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Borealis: A Zutara Story	By : jaded_priceless Category: Avatar - The Last Airbender > AU/AR - Alternate Universe/Alternate Reality Views: 33965 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender, Avatar: The Legend of Korra, any historical figures or events, or easily recognizable persons, places or things. I make no profit from this work of fanfiction

Chapter List
- 271
- 272
- 273
Chapter 269
Qiaolian brushed her hair back to expose the large ears her father had bestowed onto her. She wasn’t sure if the Water Tribe girl really meant the words she spoke or if she was supposed to hear them. It was reassuring to hear that she too was a rape victim. In Ba Sing Se after the first time she knew she had been raped but the times after that were different.
The Fire Nation thought it best to maintain the city’s order by stationing commoners and those of little status in Lower Rings while high born soldiers and those with rank maintained the Middle and Upper. The man who’d raped her was a lower ranked soldier assigned to the Lower Ring. He’d been sent to the Upper Ring on an errand. His commander overheard him bragging about fucking a girl quoting poetry in her backyard. The nobleman was offended a commoner running an errand had stumbled upon one of the Upper Ring’s well hidden virgins and taken what should have gone to a superior officer. The man was brought back to her home and forced to apologize.
Apparently in the Fire Nation it was a crime for a man of no standing to force himself upon his betters. When they arrived at her home and found her and her mother the man was given a gold coin then executed. There were no brothels in the Upper Ring and none of the ones in the Middle Ring could compare to the high class establishments in the Fire Nation where a man could conduct business or pleasure while surrounded by educated beautiful women. Her home and her friends were used to fill that gap; so were the homes of her tutors in art, literature, music and philosophy. Their homes were looted and many favorite objects were sent back to daughters while student rosters became a list of those to kidnap.
The Fire Nation soldiers truly believed the more powerful the man the more cultured his whore. They were invited to formal events at the palace and in many ways more pampered than they’d been before the city fell but there were only so many girls and so many officers capable of claiming one for himself. Her friends were shuffled back and forth so that each house always held at least ten girls capable of singing, playing instruments, reciting poetry, participating in intellectual discussions, and fucking.
She alone had the comfort of knowing she would always spend her nights at home. She did not want to think of what her mama had to do to ensure it but each night when those sweaty disgusting men climbed off of her she was able to cry herself to sleep in her own bed in the arms of her mother. It took less than a month for their neighbors and people who’d had their homes broken into and children stolen to begin calling them whores.
All of her friends heard that term thrown at them from their own mothers. Most of them had also been raped, many on the nights their daughters and pretty young sons were taken but they were not treated like precious china or considered a commodity worth trading. They were old and past their prime. They had settled into married life and grown plump but not her mother. Her mother remained fit and trim. She kept herself beautiful for the man she loved but would never get the chance to marry.
Qiaolian was the only girl who was never called a whore by her mother and was never turned away from her own doorstep. Each and every single night after her own clients left, her mother would tend to her and the other girls: making sure they were uninjured, giving aid to those that were, making sure each of them had the herbs to prevent pregnancy, that they knew this was not their fault and that things would get better. But her mother’s actions did not earn her any favors. Qiaolian became the whore of all whores and was resented in her own home because she still had a loving mother who did not judge her. The last and only person to tell her she wasn’t a whore was her mother.
She watched the Water Tribe girl guide water from one house to another leaving large puddles in front of each home while she went inside then picking it up before moving on to another and she wondered how it was that she understood her. She was fucking the Fire Nation prince; she was also a whore. Qiaolian said nothing as the two girls approached her or rather the sanctuary she was standing next to. The Fire Nation girl smiled but the Water Tribe girl seemed resigned. Qiaolian understood as she lingered beneath a window and listened. She wanted to be certain of the things she was hearing and not providing her own interpretation so she adjusted the ground to window height and looked in. The Water Tribe girl was receiving the same types of looks and insulting whispers that she did.
Qiaolian lowered the ground when the two non Earth Kingdom girls came out. The Fire Nation girl seemed tense and the Water Tribe girl seemed to be relieved as if some great hardship were over but otherwise they paid no attention to her. She watched the Waterbender go into the hotel and come out several times with large amounts of water trailing behind her before moving onto the barracks and the place where Jianjun would take her. Qiaolian made a bench and sat down to continue to watch as the Waterbender finished the rest of the homes.
