Hexblade Zuko 3

The party lasted for several hours after the foiled assassination attempt, and even as the party died down, Lee wasn’t permitted to retire for the night. No, both the Earth King and the Fire Lord wanted to spend time with him, dragging him around and asking a myriad of questions. Some made sense, what with the talk about making him a Lord, others were just annoying, mostly focused on Vaatu and how he’d found a Spirit Weapon.

To be fair, it wasn’t his uncle or the Earth King that were the most annoying people he’d had to deal with. No, that would be the nobles looking down their noses at him, even though he’d be ruling over several of them at the very least. The only ones that seemed to have a positive view of the arrangement, or at the very least didn’t hold his mercenary background as a reason to look down on him, were some bankers/merchants that also happened to be nobles from down south.

Finally, nearly four hours after the sun had set, he was shown to a room, with orders to meet with the Fire Lord and Earth King in the morning in the same hall. Collapsing onto the provided bed, Lee lay there, staring at the ceiling, his eyes seeing every detail of the room clearly despite the lack of light. Another gift from Vaatu.

It was too soft. He’d been sleeping in straw beds at the most luxurious for a long time, this palace bed made him feel like he was sinking into the ground. With a sigh, he rolled out of the bed, placed his pack against the wall, and lay on the floor to get some sleep.

WELL, THIS IS AN INTERESTING DEVELOPMENT, NOW ISN’T IT?

‘You do realize that there’s no excuse I can give that will get me out of this, right? One way or another I’m going to end up being a Lord of a Province in the Earth Kingdom.’

YES, IT PROVIDES UNIQUE OPPORTUNITIES. BEFORE THERE WERE SEVERAL POTENTIAL RITES THAT HAD TO BE DISCARDED BECAUSE OF THE COST OF THE MATERIALS IT WOULD REQUIRE. NOW, WITH THE RESOURCES OF A LORDSHIP AT YOUR DISPOSAL, THAT’S CHANGED.

‘True, but it also depends on who exactly they have watching me. Because there is little chance of the nobles letting a mercenary come in and make wild and esoteric purchases without doing everything they can to stall or otherwise just disobey.’

A PROBLEM FOR FUTURE ZUKO TO WORRY ABOUT. FOR NOW YOU NEED TO SLEEP.

Not giving that a response, Lee closed his eyes and let himself slip into the embrace of sleep.

[hr][/hr]

“The Southern Province is one of the most resource rich provinces in the entire Earth Kingdom, if you take good care of it, you will very quickly become one of the wealthiest men in the world,” Earth King Kuei said with a smile.

“It is also the province least happy with the new arrangement. I’ve received dozens of reports of Earth Kingdom soldiers ignoring orders to stand down,” Fire Lord Iroh pointed out.

From the arguing between the two heads of state, Lee quickly surmised that he was being given simultaneously the best and worst province in the Earth Kingdom. Because of course he was, what else could he have expected after his display last night? On the face of it, his new job was simple: collect taxes, oversee disputes between members of the province, facilitate trade, basic lord stuff.

The problems came in with the fact that not only was he an outsider, but his particular position had been empty for over a decade, and the formerly lesser nobles had gotten used to effectively being warlords with their own territories. They weren’t eager to give up their power, and even less to a firebender, a reminder of the enemy they, their fathers, their grandfathers, and in some cases great grandfathers had fought. He was going to need help, and a lot of it.

“My Lord, Your Majesty,” Lee spoke up, bowing his head in apology for interrupting them. “Based on the size of the province, as well as the discontent among the nobles, I humbly request access to the Royal Library, so that I may read up on my new subjects.”

“Smart lad,” Iroh proclaimed, slapping a hand on Lee’s shoulder. “Not even a full day, and you are already taking your new duties seriously. Wonderful!”

“Of course, by all means. I’ll have writing materials sent to you so that you may take notes as well, Lord Lee,” Kuei agreed, putting special emphasis on the title with an amused smirk.

Bowing and supplicating, Lee backed away from the heads of state before waving the next mercenary in and making his way to the royal library. The Southern Province, his province, was one of the largest in the Earth Kingdom, was half surrounded by water, and if he remembered correctly had at least two regions that utterly despised one another. That was without considering the problem with piracy that had arisen in the last century.

“Fuck my life,” Lee muttered to himself as he entered the library.

“Ah, Lord Lee,” a stereotypical Earth Kingdom woman greeted him as he walked past a desk at the front. “I am Tisho, Chief Librarian. His Majesty sent word, if you will follow me, I will show you the records on the Southern Province.”

“Word travels fast,” Lee muttered to himself.

“Have you chosen a House Name and an emblem?”

“I’ve known that I’m a noble ruling over an entire province of the largest nation in the world for less than a day. Of course I haven’t.”

“I will add a record of House Names and their emblems to the stack.”

‘I should have let the assassins succeed last night,’ Lee thought to himself as he sat down and started to read.

[hr][/hr]

Several hours later, Lee leaned back and rubbed at his eyes, doing his best to suppress the migraine that was developing due to the deluge of information he’d just forced himself to read. More than seventy houses, fifteen mini-civil wars bubbling under the surface, three dozen inane local festivals, and not a single unified code of justice or law. If he didn’t know better, he’d think the province had been unruled for the entirety of the Hundred Year War, not the last ten years!

He could already tell he was going to be spending the rest of his life moderating between Kyoshi Island and their nearest neighbors, though how a conqueror forgotten by all but the most dedicated history books managed to have a village that worshiped him, Lee had no clue.

