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Some people take a long time to wake up, the claws of slumber not letting go of their minds for some time. After years on the battlefield, when an attack could come at any time from any direction, even beneath his bedroll, Lee wasn’t one of those people. His eyes opened as he made the quick transition from sleep to wakefulness, his vision filled with a halo of black hair and his arms wrapped around the warm, soft body of Noriko, a full, milk-laden breast cupped in his left hand. Her back was flush against his chest, his morning wood pressed between the round cheeks of her ass.

Carefully, so as not to wake her, Lee untangled himself from her and started picking up his clothes from where they’d been thrown the night before. He’d have to stop at a bathhouse before reaching Ba Sing Se, but he still had a few days for that. A glance over to the bed had Lee frowning slightly. I didn’t like the thought of leaving without waking her, but he didn’t have the time to delay and and in all honesty, while he certainly enjoyed her company, beyond the sex there wasn’t much between them.

Still, he wasn’t going to make a mess then just leave the following morning. He tidied up a little from dinner the night before and placed a stack of coins on the side table next to the bed. With frugal and careful spending, it would last her and Jiroh a few months. He’d leave more, but it was already a third of what he had, and he’d need the rest for the trip and his time in Ba Sing Se.

Saddling up his ostrich-horse, Lee set out, heading towards the main road. Ba Sing Se was a three day ride.

[hr][/hr]

“You!”

Lee turned away from the innkeeper he was about to pay as a Fire Nation soldier called out to him.

“Is there a problem, soldier?” Lee asked, subtly shifting his grip on his guan dao in case the soldier was drunk and tried to start a fight.

“Fire Lord Iroh wishes to speak with you, now. I am to escort you along with your belongings to the Palace immediately.”

Sighing in frustration, after managing to reach Ba Sing Se a day earlier than expected, Lee had hoped he’d be permitted some time away from the aristocracy and nobility. Apparently not. Giving the innkeeper an apologetic look, Lee picked up his pack and slung it back over his shoulder before following the soldier.

A glance around the street at the people showed a marked divide. While both the locals and Fire Nation soldiers and dignitaries were moving along the same streets, they kept to themselves, huddling in groups of green and red.

The soldier and Lee were soon met by a figure with dark green robes and a wide, conical hat, some sort of earthbender by the stone-gloves he was wearing, who gave a stiff nod before saying, “Fire Lord Iroh is meeting with Long Feng, this way please.”

Lee’s eyes narrowed. First he was told he’d be meeting with the Fire Lord immediately, then told he was in a meeting. He hated dealing with combined leadership structures, it always result in one trying to one up the other, conflicting orders, and a general fucking mess all around.

Pausing outside a doorway, the suspected official turned around and said, “You’ll need to surrender your weapon before you are permitted within King Kuei’s presence.”

“You do know I’m a firebender, right?” Lee asked rhetorically, holding up a hand and generating a small flame to demonstrate.

“Regardless, no weapons are permitted in the Earth King’s presence. Your guan dao will be returned upon your departure.”

Glaring, Lee reluctantly handed the blade to the official, sending Vaatu a stern warning, ‘Don’t burn any heads off this time!’

The response was as predictable as it was sarcastic, NO PROMISES.

Grumbling, Lee followed the Fire Nation soldier inside. Vaatu had gotten more sarcastic and cheeky the last year or so, if he didn’t know better he’d almost say the trapped spirit was developing a personality.

Within the room were several other mercenaries and military leaders that Lee’d worked with and under in the past, including a rather well known bounty hunter, June, that he’d worked rather closely with. Despite what some other mercs had claimed, Lee hadn’t slept with her.

“June,” Lee greeted as he approached.

“Lee,” she returned with a nod. “Any idea what this is about?”

“Not sure, I just got a letter signed by the Fire Lord himself telling me to come to Ba Sing Se before the wedding for a job. With the war over, regular mercenaries like me won’t be getting as much work.”

“That’s why I went with bounty hunting. Even with the war over, there’ll be plenty of people someone wants brought back alive.”

Lee chuckled, before breaking away to mingle with some of the other mercs. Tai Long was as arrogant and full of himself as ever, Jindo was twitchy without his bow, Lotaah muttering under his breath to try to figure out just how much this get together would cost, Nalii coming up with wild conspiracy theories that always resulted in ‘the end of the world as we know it’ and her brother/handler pointing out that with the war ending it technically was.

Opposite the hall from where Lee had entered, a pair of double doors opened, drawing the attention of the entire hall as Earth King Kuei entered along with Fire Lord Iroh and Princess Azula. Lee swallowed, it had been a long time since he’d seen his family. He hadn’t seen Azula since he’d run away, and he’d only seen his uncle once since then.

[hr][/hr]

It was just after a successful assault on the Earth Kingdom city Ozache, Lee had managed to take part in the initial breaching of the walls and done everything he could to make the fighting end quickly with a minimum of buildings set on fire. Ozache was famous as being the greatest repository of knowledge and spirit lore outside of Wan Shi Tong’s Library, and Lee needed access to the secrets and knowledge it had stored within its walls.

