Love in Danger chapter 12: Rough Edges

"I am disappointed in you, my agents" said Long Feng as he passed before the seven Dai Li subordinates who had been sent to dispatch of Katara, including poli and jing as they met in their base in Lake Laogai. "I am disappointed because when charged with a simple task that was vital to the success of our mission you were thwarted in your efforts by a pregnant woman, a fat old man, and a blind little girl."

"Sir," jing spoke up. "If I may they were bending masters."

"Is that so jing?" Long Feng said slyly as he walked over to him. "Tell me are you not Earthbending masters? Were you not selected for this mission because you seven were the most capable fighters the Dai Li has to offer? Evidently not, seeing as now the Avatar's wife and children still draw breath and now they are aware of our continued existence."

"Sir," poli interrupted, "if I may, the failure of the mission is my fault. I had the opportunity to kill the Avatar's wife but I let it slip through my fingers. I was the leader of the assignment and I should have had the foresight to know she would not be alone for long. As second-in-command I take full responsibility for the failure of the mission."

"How noble of you poli" said Long Feng. As he strolled over to his right-hand man he noticed him cradling the charred remnants of his right hand. "What happened to your hand?"

"The Dragon of the West struck it with a bolt of lightning. I doubt that it will ever heal" said poli gravely as he failed to move his fingers that were now dyed a crippled shade of black.

"Very well seeing as you take responsibility for the failure I will only punish you this time" Long Feng said as if he was being fair. "The rest of you are dismissed with a firm warning, for now. All but jing, you will remain here for a moment."

"Yes sir!" all the agents answered gratefully. All but jing left.

"Come with me poli" Long Feng invited. "We will tend to your hand and decide an appropriate punishment."

"Yes, sir, Long Feng."

With his Earthbending, Long Feng slid opened a stone door that led to a separate chamber of the base and filed into it along with poli.

The only thing inside of the room was a large makeshift table made out of an unrefined slab of rock. Resting on the table was a simple metal brace that appeared to be half of a handcuff nailed down to the desk.

Long Feng unfastened the brace and held it up. "Put your hand here" he instructed. poli had no idea how this could aid in the healing of his hand, but his trust in Long Feng was absolute. He slid his wounded hand under the cuff, and Long Feng refastened it and firmly locked his hand in place.

Long Feng then reached into his sleeve and pulled out a shining, faultless gem. "What is this poli?" he asked as if it was relevant.

"A diamond, sir" poli answered obediently.

"Exactly, and a rather beautiful one at that, tell me, do you know what a diamond begins its life as?"

"I believe it starts out as coal sir."

"Precisely" Long Feng said with the kind of forced pride a kindergarten teacher has when his student learns that one and one is two. "Ironic that something as crude and simple as a lump of coal can become the world's most magnificent gem, is it not?"

"Quite ironic sir" poli said robotically.

"It is not an easy process I am sure you know" the Dai Li head continued condescendingly addressing poli as if he was a child. "Even when the coal becomes a diamond it is not a beautiful gem; it is a ragged dirty rock, but jewelers carefully clean them and, this is the most important piece of all, smooth out the rough edges, making the diamond a rare gem as opposed to a simple stone."

"Yes sir."

"A diamond is perfection poli" Long Feng went on. "In order for perfection to be achieved the rough edges must always be smoothed out. This is true of our lives as well. The Earth Kingdom in control of the Dai Li is perfection but there are rough edges that must be smoothed out. Azula was a rough edge, but we smoothed her out quite nicely."

"Yes sir" poli said as he caught the double-meaning of 'smoothed out'.

"The Avatar is a rough edge, a particularly coarse one, one that the diamond cannot be perfect with. His wife is a rough edge, a smaller one, but one that must be smoothed out for perfection to be acquired. Do you understand?"

"Yes sir."

Long Feng smirked maliciously as he approached the table. Quickly and cruelly he ensnared poli's broken hand in his grasp, causing him to grunt in pain.

"For another example" he said evilly. "This hand is a rough edge and it must be smoothed out."

He then retracted to the table's edge, and with his Earthbending, rose up a large boulder that had been hidden from poli's sight and raised it above the table. poli gasped in fear as he realized what he was about to do.

"Please don't sir!" he pleaded.

"Sorry poli, but the Dai Li has no room for rough edges" Long Feng responded coldly. "I have always been your most loyal and trusted agent sir!"

"And after all these years, my most loyal and trusted agent has finally failed me." Outside of the chamber, jing's ears rang with the deathly screaming of his colleague. Long Feng casually exited the room, alone.

"Good news jing" he said happily. "You are promoted to second-in-command." jing's eyes widened. "What about poli?" he asked gravely.

