Innocuous

Innocuous

To be fair, it was a unique take on the old rumors.

The whole movement started with Pu On Tim's comedic play, 'The Boy in the Iceberg,' in which (amidst what critics dubbed "a nonsensical jumble of what we can only assume to be related events, featuring a single group of characters, that nevertheless fails to show any sign of what we in the business call a story") there was a scene in which Katara the Waterbender and Prince-in-Exile Zuko had a shallow romantic liaison while trapped in a cave together. The scene itself had no impact on the rest of the play, lacked even a hint of salaciousness, and was really nothing more than a quick throwaway gag, but something about it captivated the imagination of audiences throughout the Fire Nation like nothing else had in years.

Then Zuko became Fire Lord, and his policies made him popular with both the Fire Nation's common class and anyone who had been antagonized by his father's regime (estimated to be about 80% of the nonmilitary population). All this, combined with a loosening of the sedition laws, created a perfect storm of literary possibility, soon fulfilled in a new genre of romance that would someday be described by historians as "cheap pornography of Fire Lord Zuko seducing Katara of the Southern Water Tribe that fails to show any sign of what we in the business call cultural merit." A hundred years after Fire Lord Zuko's reign ended, a graduate student would write a thesis about how the plethora of this kind of story marked a turning point in the level of repression in Fire Nation culture, and she would afterward be denied her doctorate and banned from Ba Sing Se University.

Outside the Fire Nation, this fad would go largely unnoticed, even after it transitioned into a storytelling formula that had Zuko dally with all manner of real, mythological, contemporary, and historical female personalities. Only one book, marketed as being of the same genre despite would should have been major disqualifying characteristics, managed to achieve any kind of international popularity.

It didn't even come with any woodcarvings.

---

Ty Lee's letter only read, "Have you seen it yet?" The rest of the page was given over to, of all things, a sketch of Avatar Aang. Mai didn't understand at all, and that worried her; the less sense Ty Lee made, the more dangerous the situation was likely to be.

At least, if she was going to have to deal with a problem, Mai had plenty of resources to throw at it. Being the Royal Consort, wife to the reigning Fire Lord, had its perks (beyond the Fire Lord himself, of course). Handlers were contacted, spies were put into play, and the lines of information were opened and directed straight to the Royal Palace. In three hours, Mai had an answer.

It came from the High Society Rumor Specialist, or as Mai thought of her, the Gossipmonger. It came in the form of cheap book, with no woodcarvings.

Mai spent all afternoon reading it. She had to admit, it had better writing than similar pieces, and if she were the type to enjoy such things, she might have even been aroused by the more graphic descriptions. It was almost like reading poetry, except without any consistent meter or rhyme scheme. The main concept for the story was rather unique, if completely out of character, but the author had put a lot of effort into making it sound plausible. Aside from the main issue, the details of the characters' lives and personalities were quite accurate (at least as far as any member of the public would know), and there were several rather clever links to current events.

If people were stupid enough to write whole books speculating about the illicit sex lives of public figures, Mai was at least satisfied that the one centering on herself was better quality than any of the hundreds about her husband.

With that, she stuffed the book onto one of the dustier shelves in her personal library, and forgot about it. How much trouble could it be?

---

"Oh, did you read that book I lent you last week?"

"I did! It was rather... hm hm hm!"

"Oh, yes!"

"Do you think... ?"

"Oh, I don't... well... it would explain..."

"I had always wondered about that."

"And..."

"Hm, yes, much more plausible than the official explanation."

"And the poor souls, betrayed by their spouses like that!"

"You mean the Fire Lord... and her... ?"

"Oh, it must be. Why else would everyone be writing about it?"

"Oh, that poor girl. The poor boy!"

"At least they have each other."

"Every day when they're in the same nation, by the sound of things."

"Hm hm hm!"

---

"What's that?"

Aang glanced up at Katara. He didn't need to, since her question couldn't be more straight forward, but even after all this time together, he still enjoyed stealing glimpses of her face at every opportunity. The Avatar smiled as he held out the book in his hands. "One of the ladies back in the village gave this to me just before I hopped on Appa. She said she really enjoyed it, and thought I should have a copy."

"Oh, that's nice." Katara started to squint at the cover to read the title, but then quickly looked back up. "Wait, it wasn't the young one with the big hair, was it?"

"Yeah, actually. Why?"

Katara's face scrunched into a scowl, but Aang didn't think it made her any less beautiful. "That woman is a pervert."

"But she seemed so nice..."

"Yeah. Well. You didn't hear her in the bathhouse. I was in a private tub while she was in one of the public ones with her friends, and the way they were talking about you... ugh." The Waterbender turned back in Appa's saddle to stare at the sky. "I don't care about anything she gave you."

"Okay. It's up to you." Aang opened the tome and began reading. "Hey, it's about me! Neat! I'm... in the Fire Nation... and Zuko- he's in here, too- is dealing with a rebellion as Fire Lord. Hey, I think it was the one with General Hao.... okay, they got it right that Zuko went to lead the attack... oh, but they think Mai stayed behind. That's not right, she went with Zuko for that invasion." The Avatar was silent for a while. "Oh, I guess the story is about me and Mai both."

There was another long moment before he spoke again. "Oh. It's about me and Mai both."

The tone of his voice caught Katara's attention. "What are you reading there?"

Pale, Aang handed the book up to her.

---

"I've heard that name before."

"Oh, yes, he wrote that book on the creation of the Fire Nation's ironclads."

"Ah, him. That was a well-done book, although I think it would have read a little better if it hadn't been compressed so much. I know authors these days are slaves to their publishing contracts, but such a story could have easily been twice as long and... well, you know, you've read it."

