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The Price of Peace	By : Looneyluna Category: Avatar - The Last Airbender > Het - Male/Female > Katara/Zuko Views: 19166 -:- 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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Interlude Eighteen –

Sighing heavily, Princess Wan closed her eyes and prayed. As an old woman, prayer was one of the few options left to her. Besides, prayer seemed apropos in the Holy Shrine of Agni, which was a mere two-day ride from the Fire Nation capital. So, she sat and prayed and waited for a sign, wondering what she would do once the promise to General Iroh was fulfilled.

She had promised him that she would wait. She had played the part of offended royal for the palace spies. Every palace had spies. It was a fact of life for the royal bloodlines. Once they were a fair distance away, she had instructed her caravan to proceed without her and had made her way to the holy shrine. She had promised him that she would do her part for the fragile peace that appeared as if it were unraveling around them.

Her kingdom was falling apart, collapsing in on itself ever since the end of the war and the assassination of the king, her great grandnephew – the idiot who had hid behind a wall and had pretended that the great war had not exist. With an absentminded leader and corrupt advisors, the Earth Kingdom’s cancer had spread past the walls of Ba Sing Se.

Many of the provinces wanted to declare their independence, having become disillusioned with an apathetic government that collected taxes, but provided nothing in return.

The raids on the villages were a political powder keg, driving the wedge of division deeper into the kingdom’s fragile unity. The brittle domestic woes of the Earth Kingdom were tasty fodder for the warmongers, who found peace tedious at best.

She had listened to General Iroh’s hurried whispers, honoring his theories as a fellow member of the Order of the White Lotus. The assassination of the Earth King was suspect at best. Healthy thirty-something-year-olds did not just die in their sleep. Many suspected poison while some bought into the theory of a natural death.

Like all Earth Kingdom generals, General Qiang’s ambitions had been overlooked for the greater good. With the Earth King dead, she had heard whispers, of course, naming him as a suspect with motive and the next heir to the throne.

But the higher echelons of their great society snubbed the idea of the low-class son of a concubine claiming the royal throne. Qiang was good enough to fight and die for his country, but not rule it. When the Grand Secretariat of Ba Sing Se had suggested her as heir, the rumbles of court were silenced. After all, she held a much more respected standing in society.

In the distance, the princess could hear the sound of the outer sanctum door opening. It was followed with the muffled crying of a near hysterical woman. Looking for an excuse to get off her knees anyway, she stood up and went to investigate the commotion.

“Please let me go!” a woman dressed in fine red silk wailed, frantically moving from soldier to sage. “I’ve done nothing wrong!”

The Fire Nation soldier tried to gently extract the Fire Lord’s concubine’s hand from around his wrist. “Please, My Lady.”

Princess Wan watched the exchange with veiled interest. She had heard rumors of the general’s new concubine. Apparently, she had displeased him.

Emptying her pockets, the woman held the meager contents in the palms of her hands. “Please! I have nothing. Please let me go!”

The Fire Sage stood next to a statue of Agni. She approached him, the desperate gleam in her teary eyes reflecting her fragile state of mind. Dropping the few coins and trinkets to the floor, ran toward the door and was easily blocked by the sentries.

“Don’t harm her!” the sage commanded the other holy men.

Turning from the scene, the old woman sniffed in disdain. She had little time for a lover’s quarrel. She glanced at the small pile of things the concubine had thrown to the floor, the familiar gleam of a Pai Sho lotus gambit, catching her attention.

Princess Wan stooped to pick it up and quickly straightened, tucking the symbol of the secret society into her sleeve. “Leave us.”

The soldier and sentries obeyed at once, leaving the place of worship.

“Let me try to calm the girl down,” the princess suggested to the sage. “She has obviously suffered a trauma.”

She could tell the sage was reluctant to leave and gave him an icy glare.

“The Fire Lord’s concubine is with child,” he announced softly. “No harm is to come to her.”

Jia Li had never felt betrayal such as this before. Was she destined to repeat the same pattern as before? Had the Fire Lord’s words been a seductive trap to procure an heir? The holy man’s statement rubbed salt in her emotional wounds. He had just confirmed what she had only just begun to suspect.

“Are you certain?” the old woman with the fancy green robes asked.

“Agni would not abandon my people during these dark times,” the sage replied, referring to the recent loss of Fire Lord Zuko and his bride and eying Jai Li cautiously. “He saw fit to send this woman to our Lord to secure the future of the Fire Nation. I mean no offense, but the thought of an Earth Kingdom general assuming the throne is abhorrent to my people.”

“I know General Qiang,” she hissed. “He is full of blood-lust and cannot be trusted.”

They spoke of her as though she weren’t there. How could she have been so stupid? How could she have allowed herself to conceive a child – a child that would surely be taken from her as soon as it was born? Iroh’s affections were constant and passionate. She’d had no time to clean herself between the moments it took for him to rest.

She felt as though the old woman was studying her, but she did not dare look up. There was time. She had time to plot her escape.

The door of the outer sanctum closed with a definitive thud, seemingly sealing her fate. The woman circled her, clucking her disapproval.

“Did your husband mistreat you?” she asked.

“No,” whispered Jia Li.

Turning the lotus tile in her hand, the princess knelt in front of the concubine. “Look at me when I speak to you.”

Jia Li lifted her head and sniffled.

“Did you displease him?”

Wiping her tears with the sleeve of her robe, Jia Li paused. “I … don’t think so.”

“Why were you sent away then?” The older woman’s questions continued.

She took a shuddering breath. “General Qiang was only two days away. My Lord says he is dangerous. He thought that by sending me away that he would protect me.”

“Did the Fire Lord give this to you?” Princess Wan stood up, brushing dust from her knees and holding her hand out to the woman.

Nodding, Iroh’s lover pulled herself up. “Yes. He said it would protect me…to take it with me wherever I went.”

Using the sleeve of her own robe, Princess Wan wiped a smudge of dirt from the younger woman’s face. “And it is protection you shall have.”

“I don’t understand.” Her hurried journey and confusing conversation wore thin on her nerves. She felt tired and sore.

“You are safe,” Princess Wan replied. “Iroh was right to send you away. If Qiang found out that were carrying the heir to the throne, he would most certainly find a way to kill you.”

Moving her hand over her abdomen, Jia Li worried her bottom lip between her teeth. The other woman’s words solidified her resolve. She had to escape. She had to disappear. She had to leave her son to save the child nestled within her womb. With it, she would have a fresh beginning.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she blinked the tears away. She wanted to trust the woman before her just as she wanted to trust Iroh, but her difficult life led to little chance of that. When she made her escape, she would truly be alone.
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TBC

A/N – Well, I go for pre-op this Thursday. Thanks to all who reviewed and offered their well wishes. I am hoping to update one more time before the surgery, but I make no promises.
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The Price of Peace