Work Text:
For the love of spicy noodles
Feiyan was in the market place to pick up some fresh veggies for his grandmother when Fire Lord Zuko passed by, accompanied by several guards. He gave the boy a passing bow along with all the other people around him, and went on to look for some flowers. Grandmother had been complaining that the other sweet little old lady at the other corner of the street had been getting more customers at her food cart, and thus the upstart rival must be crushed and vanquished for all time. Feiyan thought some flowers would make her own stall look nicer and possibly attract a few more customers. He was nothing if not a good grandson and knew better than to get in the way of feuding grandmothers.
It was at the flower stall that he saw someone thinking they were being sneaky. They weren’t even doing a half bad job at it, trying to disappear into the crowded marketplace. There was no need to drop everything and run after this particular shadow. Instead he just walked along at the edge of the crowd following the Fire Lord, who was trying to simply talk to his people and get a little shopping of his own done. He nodded politely to the street vendor selling the most powerful 19 year old boy in the world some fresh fire flakes. Maybe after all the fuss died down he’d get some for himself.
Meanwhile, he stepped out of his low boots, picked them up, and kept walking. There was a thump, then another thump, then the sound of a body making an even bigger thump. This last thump was finally noticed by the Fire Lord’s guards, so he put his boots back on and went to check out the new bao food cart, and see if it was selling anything that might be able to compete with his grandmother’s. Mmm, not bad, but nothing Grandmother had to worry about. Hopefully the two Palace guards who showed up would let him out in time for him to get his deliveries to her.
~~~~~~~~
Fire Lord Zuko munched on some fire flakes while he read the report of an assassin who literally tripped over his own feet and fell off the ledge he was perched on, right in front of one of his guards. As assassination attempts went, this one was actually rather amusing. The poor man kept insisting that the wall pushed him, there was no way he was so incompetent that he would just trip and fall. He snorted and shook his head. The man was more upset that the Fire Lord thought he was an incompetent idiot then that he failed to kill the honorless pretender to Ozai’s throne. Funny thing about the wall, though. When his guards went to check, the wall looked perfectly normal, not a brick out of place. The whole thing reeked of an earth bender on a pranking spree, but Toph wasn’t planning on visiting any time soon.
His bodyguard Chen came in and bowed. “Fire Lord Zuko, there was a man caught earthbending in the market, at the same time as the assassination attempt.”
“Has he confessed to anything? Did he say why he was there?” Zuko asked.
Chen looked awkward. “He said he was there to get his grandmother some flowers, so she could, ah, obliterate her rival from existence.”
That sounded like Azula, if Azula ever lived long enough to become a grandmother. He sighed. “Bring him in.”
The man clunked his way over. Both his hands and feet were encased in heavy wooden blocks bound with thick leather cords, and an armed guard was on either side of him, their hands on their weapons. The man himself just looked around with mild curiosity, and gave Zuko a clumsy bow.
“Fire Lord Zuko, your Highness. Did you wish to speak with me?” he asked.
Zuko leaned forward and looked at him. The man had dark green eyes in a narrow face, and sported a civilian Fire Nation style topknot. His clothes were comfortably worn, the same clothes any other citizen of Caldera would wear on a day at the market.
“So, you’re an earthbender. What’s your name, and what were you doing in the market?” The Fire Lord demanded
“My name is Feiyan. I was buying vegetables and flowers for my grandmother.”
“Really? So she could obliterate her rival for all time?”
Feiyan chuckled. “Her rival is the new bao cart down the street. Oba Matsu runs a bao and noodle cart. The new cart had longer lines than hers this morning, and I thought some flowers might help get a few more customers back this afternoon. That way today will be a draw, and they can try to vanquish each other’s loyal customers again tomorrow.”
This was a surprisingly reasonable answer, Zuko had to admit. He remembered how cutthroat the street vendors were back in Ba Sing Se, and it was no different in the marketplace in Caldera.
“Is her bao any good?” he asked.
“Of course it is! Grandmother makes the best sweet bao and spicy noodles from here to Ba Sing Se. What type of grandson do you think I am?”
What type of grandson, indeed? It was possible that he was mixed blood, the son of a Fire Nation soldier and an Earth Kingdom partner, but Zuko doubted that. He had met people of mixed nationality in Yu Dao, and they didn’t look like this. All of his political instincts said that this was no simple man out for a day at the market. And there was something familiar about him. Not personally familiar, just the feeling that he was a type of person Zuko had met before, and not in the Fire Nation.
“How do you know what the noodles in Ba Sing Se are like?” he asked.
“Because my other grandmother’s noodle shop could never get the spice mixture right, no matter how hard she tried. She came close though, her seven spice noodles were pretty good considering there wasn’t any decent trade with the Fire Nation until recently.”
Zuko remembered this. There had been a noodle shop across the street from Pao’s Tea shop, back when he had been in Ba Sing Se as a refugee. It had the spiciest noodles he could find in the Lower Ring, even if they didn’t have the true heat of Fire Nation peppers. The old woman would give him and his uncle an extra spoonful of peppers when they stopped for noodles on their way home from their shift once Uncle started to flirt with her.
This man really did feel familiar. Even in his red clothes he felt like Ba Sing Se, like walls and secrets and keeping your eyes down and your mouth shut. “Tell me how a grandmother in Caldera has a Dai Li agent for a grandson.”
“The same way Lee from Pao’s tea shop became the Fire Lord. I was here, the war was suddenly over, and I needed something to do.” He looked amused at the horrified faces of the two guards. “After she almost burned my ears off for tripping some kids who were trying to bully her, she told me to go get her some more onions and picken meat, and not to dawdle on the way back.”
