Chapter Text
When people looked at Li, their expressions landed somewhere between pity and disgust. The former was a result of the burn scar that covered nearly half his face and twisted his left side into a permanent scowl. The latter stemmed from his golden eyes, which people would either react to with glares or non-discreet whispers about how he was a bastard child neither of his parents wanted. Li could never argue back against this, because he didn’t remember his parents at all.
So he should count himself lucky that Long was willing to take him in.
Long was probably part Fire Nation too, Li recalled the old man telling him as he pressed a cold towel to Li’s forehead that first night. He’d lived his entire life in the colonies, so there had to be some Fire Nation blood in him (after all, he had dark gold eyes if one looked closely, which, while not as bright as Li’s, were still a characteristic those in the Earth Kingdom did not typically possess). And Li reminded him of his son, whom he lost in the war.
Long might have said some other things, but Li was in too delirious a state to really absorb anything else. Nowadays, if he ever tried to comb through the tangles of his mind, push beyond that night, the earliest memories he could conjure up were just fire.
The red, searing heat enveloping him on all four sides, so bright he could not tell if his eyes were opened or closed. If the deafening ringing in his ears were real or imaginary. If the fingernails digging into his bare shoulder were drawing blood or not.
Then pain. So much pain.
Somewhere in the cacophony, there were echoes of screaming, too.
By this point, Li usually found himself shaking in a cold sweat, so he preferred not to think about it at all.
Their teashop was situated somewhere in the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se. Two years ago, Long had been given an offer to relocate the Upper Ring where he could serve government officials and the upper echelon of society, but he declined. After that, Long had deliberately changed his tea recipe (not without complaining to Li about it as he brewed it the “correct” way at night to ease his conscience) so he wouldn’t receive as much attention. Long had said he only wanted a simple life without fancy adornments or titles, but Li suspected there was more to it than that. Still, it was none of his business, so he didn’t ask. Just like Long never asked about Li’s past, not that Li could give him an answer, anyway.
Li had few personal belongings, save for some clothes that were several sizes too large that Long had gotten from a giveaway when Li outgrew the first set of clothes they’d also acquired second-hand. Aside from his ill-fitting rags and cot in their apartment, the only other sign that anyone else was living with Long were a pair of dual broadswords.
Technically, those were Long’s, too; a gift from someone dear, he claimed. But Long also claimed he had scant knowledge of swords, so he offered them to Li, who took upon them like a fish to water. Somehow, he knew how to wield them, and quite well at that, so they were his from then on. After work, Li would often find somewhere quiet to train, safe and hidden from prying, judgemental eyes.
Sometimes, they were the only things that could put his mind at ease after nightmares of being swallowed by fire. Which, as the years went on, Long had hoped would decrease in frequency, as he used to be woken up by Li’s cries in the dead of night (thankfully, he’d never asked Li for details). They had not, however, but Li eventually learned to suppress his screams, lying to the old man that they had indeed disappeared. Long did not deserve to worry so much about someone who wasn’t even related to him.
It still struck Li as odd that Long had taken him in to begin with, even if he did remind the man of his deceased son. Perhaps Long was just kind or lonely. But he’d never adopted any other refugee children and never seemed to have any problems making friends through Pai Sho. Perhaps he just wanted a shell of a replacement for his lost child, and Li just happened to be in the right place at the right time. But he did wonder how Long could look at his prominent, stereotypical Fire Nation features and not be reminded of who killed his son. Unless Long’s son had been fighting for the Fire Nation.
Either way, Li tried his best to blend in and help Long with the tea shop. Luckily, the Lower Ring was full of refugees from all over the world. And by now, Li had learned that if he allowed enough hair to fall over his eyes, people were unlikely to notice their color, so while Long worked in the back to brew tea, Li served the customers. Few spared him a second glance, too focused on getting through their own day to pay him any extra attention. Li preferred it that way, though the mundaneness of a customer service job left him wondering if there was anything more to life.
Especially when he found the flyer announcing the Avatar was in the city searching for his lost bison. Something in Li had stirred at that, wondering if it was a sign for him to do something.
But for a powerless nobody who should never have been born to begin with, anything more than what he was already lucky to have might be too much to ask for. The most he could hope for was to live peacefully, because regardless of which side ended up winning this war, Li wouldn’t belong, anyway. The only thing he could do was help Long, so that’s what Li focused on.
Everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. All of a sudden, the once impenetrable walls sank into the ground, and red banners replaced the green. Messengers made rounds throughout the city announcing the Avatar’s death by lightning strike. Troops clad in red and black armor flooded out into the streets, demanding entry into every household lest they be secretly sheltering any Earth Kingdom soldiers or rebels. Snatching up civilians from the streets by the collar and roughly searching them in the name of security, no matter their age or gender. They closed in street by street, and by the end of the first day, there were rumors that those who had been taken did not return.
On day two, Li crouched in their apartment while Long served tea downstairs, hiding so the troops wouldn’t mistake him for an Earth Kingdom soldier, or worse, a Fire Army deserter, to the sound of screaming from the makeshift training grounds. At night, he tried to sleep to the muffled sobs from the former apartments-turned-barracks a few blocks down.
It was impossible.
But turned out it wasn’t necessary, anyway, since Long had somehow managed to arrange for them to leave in the early hours of the morning, hidden in a supply cart.
When the walls were long behind them and the coast was finally clear, Li crawled out to stretch his legs just in time to see a tower of flames where his neighborhood used to be.