She was still sitting when barefooted prince attempted to leave the restaurant and when the Waterbender made him go back inside. She was sitting when the Waterbender and Fire Nation girl left and returned with his shoes and when the two girls left with the prince and the skinny boy who’d come with him and Natsumon. She saw Jianjun’s twin drag him back to the barracks and Ming leave the restaurant with Natsumon. She was still sitting when the soldiers who’d left early that morning came back with more prisoners.
Qiaolian scanned their faces searching for people she knew and she realized the people in chains were all Fire Nation. Aside from a few women and children there wasn’t a single Earth Kingdom face among them. The men guarding the Ursa House returned home, leaving their family members inside when the Fire Nation soldiers returned. For the first time since being captured Qiaolian found herself truly alone.
Ming had told her that she and her father had met here. He’d been injured in battle and brought here to recover. It was the closest town for several miles; most of the others had long been abandoned. She contemplated each of the buildings and alleyways and wondered if they were places her father had been. What had gone through his mind as he looked at them and what he was thinking when he seduced a girl as backwards as Ming and her current age of seventeen? As much as she wanted to hate Ming for sleeping with the man her mother loved and bearing a child for him she couldn’t.
Ming had been used. There was no pretty way to put it. Her father, Captain Gau of the Earth Kingdom army had fucked, impregnated, and abandoned her. Ming was too naïve to know he hadn’t even sent her away with real jewels. They were fake but Ming had shown her where she had hidden them in case she ever needed to escape with Gau Ruk. Ming didn’t question or judge she simply welcomed her as her son’s older sister. She had always wanted a sibling. Her father’s legitimate children were off limits but she hadn’t even considered he’d fathered bastards with other women; that her mother wasn’t the only one at home waiting for crumbs of affection.
His other children must have also been daughters or else he would have revealed them. He must have never imagined she’d cross paths with Ming or this one. She wondered if he even knew or cared she’d born him a son and named the child Gau Ruk after him.
Probably not.
Qiaolian was still lost in thought when someone sat next to her, “It’s a strange predicament you are in – hurting but not hurting enough for those you came with to see that you are also in pain.”
Qiaolian looked at the person who’d spoken to her. It was an elderly woman; the same one who boiled the water each night for them to do laundry.
Bong Cha smiled at the young girl, “I hate to be the one to ruin your outing but you should go inside. It won’t be safe out here for much longer. We will soon be punishing the deserters. Some of them are from the division assigned to this area. They killed their own comrades when they attacked. It is not something children should witness. Admiral Chu-hua has even ordered that the prince and princess be barred from the proceedings. If you would like, I can take you inside.”
Qiaolian shook her head, “I can’t go in there.”
Bong Cha sighed, “I didn’t think that you could. Where can I take you? Jianjun will be-”
Qiaolian stiffened when she heard his name.
“Do not worry child. He must tend to his duties this evening and you will not be bothered for the duration. Afterwards-,” Bong Cha shook her head and inhaled, “What kind of world have we created that we warp such kind-hearted children?”
The older woman sighed, “I am sorry young lady. He sees something special in you and will not allow true harm to befall you. I suppose it is no wonder he is friends with the prince. Their hearts are in the right places but both of them are stupid as pair of dodo-hens. Now where can I take you so your spirit will not be harmed?”
Qiaolian looked at the hotel then the restaurant, “Can you take me to the restaurant? I have a friend there.”
“Yes child, of course,” Bong Cha replied. She too had noticed the resemblance between the girl and the happy little boy who peered shyly around the corners until a dessert or toy was offered.
This time the back door was opened by Jin. She ushered in Qiaolian and shut it as soon as Bong Cha left. Qiaolian feigned ignorance when Jin introduced her cousin, Sing and her husband Yong explaining that Yong had gone over to protect the women at the Ursa House earlier and had taken Sing with him. Qiaolian knew better. Yong was indeed outside of the Ursa House but Sing Se Feng was never inside of it. The heir to the Dai Li was at the restaurant hidden beneath the floors of the dining hall all along. She knew of the treasonous acts being committed by Jianjun and Natsumon as well as the danger to the Fire Nation prince.
