Chapter Text
When the Fire Nation conquered Ba Sing Se, the Dai Li enforced full control.
People from the lower ring were the first to feel the effects. Store raids, house searches, neighbours going missing, public whippings, and a harsh crack down on gang violence. Nearly all of my brother’s friends were arrested within week one.
One night, I woke up to a rustling and saw him packing a satchel.
“Don’t tell me you’re finally running away with the tailor’s girl.” I whispered so as not to wake our grandmother in the next room.
Usually he'd retune m jab with one of equal heat, but Kai only smiled at me sadly, the scar on his cheek catching the moonlight.
My smile dropped then, I realized it wasn't a joking moment. He cupped my cheek and pressed his lips to my forehead. He didn't elaborate, and I didn't ask. Just sat back in my tattered cot and watched him slip out the window.
The next morning, Fire Nation soldiers broke down our door and tore through our home in search of him. They didn't find anything, looking at their commander for guidance.
“Take the girl for questioning.” The old commander grumbled, eyeing me with distrust.
My pulse spiked in fear. I turned to grandmother, at least she would be left here.
"Go to doctor Li-" I rushed to her as they cuffed my wrists. "He will take care of you until I'm back."
She cried as the soldiers forced me down our street and into a box-like carriage. Neighbours, schoolmates and friends stood at their windows, watching my humiliation with sullen expressions.
A young guard eyed me wearily once I was shoved to sit on the carriage floor.
“Are they really going to question her?" He asked his comrade. "She’s just a girl.”
“So?” his comrade barked back. “Her brother is a known gang affiliate.”
The first guard didn't say anything after that.
More people were picked up on the way. I recognized some. Shop-owners, students, teachers. Not the criminal type, but then again, the Dai Li have a very different definition of the word "criminal".
I clenched my hands into fists to keep them from shaking. I hoped they would take it easy on me once they realized I don't know where my brother had gone.
When we were unloaded, a woman beside me was weeping. I wanted to smile at her, tell her not to worry. But the words got stuck in my throat when the commander shoved me forward.
I was kept in their underground cells for days, with barely any food or water. My interrogator took me out every once in a while to ask me the same questions.
“Your brother liked to make trouble for the Dai Li, did you know that?”
"Did he tell you where he went off to?"
"Has he tried to communicate with you after leaving?"
“Do you know what happens to those who lie during interrogations?"
As if on cue, a guttural scream echoed down the hall whenever he asked that one. Like it was choreographed, rehearsed. Or maybe the hunger and darkness was starting to affect my mental stability.
Each interrogation would end with the same promise: “Just tell me where he ran off to, and we’ll let you go.”
His hand would caress my cheek in a way I think he found to be comforting. My skin prickled where he touched.
“I’d hate to keep hurting a pretty little thing like you.” He grinned at my discomfort.
Every time, I gave answer, that I didn't know where Kai was, that he hadn't left any clues to where he went, nor had he tried to communicate his whereabouts. After the ordeal, I'd be dragged back to my cell, where I began to resent my brother. To wonder if he knew he’d be sealing my fate to this torture. I hoped my grandmother asked doctor Li for help when I didn’t come back that first night. Or the nights that followed.
Ironically, my saving grace came in the form of princess Azula of the Fire Nation. She took one look at me on the dirty floor of my cell and ordered them to release me.
“We can't keep her, we need to conserve our resources.” She spat at the guard. Her voice is snake-like. “Let her die outside.”
I was led to the massive double doors when suddenly a linen sack was shoved in my hand. I barely manage to catch the young guard retreating before as I was shoved out onto the street outside the prisons.
After months underground, I remember the moon was so bright it nearly blinded me. With shaking hands gripping my package, I walked as far into the city as I could before collapsing by a tree. Weakly, I opened the bag and peered inside. Four rolls of bread and a clay jug of water. Tears blurred my vision as I clutched the bread - my mouth watering as I tore into it, chewing too fast to swallow. I didn't care. I couldn't think to. All I knew was that my stomach was full. I kept eating. I still had three rolls and half a jug of water left by the time I couldn't eat anymore. All I remember after that was holding the bag tightly as I curl into myself under the protective cover of the tree right as the world went dark.
When I came too the next day, it was to a green foliage instead of a dark and wet and cold cave walls like I was expecting.
The tree provided shade from the bright hot sun. Groaning, I stretched out on the grass, my muscles sore from my trek the day before - unused to being used to much. Sitting up against my tree, I tried to focus on a plan of action.
My body was sore and weak from lack of use, and while the gift from the guard was generous, I could still feel my ribs sticking out. I ate another roll, closing my eyes at how delicious the stale bread was. Looking around myself, I could see only trees. In my delirious state, I must have stumbled into the woods that surround the city's inner walls.
