The food was surprisingly delightful.
Each of them received a warm bowl of fish soup, its fragrant steam curling lazily into the cool air of the chamber, richly flavored with Ba Sing Se's local breed of ocean carp. The savory depth lingered somewhat pleasantly upon the tongue. It was not quite the cooking from home, but there was enough familiarity in the seasoning to suggest that there are specific arrangements to cater to their tastes.
As someone who took considerable pride in her own cooking, Mayumi was reluctant to admit it. Whoever had prepared the meal had clearly taken great pains with the broth. There was a subtlety to it that spoke of patience rather than mere competence, a carefully simmered stock with a faint sweetness of fish beneath the more delicate herbal flavors.
Within the dimly and modestly furnished chamber, the two 'esteemed guests' sat in silence, eating merely for the sake of sustaining themselves. It appeared that the director had temporarily housed them within one of the many buildings scattered across the Royal Palace grounds. The arrangement possessed all the trappings of hospitality, save for the guards. An entire contingent of Dai Li agents stood watch over the premises outside the building, transforming what might otherwise have been comfortable lodging into something indistinguishable from house arrest.
It was a strange accomplishment, as even the most dangerous outlaw could hardly claim to have enjoyed. Yet the prospect of what might transpire next had done little to encourage their appetites. This was particularly evident in Satchiko, who had scarcely touched her porcelain spoon.
"Eat up, sister," Mayumi implored. The words came subdued and weary, almost pleading. "At least restore some of your strength."
Even so, the more responsible of the two sisters found herself struggling to properly finish the meal. The weight of impending consequences had drawn something from Mayumi's usually composed demeanor, appearing slightly thinner out of fear for her own kin.
Heeding this or hoping to pacify some of her the sibling's worries, Satchiko tried. The soup was decent enough. Under more favorable circumstances, she would have emptied the bowl without hesitation. Perhaps she would have even asked for another serving.
For all they knew, this might be her final meal. The thought carried with it a sorrow far greater than the prospect of death itself. She might never again taste her mother's own cooking or relish in the familiarity back on the island.
"So, this is it?" Satchiko asked quietly, her spoon rested loosely between her fingers. "The cost of my own recklessness finally catching up to me."
The younger sister had, in some measure, already come to terms with such a fate. Luck had not come to rescue her from impulsiveness this time. Whatever mercy fortune or the spirits themselves had previously afforded her had finally run out, leaving behind only the harsh lesson that those who continually gambled with their lives could not expect chance to save them forever.
"You have been reckless this whole journey," Mayumi said, though her expression was tired rather than reproachful. "Like any responsible older sibling, I could complain about it endlessly. But I would never regret constantly trying to save your skin."
Before she could allow even the possibility of losing her sister's respect, Mayumi decided that there were some truths that could no longer remain concealed. All her previous dealings with the Dai Li, the secret arrangements she had made to learn more about the so-called Acolytes of San Bao. And of course, there was the threat of blackmail, delivered by that Dai Li agent who had concealed his face beneath black and white theatrical face paint.
The reaction was initially silent, as it should be within a building owned by the very enforcers themselves. But as old habits dictated, Mayumi remained the eldest daughter and principal heir of Akahana. Therefore, certain details had deliberately been omitted from the impressionable younger sister.
"They are here in Ba Sing Se too?" Satchiko hushed in disbelief right after expressing grievous guilt that her own action in the state of Yi have forced Mayumi into such conundrum. Yet beneath the surprise was something strangely reassuring. At least plenty of carnage these fanatics had suffered are at the hands of the city's enforcement forces. It is a shame that the two of them are now caught within the very machinery of the city that had stomped onto those pestering cultists.
Truthfully, the greater horrors and sprawling wars they had witnessed throughout the former Earth Kingdom had caused Satchiko to almost forget their earlier confrontations with that particular religious movement. When armies outside Ba Sing Se's walls could clash and perish by the tens of thousands, the ambitions of some fringe cult and its delusions of grandeur seemed almost insignificant by comparison. It's as if the renegade named Huo has been reduced to a mere afterthought now that the Firebender have been captured.
"You were wrong to dabble in knowledge behind myself and Shan's backs," Mayumi said gently, reaching across the table with her chopsticks and placed a piece of dumpling into Satchiko's bowl. "Yet I understand your desperation. Clearly, Mother placed different expectations upon you and me."
A tinge of Mayumi's slight hypocrisy aside, the arduous pursuit of mastering Earthbending had demanded almost everything Satchiko possessed. Yet, the more she pursued this innate potential, the further that final ceiling seemed to recede. Perhaps it could be believed that the younger sister had been driven by something approaching obsession. There had been a strange, almost childish determination in Satchiko's desire to see the journey through to its absolute conclusion, a completionist's conviction that if she could simply endure long enough, she might eventually return to her people, specifically in triumph. Thus, resuming her simple life as a Kyoshi Warrior without further grand ambitions such as political office.
At last, every road she had taken had led them here. To this… destination.
"I have acted without honor," Satchiko confessed, her voice had become little more than a murmur. "I let down our parents, the people back home, and especially you." Her fingers tightened around the fabric of her green robe, unable to reconcile with the memories of everything they had witnessed throughout their journey. The carnage, ruined villages, countless faces of the dead that had piled within her memory like ghosts refusing to fade. All those trials and sacrifices they both have to endure just to be imprisoned within the very city that was meant to help her reach the height of an Earthbender's potential.
Yet even now, Satchiko attempted to comfort herself before her older sister could summon some hopeful or encouraging words.