“Hello Qiaolian, nice to meet you. That is such a pretty name,” Sing replied greeting the younger girl the exact same way she did when Qiaolian was a candidate at the Dai Li apprenticeship entrance ceremony three years ago.
“It is nice to meet you as well Sing. I can’t take credit for the name; it’s a variation of my mother’s. Father gave it to me out of love for her,” Qiaolian replied repeating her part of their first conversation, “And what of your name? I’ve met plenty of girls named Song, but never Sing. It’s fitting for one so eloquent.”
“I cannot take credit for it. My father also named me after something he loved very much,” Sing Se replied varying the conversation. She had originally revealed she was named after their beloved city.
Qiaolian noticed the omission and asked, “And do you continue to share this love or have you found another?”
Yong stiffened, as senior level apprentices his and Sing Se’s judgments were being tested based on their appraisal of those vying for entry. Macgau Qiaolian passed with flying colors and was well on her way to becoming a formidable agent when the city fell. He, Sing Se and few loyal others burned all the important records when Long Feng was arrested but there was a chance the princess had somehow learned of the trainee’s names. The man overseeing the new recruits had disappeared after wiping their memories and telling them to scatter.
He got to all of them but Qiaolian. Madam Macmu Ling had never wanted Qiaolian to join the Dai Li but she was weak against the wishes of her lover. Captain Gau thought the best way to ensure his daughter’s future was if she was to become a member of the city’s elite protectors. If Qiaolian became a Dai Li agent she could be seen publicly with him and it would increase their father daughter time. When the trainer made the mistake of coming to her family home and attempting to interfere with her daughter’s mind Madam Macmu Ling put her well manicured foot down. He never expected the beautiful woman maintained her figure by sparring with an army captain or that she would literally kick him out of the Upper Ring. Qiaolian became further off limits afterwards and then her home became a playground for Fire Nation officers.
Sing Se smiled Qiaolian had been her favorite among the new recruits and now she knew she became a prostitute as a matter of survival not choice. They still shared the same loyalty. They were both only children raised by strong women and in many ways felt as if they could have been siblings. Sing repeated a portion of the motto of the Dai Li, “Does the myna bird come sing for his captured companion?”
“Always little sparrowkeet, always,” Qiaolian replied with a smile as the other girl hugged her. She would have hated to have fought her former mentor to protect herself and her brother.
“Do you two know each other?” Jin asked confused.
Yong placed his hand on Jin’s head and lightly caressed her hair, “Jin, you have introduced us and seen nothing. Go help your mother in the kitchen.”
Qiaolian’s eyebrow rose at how easily the other girl was commanded. He had done it much faster than one could reprogram a Joo Dee. Sing Se placed her hand in the other girls, “There are secrets in this house Macgau Qiaolian. You said nothing before we left the city say nothing now. They are good people. We do not wish for harm to befall them. Jin and her mother are the only ones who hear us. She is a virgin; the prince lied to protect her and her family. He is helping the women of this town at the risk of blaspheming his dead mother’s name. He is kind. He is a man worth following. Live with us as Gau Ruk’s sister. His mother Ming is also kind.”
“You forget that I am also my mother’s child. I must forge my own path and make a way for us to unite again but like you, I will never forget a true friend,” Qiaolian replied.
Sing Se nodded, “Very well. I do not know much. There is a rumor a woman bearing her likeness has been seen in the Lower Ring but no one pays much attention to them. She is never alone, always with children, two girls and two boys and another woman – colonials. Madam Macmu Ling is not known for her tolerance.”
“No she is not,” Qiaolian agreed. Her mother was not known for her tolerance, but not for the reasons it was believed. She grew up poor and was always afraid someone would recognize her as Macmu Fu, cofounder of Earth Rumble. Her life as a fine lady would be ruined if someone exposed her past as a street brawler.
Qiaolian stepped closer to Ming and Yong angling the floor slightly so they tilted back reminding them that she was the stronger Earthbender, “Neither am I. I’ve always wanted a sibling. I claim that child Gau-Ruk and his mother as mine. I know what to look for and will know if you adjust them. I am sure your current benefactor would not be pleased to learn that I know who and what you are or that you are seeking a new master.”
She leveled the floor then smiled politely, “Of course all this can be forgotten if you get a message into the city.”
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Borealis: A Zutara Story