“I assume you got a good deal for the onions,” Zuko said. After he had taken the throne, Toph had helped him track down the rogue Dai Li agents Azula had brought with her from Ba Sing Se, but apparently they had missed one.
“I did, your highness. Once she realized that even a rock head like myself could still pull noodles, she let me take care of her in exchange for sweet bean bao and leftover noodles.” He smiled. “Good enough wages for easy work.”
Zuko could practically see Chen considering asking if he could do some extra chores in exchange for sweet bean bao. His guard would never break protocol during an interrogation, even one as casual as this, but he also had a well-earned reputation with the kitchen staff for his fondness for pastry.
That still left the question of what to do with this man. Technically, he hadn’t broken any laws. It wasn’t illegal to earth bend in the Fire Nation so long as it was used without violence, and he appeared to have adapted to a peaceful civilian life, including taking care of an elderly widow. The assassin they had apprehended had no ties to anything in Ba Sing Se or the rest of the Earth Kingdom. This didn’t appear to be any sort of set up, but Zuko hadn’t survived to live to be nineteen years old by taking coincidences at face value. “How did you just happen to be there, a Dai Li agent, when an assassin was moving through the market to get to me?”
Feiyan shrugged, as much as he could with his hands in wooden blocks. “Right place, right time, I guess. I’m at the market four days a week, so any assassin who tried to use that location already had a decent chance of being there the same day I was. I saw an idiot being stupid, and saved your guards the effort of chasing him down so I could get back to Oba Matsu with her groceris in time to get ready for the lunch crowd. Grandmother has had enough of war claiming her family, and the last thing she needs is the chaos your untimely downfall would bring. If you are not going to release me, would you at least let her know where I am, and get her groceries delivered for today?”
Sokka had once told him that the key to being properly paranoid was to know when you didn’t need to be paranoid. Of course, he had been wearing a truly ridiculous hat when he imparted that wisdom to Zuko, while blowing bubbles out of a pipe and pretending to stroke a beard that wasn’t there. Aang had been standing behind him and silently imitating his every move, apparently over a bet with Toph to see if he could get Zuko to laugh. He lost the bet, but it was still good advice.
“Release him,” Fire Lord Zuko ordered. “He’s done nothing illegal.”
“Your highness, do you believe it is wise to let a Dai Li agent loose? Especially one who has been taking advantage of one of our elders by pretending to be her grandson?”
“I am someone’s grandson.” Feiyan said, and looked annoyed for the first time. “When I was recruited by the Dai Li I used my stipend to pay the rent for my grandmother’s noodle shop in the Lower Ring. Oba Matsu is still a grandmother even after her husband, sons, and grandsons died far away from their home, for the glory of the Fire Lords. If I can pull noodles for a grandmother again, there’s no reason she can’t feed and house a grandson who returned from the war, now that Fire Lord Zuko has befriended the Avatar and is bringing the Fire Nation to peace.”
“Chen, release him,” the Fire Lord ordered. The guard did so, and Feiyan shook out his hands after the blocks were unbound.
“Thank you, your highness.” He bowed, in the style of the Fire Nation. “May I go now?”
“Before you go, I have one more question,” Zuko said. “Why did you stay in the Fire Nation after the war ended? Why didn’t you return to Ba Sing Se?”
“Would you believe me if I told you I stayed because the food’s better?” Feiyan replied.
Zuko scowled. Off to his side, someone coughed.
“Or that I like the weather? It’s a lot warmer here.”
“Why did you stay?” Zuko repeated.
Feiyan didn’t reply. He held the Fire Lord’s gaze, and now Zuko could see the trained watchfulness of the most elite organization of secret agents in the world. “I stayed because Caldera is the first city I’ve ever lived in that doesn’t have walls,” he said, a second before Zuko was about to signal to Chen to bind him again. “When I took Oba Matsu to see a theatre show, she cried at the songs and dances that she never thought she would see again, after your grandfather outlawed them. Avatar Kyoshi created the Dai Li to protect the cultural heritage of Ba Sing Se, and to bring order when corrupt forces were tearing the city apart. By restoring your nation's culture and working to bring peaceful order to the world, you are more true to the original spirit of the Dai Li than Long Feng ever was.
“My grandmother died the night of your sister’s coup, an old woman of no consequence in the Lower Ring. So I might as well stay here, enjoy the hot weather and good food, and take care of someone’s grandmother in a city with no walls.” He bowed again, this time in the style of the Earth Kingdom.
“Thank you for taking care of one of our elders,” Zuko said, and bowed back. “Before you go, I wish to give you something in return for blocking that assassin.”
~~~~~~~
“Where have you been? You missed the lunch rush, and Ren has already had twice as many customers as I had today!” Oba Matsu glared up at the young man she had claimed as her grandson.
“Sorry Oba, I got caught up in something.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “But I got everything we need for tomorrow, and some flowers for the cart.”
“Humph. There’s some leftover noodles. I kept them warm for you. I’ll get a vase for the flowers, we can give them away to anyone who buys two meals.”
“There’s something else I got for you as well,” he said, smiling, holding a bag up in front of her. “Season tickets for the New Dragon Theatre, with first level seating.” He took them out of the bag and handed her the two season passes.
“Feiyan, how did you get these?”
“Just being my helpful self, grandmother,” he said, and hugged the old woman who had kept the noodles warm for him with her own hands.