Picking up a faint sound, I suddenly jumped, looking around myself, hyper aware of my surroundings. I strained my eyes and ears for sign of soldiers, skeptical when none came.
Getting up slowly, I followed the sound. Once I finally walked far enough to understand what it was, I let out a small cry of triumph.
Running water!
I waddle into the creek in the middle of the clearing and washed myself, still in my tattered clothes. The cool water had felt heavenly against my dried and grimy skin.
Spotting a nearby Mint brush, I collected some leaves and rubbed them on myself to mask the smell of sweat and dirt on my face and body, doing my best to brush my short brown locks with my fingers. Coming out, I'd stripped down to my underclothes, hanging my tattered green robe on a low-handing branch. On a spot directly under a ray of sun breaking past the foliage.
Weakness had caught up with me once again, my muscles cried for rest. So I sat against another tree, braiding my hair and listening to the forest floor, awake, and alert for intruders.
I never realized how massive the woods were that surrounded the city. I spend the good part of the next day walking around, straining my ears for signs of civilization.
Part of me felt an odd sense of embarrassment showing up among people again. What with the soldiers making sure to arrest me in a public and humiliating fashion. It took several minutes of talking myself out of my fear to convince me that my grandmother needs me, and that the alternative to coming back was what? living out the rest of my life in the woods?
Unlikely.
It was a long road, but eventually I started hearing the sound of hooves on tiles, the roll of carriage wheels and talk of soldiers and merchants on the city road. I did my best to avoid sneaking around the undesirables - the Fire Nation, the Dai Li and followed a cabbage salesman into the bustling inner circle.
Anyone of use who grew up here in Ba Sing Se, regardless of class, knew how to navigate our city. Which was impressive as it was quite a massive metropolitan. I recognized the roads, picking out less crowded alleyways to navigated my way back to the outer circle.
At first I looked over my shoulder every other turn, afraid I was being followed from the prison. But after I had run into a troop of soldiers twice, each time meeting their gaze and each time being ignored, I realized I wasn't a person of interest. Nor had I seen my face on any of the wanted posters lining the town walls.
I guessed they don't care about you when you're a teenaged girl who was thrown out of prison to die. I supposed I should count my blessings where I could find them.
Light clay walls and tidy cobblestone roads had intertwined into dusty and narrow streets, where house walls were darkened by water damage, covered with drying laundry and the prices on the merchant cars were much cheaper. I had made my way to the outer rim.
At some point on my trek, I recognized the path I was taking. It went past Lee's Tea Shop.
My chest warmed, when I arrived at the shop, filled with the emory of my first kiss in front of the fountain. Had he noticed I was gone for weeks? Worried about me? Missed me, even?
Those thoughts tempted me to go in and visit him, but the tattered state of my clothes told me not to. I veered in the opposite direction.
I kept walking past until I reach my street. Familiar and nostalgic, with small houses lining up each side of a thin road.
Evening had come, the street lit up by the lanterns hanging inside homes.
My house. Thankfully intact. Grandma must have had someone come in and fix the door.
I stepped in with caution, hand shaking as it pushed the door closed behind me. “Grandma?”
The mess was gone. Furniture back in its place, the kitchen tidied, our materials back in their boxes.
“Jinjin?” A frail voice called back to me from her bedroom.
I let out a cry of relief and ran right into her arms.
She sniffled, tears running down her cheeks as she ran her hands over my cheeks, feeling the bones under my skin.
I could tell she wanted to ask what they did to me, how they starved me, but she did us both a favour not asking. It'd be too painful for me to explain, and too painful for her to hear.
“I'm alright,” I whisper. Neither toughing it out nor lying to her, because seeing her after weeks in that dungeon filled me with true happiness and strength. I could feel it vibrating through my arms.
She pulls back and I got a good look at her. She looked weaker than before. My heart clenched with worry as tears threatened my vision. I pulled out the package, opening it in front of her and handing her the food. “Here, I can't imagine you've been eating good.”
“Eating well.” She corrected me, bringing a smile to my face. “Doctor Li came over to bring me soup.”
I feel a tug at my chest, gratitude for the man. I hand her a role. “Im going to find a job. I'll pay him back.”
“You’re still a child, Jin.”
“Children in the Lower Ring have always worked.” I say.
Her hands shake when they take mine. “You’re growing up too fast.”
I sigh and look out the window. All my childhood memories of playing with friends, laughing, arguing with my brother... it all seems like ages ago.
“We all have to, eventually.” I mutter.