So while everyone else was helping themselves to sake and other alcoholic drinks, Lee was in one of the city’s libraries, surrounded by piles of scrolls as he took notes on the different aspects of spirit lore and different ways of keeping minor spirits out of one’s home or place of business. He’d seen similar methods in other places used to forcefully bind spirits to specific locations, and by comparing them he might be able to find a way to free Vaatu.

“I did not expect to find the hero of the hour in a dusty library instead of celebrating,” a vaguely familiar voice from behind Lee said, but he maintained his focus on the words written on the scroll in front of him.

“I don’t like getting drunk,” was all Lee said, hoping the lack of interest would discourage the newcomer from continuing the conversation.

“I can understand that, I prefer a good jasmine tea myself. I see you are reading the work of Sage Faleng. It is heartening to see more people seeking to understand the spirits and the proper way to interact with them.”

“Faleng was an idiot, but his methods of keeping elephant rat spirits out of the fields show he has some half-decent ideas.”

“Oh? You don’t approve of his opinion on respecting the spirits?”

“Every third sentence is praising the spirits for their wisdom and kindness, never mind the fact that according to the oldest lore there’s almost no record of the spirits being anything but malicious until relatively recently. The first record of any spirit acting benevolent towards humans is about some sort of guardian spirit protecting humans from all the other spirits.”

“So you distrust the spirits?”

“I reserve judgement. People should be judged by their actions, why should the spirits be any different?”

“An interesting opinion young man, it has been a long time since I’ve been able to speak with someone with such an interesting opinion. Not since before my nephew died four years ago.”

Lee froze. Slowly, he turned his head to look at his visitor, and was greeted by the sight of his uncle, now Fire Lord. Quickly moving to supplicate, he was stopped by a chuckling Fire Lord Iroh.

“It is quite alright. If I wanted you to prostate yourself, I would have made it clear who I was before the discussion,” he said. “Might I ask your name?”

“It’s Lee,” he said, only just now realizing that he’d been thinking of himself when he didn’t have to think about it in front of his uncle.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Lee. Would you like some tea?”

[hr][/hr]

Lee was certain that his uncle hadn’t recognized him, but he still felt… nervous, around his old family. He’d changed so much, but…

“Welcome!” Fire Lord Iroh’s greeting pulled Lee from his distracted thoughts, putting his focus back on the present.

Listening with half an ear as Iroh and Kuei went on about the significance of the upcoming wedding, how it signified an end to over a century of war, the beginning of a new era, Lee kept his eyes on the surroundings. Several of the servants were moving suspiciously, particularly…

Carefully moving through the crowd, Lee made his way over to the banquet table where a very large servant was carrying a barrel. It was the same kind of barrel that the spirits and other drinks had been contained in, and the servant was big enough to carry one on his own, but something about the way he was looking around seemed off.

Lee followed the servant’s gaze, it led to another, his skin sun tanned and his black hair barely staying in the ponytail it had been tied into. Carefully listening to the barrel… that wasn’t drink, it sloshed in the barrel too thickly. Close eyes, block out distractions… a hint of cloying, sick honey scent… Lee’s eyes snapped open in shock as he put it together and leapt over the serving table.

His foot connected with the side of the ‘servant’s’ knee, causing it to snap and the large man to cry out in pain, dropping the barrel of blasting jelly at the same time. Moving quickly, Lee caught the barrel before it could hit the floor and twisted, bleeding off momentum as he gently set it down and rolled back around the large man as the person he’d been looking at threw himself at me.

Clapping the ears of the large man to further disorient him, Lee ducked down as the apparent leader reached under one of the banquet tables and pulled out twin tiger hook swords, his hair finally winning out against the attempt at taming it and slipping free from it’s ponytail.

“Jet!” another voice from across the hall shouted as the mercenaries and guards realized what was happening.

“Forget about me, light it!” the leader shouted.

Lee’s eyes scanned the windows and ceiling, before spotting an archer up in the corner, back braced against the ceiling and feet pressed against the walls. They were taking aim at the barrel with a flaming arrow, if it connected it could take out the entire palace!

Forget subtlety, forget hiding that he was ‘spirit-touched’, Lee sent a blast of fire at the leader’s face to distract him, leaping towards the barrel just as the archer’s fingers started to loosen. Reaching out with his chi, Lee felt that connection with the crystalline shard of Vaatu, and pulled. The guan dao materialized in his hands, just in time as Lee brought it around, splitting the arrow in two and dousing the flame at its tip.

“GUARDS!” the Earth King shouted, the dark dressed figures all lifting their hands and firing their stone gloves at the would-be assassins.

Lee barely heard the various whispers of the other guests, he was trying to get his breathing back under control, and mentally fighting off the urge to freak out at how lucky he’d been with that move. He’d just been trying to get the flat of the blade in a position to parry, yet somehow ended up cutting the arrow in half! He hadn’t been that sloppy in years, just a little bit slower and that arrow would have found itself in his neck!

The sound of Iroh’s boisterous laughter pulled Lee out of his mild panic, as a wide palm slapped down on his shoulder, “I knew I liked you, Lee! But I didn’t know you were that good at your job, or that you possessed a Spirit Weapon. I was definitely right to choose you to be one of the new Lords!”

What? Seriously, what?!

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