"I suppose I had it better than most," she said, gaze drifted toward the untouched remains of her meal. The sheer poverty they had witnessed across the fractured realm along with the famine and massacres have rendered human lives as insignificant as weathered stalks of straw clinging stubbornly to the side of some neglected Earth Kingdom road. "What right do I have to complain?"
Mayumi merely stared at her, having no straight answer to this bleak statement. What eloquent words could possibly be enough to counsel her sister through a moment such as this? Even the faint assurance that perhaps they both could somehow leave Ba Sing Se alive sounded almost absurd. A comforting lie at best. Afterall, anyone with even a passing knowledge of the cruelties committed beneath the Earth Kingdom's great dynasties understood how fragile a person's life became once it attracted the attention of any secret police. Be it Ba Sing Se, Omashu, or any of the world's great cities. The consequences were often the same.
"So did Shan know about you and these Dai Li too?" Satchiko asked carefully.
There was a quiet insinuation behind the question. Was Shan, just like the younger sister, unaware that Mayumi had been coerced into serving as an unwilling spy within the scholar's own home?
For several moments, Mayumi said nothing, then slowly shook her head at that dangerous inquiry.
Though Shan did appear to harbor some reasonable suspicion regarding their true origins and assumed identities, he was still a Legalist whose carefully controlled paranoia had apparently never entertained the possibility that the Dai Li would dare plant a spy within the residence. Of course, Mayumi had omitted some of the finer details from Satchiko concerning who had suggested such a sordid bargain with the Inquisitor. Nevertheless, the White Scholar's occasionally stubborn disposition had made him a slightly prideful gentleman. After publicly humiliating the patriarch of the illustrious Te family, it seemed that the renowned calligrapher had either underestimated the lengths to which this city's enforcers were willing to go, or simply failed to imagine that anyone would dare cross such a line.
"Shan isn't a fool," Mayumi continued, confident that the Dai Li would have little grounds to physically assault a recently graduated Zhuangyuan scholar destined to draw close to Ba Sing Se's levers of power. "He is far more competent in the ways of great cities. But regardless, I am far less worried about him than I am about you. If I hadn't served as an unwilling informant, as unfair and dishonorable as it is to him, I do not know what the Dai Li would have been capable of."
Satchiko nodded faintly, once again reminded that even as a Kyoshi Warrior, Mayumi had never hesitated when it came to placing her own family above the concerns of others. Perhaps it is distinction such as this that separated the average members from the six illustrious heroes from their island who had fought during the Hundred Year War. Those legends had carried the weight of an entire island upon their shoulders. As for Mayumi, for all her discipline and courage, is still just an elder sister first.
But whatever the distinction, Satchiko could not escape the grievous part she had played in the entire affair. In a single reckless chain of decisions, she had undone nearly all of Mayumi's efforts to stave off their fugitive status, which is the consequence of that confrontation in the great state of Yi. Unfortunately, their present circumstances were precisely what Mayumi had spent so long trying to avoid. Even in an era when endless wars between the successive states of the dismantled Earth Kingdom had made fugitives a common sight, the attention of the Dai Li is not something that could simply be ignored.
"What now?" Satchiko asked. The question came quietly, almost timidly, as though there might still be some answer hidden within the silence between them. She searched Mayumi's expression for something resembling certainty, some course of action that could carry them beyond the darkness gathering around their little confinement.
Instead, there was only the approaching shadow of death. Even the vagueness of the execution mentioned by the Dai Li sentries guarding their gilded cell had unsettled Satchiko. Yet, after witnessing all the horrific ways people have been slaughtered, she possessed little faith that her own ending would be merciful.
Once again, Mayumi had no answer. There would be no more negotiation. The Dai Li could not simply overlook those who had trespassed upon their training grounds and attempted to mount a rescue. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the annals of Earth Kingdom history would understand that few survived once they had attracted the wrath of the state.
"I won't let them," Mayumi said. She reached across the narrow space between them and clasped one hand firmly around Satchiko's shoulder. Her gaze, though tired, had hardened into something almost immovable. "Not even a single strand of your hair. I won't let them."
Satchiko sat motionless while Mayumi seemed to repeat the promise, which is synonymous with the older woman's entire purpose. From the long journey that had carried them across the Earth Kingdom to the moment of Satchiko's birth, everything had somehow led to here.
And yet Satchiko refused to absolve herself of the fault buried within this convoluted quagmire. Unlike before, she kept her tears to a minimum. Strangely, death itself seemed more tolerable than standing helplessly by while others suffered, which haunted her far more deeply than the prospect of her own demise. Perhaps there was some small comfort in believing that an ending born from a measure of selflessness was not entirely an unworthy one.
Again, the younger sister's expression fell into gloom, lamenting the foolish belief that some childish conception of heroism might somehow overcome the cold machinery of a strict state. But even this thought is cut short.
Both sisters instinctively reached for their weapons. Footsteps, signs that several figures were approaching the building that served as their place of house arrest. Their captors had rather unusually permitted them to retain their weapons. There was little reason to confiscate them, as the Dai Li had evidently decided their own Earthbending was more than sufficient to extinguish any futile attempt at escape.
A few knocks sounded against the deceptively fragile door. The sound seemed almost absurdly courteous within the circumstances. The building itself was modestly ornate, its timber construction belying the considerable strength required to house Earthbending prisoners. The walls, floors, and foundations had clearly been designed with containment in mind. Yet the door remained almost quaint, a thin veneer of ordinary civility placed over something far less forgiving.