“Ah, Lord Lee, there you are. Your presence has been requested, the wedding is due to begin shortly,” an Earth Kingdom servant spoke up, pulling Lee from his musings.

While he had hoped to use the research as an excuse to avoid the wedding, at this point he’d take the wedding just so he’d have a break. Standing up and rolling his neck to work out the kinks, Lee followed the nameless servant to the plaza where the ceremony was being held.

It was just as elaborate and opulent as one would expect, not a single expense was spared as both nations threw open their treasury doors to fund this wedding that signified the final end of the war that had defined generations. The world had only known war for over a century, now it would have to try to remember peace.

Lee didn’t have high hopes for the majority of the world. The Northern Water Tribe would be fine, Azulon had managed to secure a non-aggression treaty with them back before Lu Ten was born. They’d already gone through the painful adjustment period of transitioning from a wartime economy to a civilian one. The Southern Water Tribe… Lee honestly didn’t think it existed anymore. At the very least, he’d heard nothing about them for decades.

The Air Nomads were gone, their former territories the domain of pirates, bandits, and petty warlords. With the Southern Province being bordered by coast on essentially half its territory, Lee was going to have to deal with the pirates infesting his neighboring waters at some point, probably something he could do for the thousands of soldiers that were going to be otherwise out of work. That thought made Lee wince. What were the Fire Nation soldiers going to do now? There was only so much work available for peace time law enforcement, the field that was most suitable to a soldier skill set.

Shaking his head, Lee took his seat amongst the rest of the nobility, ignoring the disdainful looks and scoffs directed his way. He’d gotten worse from soldiers due to being a mercenary, despite his skill. The musicians began to play, a blending of traditional Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation wedding songs, and everyone’s attention was brought to the front.

From the left entranceway, came the Procession of Maidens, the women assisting the bride, led by… was that Ty Lee? He almost didn’t recognize her. If that was Ty Lee, that had to be Mai, but he didn’t recognize the girls in the white face paint. As the last of them came out, they were followed… by…

Lee swallowed as his mouth suddenly went dry. Any other time, had he seen the vision of beauty that was the bride, he’d move to hit on her. But she was getting married and, as he continually chanted in his head to make it sink in, she was both his sister and crazy. It wasn’t working. Puberty had certainly been inordinately kind to Azula, as had her training, from the sure, confident movements she had. By comparison, the Earth King was boring and plain. Lee would have been surprised if he were the only one that had forgotten that he was there.

The ceremony itself was a confusing mix of traditions from both the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom, much like everything else about the wedding. Lee was glad when the witnesses were permitted to get up and leave, even mingling with nobility would be better than trying to avoid fantasizing about his sister in that make up and dress.

At least the food in the banquet hall was good. Lee’d just put together a plate for himself, when a reedy voice spoke up from behind him, “Lord Lee?”

Taking a breath before turning around, Lee took in the man and woman before him. The man had an extremely simple mustache while the woman’s eyes fit strangely on her face, but both were dressed in the sort of clothes that the Earth Kingdom nobility wore. Well, from what he could tell the fabric was the same, but the style and cut was far more subdued.

“Yes, may I ask who you are?” he asked, his inspection finished.

“I am Lao Beifong, this is my wife Poppy. We live in Gaoling, in the Southern Province. If you would permit me to be blunt?” the man asked, looking Lee in the eye. More than a little surprised by the fact that the man, Lao, wasn’t looking down his nose at him, Lee gave a nod. “Thank you. The Beifongs are not like the other noble houses of the Southern Province, we haven’t had an earthbender of notable skill or power since before the time of Avatar Roku. As such, our contributions to the war were mostly financial and economic.”

“You’re a merchant family, basically,” Lee surmised.

“To put it simply, yes. That leads to a different mindset than the rest of my contemporaries, war is bad for business, and when business is bad, the common person suffers. The job of a noble is to lead the people and lands under them into prosperity, and from what I’ve seen I think you have the potential to do that. However, as it is, you will face setbacks and blockades the entire way. Whether or not it was intended by the Fire Lord and the Earth King, you have been set up to fail.”

“But I’m assuming you have a solution?” Lee rhetorically asked, preparing for Beifong to offer his services as an expert advisor.

To Lee’s surprise, Beifong sighed and rubbed at his forehead before responding, “To be honest, I am hesitant in saying this, but you need a local bride. Not just local, but she needs to be part of the nobility and not from a family that would have her sabotage you out of spite.”

Thinking back to the reading he’d done that morning, Lee had to agree with what Beifong was saying, but the problem with that was that of the nobles he’d read about with unwed daughters even close to marriageable age, they were all the ones most likely to fuck him over for being a firebender.

“I don’t suppose you know of any noble daughters that would go against their families and give me good advice?” Lee asked bitterly.

“I know how this is going to sound,” Beifong said, his tone serious, making Lee look at him curiously. “There’s one possible bride among the noble daughters close to your age that haven’t been wed or engaged yet. Her name is Toph, and she’s smart, knows all the families in the Southern Province, the different customs, festivals, idiosyncrasies, and other minor things liable to hinder an outsider. But she’s also blind.”

“An accident?”

“No, she was born that way.”

“And you’re positive that she wouldn’t sell me out to her family?”

“Her being blind doesn’t bother you?”

Lee blinked, “Why would it?”

The smile on Beifong’s face told Lee before he spoke, “I think I can trust my daughter with you, Lord Lee.”