, and how to perform simple mathematics so they get the same answer every time. I have a passing knowledge of world history and literature. I can speak and write both contemporary and temple languages of the Fire Nation, the trade language, and the Earth Nation temple language. I can sing and play the erhu, twenty one and twenty three stringed guzheng, and four-stringed pipa. I can craft and repair both erhu and pipa if I have tools and raw materials.”

“Impressive, you sound like you have been educated much like your uncle.”

“However most of it was wasted on me. I would be the first to admit that I spent my time as a tomboy doing acrobatics instead of staying inside the school-shed. I just did enough to avoid the switch.”

“Normally villagers don’t get much beyond education making out the symbols for their name. How did you get your education?”

“Uncle Li’s mother was a merchant’s daughter who eloped with his father. Despite being as poor as the rest of us, she insisted on being the school ma’am and bringing us unfortunate savages some level of culture above being pond scum. To ensure her social standing, she shared her education and worse her Fire Nation educational techniques of using a switch on us until we answered her questions correctly. She was so mean that later when the boys that she taught became the men running the town that they would be afraid of her and that ever present switch she always carried.”

Madam Chi chuckled, “I would have loved to known that woman. I would love to be around when your first students treat you with the same respect, Tai Mei. Do you have your switch?”

“Switch, I don’t need to use a switch. I learned empty hand and some armed fighting although it’s more Fire Nation style than traditional Earth styles because I am too slender to use the axe or hammer. I will get respect that I earn or take it. My family hailed from Yamaguichi village like my husband’s family. Before the war, both my mother’s and my father’s family lived on both sides of the border. My bending art is zero - too much mixed blood for the gods to figure out where to sort me for that talent.”

Madam Chi looked at Ty Lee’s hands, “I assume that you are not a cook. The callas pattern tells me that you were a warrior, a blades master.”

“Not really. I was the only child of a blacksmith. He had me test his blades as different builds hold and use blades differently. Dad was good with axes and hammers, but asks him to use a short sword or deer horns; it’s like a giant holding a child’s play toy. So he taught me how to use them so that I could field test before he handed off his work to someone who might need it to save their life.

“My father was good at teaching me how to defend my virtue, how to rig and move heavy items, and how to sew leather and canvas. (Circus performers had to help rig and repair the tent, wire’s and support poles) However, my first bleeding time … let us say that he was not sure what to do. The traditional wifely arts such as cooking and fine needlepoint sewing eluded me. As long as the food was warm, my father did not care if it was raw or overcooked. Once we got married, Jian would have to do the cooking since I would somehow set water on fire or melt the wok.”

“We have a midwife. Usually things are not so busy as to require a spare, but I would arrange a meeting between the two of you so that if things happen that the village will know who to go to. However, luckily for you our school ma’am will soon be getting married to a distant cousin of mine working in the guildhalls of Chongqing.

“It is normally up to the men to hire a new teacher. However let me introduce you to the other matrons. Then they will tell our husbands who they better hire if they don’t want to eat boiled grass and rock soup and sleep on a very cold floor. We will let them posture and have their illusions about their great intellect, but you will get the job.”

“Tomorrow, I will introduce you to Ling, our current school-ma’am, who will brief you in on your duties and introduce you to the kids. There is a small room attached to the schoolhouse that will serve for living quarters. Until Ling gets married and vacates the school house at the end of harvest season, I insist that you stay with me. The paid is meager, one silver eagle and twelve brass hills a week. But you get free room and behind the house are chicken coops and a small 1/2 acre plot for gardening.

Ty Lee, now Li Tai Mei gave a smile of relief.

She would not have to live on the margins of society begging for coins to feed her child. While not being rich or even comfortable, she got free quarters and made enough coin and land to be able to start her own side business. Being the school ma’am also meant that she would have some status of importance in the village. Unless it came out that she was Fire Nation born, she would not be thrown out into the street.

Normally mixed bloods had difficulties getting jobs on either side of the border. However, she had to explain why she looked like a fire nation girl and why she spoke in a fire nation accent. Boarder folk sometimes did both and so it would hopefully shield her and her child from the hatred. Some Earth Nation purebloods would be upset, but most of the town’s women would fight tooth and nail for her to stay, mixed blood or not. Educated people did not want to stay in the small villages, but went to the cities were money was to be made.

Thank you Agni, for saving my child and giving me a place to call home. Please take care of Iroh and forgive Zuko’s shade for anything he did that offended you. Once I have a private place, I promise to erect a shrine in thanksgiving. Thank you and please watch over us all.
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Blue Mask