"Yeah. I'm surprised he's moved into the romance genre."

"Well, I guess he goes where history takes him."

"Oh, you think... this is... real?"

"Well, I couldn't spot anything that wasn't true. And considering his past works, all dramatized retellings of historical events..."

"Huh. So the rumors about the Avatar's wife..."

"You just can't trust the Water Tribes. They were our allies during the war, but their loyalties shift like... well, the tides."

"Huh."

"Yeah."

"...I have to say, I have a new appreciation for the Lady Mai."

"Yeah. The drawings I've seen were never particularly flattering, but the descriptions in this thing..."

"Yeah."

---

Suki bought six copies, because every printer in the Earth Kingdom gave it a different cover. She heard that the copies printed in the Fire Nation had an illustrated cover, and that there was even a Premium Format available to Fire Nobles with woodcarvings.

It took Sokka a month to read it, because he had to wait until Suki was asleep.

---

"Okay, anything else to report?"

"We've picked up a few rumors about Fire Lord Zuko."

"Oh?"

"You sound surprised."

"Well, it's a first. So far, he's completely lived up to his public image."

"If I may be frank, your majesty, no man lives up to his public image. We are all but human, and strive ever to deny it in front of others."

"How poetic. I shall have to ponder that."

"In the meantime, there are two complimentary rumors spreading. The first confirms the peasant speculation about the Fire Lord and the Avatar's wife."

"Oh, that's terrible. They were all quite nice. I hate to think how the situation will develop."

"Well, that's the other rumor. It seems that the Avatar and the Royal Consort have found a certain amount of comfort together."

"...is that normal? I find it to be fairly... disturbing to contemplate."

"If it is, your majesty, most people at least take great pains to hide such a thing."

"Hm, indeed. Are you sure this isn't all just baseless gossip? Those books..."

"Well, it seems that a new book has been published, something of an expose. It's sensationalist, to be sure, but certain facts match information that our intelligence sources took great pains to uncover, and given the correlation, well, what are the odds that some work-for-hire author managed to guess the truth?"

"It's all so terrible."

"Yes, your majesty."

---

Mai stepped into their bedroom, and found the Aang book on the floor right in front of the doorway. Well, that explained the loud thump. "What part did you get up to?"

"That thing is nothing but trash!"

"Of course." Mai smoothly bent over and picked it up, making sure the cover wasn't damaged. "Still, I thought the writing was better than some of the ones about you and Katara."

"Those books are trash too!"

"Zuko, calm down." The Fire Lord's face was almost as red as the scar over his left eye. Mai glided over to her husband, and put her hands on his shoulders. "It's just one book, and I appreciate that someone wants to make fun of all the morons who actually write books about 'Fire Lady Katara's Bedroom Adventures.' He's kind of like my champion, in a way."

Zuko snorted, and Mai felt the temperature of his skin spike. "The way I remember it, champions typically didn't have such extensive knowledge of their Lady's... their Lady's..." His skin grew a shade redder.

Mai indulged in one of her light, rare laughs. "Maybe not in the history books they gave to Princes of the Fire Nation, no."

Zuko looked his wife in the eyes, and frowned. "Mai, are you a pervert?"

---

"I want to contract a sequel. This book is selling like fire flakes, and we need to strike while the flakes are hot!"

"I... I'm not interested. I hate writing... those kinds of scenes. I needed the money, but I'm currently in the middle of a biography of Piandao the Swordsman, been working on it for, well, years, and I was hoping to finish-"

"It will be about Katara's brother, Sokka, and that Bei Fong girl, the Earthbender who taught the Avatar."

"...they, they never had a romance. None of my research about the Avatar ever indicated-"

"I'm willing to double your rate."

"..."

"Listen, not that I don't respect you, but you need to understand something. You're a writer. Good for you. You even have some skill. But, really, don't delude yourself. You're nothing special, the stuff you want to write about doesn't sell, and you're far from the easiest author on my payroll to work with. You'll want to take these opportunities when they come up, right?"

"...right."

"Great. For this one, I'm thinking we should commission some woodcarvings."

---

Toph tried, many times, to get someone to read it to her, but everyone she paid wound up disappearing overnight. With the book. She had purchased sixteen copies before she got back to the Fire Nation.

The sequel was even better.

---

It took a lot to evoke Mai's pity. In all the time she allowed herself to be Azula's friend and agent, she sympathized with the Princess' victims exactly four times. In a whole decade.

So after an hour of Aang blushing whenever he so much as glanced at Mai, the Royal Consort sighed and spoke as gently as she could manage. She kept her voice low so that no one else at the little gathering would realize what they were talking about. "It's all right, you know. It's just a stupid book."

The Avatar's blush became as crimson as the armor of the Imperial Guard. "I... know... uh............."

"Just... pretend I'm a boy or something."

He threw her an odd look, but at least his blush started fading. "How exactly is that supposed to help?"

"I don't know, but it was the first thing that came to mind." She gave him her least predatory smirk.

He smiled in return. "I guess I just... we know each other, but not... I mean, everyone else in this room is like my family."

Mai absently pulled a blade out of her sleeve and began spinning it around a finger. "So you're saying that if you really thought of me as a friend, instead of a girl, you'd be more comfortable."

"Yeah."

She thought about that. "All right. Yeah. I guess I'll be your friend. If it will make you feel better."

His smile grew absurdly large. "Great!"

"Fair warning, though," Mai said a little louder. "My bum is no where near as nice as the book describes."

The Avatar's face grew scarlet again.

Everyone in the room turned to stare.

Zuko leveled an accusatory finger. "My wife is a pervert!"

Mai shrugged at Aang. "Fair warning about that, too."

END