"He will remain on as my left-handed man" the leader joked darkly.

jing swallowed his on own breath, though regardless he calmly asked, "What is my first assignment sir?"

"This facility is compromised" Long Feng informed. "The Avatar knows we are after him so he will search here first. Evacuate all the remaining agents and destroy all evidence we were ever here. And I have special assignment that I can only entrust to you. You're going to be taking a trip to the Fire Nation."

"The Fire Nation?" jing asked confusedly.

"Yes. We have some unfinished business there."

As this happened, in the Fire Nation Avatar Aang and Fire Lord Zuko stood on the balcony of the palace as the sun set thinking about what had transpired.

"I can't believe Ozai actually told us what we wanted to know" Aang said. "I know" agreed Zuko.

"Let me ask you something Zuko" said Aang. "You told him Iroh is your real father but when we left you called him father and thanked him. Why is that?"

"Well Aang, I know that since you're a monk you don't know about this but, when you have a father, even if he's the worst father on earth...he's still your father you know. I wasted three years of my life chasing you so that he would love me, I didn't stop because I stopped caring...I guess I just...gave up hope of that ever happening."

Aang took this in slowly. He was standing at Zuko's left and noticed something odd. Zuko's eye was now completely healed, his brow and lashes were even fully re-grown; there was virtually no difference between it and his right eye and yet Aang thought, even though he didn't think it was true that his left eye appeared to squint harder than his right, as if it was so used to the scar being there that it acted as if it still was, that the scar had changed it so much that it would never be truly gone.

Aang then understood the pain within Zuko and realized how much of a close friend he must have considered him if he was willing to tell him that. He said, "Believe it or not, I know what it's like to have a father."

"How is that possible?" Zuko asked.

"Air Nomads may not be raised by their parents but they are raised by a guardian. My guardian was my closest friend Monk Gyatso. He may not have been my father, but he might as well have been; he raised me since I was born, he taught me everything I know about Airbending and he loved me with all his heart."

Zuko seemed surprised. He knew only about the Airbenders what his biased society had allowed him to, and seeing as they had destroyed that civilization themselves, they did not look fondly back on them.

"But let me ask you something" said Zuko. "Do you ever wonder about your real parents? Do you ever wonder who they were?"

Aang felt a strange connection with Zuko, him being from a broken family and Aang not having one at all.

"Air Monks are supposed to be detached from the rest of the world but I think at some point everyone of them wonders about their families, though they never admit it."

"Do you know anything about your family?"

"...One day my mother stumbled into the Eastern Air Temple, she told the sisters she was in labor and begged for their help. She gave birth to me and then died before they found out who she was. When they found out I was an Airbender they sent me to the Southern Air Temple to begin my training."

"They knew you were an Airbender when you were a newborn?"

"Airbenders show their talents earlier than any other type of bender. Newborn Airbenders are identified early and then sent to the temples. You see, the Air Temples weren't the only part of the Air Nation, for example if you look at a map you'll notice that Whale Tail Island is colored

white. The rest of the nation was made of humble villages. When the people living in them discovered they had an Airbender child they sent him or her to the temples to be trained and never saw it again."

"Why would they send it to be trained if they would never see their own child again?"

"The life of an Airbender is a life of freedom, adventure and spiritual enlightenment. Anyone in the Air Nation who wasn't an Airbender envied them. People whose families produced an Airbender wore it as a badge of honor, even if they never played a role in that baby's life other than naming it."

"Why would the Air Nomad's want to separate a child from his family?" Zuko asked, always having wished he had a loving family and not seeing how not having one could be a good choice for anyone.

"A monk is supposed to separate himself from humanly attachments so his spirit can be free" Aang said as if he was quoting a textbook. This was always a part of Airbender morality he had trouble following; he had always valued Gyatso as a father and had acted on his feeling for Katara despite romance being forbidden for Air Nomads.

"...What about your real father?" Zuko asked hesitantly. "What?"

"You knew that you mother was gone but did you ever think about your father; did you wonder who he was, where he was or ever think of looking for him?"

"...I'm about to tell you something I've never told anyone; not Gyatso or Katara, no one. When I ran away from the Southern Air Temple my first...deluded fantasy was to find my father and start a new life with him, but then I realized how ridiculous that was and just kept flying south."

As Aang said this, Zuko pictured himself on his lonely Fire Nation frigate, sailing across the cold sea in a desperate attempt to capture the Avatar and win his father's affection.

"I don't think that's ridiculous at all Aang" he said. "Wanting a father, a family, that's not ridiculous." "Thanks Zuko" Aang replied. "Can you do me a favor?"

"Sure Aang" replied the Fire Lord.

"Never tell anyone I said any of this. I've given the Air Nomads enough reasons to be ashamed of me."